Are all well formed Traditions Balancedish?, Any 5 spirits + Any Drain Atribute ~= OK Options

[WeaverMount]

So I've got some players asking about writing up a tradition. All the spirits seem to be fairly balanced again each other. Materialization vs. Possessions seems to be fairly balanced as well. And the RAW have used every mental stat for drain. Every other paradigm seems to be "I can do anything with magic because I understant X". Does it then fallow that all possible traditions are about equal in power and I should approve any tradition that fits the feel of my game? Any GM out there seen anything really abusive twinks stemming custom traditions, especially with a meta magic or two on them? I person don't see any problems, but in my experience magic in most games get broken easy. Customizable anything by PC/players gets broken easy, and drop bears swarm on customizable magic from greater ranges than sharks smell blood.

[Dancer]

I think spirits like Task and Guardian are more useful than elementals.

[toturi]

There are some spirits that are more useful than others. The original ones from the BBB are generally not as useful as the ones in SM(exception of Man). Also if you look carefully, not all Mentors fit all the Traditions, some Mentors give bonuses to spirits that do not exist within certain Traditions. Also by canon, certain traditions - like Islam and Zoroaster are forbidden/restrict Mentor spirits.

[MK Ultra]

I agree with toturi (make the Khan prowd).

I.e., immagin a posession tradition with Guardian, Guidance, Task, Men and whatever + Channeling, and you get magical skillwires + the cool SoM Any-Spell Optional-Power!

However, besids philosophical restrictions (theurges don´t summon spirits without permission usually, some other traditions don´t use mentor-spirits (or only specific ones), some won´t regularly use combat-spells or mental manipulations or specific meta-techniques) there is one other equalizer and that´s availability.
I.e. you won´t find supplies/lodges/formulae/teachers/ritual-partners as easily for less common traditions. So, if someone comes up with a relativly powerfull tradition, you can balance them a bit by telling the player, that they will have a hard time finding stuff for their paradigm in your game-setting.

[Eleazar]

For the whatever slot you could put Air Spirits. They seem to be the most helpful of the elementals.

[DTFarstar]

MK, you mean something like possession Tradition

Combat - Guardian
Detection - Water
Health - Man
Illusion - Guidance
Manipulation - Task

Drain : Willpower + Charisma

?
Because I'm playing that, and you are right. It's an AWESOME combination of spirits when combined with Channeling(first thing I spent karma on). It's on page 42 of SM, the Voodoo Tradition, so it's not even a twinked out player tradition, only way I see to make it better is have it be air or plant instead of water for Detection.

Chris

[Buster]

[Buster]

[Buster]

But you're right about Task spirits: Any-Tech-Or-Physical-Skill optional-power FTW! It's like having Skillwires with a rating equal to your Magic attribute and with infinite free skillsofts.

Forget a docwagon contract, just summon a task spirit with First Aid and/or Medicine and you're golden.

Need a cyberimplant installed but don't want a free head bomb implant to go with it? Forget the local street doc, just summon a task spirit with Medicine and Cybertechnology.

Need a new ID? Forget trusting your life to a local forger, just summon a task spirit with Forgery.

Need raw materials for binding or enchanting? Just summon a task spirit with Skill (Survival) and Skill (Geology/Botany/etc) (and Psychokinesis if you're a possession tradition) to go get it for you.

[Buster]

[Sereth]

[Buster]

This might be a good houserule:
With a little thought, you can justify any spirit belonging to any tradition. Therefore when a character learns Summoning, he starts out knowing how to summon Watchers and any 5 spirits. For every additional kind of spirit you want to know how to summon, you can spend 3 BP or 5 karma (just like learning spells). Any tradition can pick any spirit, but traditionally members of certain traditions don't bother learning to summon some spirits. Therefore, the spirits listed for each tradition are what the general population usually picks, but the players are not limited to those spirits.

This should balance traditions perfectly and I can finally ditch the voodoo tradition and this annoying Creole accent.

[FrankTrollman]

Every spirit has a "selling point". For Water Spirits it's Weather Control, for Task and Guardian spirits it's the amazing Skill power, for plants it's Silence, for Guidance it's Divination, for Air Spirit's it's the highest attack and defense pools in the game.

Earth and Fire fall rather flat actually. Their selling points just don't mechanically matter that much. Earth gets all the powers you need for civillian life withut resorting to optional powers and has the highest strength in the game. Unfortunately, the game fouses in on what you do with Force 5 spirits during runs, not on what you do around the house with Force 2s. Also the lifting and carrying rules are non-functional, so having the strongest spirit is in many cases a disadvantage (in that it might cause the game master to look up what it can supposedly carry - which is less than a donkey despite being stronger than is reasonable). Fire Spirits have the deadliest engulf and a built-in energy aura. They do stupidly more melee damage than anything else in the game. But honestly, I don't grab spirits for their melee damage, I grab them to control the fucking weather - so "most melee damage" is a pretty mediocre prize.

It's not that Earth and Fire don't have a selling point, it's that due to the structure of Shadowrunning (and flaws in the carrying capacity rules) player characters don't usually care about those selling points.

-Frank

[Sereth]

[Particle_Beam]

[Kyrn]

Ummm...I'm AFMB for the summer, but how exactly does this magical skillsoft system work? I'm hoping drain plays a big factor, as my Cajun accent is only slightly less awful than my generic "Island" accent.

[Kyrn]

Actually, the idea of playing a gigantic cowardly Troll houngan from the Carib League is suddenly terrifyingly appealing to me.

"Bombaclate! Dem drones be heading right for us. Run for it boyz!"

[Dashifen]

[Vaevictis]

IMO, using the skill in that scenario takes up a service -- it is listed as a power after all.

But it's still pretty effective.

It's especially effective if you use it with an ally spirit -- you can buy a new power for 5 karma (or just the skill) and the rating of the skill is set to the spirit's force. You don't get to change it around at will, but still, it's much cheaper than learning the skill normally.

[Buster]

[Buster]

[Buster]

[Dashifen]

[Ol' Scratch]

[Dashifen]

I don't know that I can agree with that. The fact that it's listed under "Optional Powers" for the Task/Guardian spirit indicates to me that it is, in fact, an optional power. The reason it's not listed in the two sections mentioned by Dr. Funk is that all this power does is grant a skill and skills are defined elsewhere.