Sustaining Innate Spell, more Power questions Options

[Samaels Ghost]

When a spirit of Man uses his Innate Spell optional power it counts as a critter power, correct? That means that it does not incur a sustaining penalty and the continual use of a power does cosr multiple tasks. Does that mean that your spirit of Man can sustain powerful spells on you for as long as he's around or do the Spell Sutaining rules for Bound spirits apply here too?

Speaking of spell sustaining, if a Bound spirit incurs a -2 mod to a mage while active then what would be the point of using tasks to sustaining spells? I know that this is an optional rule only mentioned in a sidebar, but does anyone actually use it?

[Lilt]

It's never come up whilst I've been DMing, but I've considered the issue and would peobably say there was no penalty. It's 'innate' after-all.

If it does suffer no penalty, then one interesting spell to give your spirit of man is Increase Reflexes. Get it to use it on yourself, that guy who bought no initiative boosts in the party, and itself (which logically it would do anyway if it was told that combat was possible). Spirits are usually fast, but this one's a speed demon with a possible 5 physical initiative passes or 6 on the astral. The great thing is that it has no threat of drain so you can just repeat casting until you get that threshold of 4.

Edit: The rules for getting bound spirits to do spell sustaining for you don't come into play here. That's only for when you pass control of one of your spells over to the spirit. After you command the spirit to use its power on you, it'll keep using it as it would any sustained power like guard, concealment, or movement.

[Cold-Dragon]

Isn't the limit of initiative passes 4 - regardless of anything that might go beyond that?

As to spirits apply penalties to their summoner, I think that was an option fluke that GM's could inflict on their players, depending on situation or desire to control potential breakage.

I could definitely see multiple spirits making it harder to summon more if you are trying to maintain several in some way (a sort of psychic parking lot - harder to navigate the more spirits you got parked). I never saw it quite as much a penalty for anything else, such as perception. You're not neccessarily full focused on the spirit unless you're giving orders, whereas a spell requies some sort of mental 'repeat' option, thus why spells incur a penalty to all things.

But that's just me

[Nim]

Eh. "Innate Spells cast by a critter are the same as those cast by magicians." The critter uses the Spellcasting skill to cast it, and has to make a test. I see no reason why the other rules for spellcasting (including the penalty for sustaining a spell) shouldn't apply.

If order the spirit to cast the spell for you, that's a task. On the other hand, if you give it a combat spell and then order it to kill your enemies, it'll use the spell to do so if that's the most effective tactic...and the separate castings aren't individual tasks.

[James McMurray]

What Nim said.

[Samaels Ghost]

Situation that prompted this question was during a recent run. My Hermetic Hacker summoned a spirit of Man and gave it the Armor spell as a power. with a task I told it to cast a high force Armor spell on the team's combat Adept. With a little Edge (actually this spirit had a lot...) it was able to accieve a force 10 Armor on the Adept who already had FBA and high Body. The ridiculous Dam Resist rolls that he achieved we funny to begin with but since the spirit was sustaining the spell we just kept it around for the rest of the run. Bullets just bounced off him and there didn't seem to be any penalty or balance to that awesome benefit.

[James McMurray]

For starters you shouldn't have spirits using their edge on spellcasting without some serious roleplaying coupled with the spirit affinity merit.

[Samaels Ghost]

Edge doesn't imply any extra effort. I'm pretty sure no one but Dragons decide to have anything to do with using and manipulating luck anyway.

I do see your point though.... i had no affinity....

Regardless whether I used Edge when it shouldn't have been used I still think that spirits sustaining stuff for you (and usually casting the spell more efficiently than you would anyway) might not be properly balanced. It incurs no real penalty for the mage/summoner. It relieves him from having to resist the drain for the spell and suffer from the negative modifiers for sustaining it. I am wrong in thinking so?

[Nim]

Hmm. I'm not sure I would (as a GM) allow an unbound spirit to be ordered to cast an innate spell at a Force higher than its own. A bound one, though, yes...after all, you can order a bound spirit to destroy itself via Spell Binding.

[Samaels Ghost]

Good point but here's the small detail I seem to have left out. That was a force 10 spirit. Sure I had to summon the beast but I wasn't that afraid of getting fragged during the summoning. After all a force 10 gives an average 6 drain countered by my (8 Log + 6 Will + 5 Edge) 19 dice w/rerolls. not that big of a deal.

[Samaels Ghost]

I would like to note that this situation occured BEFORE so many people here reminded me to have high level spirits be far more reluctant then we had them acting before. That might have changed things a bit but still that Armor spell and sustaining it afterwards weren't too hard for it to do at all. Why would it hesitate if it had already allowed itself to be summoned? It's not like he's going to hurt himself, he had 20 dice + Edge to resist 8 Stun Drain.

[James McMurray]

I didn't know if it was a force 10 spirit or force 5 overcasting, but I agree that unbound spirits wouldn't normally overcast.

Spirits sustaining spells is indeed pretty beefy. Security forces (at least well trained and competnet ones) should have multiple intrusion counters at their disposal. Contact chemicals don't care about armor. Areas designed to trap or cut off intruders until backup arrives don't care about armor.

If the players are upping the ante it falls on the GM to increase the threat level when he wants to challenge them. Body 6 + regular armor 8 + armor spell 10 is 24 dice. If you get hit for more than 8 base damage you'll probably still get a little hurt. That's fairly easy to do with semi automatics. A short burst of stick-n-shock deals a base 8 damage and halves the armor, leaving only 15 dice (5 average successes). Armor is nice to have, but even at extreme levels it's still usually best to not get hit in the first place.

There's also runs where the Johnson insists on no detectable presence. If they get in a firfight they fail the run and forfeit the pay.

[Lilt]

[James McMurray]

This would be a case of the specific overriding the general. Spirit powers in general do not cause modifiers when sustained. Innate Spell specifically states that it functions as spellcasting.

[Samaels Ghost]

Ooh, just thought of something. Say an ork has what I listed above (10/8 FBA, 6 Body, 10/10 Armor spell) for 20/18 armor.

The Armor spell specifically says:

[Nim]

[Samaels Ghost]

I do remember that rule about powers, thank you Lilt. We ruled it like that, like a Power.

That begs the question though, does the description of Innate Spell refer to magicians only in reference to Counterspelling or with all Spellcasting mechanics in mind?

[Nim]

[Samaels Ghost]

As for removing powers from someone you can force them through a ward or mana barrier. That's all I can think of though.

The bound spirit task length came up in our runs too. Four tasks and the whole party would have Movement for as long as they wanted, possibly forever or until mine or the spirit's death. Unfortunately i think that it falls into the "roleplay the spirit as a dick" ambigous area of summoning....

[Samaels Ghost]

@Nim:

Me too at first, but it isn't very specific. It does say Damage and not Effects/Spell Type. Bummer. That may be what they had intended and I may end up ruling it that way.
Thanks for mentioning that

[James McMurray]

[Samaels Ghost]

I think I'll keep the "Innate Spell works EXACTLY like Spellcasting" in mind. It sounds like a decent way to try and balance things. However, if you're just using the Spirit to buffer you or your party those sustaining mods aren't that big a deal. Your "hands" are left free. I thought that was what the Sustaing Task was for...

As for the spirit Overcasting, he didn't but it scares me to think about spirits who do. :dead:

[Lilt]

[James McMurray]

Obviously you're free to make that interpretation. I disagree, but since it isn't spelled out, both interpretations are equally valid.

[Lilt]

Agreed. Is there any way we could get an official line on this? I've heard of people emaining the shadowrun team before. I've disagreed with their rulings vehemently myself in the past, specifically on wether or not a mage can target spells through an invisible door, but it'd still be nice to know the official line.