Restricting summoning spirits to Force = Magic Options

[Thanee]

We are currently considering to restrict the summoning of spirits, disallowing any Force that is greater than the summoner's Magic Attribute, because high Force spirits are too damn easy to call.

Do you think there's anything wrong with it (other than that it is not what's written in the book)?
Any potential problems you can see?

Bye
Thanee

[Ravor]

Well I guess I'd disagree with the fact that High Force Spirits are too easy to summon by anyone who didn't have a Death Wish, but other then that I don't think your ruling would have very much effect on the world. (Although personally I think I'd also apply the same rule to Spellcasting just to be fair.)

[Aaron]

You could always decide that spirits are by nature snobs and use their Edge to resist being summoned by magicians with lower Magic Ratings than their Force.

[FrankTrollman]

I think that won't have the effect you are looking for. Spirits in the Force range of 5 to 8 are very powerful, and can be summoned without serious drain often enough to make them a conceivable combat action. However, Magic Attributes are also quite available in the 5 to 8 range, so you're not going to actually stop people from doing anything that's edge case in this manner.

If you really wanted people to summon less high-end spirits in time-critical situations, you'd throw down these rules:

• Spirits resist Summoning with Force x 2 dice.
  
• Conjuring Drain s DV 1 per hit, not 2 per hit.

You'd see the same average drain, but high-force spirits would show up less often, and the drain results would be a lot less random.

-Frank

[Demon_Bob]

Don't see any reason why it would cause problems.

We don't really summon higher force spirits that magic because the drain is Physical and the possibility for the spirit to roll a high number of hits. The average being; 8 hits for a force 12 spirit, 6 for a 9. Or am I remembering wrong about the spirit getting 2*force to resist summoning?

[knasser]

The problem that I see is that it would deprive me, the GM, of the vast humour I derive from seeing magician characters injure themselves when they get over-ambitious.

Do you really think that high-force spirits are too easy to summon? I generally see PC mages starting with a magic of 4 to 5, rising after a fair bit of karma (the metamagic techniques from initiation, skills or a spell that was missed are the first big draws I see). So a Magic 4 mage summons a Force 7 spirit... so ten or eleven dice lets say (summoning 5, mentor spirit +2). That's probably one or two services (but failure easily possible). Drain however, would be anywhere from 0P to 14P. Likely result would be 4P / 5P but if you do this regularly you're going to get 10P at some point. A magician of this power level will likely resist say 3P or 4P. That character has now just taken 6P or more damage. Not what you want in the middle of a run. If it's a binding in a safe environment then you have other concerns (along with a high cost per service).

It's all doable for a character, but if done consistently, you're going to get hurt.

Personally, I'm happy with it. I don't see player characters routinely summoning over their force and I like to see them be able to pull off the heroic summon on occasion if they need it. You could cap it if you want, but I don't think you need to. It's possible your players make this more appealing to you than mine do, however.

[knasser]

[fool]

just to pipe in, had a fellow mage summoning a force 4-5 fire spirit, passes out from the drain (spirit got its max hits and mage got none) and then gets attacked by the spirit (fortunately the gm let me declare after the fact that I had been there all along so that I could then fight the spirit off.)
Without even going over teh magic rating, spirits can still mess you up. both as the summoner and the one on the receiving end of the spirits punch.
Over summoning to bring a really huge spirit, unless you've got your drain stats way boosted, is going to frag up the mage something fierce and keep him from being effective in the combat other than summoning that one spirit.
And don't even think of binding those big boys.
The only real problem that I see is that it does weaken the mage's potential significantly. While they might not do it regularly because it could well wind up causing their death, being able to summon a heaping big plate of spirit power to take out the gang of samurais who are threatening you is one of the balancing points in a mages favor.

[Moon-Hawk]

[Thanee]

Just as a side note: I'm neither DMing, nor playing a magician; and the only PC magician, that is routinely around (there is one more, who isn't around often, however), cannot even summon spirits at all. ;)

This is mostly meant to limit the NPCs, if anything (and it was the DM's own observation, that spirits are pretty powerful; especially against mundanes, of course, because their high hardened armor makes it next to impossible to hurt them at all, once you go beyond Force 5 or so).

My first comment was to actually have them roll the summoning and suffer the Drain (we use a house rule, that overcasting gives double Drain, once physical and once mental; and (for spells, anyways) Force is not halved beyond Magic, which means Drain from overcasting spells is based on F-M+M/2(rd dwn) instead of F/2(rd dwn), which is still used for spells within the Magic limit, though).

The second comment was then, if he still thinks this might be a bit much, why not limit their maximum Force to the summoner's Magic Attribute (as detailed above).

Bye
Thanee

[laughingowl]

First of all any spirit above starting magic (5+) there is a possilbity of 'dying' when summoning.

Unlikely but a possiblity.

To me if you want the simplest way is to simply state spirits are arrogant and contempeous of 'lesser' beings that call them.

Any 'over-summoning' of a spriit its possible for the spirit to use its edge.

(chances very on: Spirit friend/bane, task desired (summoning fire spirit to start a wild fire might appeal to it, summoining a water spriti in the middle of desert is likely to make it made), Past player interraction with spirits (and/or spirits of this type).).


Add in rolling edge, and a lucky roll by the spirit can possibly insta kill even the toughtest player.


Over-summoing spirits is much like bridge jumping.

99.9% of the time, if you know how to shallow dive, you are going to be ok jumping into the water.

that .1% of the time though you cant see the rock 6 inches under the water is going to be a real painful lesson.

[sunnyside]

Actually the chance of death starts going down fast once you figure in the fact the mage could just used edge on their drain roll.

I do like the idea of spirits using edge (I started a thread on it a while ago). I'm thinking of having it just an off chance thing for higher level spirits. Like for spirits of level 6+ I'll roll a die and on a "1" the spirit uses edge. Posibly modifying it based on how frequently the mage uses spirits and how they treat them.

Note from another thread it has been discovered that from RAW if you go ghostbusters on a spirit and whip out a taser those high force spirits go down reasonably quickly.

Since tasers are standard issue for most security personel this mitigates things a bit.

[Garrowolf]

No it didn't. Electricity damage doesn't effect spirits the same way. Your still confusing electrical damage effects on armor as on spirits. They have no CNS. Tasers are not a super spirit weapon. Not only is that stupid but it destroys any effectiveness and fear of dealing with spirits. This was confirmed by the game designer in an email which I posted already.

I agree that you shouldn't easily be able to oversummon a spirit. The solution I use is that you have to do a much longer ritual that takes force in minutes to summon one and then you have to bargain with them or something. You only get one service from them normally as well.