Binding spirits, What force spirit should I gennerally try to bind in this situation? Options

[Justin]

Lets say I have a magician focusing entirely on summoning and binding spirits. If he has Magic 6, Binding 6 (Summoning 4), a mentor spirit that adds 2 to Binding, and a rating 4 Power Focus... What force spirit should I generally go for? If my math is right, that is 18 dice for binding tests. My drain pool is 12, by the way (no cyberware or bioware to help with this yet. Just raw attributes so far).

If I have downtime between sessions, should I try to bind force 12 spirits? Will the drain from that be too much? Or should I summon something less, like level 9 spirits-- so the drain is less, and I get more services per spirit.

[TeOdio]

I would try and double the DM's pool for the opposed test to get some consistency (over the long run) and a decent amount of extra services each time you bind. With an 18 I would stick with force 4's and 5's. You certainly have enough mojo to rock 6's when needed, though.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)

[Justin]

Cool. I'll probably go for 6's simply because they get a second optional power then. Anyone know of any ways to increase my binding dice pool higher than this? I can only think of...

-Specialize for a spirit type for a +2 dice pool

-Initiate, and then raise my magic stat higher

-Buy and then bind a more powerful focus (but I already have a rating 4 power focus)

Am I missing any other ways to boost my binding dice pool?

[Karoline]

A force 12 spirit will kill you trying to bind it. It will have 24 dice to resist with (If it is nice enough to -not- use its edge on you) and can easily roll about 7 hits, which is 14 drain. You resist with 12 dice, which will get you about 4 hits, and leave you with 10 damage, which is generally enough to KO you, which means the spirit goes free and goes on a rampage.

If you burn edge on your drain test, expect to start seeing spirits burn their edge to resist the binding (Which would then be 36 exploding dice). In alot of ways it is a good idea to have a large number of very low force spirits (2-3) and then a small handful of higher force spirit. If you don't have anything coming up in the near future (Like several days to rest) then you could maybe get away with a 8-10 spirit, but it can be risky if it rolls decent. I wouldn't bother going above a force 7 spirit with your current DPs though. Still, a force 7 is great, especially when you can throw out a dozen force 3s to help it out. Most people will have plenty of trouble with a force 6, so don't feel too compelled to grab double digits.

[Justin]

A force 12 spirit will kill you trying to bind it. It will have 24 dice to resist with (If it is nice enough to -not- use its edge on you) and can easily roll about 7 hits, which is 14 drain. You resist with 12 dice, which will get you about 4 hits, and leave you with 10 damage, which is generally enough to KO you, which means the spirit goes free and goes on a rampage.

If you burn edge on your drain test, expect to start seeing spirits burn their edge to resist the binding (Which would then be 36 exploding dice). In alot of ways it is a good idea to have a large number of very low force spirits (2-3) and then a small handful of higher force spirit. If you don't have anything coming up in the near future (Like several days to rest) then you could maybe get away with a 8-10 spirit, but it can be risky if it rolls decent. I wouldn't bother going above a force 7 spirit with your current DPs though. Still, a force 7 is great, especially when you can throw out a dozen force 3s to help it out. Most people will have plenty of trouble with a force 6, so don't feel too compelled to grab double digits.

I usually have two or three weeks between sessions. We tend to link real-world time to game time, in this sense. So there is a lot of email and forum interaction with the GM-- so we are expected to let the GM know what we are working on.

So I'm trying to figure out how high of spirits I should try for, for my stable of minion-- I mean, spirits. No, seriously though... I'll be roleplaying the interaction between spirits, so I don't plan on abusing them. But if I have two weeks downtime every session in order to just bind spirits... I have 7 Charisma, so I can bind up to 7. With plenty of time to rest in between, do you think force 9 might be viable? I should have the time and money to rebind them, as well as fully heal.

Also, other than cyberware and bioware, are there any other ways to increase my drain pool? I have my Willpower and Charisma at soft-cap. So I can raise each of those by one. But are there any other ways to go about it?

[JoelHalpern]

Going for high force spirits depends very much on how the GM is going to treat your using edge for drain, and when your edge will come back.

The problem is drain.
Lets assume that the GM will let you use edge for drain. Your expected success is dice*5/9, but that is basically your 50/50 number. You have 12 dice for drain. So you have a decent shot of getting 6 hits. And a good shot, with edge, of getting 5 hits.

Now, you have Will 5, and I will assume 5 body (because this is physical drain) which means you need to reduce the drain to 10 stay alive.
If you are binding an F9 spirit, it has a 10% chance of 9 successes. If it pulls that off, even with edge you probably don't get enough hits. Don't go there.

With an F8 spirit, you are facing a 10% chance of 16. That means that if the spirit gets lucky on its roll, you will have only about a 2/3 chance of surviving.

Personally, for something I am going to plan on regularly during down time, even a 1/30 chance of killing me is not a good trade.

In short, if you are crazy ambitious, and have lots of money, go for F8s.
For myself, I would go for F6s. You get two sets of specials, and 12 effective armor.
If you want to push it, go for F7s. You will face only a 4% chance of 16P drain, and about 1.5% chance of 18P. So you have about a net 3% chance of dying each time you try this trick. But at least you have a good shot of getting the spirit for taking this chance.

Yours,
Joel M. Halpern

[Karoline]

I usually have two or three weeks between sessions. We tend to link real-world time to game time, in this sense. So there is a lot of email and forum interaction with the GM-- so we are expected to let the GM know what we are working on.

So I'm trying to figure out how high of spirits I should try for, for my stable of minion-- I mean, spirits. No, seriously though... I'll be roleplaying the interaction between spirits, so I don't plan on abusing them. But if I have two weeks downtime every session in order to just bind spirits... I have 7 Charisma, so I can bind up to 7. With plenty of time to rest in between, do you think force 9 might be viable? I should have the time and money to rebind them, as well as fully heal.

Also, other than cyberware and bioware, are there any other ways to increase my drain pool? I have my Willpower and Charisma at soft-cap. So I can raise each of those by one. But are there any other ways to go about it?

You have about a 50/50 chance of getting a force 9 spirit bound if edge doesn't come into play, which isn't that great, and means very few services.

Possibilities for increasing your drain pool include improved charisma and willpower. Enough hits will negate the -2 penelty for sustaining, or you could summon a spirit of man to cast and sustain them on you (Though it'd have to be bound, so an expensive way to go about it), or into a sustaining focus, but would once again have to be a high force.

If I remember right, can't you use a binding focus to help on drain tests? Been a while since I read the rules on foci, so I could be wrong about that.

Edit: Can't you bind x2?

[Trigger]

If I remember right, can't you use a binding focus to help on drain tests? Been a while since I read the rules on foci, so I could be wrong about that.

You can't use a Binding Focus on the Drain test. The ONLY Focus that adds to resisting drain is the Metamagic: Centering Focus.

Yeah, not even Power Foci add to Drain tests, they only add to tests that involve your Magic attribute, but granted, any test that involves your Magic attribute.

So, I recommend Initiating, taking Centering, and then making or buying a Centering focus to really help with the drain.

[Octopiii]

Possibilities for increasing your drain pool include improved charisma and willpower. Enough hits will negate the -2 penelty for sustaining, or you could summon a spirit of man to cast and sustain them on you (Though it'd have to be bound, so an expensive way to go about it), or into a sustaining focus, but would once again have to be a high force.

Edit: Can't you bind x2?

Why would the Spirit of Man have to be bound? Continuous use of a power is something an unbound spirit can do. I think you are conflating the bound spirit service "spell sustaining" and the Spirit of Man power "Innate Spell".

And you can bind x forever, if you're willing to pay. Subsequent bindings give you + services = net hits, rather than the initial binding's + services = net hits - 1.

[Karoline]

You can't use a Binding Focus on the Drain test. The ONLY Focus that adds to resisting drain is the Metamagic: Centering Focus.

Yeah, not even Power Foci add to Drain tests, they only add to tests that involve your Magic attribute, but granted, any test that involves your Magic attribute.

So, I recommend Initiating, taking Centering, and then making or buying a Centering focus to really help with the drain.

I....... disagree

Summoning foci add their Force in dice to any attempt
to summon the appropriate type of spirit. Th ese dice may be
used for the Summoning Test, or they may be withheld to
help resist Drain.

And so does the book. SR4 p191

[Trigger]

I....... disagree


And so does the book. SR4 p191

But, it isn't stated like that anymore in SR4A. In fact, the section on Foci in SR4A say nothing about Drain use in the slightest... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/indifferent.gif)

Edit: Here is what that same section says in SR4A:

"Summoning foci add their Force in dice to any attempt to
summon the appropriate type of spirit. These dice may be used for the
Summoning Test, as long as the type of spirit is appropriate to the focus."

[Karoline]

Why would the Spirit of Man have to be bound? Continuous use of a power is something an unbound spirit can do. I think you are conflating the bound spirit service "spell sustaining" and the Spirit of Man power "Innate Spell".

And you can bind x forever, if you're willing to pay. Subsequent bindings give you + services = net hits, rather than the initial binding's + services = net hits - 1.

Sorry, keyboard was messing up and couldn't type. I meant: Can't you bind up to Cha x 2 spirits?

And you need it to be bound because in order to bind a spirit, you have to summon it first, and you can't have two summoned spirits at a time. You could have the spirit of man be unbound if you are renewing the binding on a bound spirit though, but if you are binding a new spirit the spirit of man will have to already be bound.

And that kinda sucks if they changed it in 4A, because it is so hard to increase your drain pool. Granted it likely should be or magic gets even more overpowered than it already is, but still, sucks that that is gone now.

[Octopiii]

It's up to CHA spirits bound at any one time.

I don't see anything preventing my from summoning a spirit of man in the morning, spending a service to cast and sustain Improve Attribute: Willpower on me until sunset, and then spending 6 hours binding it. They're called services for a reason. The spirit doesn't stop doing what you commanded it to do just because you're enslaving it more so than it already is.

[dirkformica]

If you’re building a new character or can adjust your overall attributes, my conjuration theorycraft using just the BBB goes kind of like this:

Elf with 4 or 5 Bod, 6 Cha, 5 Will, 6 Magic, at least 4 Edge, 6 Summon (spirits of man,) 4 Bind (man,) mentor spirit (dog for +2 to man,) minimum spells = Increase Cha + Increase Will, highest Power Focus you can get your hands on (for me that’s only 2,) and binding materials as necessary. That gets you about 18 dice to summon, and 16 dice to bind. Only 11 dice on that initial drain test, but that’s part of the reason for a minimum of 4 edge.

Steps during downtime:
1.) Summon force 6 spirit of man, reroll failures with edge. Average hits = 6 for initial test + 4 from edge rerolls = 10. Average Spirit resist = 2. So about 8 services. You might take a few points of drain, but since it’s stun, you can just take a nap. If things go really screwy you can always use more edge.
2.) Use 2 services to have the spirit sustain both Increase Attribute spells. Your drain dice should get an average of +8 dice (4 from each casting.)
3.) Bind the spirit. This part is up for debate since potentially the spirit is -4 to this test due to sustaining penalties, but these may be waived by many gms. Without penalties you have 16 dice to its 12. You will also be rerolling failures with edge. You average 5+3=8 hits to its 4. Use edge if necessary to reduce drain further.
4.) You now have a bound force 6 spirit of man with about 10 services.
5.) Rest until Edge refreshes.
6.) Now you can tackle serious spirits since you’ll have about 19 dice for drain. You can also use one of your Bound spirit’s services to provide Guard on you on the remote chance of a glitch.
7.) You can bind some more spirits with a different spell loadout, or try for a burlier summoned spirit the day of a big job. 18 dice on summon with rerolls gets you about 10 hits, so Force 9 looks good. That also gets you three additional optional powers. Worst case scenario you are facing 18 physical drain damage, which probably won’t come up, but just in case, you still have about 6 hits + 4 rerolls = 10 points knocked off. So you should live, just make sure you have a handy medic nearby with a med kit.
8.) Now, binding that force 9 monster may be too much of a hassle, but you can still pump out force 6 spirits of man at 3grand a pop pretty easily. And you can have about 10 of them if you really want.
9.) If you do try to bind, you can go for the same routine over again and boost your drain attributes by about +12 total. But facing a potential 36 drain should be damned daunting (even if your average is looking more like 12 physical.) Still, having about 23 drain dice is tempting.

If you have access to more than the base book there are, of course, more expanded options (Pixies absolutely RULE for this kind of a scenario, and restricted gear is always tasty for the force 4 power focus.) If you’re not going for an army, you can go for a logic tradition and get bioware like Cerebral Boosters, Platelet Factories, and Trauma dampener.

Of course, if you really don’t care about time in a hospital, you can go a completely different route and get as much Body as you possibly can out of Troll and just take the mega hit from drain. Make one of those Innate Spells Increased Body. A 15 Bod Troll mage with 17 or 18 drain dice would a force to be reckoned with.

[Wiggles Von Beer...]

I am a Spirit of Man, just chilling in my home meta-plane, doing Spirit of Man things. All of a sudden, I am ripped out of my normal existence and forced to appear in the material world, but hey - this might be cool. Maybe this meatbag has a good reason to engage me, or maybe I'll get to see some cool stuff.

What? You want me to amp up your willpower? Easy peasy, I'll help you resist drain like crazy. What are we up to next?

You- you want me to sustain this on you? While you attempt to bind me? You dick. You're going to use the help I'm giving you against me? I hope you drop dead during your ritual - I'll do my damned best to make it happen. And don't expect me to be happy if you succeed. I'll obey the letter of your instructions, but not their spirit. I have free will and sentience too, even if I don't have your disgusting organ-bag.

This message brought to you by People for the Ethical Treatment of Spirits.

[darthmord]

I am a Spirit of Man, just chilling in my home meta-plane, doing Spirit of Man things. All of a sudden, I am ripped out of my normal existence and forced to appear in the material world, but hey - this might be cool. Maybe this meatbag has a good reason to engage me, or maybe I'll get to see some cool stuff.

What? You want me to amp up your willpower? Easy peasy, I'll help you resist drain like crazy. What are we up to next?

You- you want me to sustain this on you? While you attempt to bind me? You dick. You're going to use the help I'm giving you against me? I hope you drop dead during your ritual - I'll do my damned best to make it happen. And don't expect me to be happy if you succeed. I'll obey the letter of your instructions, but not their spirit. I have free will and sentience too, even if I don't have your disgusting organ-bag.

This message brought to you by People for the Ethical Treatment of Spirits.

LOL, PETS

[Karoline]

It's up to CHA spirits bound at any one time.

I don't see anything preventing my from summoning a spirit of man in the morning, spending a service to cast and sustain Improve Attribute: Willpower on me until sunset, and then spending 6 hours binding it. They're called services for a reason. The spirit doesn't stop doing what you commanded it to do just because you're enslaving it more so than it already is.

True, I was basing it on the assumption that you wanted to bind something besides the spirit of man that you just summoned and burned a favor or two on raising your stats.

Hmm, interesting thought though, if spirits suffer the -2 for sustaining spells like people do, you could get it to sustain an improved charisma and willpower on you, thus giving you more of those stats, and then when you bind it it has a -4DP to resist binding ;p

Then you have spirits using edge to resist being bound, and your brain gets fried.

[Screaming Eagle]

I am a Spirit of Man, just chilling in my home meta-plane, doing Spirit of Man things. All of a sudden, I am ripped out of my normal existence and forced to appear in the material world, but hey - this might be cool. Maybe this meatbag has a good reason to engage me, or maybe I'll get to see some cool stuff.

What? You want me to amp up your willpower? Easy peasy, I'll help you resist drain like crazy. What are we up to next?

You- you want me to sustain this on you? While you attempt to bind me? You dick. You're going to use the help I'm giving you against me? I hope you drop dead during your ritual - I'll do my damned best to make it happen. And don't expect me to be happy if you succeed. I'll obey the letter of your instructions, but not their spirit. I have free will and sentience too, even if I don't have your disgusting organ-bag.

This message brought to you by People for the Ethical Treatment of Spirits.

Affirmative, anyone trying this kinda crap in my game is batting well for getting Spirit Bane : Man before the end of the season. If that try really hard before I'll give it to them before the end of the session.

Also PETS is now official in any game I run.

[Ascalaphus]

Hmm. Maybe it'd be neater to rule that while in a binding ceremony, a spirit can't perform services. Otherwise the result is just wrooooong.

(It can pick up the slack afterwards. Just not during the ceremony.)

[Justin]

Not that I would do this, abusing just the one spirit (sustaining spells while you bound it). But its got me thinking. What about if you already had bound spirits of man. Could they sustain spells to increase your drain pool, while you bound other spirits?

For instance, you summon and then bind a force 6 spirit of man (with the spells Enhance Willpower, and Enhance Charisma). After you bind him normally, you have him cast and sustain both spells (thats only two services, right?). Then could you summon and bind another spirit? Perhaps something higher force, which you need the larger drain pool to survive?

Or should I simply look at getting sustaining foci for these spells, just for summoning and binding purposes (and maybe occasionally in combat when I want to cast something big and have time to prepare)?

[Wiggles Von Beer...]

Hmm. Maybe it'd be neater to rule that while in a binding ceremony, a spirit can't perform services. Otherwise the result is just wrooooong.

(It can pick up the slack afterwards. Just not during the ceremony.)

The result isn't really wrong, it's just how the GM interprets spirit use. I tend to see high force summoned spirits as fleshed out NPCs, with their own motives and goals. A F2 Water spirit? Well, it just wants to have a good time and is more than happy to help the person who summoned it. A F8 earth spirit? Now, that's an NPC who, in all likelyhood, has metal attributes that exceed its summoner. It deserves a bit of fleshing out.

I know other GMs who essentially treat spirits like gear - summon them, use them, put them away til they're needed next. Both are valid interpretations.

[Karoline]

Not that I would do this, abusing just the one spirit (sustaining spells while you bound it). But its got me thinking. What about if you already had bound spirits of man. Could they sustain spells to increase your drain pool, while you bound other spirits?

For instance, you summon and then bind a force 6 spirit of man (with the spells Enhance Willpower, and Enhance Charisma). After you bind him normally, you have him cast and sustain both spells (thats only two services, right?). Then could you summon and bind another spirit? Perhaps something higher force, which you need the larger drain pool to survive?

Or should I simply look at getting sustaining foci for these spells, just for summoning and binding purposes (and maybe occasionally in combat when I want to cast something big and have time to prepare)?

That's exactly what I was saying earlier. You have to have the spirit of man sustaining spells bound so that it can be around while you summon and bind another spirit.

A force 6 shouldn't be too big of an issue to summon/bind with your DP, though expect to take a bit of stun damage. Thankfully you should be able to heal that in a few hours without much trouble, so good times for all.

[dirkformica]

Troll binder thoughts got me to take a look at Running Wild's expanded list of non-paranormal critters. If you have qualms with my listed method using the spirit of man you intend to bind to sustain the increased drain attribute spells, you can go a little further and bind 2 force 6 spirits of man, have one cast increase drain stat and increase willpower after the fact. This should get you the +8 to drain I mentioned earlier. Then have the second cast increase body and then Shapechange.

For best results you want to get your body up to 10 (start as a burly troll and skip the casting of increase body, or be something with about 6 body and get +4 average from the increase body spell.) You can now be turned into a Body 12 critter like an Elephant or Rhinoceros. Average spellcasting hits from the force 6 spirit should give you an additional +4 to that critter's 12 for about 16 body. This will give you a 16 point physical damage track. You can still use magical abilities while you are shapechanged.

Dwarf is probably a good one for this since you can reasonably hit the 10 augmented body for the shapechange, and you get a bonus to willpower. You should be able to get about 19 or 20 dice for drain. So you can take in the neighborhood of 21 drain and keep standing (about 26ish if you use edge.) So you can now summon force 13 spirits if you want to try. This would be a good strategy for those looking into the metamagic invoking too.

[Justin]

Troll binder thoughts got me to take a look at Running Wild's expanded list of non-paranormal critters. If you have qualms with my listed method using the spirit of man you intend to bind to sustain the increased drain attribute spells, you can go a little further and bind 2 force 6 spirits of man, have one cast increase drain stat and increase willpower after the fact. This should get you the +8 to drain I mentioned earlier. Then have the second cast increase body and then Shapechange.

For best results you want to get your body up to 10 (start as a burly troll and skip the casting of increase body, or be something with about 6 body and get +4 average from the increase body spell.) You can now be turned into a Body 12 critter like an Elephant or Rhinoceros. Average spellcasting hits from the force 6 spirit should give you an additional +4 to that critter's 12 for about 16 body. This will give you a 16 point physical damage track. You can still use magical abilities while you are shapechanged.

Dwarf is probably a good one for this since you can reasonably hit the 10 augmented body for the shapechange, and you get a bonus to willpower. You should be able to get about 19 or 20 dice for drain. So you can take in the neighborhood of 21 drain and keep standing (about 26ish if you use edge.) So you can now summon force 13 spirits if you want to try. This would be a good strategy for those looking into the metamagic invoking too.

This makes me very happy. In my pants. Was it good for anyone else too? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Ascalaphus]

Binding is a ceremony that takes Force hours. I'm not sure if it's meant to be done hands-free like spellcasting, since it also uses Force * 500 or 1000 nuyen (I forget) worth of incense and such.


What's wrong is using a spirit to sustain spells to strengthen you during the binding, while the act of sustaining weakens them, and using that difference against the spirit. Hence I why propose that no services be performed during the binding ceremony by the spirit it's aimed at.

Yeah, other spirits can help, but that's not quite as sick.