Fun with Free/Ally Spirits!, Inhabitation Greatness and More! Options

[Neraph]

The following thread will be broken into multiple sections...

1) Inhabitation:

By conjuring a free spirit of any force (the lower the easier), or by taking the Ally Conjuration metamagic (and spending a whopping 8 karma and 500 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) ), you can create/conjure an inhabitation spirit (preferably with Elemental Aura) and put it in a weapon. That weapon now is treated as Dual Natured, being able to be used against spirits and projecting mages more effectively (good for the group's Street Sam).

Now, since the spirit itself isn't making the attack, the rules become a little interesting at this point. If the spirit made the attack, the weapon would gain a +4 DV and all damage would become elemental in nature. If the weapon is attacked, the attacker has to save vs. a DV equal to the spirit's force (elemental damage as well). By a strict reading of the rules, the weapon would in fact gain no damage bonus; it would simply allow mundanes to attack spirits/manifested/astral forms and ignore their ItNW.

(Disclaimer!: House Rule Ahead!) I believe that if the spirit so inhabiting had the Energy Aura power, a safe, non-game-breaking compromise would be to allow the spirit's force to be added onto the weapon damage (Elemental effects as normal). This, however, is not needed. (/House Rule)

Theorhetically, you could simulate a lightsaber (or like weapon) under similar conditions. Inhabitation spirit with Elemental Aura (Any, Light would be fitting) and Natural Weapon inhabiting a metallic cylinder/sword hilt. The spirit manifests (not like astral manifestation, more like Spirit Mask) its Natural Weapon as a beam of energy, and whammo!

This would also be able to simulate various intelligent weapons throughout myth. The spirit can only talk through the weapon (to whomever is wielding the blade), ect.

The same technique can be used to gain the use of certain powers under certain situations (and to simulate items of significant power as seen in lore and myth), simply by causing an inhabitation spirit with certain powers to inhabit various objects. To make the deal more palatable for some casters, you could promise the freedom of the spirit after a number of tasks have been completed (either the favors owed by the Binding test, or a new number after forcing the spirit to inhabit the object).

Example: Bob, the wise-cracking skull in the Dresden files can be best surmised as an Inhabitation Guidance spirit of force 8+ taking residence in a human skull.

The above concepts are best implemented by mystic adepts; summoning, binding, and "enchanting" their own weapons and equipment.

2) Free Spirits:

This section is mainly for a discussion of free spirit PCs. Through my reading of free spirit rules in Runner's Companion, it would appear the game designers have something against the use of free spirit PCs.

The average 400 BP free spirit PC would be able to replicate roughly a force 2.5 spirit (meaning he could have all the stats of a force 2 spirit, with slightly higher force and some additional skills/abilities), whereas Street Magic tells us that free spirits of such, /ahem, delicate nature are very rare (from a bound - to - free status: most bound spirits that become free are F6+).

Not only that, but the power selection seems more like punishment than an option list. A standard bound spirit going free retains all their powers, and gains more depending on their new Edge, as opposed to free spirit PCs gaining "Spirit Points" (similar to adept's power points) equal to their Edge, and the average power costs 1.6 (rounded up).

I guess the "power" available from playing a free spirit helps mitigate the hate directed towards them, but honestly, if you've only got ~11 boxes in either of your condition monitors, you've got to expect to get disrupted almost every 'run, unless you go for the Concealment power and hope you aren't even seen. On the bright side, you're almost impossible to permanently banish (excpt by vengeful GMs except by vengeful corp mages), so you'll most likely be back soon. But that doesn't amount to much if you're missing much of the campaign (and subsequently most of the karma).

Upon writing this, it occurs to me I wouldn't have such a problem with free spirit PCs if they had instead called them Wild Spirit PCs, since wild spirits follow so many fewer of the "known rules" of spirits.

3) Theorhetical Application of Above:

What exactly would happen if an initiated mage with the Ally Conjuration metamagic summoned an inhabitation spirit into himself? How exactly would the rules cover this? More specifically, if he were to arrange the inhabitation to cause a Hybrid Form inhabitation merge. Would the mage have just found a (quasi) cheaper version of playing a more powerful free spirit (and follow the free spirit rules in Street Magic)? The core rules seem to point towards the PC losing control of the character, yet there is some wording within the Inhabitation power that may allow lenient DMs to let the PC retain his character, with appropriate RP changes.

End

So have I missed some things, or are the above more or less true? Discuss.

EDIT: Edited for final thougts and finishing touches. Also revised finishing thoughts for the debate from later pages.


EDIT: Added by me (Neraph), on 11/28/09 from post on: Nov 22 2009, 11:55 PM

4) Additional Information

In Running Wild, page 174, they have added very interesting rules for calling free/wild spirits and gaining favors from them, similar to summoning and binding (in that you can cause a spirit to appear and gain a number of favors from said spirit), under the Calling and Offering section.

The following is a condensed section of pertinent rules:

[ Spoiler ]

Occult Knowledge: Arcana + Logic (20, 1 day) Extended Test.

Crafting Paraphernelia: Enchanting + Magic (Force of Target Spirit, 1 day) Extended Test.

The Offering: Arcana + Logic (1) Test. This destroys the paraphernelia, causes no drain, and confers no services.

Bargaining: Negotiation + Charisma opposed by the spirit's Force + Edge.

The following involve the Spirit in question.

Skills: Assensing, Astral Combat, Dodge, Perception, Unarmed Combat

Spirit Powers: Astral Form, Banishing Resistance, Energy Drain (Karma), Inhabitation.

Qualities: Magician.

Inhabitation: Must have a prepared vessel. Enchanting + Magic (Object Resistance x3, 1 day) Extended Test and 2 refined or 1 radical reagent per 10 kilos of object (reagents are consumed during the process).

Advancement:
- It may raise its attributes, which start at a rating equal to the Force of the spirit.
- It may raise or gain new skills.
- It may initiate as a magician, although this process grants one additional free spirit power per grade instead of a metamagic technique. They are as follows:
* The spirit type's normal power list (in this case - none).
* One of the following powers: Astral Gateway, Aura Masking, Divining, Essence Drain, Materialization, Possession, or Realistic Form.
* Any metamagic technique. Free spirits use Edge in place of initiation grade.
* A unique free spirit power listed under Free Spirit Powers, p. 109 Street Magic.
- It may raise its Force, raising all attributes and powers based on Force, at the cost of new Force rating x 10.

5) Applicable Result/Guide

After completing an Occult Knowledge Test, you gain the information to Call a special type of spirit, with the powers listed above. You either craft yourself or have a contact craft for you the paraphernalia required to Call the spirit at Force 1 (two radical animal blood reagents, availability 8, 400 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) total) and preparing a chosen weapon as a Prepared Vessel (one radical animal blood reagent, availability 8, 200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) ). After successfully Calling the spirit, you bargain with it for the express reason of Inhabiting the weapon, using its powers (or powers it will gain) to keep you alive, and you will feed it with the life energy of your enemies; ie: "I know that spirits such as yourself are obsessed with power. I have a great amount of martial prowess. In return for you using your abilities to keep me alive, I will guarantee that you will feast on the souls of my enemies, adding their power to your own."

With their 2 dicepool against your Charisma + Negotiation (+ all those extra bonuses we all know and love), you will win.

The spirit (an apparent variant of a blood spirit) at Force 1 cannot gain a True Form Inhabitation Merge, as he cannot exceed the Object Resistance of the weapon you have chosen. This will result in either a Hybrid Form Inhabitation Merge (which is most desirable), or likely a Flesh Form Inhabitation Merge, causing the weapon to become Dual-Natured (now dangerous against those pesky astral forms) and much harder (Immunity [Normal Weapons]), among other things. Please note that this must take place inside a magical lodge with a Force equal or higher than that of the spirit, in this case, 1. Also, the only forseeable problem is that of the spirit in question Critically glitching on the Inhabitation check; this can be fixed with the spirit initially having the Guard power active on itself.

I present to you: Bloodmourne.

Alternatively (and more expensively), you can follow this same preceedure to similarly "enchant" barbed arrows (or bolts). As the arrow is stuck in the enemy, the spirit within begins to deal additional "DoT" (Damamge over Time) damage to him, gaining 1 point of karma per point of physical damage dealt (as per Energy Drain [Karma]). If the enemy wants to stop this, he must remove the barbed arrow.

I present to you: the Blooddrinker Arrows (I brainstormed these with Ragewind, and he insists they should be named Souldrinker Arrows, but as I'm posting this (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotate.gif) ).

A 1-Up for Blooddrinker Arrows would be using Injection Arrows as the base arrow, and remember to include a dose of Slab. As they lie there for at least an hour due to the Slab drug, your Bolt-Buddy finishes killing them to suck the karma out of their blood.

In all cases, the Bloodmourne™ system of Dual-Natured weapons manufacturing creates an extremely flexible system of creating a smart-weapon capable of aiding its wielder immensely (and possibly similarly to using mooks for hacking), and it only gets better over time.

[darthmord]

The part about Inhabitation...

The spirit may run afoul of the rules regarding being forced through wards and such. That may give grounds for the spirit-in-a-weapon to add its bonus damage to the attack.

A flaming sword should do more damage than a sword of the same make/model that doesn't have such a spirit in it. Those flames aren't illusory after all.

===================

The part about Free Spirits...

Keep in mind that BP costs were also assigned in such a manner as to represent relative rarity as well. Something that costs 100 BP is more rare than something that costs 30 BP. Or so it was said here on Dumpshock.

I tried to build one with 400 BP, 75k money, and 25 Karma (build requirements I was given). I stopped after getting through attributes and trying to get skills. Wasn't worth the effort IMO.

Cost was waay out of proportion for the benefits.

===================

Regarding the Theory...

Been talked about here before. Basically, the spirit goes free. It also gains all of your memories (with a good enough merge), skills, abilities, etc. Not supposed to get Conjuring but not sure if that ever got errata.

Most GMs I believe would NPC the mage character.

[DoomFrog]

I think you underestimate the power of a free spirit PC. Here is a pretty min/max'ed Free Spirit PC that is Force 6 using just the 400BP starting build system.

[ Spoiler ]

Race: Free Spirit (Spirit of Fire) (250 BP)
Attributes (125 BP)
B:2
A:2
R:2
S:2
C:2
I:4
L:2
W:4
E:5
Force:6

Active Skills (40 BP)
Spellcasting: 5
Counterspellcasting: 5

Knowledge Skills (18 Free BP)
Spirits (Spirits of Fire): 5
Magic Background: 4
Magic Theory: 4
Magical Threats: 4

Qualities (+35 BP)
Gremlins 3 (+15BP)
Uneducated (+20BP)

Spells (15 BP)
Flamethrower
Heal
Chaos
Shapechange
Fling

Spirit Powers
Immunity to Normal Weapons
Banishment Resistance
Materialization
Regeneration

Pacts
Friendship Pact

Possessions (0 BP)
Street Lifestyle

The character would be a powerful spirit that was recently freed. Knowing very little about the real world, and having no possessions it joined with the group of runners it meet to learn more about the world. Of course for this character to work you would need 3+ other runners in the group, and you might still need to fill out the friendship pact with some of the groups more trusted contacts. But you would not take damage unless the enemy did more than 12, and when you do take damage you have a 8DP for regen. The wording in Runner's Companion says "The spirit may not return to Earth until it has completely healed, again using the same rules as metahumans." So the character could still regen and use a Heal spell, and would return immediately after fully healing because of Friendship Pact.

As for your second question about a mage PC using an Inhabitation Spirit on himself to become a quasi Free Spirit, a mage could do it. The only problem with that is that the mage's spirit is destroyed and the Inhabitation Spirit now controls the mage's body. So technically the PC's character would be killed and the NPC spirit would take over his character's body. If the GM was fine with the PC playing the new Inhibitation Spirit, then it would work. Otherwise, the character would have killed himself.

[Neraph]

How would the bound foci work into this? Core, the person dies, the spirit takes over, the foci deactivate, the spirit cannot bind.

However, the notes of Inhabitation state that (up to the GM) the person's spirit doesn't have to be consumed. Think Prince Arthas becoming the Lich King. And then, how would bound foci work?

[darthmord]

Well, given the nature of the change...

I would say either "Congrats! you have now have barter material. Spirits cannot bind foci."

or...

"You have to re-bind the foci. Remember, Inhabiting spirits with a good merge inherit the host's skills, memories, and abilities. That would include the ability to bind foci IMO.

On a side note, I have wondered what would happen to an Inhabiting Spirit that crossed the threshold into a downcycle of mana. IE: It's in a human body at the end of the 6th World and enters the 7th. Would it be forced back to the metaplanes?

[DoomFrog]

How would the bound foci work into this? Core, the person dies, the spirit takes over, the foci deactivate, the spirit cannot bind.

However, the notes of Inhabitation state that (up to the GM) the person's spirit doesn't have to be consumed. Think Prince Arthas becoming the Lich King. And then, how would bound foci work?

I don't think you would use a Binding Foci when dealing with a Inhabitation Spirit. Basically you would summon a spirit with the Inhabitation skill, then using one of your services you would ask it to inhabit you. But once your services ran out, the Inhabiting spirit would take over your body.

And looking into it more, the PC's mind isn't destroyed when inhabited by a summoned spirit.

A conjurer whose body is possessed by a spirit he summoned can retain some control by issuing mental commands to the spirit (in a manner similar to a hacker/rigger and a subscribed drone). In this case, the conjurer is aware of the spirit's actions (he still perceives through his body), but he has only indirect control rather than direct motor control.

It basically the spirit makes all the skill tests you just decide which ones to make.

But that brings up the question of what happens when your services run out. You summon a spirit with 5 services. You use 1 to have it inhabit you. Once the other 4 are up, the spirit takes control. So you go with the original idea and use a Ally Spirit, who would still follow your orders.

So after all this, yes. A magician that gains an Ally Spirit could have it inhabit his/her own body, thus becoming a quasi Free Spirit character. Except that you wouldn't have the "no permanate death" of a real Free Spirit character. If your inhabitation resulted in True Form, your body would be destroyed and when the spirit was disrupted your body wouldn't exist to resummon your Ally Spirit. And with Hybrid and Flesh form, your body would be killed if you took enough damage, thus you would die.

[Starmage21]

I think you underestimate the power of a free spirit PC. Here is a pretty min/max'ed Free Spirit PC that is Force 6 using just the 400BP starting build system.

[ Spoiler ]

Race: Free Spirit (Spirit of Fire) (250 BP)
Attributes (125 BP)
B:2
A:2
R:2
S:2
C:2
I:4
L:2
W:4
E:5
Force:6

Active Skills (40 BP)
Spellcasting: 5
Counterspellcasting: 5

Knowledge Skills (18 Free BP)
Spirits (Spirits of Fire): 5
Magic Background: 4
Magic Theory: 4
Magical Threats: 4

Qualities (+35 BP)
Gremlins 3 (+15BP)
Uneducated (+20BP)

Spells (15 BP)
Flamethrower
Heal
Chaos
Shapechange
Fling

Spirit Powers
Immunity to Normal Weapons
Banishment Resistance
Materialization
Regeneration

Pacts
Friendship Pact

Possessions (0 BP)
Street Lifestyle

The character would be a powerful spirit that was recently freed. Knowing very little about the real world, and having no possessions it joined with the group of runners it meet to learn more about the world. Of course for this character to work you would need 3+ other runners in the group, and you might still need to fill out the friendship pact with some of the groups more trusted contacts. But you would not take damage unless the enemy did more than 12, and when you do take damage you have a 8DP for regen. The wording in Runner's Companion says "The spirit may not return to Earth until it has completely healed, again using the same rules as metahumans." So the character could still regen and use a Heal spell, and would return immediately after fully healing because of Friendship Pact.

That character is certainly high force, but nowhere near what an actual force 6 conjured spirit that can do everything the free spirit can, but better, and have better attributes, and even better edge. You still get your disruption just as was stated above. Free spirits are worthless as PCs with the current costs.

[Neraph]

I don't think you would use a Binding Foci when dealing with a Inhabitation Spirit. Basically you would summon a spirit with the Inhabitation skill, then using one of your services you would ask it to inhabit you. But once your services ran out, the Inhabiting spirit would take over your body.

And looking into it more, the PC's mind isn't destroyed when inhabited by a summoned spirit.



It basically the spirit makes all the skill tests you just decide which ones to make.

But that brings up the question of what happens when your services run out. You summon a spirit with 5 services. You use 1 to have it inhabit you. Once the other 4 are up, the spirit takes control. So you go with the original idea and use a Ally Spirit, who would still follow your orders.

So after all this, yes. A magician that gains an Ally Spirit could have it inhabit his/her own body, thus becoming a quasi Free Spirit character. Except that you wouldn't have the "no permanate death" of a real Free Spirit character. If your inhabitation resulted in True Form, your body would be destroyed and when the spirit was disrupted your body wouldn't exist to resummon your Ally Spirit. And with Hybrid and Flesh form, your body would be killed if you took enough damage, thus you would die.

You're confusing posession with inhabitation. Posession works like how you're talking, inhabitation is completely different. And Ally Spirits have infinite tasks owed.

And I wasn't talking about a Binding Focus, I was talking about having any foci bound to the caster at all.

[Neraph]

That character is certainly high force, but nowhere near what an actual force 6 conjured spirit that can do everything the free spirit can, but better, and have better attributes, and even better edge. You still get your disruption just as was stated above. Free spirits are worthless as PCs with the current costs.

That was exactly my point.

Now, if they cost even 350 BP, and started with the core 5 "spirit skills" at a rating equal to their force, and had powers more in line with what real spirits get, then yeah I can see myself playing one. But currently, nope. Not really.

Which is why I found my "Fun with Inhabitation and Ally Spirit" loophole. It's even more broken if used in karmagen.

[Starmage21]

That was exactly my point.

Now, if they cost even 350 BP, and started with the core 5 "spirit skills" at a rating equal to their force, and had powers more in line with what real spirits get, then yeah I can see myself playing one. But currently, nope. Not really.

Which is why I found my "Fun with Inhabitation and Ally Spirit" loophole. It's even more broken if used in karmagen.

Yeah, karmagen free spirits can get nasty, but still only getting close to what non-free spirits have at their disposal.

[Neraph]

No, I was talking about using the karmagen rules to build an Ally Spirit to inhabit you. I think you could easily afford a force 10, maybe even a force 12 Ally Spirit (and the magic 6 required to conjure it), not to mention a slew of spells and a handful of skills to give it (at force 10-12).

[merashin]

hey, i was making a free spirit as a character for fun, and had a question. If I am possession tradition, and inside a homunculus what exactly would happen if i cast the shapechange spell? would the homunculus shift, or would the spell just fizzle? And would the attributes of the form of the homunculus be modified by force as per normal, or not? I didn't feel like starting a new thread to ask this, so i just asked in a thread that is already about free spirit characters.

[Draco18s]

Simple answer:
The universe implodes.

(Because the writers couldn't think of a valid reason not to stuff a Bag of Holding into a Bag of Holding).

Long answer:
I honestly don't know.

[Neraph]

I would say the homunculus changes form.

EDIT: However, as soon as you were to leave the homunculus, it would revert to being statuary: it wouldn't remain an animal.

[AllTheNothing]

I think you underestimate the power of a free spirit PC. Here is a pretty min/max'ed Free Spirit PC that is Force 6 using just the 400BP starting build system.

[ Spoiler ]

Race: Free Spirit (Spirit of Fire) (250 BP)
Attributes (125 BP)
B:2
A:2
R:2
S:2
C:2
I:4
L:2
W:4
E:5
Force:6

Active Skills (40 BP)
Spellcasting: 5
Counterspellcasting: 5

Knowledge Skills (18 Free BP)
Spirits (Spirits of Fire): 5
Magic Background: 4
Magic Theory: 4
Magical Threats: 4

Qualities (+35 BP)
Gremlins 3 (+15BP)
Uneducated (+20BP)

Spells (15 BP)
Flamethrower
Heal
Chaos
Shapechange
Fling

Spirit Powers
Immunity to Normal Weapons
Banishment Resistance
Materialization
Regeneration

Pacts
Friendship Pact

Possessions (0 BP)
Street Lifestyle

The character would be a powerful spirit that was recently freed. Knowing very little about the real world, and having no possessions it joined with the group of runners it meet to learn more about the world. Of course for this character to work you would need 3+ other runners in the group, and you might still need to fill out the friendship pact with some of the groups more trusted contacts. But you would not take damage unless the enemy did more than 12, and when you do take damage you have a 8DP for regen. The wording in Runner's Companion says "The spirit may not return to Earth until it has completely healed, again using the same rules as metahumans." So the character could still regen and use a Heal spell, and would return immediately after fully healing because of Friendship Pact.

As for your second question about a mage PC using an Inhabitation Spirit on himself to become a quasi Free Spirit, a mage could do it. The only problem with that is that the mage's spirit is destroyed and the Inhabitation Spirit now controls the mage's body. So technically the PC's character would be killed and the NPC spirit would take over his character's body. If the GM was fine with the PC playing the new Inhibitation Spirit, then it would work. Otherwise, the character would have killed himself.

I would go for Power Pact instead of Friendship Pact, friendsip pact cappes the maximum force that the spirit can reach, and forces the spirit to bind itself to mortals, while the power pact endes after 24 hours, and the cost of the quality in Street Magic is what the spirit askes in return for granting the power, nothing forbids the spirit from granting it for free (your teammates are going to love the regeneration and IfNW powers), and lets face it, it's a great way to harvest karma, which gang would turn down the opportunity of having IfNW AND regeneration?

[Neraph]

I would go for Power Pact instead of Friendship Pact, friendsip pact cappes the maximum force that the spirit can reach, and forces the spirit to bind itself to mortals, while the power pact endes after 24 hours, and the cost of the quality in Street Magic is what the spirit askes in return for granting the power, nothing forbids the spirit from granting it for free (your teammates are going to love the regeneration and IfNW powers), and lets face it, it's a great way to harvest karma, which gang would turn down the opportunity of having IfNW AND regeneration?

Friendship Pact + magical group contact = Gold.

Let's do a Contact 2/Loyalty 5 (maybe 6) group with 20-99 people in it (+2), Sprawl-Wide (+2), and most members have magical talents (+4). For 15 BP we have an infinite pool for our Friendship Pact to pull from.

EDIT: Don't forget you get a pact for free, and can take additional ones for 1 SP (Spirit Point, not to be confused with adepts). Grab Power Pact, Drain Pact, or something else, and go to town with your own 90-person magical group! Charge 1 karma a week each for the ability to add your Force to their drain as many times as they want each day, and at Loyalty 5 (6 for 1 additional BP) they'll jump at the chance! Welcome to 90 karma/week.

[darthmord]

Friendship Pact + magical group contact = Gold.

Let's do a Contact 2/Loyalty 5 (maybe 6) group with 20-99 people in it (+2), Sprawl-Wide (+2), and most members have magical talents (+4). For 15 BP we have an infinite pool for our Friendship Pact to pull from.

EDIT: Don't forget you get a pact for free, and can take additional ones for 1 SP (Spirit Point, not to be confused with adepts). Grab Power Pact, Drain Pact, or something else, and go to town with your own 90-person magical group! Charge 1 karma a week each for the ability to add your Force to their drain as many times as they want each day, and at Loyalty 5 (6 for 1 additional BP) they'll jump at the chance! Welcome to 90 karma/week.

LOL... I hadn't thought of that. ~90 Karma/week means for some serious advancement. That rate of income would quickly cover and remove most of the weaknesses of a Free Spirit.

That said, I doubt most GMs would allow such twinkery. Though could you imagine a Face-like Free Spirit? It'd be able to talk most magic users into that Pact without much trouble and BAM! Road to Success ™.

[Neraph]

That said, I doubt most GMs would allow such twinkery. Though could you imagine a Face-like Free Spirit? It'd be able to talk most magic users into that Pact without much trouble and BAM! Road to Success ™.

Exactly. I noticed that trick the second I finished reading Free Spirits in Runner's Companion, then checking the Spirit Pact rules in Street Magic. It was worded in such a way to make one assume that you got Spirit Pact power for free, but as I remembered them, all Pacts were under Spirit Pact.

Street Magic suggested not all spirits that can give Pacts have all Pacts, and Runner's Companion pretty much made that the rule.

[InfinityzeN]

In a year that would be the scariest spirit anyone has ever seen. Even slanting towards a smaller group of only 40 people, you still looking at over two thousand karma in a year! Increase the group size to 48 and your looking at over two hundred karma a month.

[Neraph]

Using the methods described above, we can also gain an Ally Spirit far better than any Weapon/Power focus you can buy.

For example: A Force 2 Weapon Focus/Force 2 Power Focus counts as a Force 4 Stacked Focus and costs 70,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) with a 20R Availability and costs 22 karma to bind.

On the other hand, we can take 24 karma (2 more karma) and make a Force 3 Inhabitation Ally Spirit to Inhabit a sword, gaining no extra dice to attack like you would a weapon focus, but the weapon is now Dual Natured, still allowing us to attack creatures with ItNW. We also gain a net +1 dice to spellcasting (using the Ally Spirit's Aid Sorcery ability), although we don't get the bonus to all uses of our Magic attribute. If we give the Ally Spirit interesting powers, we get a more versatile Spirit Weapon™.

For the sake of argument, let's make the weapon a staff, and the Conjurer a Hermetic Mage. He chooses Elemental Aura (Fire), Concealment, and Guard. He now has a flaming staff that deals (Str/2+5)P(fire) damage with 2 reach and -1/2 AP, and can now give anyone trying to see the Conjurer a -3 penalty on their rolls (including Assensing), and completely protects him from glitches.

This can, of course, become much more interesting if said Conjurer has his Ally Spirit Inhabit a Power/Weapon focus.

This concept has a very large power curve, by the way.

EDIT: Note: That is assuming a mage with Ally Conjuration. It is free (karma-wise) to track down a Free Spirit's Spirit Formula, summon him, then cause him to Inhabit a weapon. If done right, he might even thank you.

[Draco18s]

LOL... I hadn't thought of that. ~90 Karma/week means for some serious advancement. That rate of income would quickly cover and remove most of the weaknesses of a Free Spirit.

That said, I doubt most GMs would allow such twinkery. Though could you imagine a Face-like Free Spirit? It'd be able to talk most magic users into that Pact without much trouble and BAM! Road to Success ™.

...did we just create the SR version of Pun-Pun?

[Neraph]

...did we just create the SR version of Pun-Pun?

.. I think so.

EDIT: That 90 karma/week is being nice too. With a 2/6 contact (not changing the BP cost) we could even charge 1 karma/day.

90 karma/day. Think about that.

[darthmord]

In a year that would be the scariest spirit anyone has ever seen. Even slanting towards a smaller group of only 40 people, you still looking at over two thousand karma in a year! Increase the group size to 48 and your looking at over two hundred karma a month.

In under a year I imagine it'd be able to challenge a pack of Great Dragons and win. 2000 Karma is a lot of points to spend and buff up with, especially with the breadth of access to fun things that Spirits have if you can get the karma for them.

[AllTheNothing]

Don't forget that Friendship pact caps the spirit force to the number of people involved, if something brings down the number of people that has made the pact with the spirit the force is going down (and the GM will make sure it will happen at a certain point), on the other hand a Life pact, Drain pact, Magic pact and Power pact can be very tempting for metahumans granting a (posibly) lower karma gains within short timeframe but allowing to eventualy reach higher force in the long run (the magic group can still be befriended/exploited after all).

[Neraph]

Don't forget that Friendship pact caps the spirit force to the number of people involved, if something brings down the number of people that has made the pact with the spirit the force is going down (and the GM will make sure it will happen at a certain point), on the other hand a Life pact, Drain pact, Magic pact and Power pact can be very tempting for metahumans granting a (posibly) lower karma gains within short timeframe but allowing to eventualy reach higher force in the long run (the magic group can still be befriended/exploited after all).

Why not multiples? A basic, no frills added Free Spirit PC can get 3 Spirit Pacts. Drain, Life, and another one of your choice (you're not going to stay F4-ish long enough to worry about the 30 - Force days from being disrupted).