OK, I'm ready to bind a force 12 spirit., Now how do we kill it if it goes free? Options

[masterofm]

Your character would need the metamagic -channeling- to be able to summon or bind the spirit. If the mage does not have this possessing themselves would be useless as they couldn't really be able to preform independent actions. Scaling up bound spirits to work towards a force 12 spirit is a good idea though if you are a possession mage w/ channeling. Also a spirit might not like to see it's spirit brother used in such a way and if it edges against you in either test you are in a world of death. Remember a spirit does not have to attack the mage. Generally a spirit will attack a mage if the mage critical glitches their summoning or binding rolls + it is really what the GM cares to do. If I put myself in the spirit's eyes I might not even kill the mage (assuming they survive the process) and just wander away hoping that the mage learned his/her lesson to never try this again. Would probably be something to laugh about with it's friends back on it's own plane. Also how does your mage treat your spirits? Are they cannon fodder or are you merciful and treat them with respect when it comes to most situations. I'd imagine that you would start getting a bad rep with spirits if you mistreat your spirits and can be another decision on if the GM will spend edge rolling against your character trying to summon or bind the force 12 spirit.



But first lets just look at how good of an idea trying to summon a force 12 spirit is. Before you even envision that if the character is a karma hoe the best option I could suggest is to buy up your dice pool w/ foci. Get a high level power foci, or a foci that will help you with drain, summoning, and binding tests (the first you will need to help you stay alive the other two will help you have a chance of getting a service.) You will need a lot of dice because generally a max speced out character can net you about 17 dice (8 logic troll [you will see why], + 6 for max skill, +2 specialization, +1 for drug usage) might not get you as far as it's 24 dice. Is your tradition logic based, charisma based, or intuition based? Logic based tradition will probably be the best idea for this build. Trying to punch out your racial max is also good idea, and also if you are looking to take crazy massive physical I hope you rolled up a troll with a high body or else you might just want to let this idea go. Logic is easy because of cerebral enhancers can help you cap your racial max in logic stat. Summoning a force 12 spirit will on average will get about 4 successes so that is 8 physical right there. Now probably 4-5 of that can be helped by a drain test (assuming you have quite a lot of dice to resist it.) Even with edge you still might not resist all of the 8 physical. Maybe you have 1-2 P on your sheet now, and also assuming you were able to get enough hits to have a single service. Now let's say you are now trying to bind it. This crazy spirit will now deal out 16 P on average with a possibility of a lot more hurt, which means you are now reeling from the damage, not to mention you will probably have to spend edge to hope that you will get enough hits to gain a net hit on binding the creature (that's 9 hits you need.) Now back to the 16 p and most likely you will resist 4-5 again if it decides not to spend edge on either test. This might keep you on your feet, but it could also knock you right the heck out if you are not a high body troll. The amount of body you will probably need to stay conscious is probably around 9-10. The averages are not helping you even if your character is specifically statted for summoning/binding.

So lets run down what you would need for your character to even have a chance of summoning a force 12 spirit.

Your character will need 9+ body, max attributes for your summoning/binding stat, high skill stat, high level foci, at least 4 edge. This will give your character a chance of summoning/binding a force 12 spirit. Anything other then what I have mentioned I would just tell the mage to go home before he/she kills him/herself. Lets just work with the math first before you attempt to bring a force 12 spirit into the world as it will probably save your ass in the end.

@ crizh - the spirit gets 12 dice to passive dodge, but don't forget the burst rules. A long narrow burst from a drone is pretty vicious, but all a spirit needs to do is just take an action to go to the astral, and this beast will win initiative.

This is what will go down if I can look at the situation. The mage goes down hard, and the drones have been holding a single action which means they will each get a single shot on the spirit. If the spirit does not go down right then and there it will proceed to go into the astral. At this point you are screwed, because all of your drones are useless, and a spirit of that power will just move right out of the manastatic and now you can only attack it on the astral. It will have 24 dice to counterspell 24 dice to cast force 12 spells and take no penalty. It is a beast and if you don't dissipate it instantly you will probably lose everyone who decided to tangle with it unless you were able to summon and bind a force 10 spirit and a force 8 spirit which would probably be more of a challenge then the mages in your party.

[Muspellsheimr]

A character needs Channeling to control their physical actions while willingly possessed. Unless you have a Gesture Geas, magical activities (spellcasting, summoning, etc) do not require physical action, and so are not restricted by possession.

[crizh]

A character needs Channeling to control their physical actions while willingly possessed. Unless you have a Gesture Geas, magical activities (spellcasting, summoning, etc) do not require physical action, and so are not restricted by possession.

The Mind of the Vessel remains [] an impotent witness locked inside its own body for the duration.

the spirit’s mind has control of the body and the host’s mind [] is [] temporarily subdued []—with two exceptions. A conjurer whose body is possessed by a spirit he summoned can retain some control by issuing mental commands to the spirit[]. Similarly, an initiate conjurer can use Channeling metamagic (p. 54) to exercise even more control when a spirit he summoned has possessed his body.

Impotent and subdued with the exceptions of Channeling and issuing mental commands to the Possessing Spirit.

Endof.

[Shiloh]

. As for raising magic to 12? Our conjurer is impatient.

So let the impatient drekhead go somewhere nice and quiet to commit suicide. On their own.

[kzt]

If I recall correctly you can only take the Metaplanar shortcut to somewhere you've been before. If you've only ever been in the dark, windowless chamber hundreds of meters below the Earth the only place you can go is home.

It's a Force 12 spirit. What makes you think it hasn't been there, or knows someone who has? It's way smarter than anyone in the group.

[crizh]

It's a Force 12 spirit. What makes you think it hasn't been there, or knows someone who has? It's way smarter than anyone in the group.

I'll just put the Kibbosh on that straight away, if you don't mind.

While, fluff, many traditions appear to summon the same individual spirits time and time again who gain more and more experience of the sixth world, crunch, each new summon is vanilla and has absolutely no chance of having a random list of favourite vacation spots.

God, can you just imagine the mayhem players would cause with that sort of nonsense.

'Ah, yes, but I am summoning an ancient spirit that has visited the inner sanctum of the Aztechnology Pyramid many times....'

Not likely pal...

[masterofm]

I think he was thinking more like 'if a spirit has been summoned before to this world why would it tell the person who summoned it where it's been and what it's done?' It might be a closed book as far as it is concerned to the spirit. It might not ever have to tell the mage how it was summoned and where it has been (maybe a spirit is only compelled to share it's experiences from when the mage summoned and bound it.) It might have even been summoned in the 5th age of magic the last time it was on earth so asking it questions would make no sense and probably confuse the mage (maybe this was back when it was force 3 and has now grown up to be a bad ass force 12.) Maybe it can travel to the last location it was summoned, but it might not really be that magical floating city residing above mount olympis as it crashed thousands of years ago. It would be almost as if the mage tried to ask about the plane the spirit resides on. I really doubt mages would be able to make sense of it and might even dismiss it as just nonsense. I mean how much is really known about spirits? Can they be summoned into other metaplanes? Are they always truthful and just blindly serve the mage? A force 12 spirit knows that it's bigger and badder then anyone in eyesight, and probably has had enough time to think things over while the mage is begging for services as their brain starts to leak out of their ears. It probably doesn't need or want to tell this piddly mage the last time it was summoned and the details involved.

I think it would be cool personally if you summon a force twelve and it has some twists to it even if you bind it with a few services. Like it only speaks or takes commands in a dead language that was used in the 5th age (although I know that mages have a form of telepathic link with the spirit so that wouldn't really work.) It would be pretty cool though.

[crizh]

While I am down with all of that sort of fluff the net result is that it end-runs a major piece of crunch and allows spirits to escape confinement with trivial ease and then insert something large and sharp up your unsuspecting bottom.

If you want to include fluff like that then you are going have to alter 'Meta-planar Shortcuts' to include text to the effect of 'since it was last Summoned' to prevent player abuse.

Add any fluff you like to justify it.

'The Earth has moved vast distances in space since previous visits and previous co-ordinates are meaningless'

'Fluctuations in the Manafield that happen in between summonings render previous experience worthless'

It has an unbalancing game effect and therefore has to be countered.

[Rasumichin]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) Rasumichin: You have been disqualified for using the false plural "boni." Sorry.

That's false? I thought it was just pretentious.

Unless you use it for the singular, of course...why does everybody use foci and nexi as singular?

[Ravor]

And remember, even in the fluff Mages don't agree whether "summoning" a Spirit is calling forth an existing being or is "merely" aminating a mana field with aspects drawn from the Mage's own thoughts and beliefs. Hells, forget spirits for a moment, they can't even agree on what the metaplanes really are.

[Kazum]

just my two cents... havent read the whole post so sorry if i ask something already answered:

couldnt you summon a highleveld spirit on a plane, which surrounds the earth so that there won't be sundown or sunrise for the people on the plane ?
You could theoretically summon even a level 24 spirit... or higher...

or have i forgotten something?

[crizh]

just my two cents... havent read the whole post so sorry if i ask something already answered:

couldnt you summon a highleveld spirit on a plane, which surrounds the earth so that there won't be sundown or sunrise for the people on the plane ?
You could theoretically summon even a level 24 spirit... or higher...

or have i forgotten something?

Heck, head for the Arctic Circle and go nuts....

[Kazum]

Heck, head for the Arctic Circle and go nuts....

well also an idea.. haven't thought of that... might be cheaper.... but might also be less comfortable

[crizh]

well also an idea.. haven't thought of that... might be cheaper.... but might also be less comfortable

Don't get me started on Spirits that last six months at a time...

[Tarantula]

You forgot that a force 24 spirit will average out 16P for your drain?

[masterofm]

well more like 16 p and then 32 p if you want to bind it... that and you have to be magic 12 to summon a force 24.

[crizh]

well more like 16 p and then 32 p if you want to bind it... that and you have to be magic 12 to summon a force 24.

Have you read Nosferatu? Nasty...

[Skip]

The way I see it, unless you have really, really powerful characters, you have three options, and two have already been mentioned:

Find out what you can bribe the Free Spirit in, and get it in great quantities.

1) Buy him off. Really, find a contact for the spirit and make nice. A force 12 spirit is a rare thing, one mad at a character means he's dead unless he smiles and pretends he's more than a little slow. The "He didn't mean it, he's a bit dim. What can we do as a token of our thanks for letting us all live?" option may be your best bet. It's also a great hook for a run if your GM likes it.

So let the impatient drekhead go somewhere nice and quiet to commit suicide. On their own.

2) The "Who?" option. Hang him out to dry and come up with a new character. Any character that gets a force 12 spirit that mad at him probably deserves it. If your game is a "noir" style game this is probably the most realistic answer.

3) The D.B. Cooper option. Hide. Really good. Change your astral signature, your look, your name, your residence, everything you can. Disappear so well the spirit never finds you. Of course your GM may make you retire the character.

Honestly, I don't see any other way to survive.

[WeaverMount]

There are a couple easy solutions. The first super easy no mus no fuss solution is to get behind an F6 ward. Astral project some where far away, and with less than 1 hour until sun up/down. If you get KOed you are back at your body and the spirit has less than one hour to find you. If you are behind an F6 ward they have 1 shot to make a threshold 11 test on 24 dice. Not likely. If you are as over cast happy as this build would have to be, you could even throw up a 12F ward bumping the threshold up to 17. That's unlikely even even if they blow edge on the test.

A similar option that is likely to be available to a magician of this power level is Flux. Pull a similar astral projection stunt to start off. But once the magical is KOed the team revives them, and the magican starts using Flux to completely shutdown the tracking attempt. Just Flux until the clock runs out.


What trumps all this though is having another magican to watch your back an uncontrolled spirit can be brought under control with a simple summoning test.

[crizh]

There are a couple easy solutions. The first super easy no mus no fuss solution is to get behind an F6 ward. Astral project some where far away, and with less than 1 hour until sun up/down. If you get KOed you are back at your body and the spirit has less than one hour to find you. If you are behind an F6 ward they have 1 shot to make a threshold 11 test on 24 dice. Not likely. If you are as over cast happy as this build would have to be, you could even throw up a 12F ward bumping the threshold up to 17. That's unlikely even even if they blow edge on the test.

Um, this guy died about six hours ago.

Astral Projection, max time = Magic hours.

[Cain]

For that matter, can you summon while you're astrally projecting?

And even then, remember that this is a Binding test, not a summoning. Even if a spirit can only use the metaplanar shortcut to go places it's been with its current summoner, odds are that you probably didn't summon it in your secure circle.

Trying to bind a huge spirit like this right after summoning it is suicidal. You need to take at least a small break in between, to push off some of your Drain and the associated penalties.

[WeaverMount]

Ok, so you would have to use shade and/or Astral Gateway.


About the summoning I get the impression from my co-GM that summoning and casting on the Astral used to be more complecated in 3rd ed, but in 4th it's I don't think there is any mention one way or the other.

[Jaid]

given that binding requires the use of binding materials, i generally would guess that you need a physical form to bind.

also, to the buried chamber idea, i should point out that the spirit would be on a remote service simply by being that far away. since the service is just to be that far away, and remote services nuke all remaining services, it would then cease to have any remaining services, and have completed it's remote service, and would simply be able to return to it's home plane.

[Blubbels]

Then detonate only the first 50m run, and detonate additional 500m (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[crizh]

given that binding requires the use of binding materials, i generally would guess that you need a physical form to bind.

also, to the buried chamber idea, i should point out that the spirit would be on a remote service simply by being that far away. since the service is just to be that far away, and remote services nuke all remaining services, it would then cease to have any remaining services, and have completed it's remote service, and would simply be able to return to it's home plane.

I chose 600m because that was the limit. Force 12 Spirit, Magic x 100m = 600m.

If you want to be Anal about it, 599m. OK?