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> City Spirits with Wired 3, SR4's initiative deal for mages
Lilt
post Nov 19 2005, 03:33 PM
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Well it seems like they made sustaining foci comparatively expencive and hard to get hold of at a decent force under SR4. Combine this with
  1. Learn the Increase Reflexes spell
  2. Summon a spirit of man of F3 or higher
  3. Give the spirit Innate Spell (Increase Reflexes)
  4. Request that the spirit use the innate spell on you as a service
  5. Use further services however you see fit. IE:
    Keep the spirit unseen (concealment)
    Boost your allys, or even the spirit itself, using the same power
The spirit does not need to be bound and I don't think they take drain or lose any dice for sustaining. I'm more sure about the no dice loss for sustaining bit than drain, however.

This tactic is useful for more than just initiative, as summoning a powerful spirit of man and using it to cast heal on an injured colleague carries less risk of seriously injuring you (although you do run the risk of doing slightly more damage to yourself if you go for a high force spirit which rolls well).
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Lilt
post Nov 19 2005, 03:41 PM
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Oh yes, and call it a StreetDoc spirit. Have the spellcasting look like he's cutting the target open, ripping out the target's central nervous system, and replacing it with wires *very* quickly.
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Lilt
post Nov 22 2005, 10:01 PM
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Bumping this to add an idea I just had: Give a spirit the shapechange spell and let it shapechange itself into a big cat or similar. That should net it physical attribute boosts and possibly a natural weapon to boot.
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FrankTrollman
post Nov 22 2005, 10:15 PM
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At the upper end, materialized spirits have substantially higher physical attributes than do tigers. And while spirits of man do not have respectable natural weapons, every single other kind of spirit in the basic book does. But for a Force 3 spirit, that could be fairly decent.

-Frank
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Lilt
post Nov 22 2005, 10:47 PM
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Y'see I'm reading the spell and not sure about the exact mechanics. According to the spell it changes you into a creature and adds 1 to each of your physical stats per success. It doesn't say that your physical stats are replaced, although this may be read as a given based on other polymorphing magic, and gives no limit beyond the spell force (limiting max successes) on what you can boost it to. The way it seems to work is that if you cast the spell really well then you turn into a super-tough version of the animal.

Obviously it's not the best idea to try and take advantage of vague mechanics but I think there are a few ways it could be read that are advantageous, and it might work even better when other critter stats are released.
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Cheops
post Nov 25 2005, 06:01 PM
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Having a City spirit turn into an elephant that has escaped from the zoo sounds awesome...it'd have the little tutu, face paint, and ball and do tricks and everything. Sweet!
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Spoonfunk
post Nov 28 2005, 04:29 PM
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I havent had a chance to really use the magic rules as much but where does it say in the book that you get to(as a player) give a spirit any kind of power. Such as shapechange, Increase reflexes, etc etc.
I would assume that would be a a choice made by the gamemaster seeing as how spirits/critters are really just npc's hence under thier discretion as far as wich traits he/she wants to give them?
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Lilt
post Nov 28 2005, 05:09 PM
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QUOTE (Spoonfunk @ Nov 28 2005, 04:29 PM)
I havent had a chance to really use the magic rules as much but where does it say in the book that you get to(as a player) give a spirit any kind of power. Such as shapechange, Increase reflexes, etc etc.
I would assume that would be a a choice made by the gamemaster seeing as how spirits/critters are really just npc's hence under thier discretion as far as wich traits he/she wants to give them?

Spirits start-off with a basic power set, and the summoner can add one optional power for every 3 full points of force. At force 6, for example, I can summon a spirit with the basic set plus two from the optional set. The optional set of powers is different for each spirit, so as an example you can't give a fire elemental the venom power (which would make it even more sick in melee). I could, however, give a force 6 beast spirit the Venom and Natural Weapon powers, making it perhaps even more effective than a force 6 fire elemental.

The spirit of man has an exceptionally interesting optional power, as you can give it the innate spell power of any spell your character knows.
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PBTHHHHT
post Nov 28 2005, 05:09 PM
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QUOTE (Cheops)
Having a City spirit turn into an elephant that has escaped from the zoo sounds awesome...it'd have the little tutu, face paint, and ball and do tricks and everything. Sweet!

Everybody that sees the elephant going by will consciously suppress it as a figment of their imagination... similar to the pink elephant walking by scenario my friends have joked about. ;)
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blakkie
post Nov 28 2005, 05:18 PM
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QUOTE (Spoonfunk @ Nov 28 2005, 10:29 AM)
I havent had a chance to really use the magic rules as much but where does it say in the book that you get to(as a player) give a spirit any kind of power. Such as shapechange, Increase reflexes, etc etc.
I would assume that would be a a choice made by the gamemaster seeing as how spirits/critters are really just npc's hence under thier discretion as far as wich traits he/she wants to give them?

Summoner chooses, page 294 in the Spirits overview:

QUOTE
In addition to their standard Powers, each spirit also has
one Optional Power for every 3 full points of Force. A magician
selects what Optional Power(s) he wishes a summoned
spirit to possess as he summons it. Th e Optional Powers possessed
by a spirit may not be changed later.



A couple of glitches here though:

QUOTE (Lilt)
The spirit does not need to be bound and I don't think they take drain or lose any dice for sustaining. I'm more sure about the no dice loss for sustaining bit than drain, however.


WTF gave you that idea? It is casting a spell just as if it was a magician/mystic adept. If you are talking about the Spell Sustaining service on page 179 that is refering to the summoner not suffering the dice penalty.

The second glitch:

QUOTE (page 169-170)
A tradition associates each of its spirit types with a category
of magic. Th ese associations serve to color how that tradition
views a particular type of spirit. Th ey also limit how a bound spir-
it of that type may serve a magician of that tradition (see Spirit
Services, p. 177).


The problem here is whether or not the spirit of man summoned by the hermetic tradition can even cast anything other than a Combat spell. Though that is open to some interpretation.

Of course the alternative is for the magician to summon the oppropriate spirit type for whatever tradition you have. This is more useful in that all traditions could do this, not jut ones that can summon spirit types able to cast spells. The magician can then cast the spell and transfer the grunt work to the spirit via Spell Sustaining service. The magician still has to deal with the drain themselves, but using another service for Aid Sorcery might help there (depending on interpretation always, or only if they have a Spellcasting focus).

EDIT: A Spell Binding service might also be an option. Though there are drawbacks to this in that repeated use is likely to incur the ire of spirits (GM options). Something else is whether the spirit really needs to have concealment. The safe move is to have him wait at his metaplanar happy home. Wards? Well i'm going to start another thread about this....
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Lilt
post Nov 28 2005, 06:49 PM
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@blakkie: The duration of the innate spell power is "per spell", meaning that a sustained innate spell is a sustained power. Spirits don't take penalties for sustaining powers:
QUOTE (P286 @ SR4)
Because these powers are innate, the critter is not subject to any strain or modifiers for keeping the effect going.

I was going for no drain based off what it worked like in SR3, which is why I said I wasn't so sure about it.

By the rules, spirits of man can have "Innate Spell (any one spell known by the summoner)". Note that no limitations are set on spell school by tradition, although some people might potentially house rule it that way. Even if it were limited, hermetics would still be able to do the wired reflexes spirit whilst shamans could do shapeshifting spirits and similar.
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Azralon
post Nov 28 2005, 07:04 PM
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It could be read that there's no penalty for sustaining its "Innate Spell" power, but the spellcasting itself would follow normal rules.

Not saying that's the case, just saying it might be interpreted that way.
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