Spirits and how to use them, Making a summoner Options

[Eleazar]

To answer the original post, the best way to specialize in summoning is to be able to take the drain. I second what Karaden said. If you are going to be a spirit summoner it would be a good idea to take a tradition which has it's drain stat as CHA. I would then suggest you be an elf. Max out your Willpower and Charisma to one below your racial maximum. Also make sure you make good friends with whomever has a high first aid skill on your team. With bioware, symbiotes, and genemods you can have drain dice approaching 16-18. If you want to go with a non-CHA tradition, then I would suggest getting cerebral boosters and only going with Intuition based tradition. If you went logic, that would force you into have 3 stats that need to be high. At least if you keep it a CHA or INT you are only forced into 2 stats needing to be high. The CHA you need for spirits anyways, and INT you need to have a chance in battle and perception.

EDIT: Almost forgot, greetings Karaden, I see that you are relatively new. Based upon your post in this thread, it is good to have you join in the Dumpshock community. One last thing to note in the case you were unaware, some of the members here bite but not too hard and usually they let go.

[DTFarstar]

I'm a big fan of either elved or dwarves with a logic based tradition. I prefer to play logical characters and with a dwarf you can have a Wil of 6 and a Logic of 5(7) for not too heavy an investment. Add in some more tech or positive qualities or what have you and you soak drain like a crazy person. I've never really needed more than 4 bound spirits at once, but YMMV on that.

Chris

EDIT: Oh, I've seen a symbiote mentioned several times as providing bonuses to soaking drain, maybe I'm just overlooking it repeatedly, but which one is it?

[Ryu]

The mender symbiont would help with healing drain that was actually taken, but else I don´t know.

[Moon-Hawk]

Doesn't the Stalwart Symbiont give you +1 Willpower?

[Ryu]

The true power lies in DTFarstars way. Logic is the only possible drain attribute that can get an easy and cheap +3 attribute bonus. One can do without if one can make do with force 4 or 5 spirits. The main trick for a conjurer is having decent edge.

You can whistle up one powerful spirit on short notice anytime. It only fights back half as hard. Use the edge for drain. The basic utility spirits are what you bind, because you get more services per ¥ and don´t really care for much power. The really big spirits are whistled up on short notice, and usually all services are expended before sunrise.

Edit: Stalwart symbiont: Only to resist fear.

[Whipstitch]

Yep, since the ol' Stalwart also clocks in at 30,000¥, 0.2 essence and 16 availability along with a stupidly dangerous drawback for such a minor effect, I consider it a frontrunner for the title of worst piece of bioware in the game. It's basically the Guts quality except it would cost more and could get you killed (provided that you could take it at chargen to begin with).

Anyway, I really agree with what Ryu's saying about keeping around a modest Force spirit for basic utility, which is why I'm about to take a moment to shamelessly plug Plant Spirits as the best canidate for all of your bound cannon fodder needs. First of all, a Force 3 Plant Spirit can come right out of the box with Guard, Magical Guard, Concealment, Silence and Movement; only Guardians can really match that at Force 3 in terms of bread and butter "Oh, hey, the Sammy can't do that!" powers, and in doing so they lose their big advantage, the ability to take a firearm as a weapon skill and even then they don't get Silence. Plant Spirits also start out with 3 body in exchange for a penalty to agility, which isn't that big of a deal because, well, frankly, just about all Force 3 spirits suck at offense anyway, and the 6 body at Force 3 means that the Spirit can do a good job at what's really required from such a low Force grunt: soak a few rounds meant for a player if necessary and provide lots of powers mundanes can't. It only gets better with Invoking and binding bonuses from Foci, mentor and specializations as well; a Great Form Plant Spirit with Regeneration is stupidly durable, even if it is only Force 3 or especially 4, and at that low of a Force it's easy to simply increase it's services every few runs with minimal risk. About the only drawback is the darned low movement rate. Granted, there will be many times where a specialized, higher force spirit is just what is needed, but as Ryu said, that's what on-the-fly summoning is for.

This post has been edited by Whipstitch: Dec 10 2007, 11:35 PM

[GryMor]

[DTFarstar]

The only reliable way to sustain such high force spells is either doing it yourself or an ally spirit and even that last one isn't that reliable as you will have to recast whenever you go through a ward, so need an ally that can survive with you. I prefer not to sustain too many spells myself, but I dunno that's up to you guys.

Chris

[Jaid]

yeah, you're not gonna be using magic to cast and sustain any decently high force spells for quite a while after chargen. [edit] at least not without taking any penalties from it, that is. [/edit]

in order to sustain your force charisma at 12 as an elf, for example, you need a minimum of a rating 6 sustaining focus. and you'll be recasting a force 6 increase charisma spell every time you go through a ward, pretty much. you know, 30 runs down the road, when you can actually get and bind a rating 6 sustaining focus. same basic situation for the willpower, you'll need a rating 5 focus for that though.

This post has been edited by Jaid: Dec 11 2007, 01:31 AM

[DTFarstar]

Why 6 and 5? I would assume if you are attempting to max your drain stats then you are either buying the as high as possible at startup or using karma to up them right after. So with no exceptional attribute or genetic optimization that would be Force 8 and 6 for an elf for cha then wil respectively.

Chris

[Jaid]

that's the *minimum* force of focus required. you must be casting increase charisma at force 6 minimum to get to charisma 12 (and yes, you are correct that it is more likely that the elf in question will have charisma 7 or 8, but my point above still remains that it isn't happening anytime soon) ;)

[GryMor]

Force 8 Increase Stat spells are trivial (2P drain), you can cast them all day with no risk. Sustaining Foci for high force spells are a bad idea. I've been doing ok with eating the 4d active skill penalty from sustaining a pair of them most of the time (which 2 changes, frequently), with occasionally using bound spirits to sustain them for a few critical rounds when heavy artillery (or invisible, stealthed, levitating high velocity border crossings) are required.

Honestly haven't had to breach many wards, I'm usually well outside of the target supporting the technomancer, projected scouting or preped for hot exfiltration and fire support. I'll see how that changes when I summon my Sacred Tree (low force Shinto Ally Spirit that I intend to keep back at the shrine). Likely I'll just be maintaining more spells on my allies and actually get some use out of lightning ball.

[Moon-Hawk]

[Ted Stewart]

Amazing responses. Thank you all!

We're running off the core book alone, so a lot of the things mentioned here aren't available to me. :( I should have mentioned that out the door.

One of the things that I'm having problems with is the different traditions having different types of spirits used for multiple things. It confuses the everliving crap out of me, and is the reason I mentioned mages using ranged combat spirits. The fire spirit is obviously intended to use elemental attack while the beast spirit should be using natural weapon if it's intended use is hurting people.

If a spirit isn't listed as one of the ones I can summon, then I flat out can't use it, can I?

[Ryu]

Yes, at least by core book rules. There are (few) free spirits that might negotiate with you, but that is a technical "No, you could" only.

Often the most damaging way is using indirect ways of causing damage. Fear them into leaving cover, Accident them into being occupied with themselves rather than you, Disguise the adept so he reaches close combat range. Or Confuse the guard so there won´t even be combat.

[Fortune]

[fool]

I would highly recomend getting magic in the shadows because it opens up so many different options. course if you're already confused more options may ot be better.
my 2 yen worth. and I've pretty much always played mages.
haven some spell casting since it's a better way to get rid of spirits than banishing.
decide what you want you're spirits to do... are they buff bots for you (man) melee (beast) ranged combat (fire)
are their other powers going to be their primary use... fear confusion engulf (oneof my ersonal faves)
consider role playing fluff also, how do you relate to your spirits, do you bargain with them or treat them like slaves or something in between.
My favorite summoner was actually from the mits book, a voudoun summoner with a charisma of 7 boosted to 11 or 12.
As to drain it is more variable and can be quite lethal, so have somebody (your party's other mage) on hand o blast the sucker if you pass out. A buddy of mine found out the hard way when he summoned a spirit that got 12 successes and he got none (knocking him out) and my mage had to keep him from getting fried. Binding spirits is even more dangerous so it's a good idea to have things that improve your drain resistance ability... either boost spells or the edge.

[Whipstitch]

Actually, I'm of the opinion that the combination of Energy Aura and higher agility makes Fire and Air spirits the better overall combatants than Beast spirits any day o' the week.

[Glyph]

Fire spirits are one of my favorites for combat. Elemental attack, energy aura, and engulf - and those are standard powers.

[Whipstitch]

The "standard powers" there is definitely a key word. Optional powers are great, but like I was saying earlier with Plant Spirits, sometimes you just can't beat having a good suite of powers right out of the box. If nothing else modest Spirits are a LOT easier to rack up a bunch of quick services with, and sometimes all you really do need is an extra set of hands or a minor bonus here and there.