Banishing, trying to make it more usable Options

[Eryk the Red]

Common issue seem to be that banishing just isn't useful, because a good manabolt is better for banishing. Basically. And experience has shown this seems to be true. Both times my group's mage has tried banishing, he nearly died.

I'm trying to figure out how to make it more useful to him, because he's already got the skill. "Don't use banishing, it sucks" is not helpful this late in the game.

Problem is, banishing, when it works, is pretty powerful. But it often doesn't work. And if we're dealing with a bound spirit, the drain is hell.

Not sure what to do about this. I'd like to give him a reason to use banishing, but I don't want it to be the end of spirits.

[DireRadiant]

One possible ruling might be to make the Banishing an extended contest, and during the contest neither the banisher nor the spirit may perform any other actions until the contest is resolved or discontinued. This would effectively "lock up" the Banisher and Spirit in a contest of wills. Of course there is the question of who can discontinue the Banishing contest.

[Thanee]

I find it very important to reduce Banishing drain to one-half (1 DV per hit, rather than 2 DV per hit). This alone makes it a lot more usable, especially against higher Force spirits, where it is also the most useful, since they commonly do not have many services.

Bye
Thanee

[FrankTrollman]

Halving the Drain is indeed a good start. Banishing also becomes a better deal if you use it for Pokemon - a spirit with its services banished away can be controlled by anyone whether their tradition is appropriate or not.

So you can end up binding spirits that you can't normally summon. Gotta Catch 'em all. That's its only real unique use, and it's not actually all that thrilling most of the time

But halving the drain is a must. Whether you're using the basic 2DV/spirit hit or 1/2 Force + 1 DV/Spirit Hit, the drain on Banishing is way too high for what you get.

-Frank

[pbangarth]

I've come to this old thread by redirection from other discussions.

It is suggested here that Banishing is of little use because it's function can be simulated by other means, such as a Manabolt. But what if you don't want to harm a vessel which is being possessed by a spirit, say, your buddy street sam whom you desperately want to free before he shoots you.

Manabolt, being a Physical damage spell will hurt the vessel, so that's no good. Possibly Stunbolt will work, if as suggested elsewhere the spirit mind can be targeted separately from the vessel. I'm not sure that is the case, and would like some opinions on the viabiltiy of that tactic.

In the specific case of a possessed vessel which you don't want to damage, Banish appears to be the only for-sure option. Even the Attack of Will on page 94, SM, does Physical damage.

Peter

[Rasumichin]

I've come to this old thread by redirection from other discussions.

It is suggested here that Banishing is of little use because it's function can be simulated by other means, such as a Manabolt. But what if you don't want to harm a vessel which is being possessed by a spirit, say, your buddy street sam whom you desperately want to free before he shoots you.

Manabolt, being a Physical damage spell will hurt the vessel, so that's no good. Possibly Stunbolt will work, if as suggested elsewhere the spirit mind can be targeted separately from the vessel. I'm not sure that is the case, and would like some opinions on the viabiltiy of that tactic.

By RAW, the spirit doesn't have a stun track separate from the vessel.
So i wouldn't allow for seperate targeting of the two as long as the spirit is posessing.
Furthermore, as the stun track of the posessed vessel will certainly be higher than that of the unposessed character, knocking him out with a stunbolt will hurt, probably a lot if the spirit is of high Force.

So Banishing indeed does have another use besides playing pokemon, even though it's a highly specific one.