Ally spirits, So what did you do with them? Options

[JongWK]

I know that the thread's title is begging for a few jokes, but oh well... :P

It's a bit weird, but in all these years of running SR I've never had a player summon an ally spirit. Now I have one who is saving a large amount of Good Karma for it. I'm guessing Force 4-6.

How did you handle ally spirits in your campaign? If you have any interesting war stories, I'm all ears (er, eyes). :)

[PBTHHHHT]

I had sex with it! After it's been dikoted of course!

Actually, the groups I've been in never saved up for an ally spirit either.

[Crusher Bob]

One nifty thing to do with your ally spirit is to have them tie your astrally projecting maeg into the teams normal radio communications. The ally is materialized and wears a radio, the mage goes out the astral project, the mage communicates with the ally, who then relays over the radio. Communications from the team are handled the same way.

[emo samurai]

What do ally spirits do? I have SR4, and only SR4, so I of course didn't buy Magic in the Shadows.

[Platinum]

Handle it in the same way that you handle an NPC that you have fill in when the team is missing something. (for most people this is the token NPC decker) You define the personality yourself. Go through the 20 questions and flush out a personality. The PC invests the karma and the time, but in reality it is your NPC that they create the stats for. The Ally will be thinking of freedom, the degree is up to you, whether they are a cruelly treated slave or yearning for freedom like a teenager/child. They also have the knowledge that they are basically eternal, and have a parent/guide to show them the ropes and can bide their time.

[Crusher Bob]

They are spirits that can act as a power focus, have instant telepathic communications wtih the summoner, don't have the normal 'services' limitations (or course, they also miss out on several spirit powers too), and tend to be smarter than the average summoned spirit or, at least, more proactively helpful. They cost a huge buttload of karma though, and can cost a point of magic as well, depending on how you summon them.

[Crusher Bob]

AS for handling the actions of ally spirits in play, the ally spirirt is not an excuse for the GM to screw the summoner. The player just dumped 20-60 karma on the spirit, they should be almost as hard to loose as the same amount of karma sunk into the sorcery skill (or whatever).

[Dawnshadow]

Haven't tried the sex or dikoting

• Scout.
• Relay messages. ("Sorry guys, I'm running for my life at the moment. I'll let you know when I'm back in the area")
• Save my miserable life with the heal spell I gave it. (Repeatedly)
• Rescue me from the priests who want to burn me out. (cut me free, distract them long enough for me to take them down)
• Magical-combat drone. ("Yes, my ally has strength 10, skill 8, and force 5." "Yes, my ally has skill 8 in heavy weapons." and so on)
• Act like a power focus. (You'd be amazed how helpful force 4-5 allies are in that regard..)
• Motivate me to not get myself hospital bills. ("Boss, if you get yourself maimed like that again, I'm going to kill you.")
• Prepare a spare lifestyle for emergency guests (Hide anything valuable elsewhere, for one thing)
• Data storage and retrieval (Sit at home and take notes, look up things when needed)
• Help research (Give them the skills, they can dedicate a bunch of time to things too..)

Edit: One of my characters is an aspected conjurer. There are currently 2 allies, with more on the way when I get the karma. Magical equivalent to a rigger.

[Platinum]

[Edward]

Some GMs screw you over with your ally even if you don’t treat it badly.

Personally I have never saved the 50+ karma it takes to summon a worthwhile ally. You want to summon it at its final force to get the free physical stats. You want to give it descent sorcery, defiantly at least one language. Probably a bunch of other skills and spells as well. You really should wait until you can spend 100 karma. The problem with that is that the run before you summon it you have 90 karma unspent so your way behind the pace in abilities.

Edward

[langolas]

[nick012000]

Which is why Aspected Sorcerers are so good- because you start out with at least 35 spell points to spend on summoning the thing. ;)

[Kremlin KOA]

aspected conjurers ya mean

[emo samurai]

How do you burn someone out?

And how do you screw someone over with his ally spirit in good conscience?

[nick012000]

Yes. That is indeed what I meant.

Also, for the truly nasty: An Elven Aspected Hermetic Conjurer with 1 million :nuyen: starting resources. Spend the money on a Control Rig, assorted drone-ware (all of which is geased), and lots of drones and summoning materials. You then throw out 8 Force 6 spirits along with a gaggle of drones at your enemies. I call this guy "The Puppetmaster". :P

You're only going to be making the Magical Skill tests in private anyways, so the geasa aren't an issue, and you have loads of awesome minions.

[emo samurai]

Dude... lightning elementals!!!

[Dawnshadow]

[hyzmarca]

[ShadowDragon8685]

It's a hell of a lot easier to burn someone out by just having 5 or so headware radios installed in him. They only cost like 2000 :nuyen: for the whole deal, and hell, you can have them ripped out later, anyway. Then he's got a huge essense hole and nothing to geas (as I understand it) into.


Your only worry, of course, is that he's going to do something really stupid like bargain with a dragon to get enough magic back to start initiating like a sucker, and come hunting your ass. Or worse, he'll become a cybersammie (if you're lucky) or a decker (if you're not), or a drone rigger (then you're fragged.)

[Crusher Bob]

Or you can just give your prisoner a smoke and a beer. The SR3 drug rules will then insure that he will be magicless (and dead) in 3 months or less

[Dranem]

[ShadowDragon8685]

[Arkelias]

I've never understood why people think you need to dump 100+ karma into an ally spirit to make it worth having. My current character has a force three ally spirit. She cost 15 karma and a geas for the lost point of magic and is incredibly useful in a number of ways.

* Even a force three manabolt can be ugly with her having a six sorcery. Someone with a 3-4 willpower is going to be in a world of hurt if not dead

* A force three heal spell can mean the difference between life and death

* Force three increased reflexes works just fine

* She can scout astrally

* She serves as a super watcher spirit in that she is far more intelligent

* She can capture and hold enemy watcher spirits

* She can serve as a distraction on a run. If she manifests behind a guard and says, "Boo" you can rush them when they turn to face her.

And of course the most important use:

* You can Dikote her and then have sex with her

[Dawnshadow]

For the longest time, my force 2 ally had been a lifesaver. Literally. Spent I think 15 karma (force 2, couple forms, decent edged weapons skill).

Now, that being said, I've fallen into the dark side and started dumping 50-100 karma into ally spirits, but that's because the game is quite nicely high powered.

[emo samurai]

Is there a way to decrease the karma costs? Can ally spirits gain karma themselves?