New free spirit binding rules.

New free spirit binding rules., Making it possible.

emo samurai View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 05:14 AM Post #1
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019	I'd make it Willpower + Binding + Initiate grade vs. Force + Edge.

Jaid View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 05:16 AM Post #2
Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 7,089 Joined: 4-October 05 Member No.: 7,813	go ahead. making it easier to control free spirits would probably not unbalance your game any more than it already is from normal. can't say i feel the need to make it easier for most games, though.

Fortune View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 05:16 AM Post #3
Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486	That's a bit too easy, isn't it?

emo samurai View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 05:19 AM Post #4
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019	Why shouldn't it be a viable option? As it is, you'll only get weakass spirits no matter how much Magic you get.

Jaid View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 05:22 AM Post #5
Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 7,089 Joined: 4-October 05 Member No.: 7,813	too easy for emo's games? have you read any of the changes in his game Fortune? (as far as why it shouldn't normally be easy: because they are free spirits. if they were constantly being bound because it was easy, they wouldn't be very free, would they? not to mention free spirit powers can potentially be really unbalancing if a character gets access to them... i mean, even the wealth power could be kinda scary...)

Fortune

Oct 10 2006, 05:25 AM

Post #6

Immoral Elf

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QUOTE (Jaid)

too easy for emo's games?

have you read any of the changes in his game Fortune?

I have yet to have the pleasure. I see that I have a treat ahead of me in that regard. :please: :D

emo samurai View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 05:29 AM Post #7
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019	Here's my campaign thread, and here's my character idea page.

Fortune View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 05:31 AM Post #8
Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486	Much obliged.

emo samurai View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 05:35 AM Post #9
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019	They are AWESOME.

Fortune View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 06:10 AM Post #10
Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486	Yep. I can see that already, after just a quick glance.

hyzmarca View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 06:50 AM Post #11
Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456	But if you do that then you can't start with a mundane faustian who throws 16 free spirit binding dice before edge.

Ryu View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 07:51 AM Post #12
Awakened Asset Group: Members Posts: 4,464 Joined: 9-April 05 From: AGS, North German League Member No.: 7,309	Yes you can. Though Emo would suggest you play an awakened faustian. :D

hyzmarca

Oct 10 2006, 08:22 AM

Post #13

Midnight Toker

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QUOTE (Ryu)

Yes you can. Though Emo would suggest you play an awakened faustian. :D

Mundanes can't learn binding (or any other magical active skill) and they cannot initiate. According to Emo's formula they'd have to default to Willpower. However, you can't default on magical skills so the mundane is screwed. The great thing about using arcana to bind is that you can have a mundane with 8 Free Spirits on call and 8 accompanying Power Pacts.

Ryu View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 01:21 PM Post #14
Awakened Asset Group: Members Posts: 4,464 Joined: 9-April 05 From: AGS, North German League Member No.: 7,309	I was wrong. Conceded. If anyone tries to accumulate so many power pacts in my game, bad things will happen. But thats likely different in Emos game, so that point may be valid too.

blakkie View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 02:36 PM Post #15
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,718 Joined: 14-September 02 Member No.: 3,263	Actually you can default magical skills sometimes. Specifically in the ritual for binding free spirits for that Opposed Test. Although i guess technically it isn't actually Defaulting as it doesn't appear that you take the -1 die penalty.

FrankTrollman View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 09:17 PM Post #16
Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665	Why would you add Initiation Grade to that task? Binding a powerful Free Spirit is certainly difficlt, but it is in no way impossible for a magician or a mundane to do. Let's take the example of the brand new Force 7 Fire Elemental. It has an Edge of only 1 or 2, so it rolls only 8 or 9 dice resisting a binding. However, the human on the other end does not get to use Magic (which is uncapped), but uses Willpower (which is capped). So a good binder is looking at perhaps 9 dice as well (5 Willpower, 4 Binding). The only advantage here is that the Human can be much more free with spending Edge than can the spirit. That's a substantial advantage actually and probably puts a human Mage over the top. Heck, even a human mundane with a good Willpower and Edge can make this a viable life choice (with 5 of each, you're looking at a substantial 10 dice with the Rule of 6, which is lightly more than 50% likely to grab our Force 7 spirit with 2 Edge). You'll note however, that especially at the high end, both Dice Pools are smaller than what people normally throw around. That's intentional. A normal Binding is Magic + Binding vs. Force + Force. Those are more dice on both sides of the equation than Willpower + Binding vs. Force + Edge. Smaller dice pools are less predictable than larger ones. One die gets more hits than 3 dice a full 9.9% of the time, while 8 dice get more hits than 24 as close to never as makes no odds. And that's the whole fucking point. By uniformly reducing the dice pools on both sides of the GM screen, the results of the binding attempt become less predictable. The powerful wizard has a bigger chance of losing control of the demon and having it attempt to eat his face. The gutter kid with a heart of gold has a better chance of rubbing the lamp and extracting services from the powerful ancient genie. Really, a lot of math went into forming those dice pools. They were playtested, and the do produce the intended results. Don't just look at them and say "WTF!? WHY MY DICEPOOLS NOT SO UBER?!1!" - actually consider what those dice pools really mean, and what they really do. It's your game, but the Free Spirit Binding rules actually weren't created with a slap-dash "that looks good" approach. The numbers were crunched, the Alladins, Fausts, and Buttercups of the world were given writeups, and th numbers were tweaked until the Efreet could be controlled the amount of the time that the backstory suggested. Some parts of Shadowrun are mathematically unsound and are like that because of insufficient considerations given to rule interactivity probability. Heck, some of those parts are in the Street Magic book (Blood Spirit Invocations and the Aspected Sorcerer quality for example). But I can confidently say that the Free Spirit Binding test actually does not fall into that category. Do what you like of course, but I think you're headed into dangerous waters here. -Frank

emo samurai View Member Profile	Oct 10 2006, 10:23 PM Post #17
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019	Or you could just bind it in a background count; the spirit's Force is affected, but your Willpower and Binding are not. That's an awesome exploit. And what's wrong about the Blood Spirit invocations?

hyzmarca View Member Profile	Oct 11 2006, 03:21 AM Post #18
Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456	You can summon, invoke, bind, and rebind a force 1 blood spirit untill you have 210 services, then send it out to eat 10 people, spending 10 services in the process. When all is done you still have 200 services from a force 61 blood spirit with an average dice pool of 122. Add another 10 people and you still have 190 services from a force 121 blood spirit with 242 dice. This spirit will lose a force point per day but you can always expend a service to have it eat another person.

Slithery D View Member Profile	Oct 11 2006, 03:26 AM Post #19
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 750 Joined: 9-August 06 Member No.: 9,059	I still maintain that a blood spirit's original Force at summoning is its "natural" Essence, which puts a cap of original Force X 2 on how big it can get. That's still plenty overpowered without being god like.

emo samurai View Member Profile	Oct 11 2006, 03:36 AM Post #20
Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019	That's kind of the point of there being blood spirits, though, isn't it? You have to get a metamagic after Invoking in order to get them, and canon-wise, blood mages are supposed to be at least initiate grade 8.

Fortune

Oct 11 2006, 03:57 AM

Post #21

Immoral Elf

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QUOTE (emo samurai @ Oct 11 2006, 01:36 PM)

That's kind of the point of there being blood spirits, though, isn't it? You have to get a metamagic after Invoking in order to get them, and canon-wise, blood mages are supposed to be at least initiate grade 8.

There's powerful, and then there's ridiculously overpowered and broken. SR4's current rules on Blood Spirits leaves them in the latter category.

Slithery D View Member Profile	Oct 11 2006, 04:33 AM Post #22
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 750 Joined: 9-August 06 Member No.: 9,059	Yeah, even on my interpretation it's not too tough (if not quite easy) for a single good blood mage to kill a regular dragon.

Synner

Oct 11 2006, 09:49 AM

Post #23

Runner

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QUOTE (Slithery D)

I still maintain that a blood spirit's original Force at summoning is its "natural" Essence, which puts a cap of original Force X 2 on how big it can get. That's still plenty overpowered without being god like.

This will be addressed in errata. In effect, a line is missing from the Energy Drain power that effectively caps the max increase the power grants to any Att (including Force).

FrankTrollman

Oct 11 2006, 06:33 PM

Post #24

Prime Runner

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QUOTE

And what's wrong about the Blood Spirit invocations?

There is no cap to Blood Spirits.
As written, a Blood Spirit can achieve power limited only by the number of people it eats, and that number is so close to infinity as makes no odds. Kill one kindergarten full of Bosnian children and roll over 400 dice on virtually any test. Hope Lofwyr can bribe you, because there's no way he can fight, run, or hide.
Evanescence doesn't even affect Blood Spirits.
As written, Evanescence is a drawback that affects spirits who are in pure astral form on Earth. That's fine and dandy if you happen to be a Shedim, because it means you need to find an appropriate body - and soon. But if you're a bound spirit from a materialization tradition, it doesn't do shit. You can materialize whenever you want, and you can go on standby in the metaplanes indefinitely and return at any time. Not losing a point of Force to Evanescence is a complex action that a Blood Spirit can take at any time. It's not even a deal.
The suggested fix breaks Free Spirits.
So many people in the Shadowrun community and the developement world say "Oh, well let's just make Blood Spirits capped by the Force they were conjured at and then make a special exception for them where they actually suffer from Evanescence instead of just choosing to not do so." OK, but what about a Free Spirit who actually takes the Karma to buy up his Force? Suddenly, he's fucked. The cap he can raise his Force to with Essence draining is still based on the Force he was conjured at, which means that spending huge piles of Karma to raise his Force doesn't actually help. His Force will be the same every day, that 60 Karma he spent on raising his Force won't even keep his Force Loss at bay for an hour or even a minute. If he eventually pulls out the Karma to raise his base Force up to double his original, he's double fucked, since now he can't raise his Force at all and his Force is still going down. Any Karma a Free Spirit ever gets goes into a special receptacle we call the "toilet" where it gets "flushed down for nothing".
Even used as intended, the numbers involved are totally broken.
A Great Dragon has a Body of 25 and 20 points of Hardened Armor. He probably has some Force 12 spells up that are being sustained by foci. So he has maybe 24 extra damage resistance dice. And he has 16 physical boxes. Not bad. But when you invoke a spirit the only meaningful restriction is Drain. And when you Blood Invoke, the drain is being paid by some dude who you are killing anyway. Binding and invoking a Force 12 spirit isn't even hard, and as intended that spirit is going to be running around its entire life as a Force 24 ass beater. When it throws an Elemental Attack at Ghost Walker, it rolls 48 dice. It gets 16 hits, and Ghost Walker only gets 4 when dodging, so we're looking at a 36P going against Ghost Walker's soak. Ghost Walker is using half his armor since this is an elemental attack, so he's rolling a not inconsiderable 47 dice to soak, which averages 16 hits and leaves Ghost Walker with 4 boxes of overdamage lying unconcious and on fire in a ditch. From one shot. And yes, I discounted Edge because the Spirit has 4 times Ghost Walker's Edge and including it really only makes things worse.

Such a mess. Let's say that we actually intended to rewrite it in such a manner as would do approximately what it's supposed to do:

QUOTE (Alternate Essence Drain Text)

The Spirit cannot raise its Essence up to more than double its Force. If the spirit's Essence is ever more than this maximum for any reason, all additional Essence is lost.

The spirit can siphon stolen life force into its Force. It may grant itself a temporary boost to its Force of up to +1 for every two points of Essence the spirit has. The spirit may only benefit from one such boost at a time. The Force boost ends after 12 hours, at which time the spirit loses a number of points of Essence equal to the magnitude of the boost.

Then you'd give it Essence Loss. And holy crap, that totally isn't an infinite power loop, and it causes the spirit to actually consume more and more people as it gets more powerful and it still functions when the spirit goes free and everything. And why does it work at all? Because it's the basic rules that already exist in the Shadowrun BBB, that's why! Blood Invoked Spirits have special rules that don't work on any level and were never playtested. I honestly have no idea why they saw print.

I mean, even the ones I just printed suffer from the fact that every couple of days a Blood Spirit would be able to go "all crazy" and kill Ghost Walker with its Darkseid-like eye beams, but at least it functions at all.

Honestly, I don't know why we don't go all the way and use the Essence Drain power as written on page 288 of the main book: with the boost applying only to a single attribute. It's still very scary to face a spirit with an Agility or Magic of 24, it doesn't need to have an Initiative of 50 or skills at 24 to be a major threat.

-Frank

Slithery D View Member Profile	Oct 11 2006, 06:44 PM Post #25
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 750 Joined: 9-August 06 Member No.: 9,059	I wasn't talking about a flat double Force cap; I'm talking about the twice Essence cap in the Essence Drain ability. Force = "racial/normal" essence for these purposes. It seems pretty easy to rule that spending karma on a new point of Force for a free spirit raises this "natural" number, so he gets one permanent point of Force and one more point of temporary Force/essence he can eat with his Essence Drain. I take it as obvious that Force loss due to Evanescence come first from "bonus" Force that you've drained from someone, and that loss below your "normal/natural" Force is temporary and doesn't change the underlying value for purposes of later having a metahuman feast and buying up your Force back to your two times maximum. All of which is somewhat besides the point, because I agree that repeate bindings on a Force 6 spirit to load up with services and then blood invoking and feeding it a single person to bring it to Force 12 is way overpowered. On the other hand, only a double handful of Azzie blood mages are likely to be able to do it, and if any organization should have the ability to knock down a dragon without too much trouble, I'm ok with it being them.

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