Possession Tradition Tactical Manual, for GMs as well as players Options

[knasser]

Run away, delay, isolate, and call for backup is standard practice for security grunts. Why should it not be used against possessed teddy bears?

Beats me. People seem to have this idea that the GM has to provide a series of rooms where characters progress from encounter to encounter. I don't know about you, but my games are nothing like that. First game I ran with my last group, they marched into the complex after their target and proceeded to kick in doors to find him. He watched them on the security cameras until they'd moved away from his exit route, and then he walked out of the building.

[knasser]

No one seems to have mentioned it, but you're limited to the number of focii to be equal to or less than your logic attribute.

Very good catch. Welcome to Dumpshock, btw. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

K.

[Mantis]

Actually its logic limits number of active foci and Magic limits total number of foci. Magic x 5 limits total ratings of foci. SR4a pg 199. either way though, no way Bear Girl can use all those.

[Patrick the Gnom...]

Let me propose a slightly different build, one with more individual survivability, although still no real outside combat use.

Shapeshifter: Bear
Voodoo Tradition

Attributes
Body: 10
Agility: 3
Reaction: 3
Strength: 7
Charisma: 5
Intuition: 1
Logic: 2
Willpower: 4
Edge: 3
Magic: 5

Skills
Summoning(Guardian Spirits): 5
Counterspelling (Combat): 5
Spellcasting (Combat): 1
Binding (Guardian): 1

Qualities
Restricted Gear x2(Military Grade Armor and force 4 power focus)
Magician
Mentor Spirit (Sun, Guardian, Combat)
Combat Monster
Hunted 3
Some other 10 point Negative quality I don't feel like looking up right now

Spells
Armor
Stunbolt
Increased Reflexes

Gear
Military Grade Armor
Power Focus 4
Sustaining Focus 2
Modded Ares Alpha (Ex-rounds in clip)
Mods (Not really certain if all these are neccessary, just buying all the recoil mods I know stack)
-High Velocity
-Powered Folding Stock
-Sling (Doesn't stack for recoil, I know, but I can have the weapon ready and not actually be carrying it)
-Personalized Grip
Accessories
-Gas Vent 3
-Gyro Stabilization (annoying to carry around, only for when things get really hairy)
-Shock Pad

Bound Spirits (Force 5)
Guardian (2 services) (Psychokinesis)
Guardian (2 services) (Concealment)
Guardian (3 services) (Automatics)
Man (3 services) (Armor)
Man (3 servces) (Stunbolt)

There, something sufficiently broken and yet playable for my standards. This character has 18 dice for binding tests, 9 dice to resist drain, edge for when things get hokey, a number of bound spirits with large amounts of services, 28 dice to resist damage when not possessed + 15 regen dice, a nice gun for those silly guys at ranged (assume a long list of cheap vision mods is on here), and some spell essentials for when magic really becomes a problem. With full preparation and a force 8 Guardian spirit, this character has a reaction of 11, 55 dice to resist bullets (18 Bod + 18 Military + 16 ITNW + 3 Spirit's Armor Spell), 17 boxes on his physical track and 26 regen dice when possessed, an 18P -2 AP weapon that it fires with 21 dice (spirit can use an external smartlink), 16 dice for counterspelling (Guardian Spirits get it as a base skill and as long as your not chanelling you get to use the spirit's mental attributes for resistance). The only low point to this build is the fact that he can get surprised, meaning that he'll have to use his force 5 bound guardian spirit for combat instead of summoning a force 8, and that drain is still a bitch, he's still going to take as much as 4 or 5 drain on bad rolls even with edge, although that shouldn't happen too often. He also relies on military grade armor, meaning he won't be fully effective unless obvious illegality isn't an issue, so maybe some secondary, more legal armor is in order. Still, against a threat meant to challenge an entire team of runners, he stands alone as a beat machine, able to withstand any mundane threat and highly resistant to most magical ones. Now let the debate rage on!

also, @knasser- I'm highly aware that Ally spirits break possession beyond repair. I've just been focusing on chargen/early game issues, Ally spirits require a large amount of karma to become truly fearsome and I don't want someone arguing that anybody could be broken once they've got 40 or 50 karma under their belt.

[knasser]

Let me propose a slightly different build, one with more individual survivability, although still no real outside combat use.

Shapeshifter: Bear
Voodoo Tradition

Attributes
Body: 10
Agility: 3
Reaction: 3
Strength: 7
Charisma: 5
Intuition: 1
Logic: 2
Willpower: 4
Edge: 3
Magic: 5

Skills
Summoning(Guardian Spirits): 5
Counterspelling (Combat): 5
Spellcasting (Combat): 1
Binding (Guardian): 1

Qualities
Restricted Gear x2(Military Grade Armor and force 4 power focus)
Magician
Mentor Spirit (Sun, Guardian, Combat)
Combat Monster
Hunted 3
Some other 10 point Negative quality I don't feel like looking up right now

Spells
Armor
Stunbolt
Increased Reflexes

Gear
Military Grade Armor
Power Focus 4
Sustaining Focus 2
Modded Ares Alpha (Ex-rounds in clip)
Mods (Not really certain if all these are neccessary, just buying all the recoil mods I know stack)
-High Velocity
-Powered Folding Stock
-Sling (Doesn't stack for recoil, I know, but I can have the weapon ready and not actually be carrying it)
-Personalized Grip
Accessories
-Gas Vent 3
-Gyro Stabilization (annoying to carry around, only for when things get really hairy)
-Shock Pad

Bound Spirits (Force 5)
Guardian (2 services) (Psychokinesis)
Guardian (2 services) (Concealment)
Guardian (3 services) (Automatics)
Man (3 services) (Armor)
Man (3 servces) (Stunbolt)

There, something sufficiently broken and yet playable for my standards. This character has 18 dice for binding tests, 9 dice to resist drain, edge for when things get hokey, a number of bound spirits with large amounts of services, 28 dice to resist damage when not possessed + 15 regen dice, a nice gun for those silly guys at ranged (assume a long list of cheap vision mods is on here), and some spell essentials for when magic really becomes a problem. With full preparation and a force 8 Guardian spirit, this character has a reaction of 11, 55 dice to resist bullets (18 Bod + 18 Military + 16 ITNW + 3 Spirit's Armor Spell), 17 boxes on his physical track and 26 regen dice when possessed, an 18P -2 AP weapon that it fires with 21 dice (spirit can use an external smartlink), 16 dice for counterspelling (Guardian Spirits get it as a base skill and as long as your not chanelling you get to use the spirit's mental attributes for resistance). The only low point to this build is the fact that he can get surprised, meaning that he'll have to use his force 5 bound guardian spirit for combat instead of summoning a force 8, and that drain is still a bitch, he's still going to take as much as 4 or 5 drain on bad rolls even with edge, although that shouldn't happen too often. He also relies on military grade armor, meaning he won't be fully effective unless obvious illegality isn't an issue, so maybe some secondary, more legal armor is in order. Still, against a threat meant to challenge an entire team of runners, he stands alone as a beat machine, able to withstand any mundane threat and highly resistant to most magical ones. Now let the debate rage on!

also, @knasser- I'm highly aware that Ally spirits break possession beyond repair. I've just been focusing on chargen/early game issues, Ally spirits require a large amount of karma to become truly fearsome and I don't want someone arguing that anybody could be broken once they've got 40 or 50 karma under their belt.

That's a bit nicer. You've gone less all out to reach extremes of brokeness than the earlier attempt and consequently managed to make a more viable character. I do have some comments to make on it but I'll have to do it tomorrow as I'm about to crash. I'll just note that you give up a lot of the versatility of a magician in terms of spells and spellcasting ability to achieve this character. Also, you managed to pick the worst flaw in the book, imo - Combat Monster. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) But it's a more interesting build and less of an easily tripped up glass hammer than the other. You also taken non-average drain rolls into consideration. I'll make some fuller comments later.

Peace,

K.

[Whipstitch]

Wrong approach. If we're dealing with spirits as powerful as people have been casually talking about in this thread, then just hit them with magic or other spirits. Keep in mind that when channelling, you resist mana spells and powers with the lowest mental attributes of the pair. And close combat in the astral is no nicer than close combat on the Physical. Wolf-pack the magician with a few Force 5's and they'll learn the dangers of exposing themselves to threats the rest of the team can't help them with.

Oh, agreed. I'm a big believer in using the astral against the dual natured, and I think it's one of the biggest weaknesses they have that people rarely want to talk about. For one thing, purely astral forms gain an extra initiative pass over their materialized versions. I was just making the general observation that burst fire isn't completely useless for mundanes dealing with high hardened armor thresholds-- you just have to weigh the benefits of a wide bursts against narrow more carefully than usual. It's not a great option for a Force 8 possessed outlier, but against more typical magical threats it's definitely something for the Samurai and riggers of the world to keep in mind.

[rumanchu]

, 28 dice to resist damage when not possessed + 15 regen dice, a nice gun for those silly guys at ranged (assume a long list of cheap vision mods is on here)

I have to be honest here...when I read an example like this, the first thing that comes to mind isn't that possession is broken; I sure get the feeling that SHIFTERS are broken, though. Take the Magic out of the equation, shift some points around here and there, and you have a beast of a street samurai.

Sure, I get it...this guy is bad enough without having a Force 8 spirit possessing him, so of course he's going to be ridiculous with a Force 8 spirit possessing him. That still doesn't show me that as a rule possession mages are broken.

Show me some numbers with a stock Radical Eco-Shaman turned possession mage that are mind-blowingly uber-powerful and I might get more of a sense of the moral outrage that the possession power raises up in you, but all that I get out of these exercises in breaking the chargen rules is that it's possible to break the chargen rules.

[rumanchu]

double post

[sn0mm1s]

OK, I sat down and actually created a troll possession mage. The *only* thing wonky about it is that he would create his own tradition... probably something called "Manifest Destiny" or whatever. He basically only summons spirits that look like people or animals (Guardian, Guidance, Task, Man, Beast).
Base Stats:

[ Spoiler ]

Body 9

Agility 1

Reaction 5

Strength 5

Charisma 3

Int 2

Logic 4

Willpower 5

Edge 2

Magic 6

Logic and Willpower are the drain stats (if I wanted to powergame more I would have the tradition be willpower and intuition.. but meh).

The above costs 40 (metatype) 180 (atts) 75 (special atts) = 295 BP.

His qualities cancel out. He has a Mentor spirit (sun), 3x restricted equipment, and magician for positive qualities and Sensitive System and the one where you owe people money x 4 (so he starts with 20K more money).

His skills are:

Summoning 4, with a specialization in guardian

Binding 6, with a specialization in guardian

spellcasting 4 with a specialization in manipulation

62 BP (up to 357)

His only spell is: Mana Static (this is reduce the force of spirits when/if uncontrolled and to combat enemy mages by lowering their magic assuming lowering the force of his force 8 spirit is not going to hurt nearly as much as doing the same to other mages/lower spirits).

3BP (up to 360)

No contacts.

He has 2 bound force 6 spirits:

Task (with First Aid as a skill) and 4 services

Man (with Mana Static as a spell) and 2 services

6BP (up to 366)

With one restricted item he picks up a level 4 power focus

Cost = 100K, (20BP) binding = 4BP.

(up to 390 BP)

With the second restricted item he picks up the Spirit binding material for a Force 8 spirit = 4000

With the third (and last) restricted item he picks up the heavy military armor 20K (now remember that I have the "i owe money" quality so that will pay for this).

I pick up the upgraded military helmet = 18500 and the following mods:

radiation shielding rating 6 (to protect from lasers) 1200

gyromount 4000

chemical seal 5000

non conductivity rating 6 1200

str upgrade rating 3 - 4500

quick release - 500

medkit rating 6 - 600

ballistic shield 1500

This totals 41000 leaving 9000 for whatever gun you think is best and any more upgrades you want to shove into your military helmet.

Now, here comes the tricky part... binding a Force 8 spirit at character creation.

First thing I tell my task spirit to use my medkit and heal me when I am hurt (the force 6 spirit has 18 dice toward first aid using the medkit).

I summon the force 8 spirit.

I resist drain and have my task spirit apply first aid, the only thing I care about here is having no boxes of damage after a successful summoning (I have 18 dice towards summoning a Force 8 guardian spirit, and 9 dice for drain, I will not use Edge for either test).

If I am not at full health I release my spirit and try again a different day.

If I am at full health I start the binding process (this takes 8 hours of doing god knows what).

I tell my spirit of man to possess me and get me out of wherever I am if I go unconscious - my task spirit still is supposed to heal when it can.

I then do my binding, I have 20 dice vs. the spirit's 16, I use Edge on this test.

Once I bind the spirit I use Edge on my drain test (using all my Edge up) and hope to not take 13 boxes of damage once all is said and done.

All Edge tests are rerolls, not additional with exploding 6s.

Now I have my Force 8 bound spirit. When possessed I have 58 ballistic soak, 54 impact soak, all the goodies to prevent gas/toxins/electricity/lasers and a minimum of 16 dice towards counterspelling.

My stats are now

Body 17

Agility 9

Reaction 13

Strength 16 (the suit adds 3 str)

Cha 8

Int 8

Logic 8

Willpower 8

Edge 8

Magic 8

I also am assuming I give my guardian spirit the skill of whatever gun I sink my money into.

The final piece is what is the likelihood of the binding being successful and you not dying? Well, the math would be a nightmare to do... so I wrote a program that simulated the process.

I assumed that if you went unconscious you probably still died... but who knows what 2 force 6 spirits can do against a force 8.

Trying this process 100000 times you successfully summon with no boxes of damage about

78% of the time. Thankfully you only die from the summoning about 50 times. Which means it is a pretty safe bet to attempt the summoning.

The binding success rate is good too. Overall you successfully bind the spirit about 72% of the time (that is including the summoning failures). If you assume you are only binding if the summoning is successful (which is really the only thing that can happen), if you summoned the spirit you bind it about 92% of the time.

Unfortunately, your likelihood of dying during binding goes up too. Overall you die about 4% of the time. Again though, if you are looking at it as only dying from binding if you are successful summoning you die about 5% of the time. The good news is that rebinding isn't nearly so deadly and that if you *do* bind the spirit you get about 6 services out of it.


EDIT:

On top of this you could also have a spirit possess the armor you are using on top of you being possessed by the Force 8 spirit. I am not sure how the ItNW would stack but arguably you would have another 12 hardened armor stacking... giving 70 soak dice vs ballistic and 66 vs impact.

[McCummhail]

I would like to point out the wonders of spoiler tags.

[ Spoiler ]

For extremely long posts, especially character write-ups, they are a handy tool to keeping a thread readable.

Show me some numbers with a stock Radical Eco-Shaman turned possession mage that are mind-blowingly uber-powerful and I might get more of a sense of the moral outrage that the possession power raises up in you, but all that I get out of these exercises in breaking the chargen rules is that it's possible to break the chargen rules.

You make a very solid point. Shifters are easily over the top (although I have never seen bear-shaped mil-spec armor), and character creation can be abused quite heavily.
However, you will encounter players that push or break the system. Some will do it to satisfy an outlying concept, some will do it because they can.
My concern with possession is an extension of the tendency for magic to overshadow other elements and players.

An interesting tactic that pushes this:

[ Spoiler ]

A psionic tradition magic user is capable of summoning task spirits. Task spirits can be summoned with any technical or physical skill in place of a power as an "optional power". We suddenly have magical skill wires!
Magical Skillwires surpass even mundane skillwires. Summoning a force 5 is all that is needed.

You can do the task yourself or even make someone else do it.
Making someone else do it will often be better:

Need to get into that door?
Possess the mook guarding the door with a task spirit and he can wire the door open for you (electronics).
Need company intel?
You could possess a mook to send you information in an email (computer).
Just want him out of the way?
Have him climb / jump somewhere he can't safely return from (athletics).

There is technically nothing that prevents you from having a tradition with both task and gaurdian.
This grants you combat, technical, and physical skills (though not all together).

The rating 8 spirit from before in a psionicist with channelling and a decently loaded commlink rivals most dedicated hackers (you will be limited to AR, though this may not be an issue depending on optional rules).

[pbangarth]

I would like to point out the wonders of spoiler tags.

My concern with possession is an extension of the tendency for magic to overshadow other elements and players.

An interesting tactic that pushes this:

[ Spoiler ]

A psionic tradition magic user is capable of summoning task spirits. Task spirits can be summoned with any technical or physical skill in place of a power as an "optional power". We suddenly have magical skill wires!
Magical Skillwires surpass even mundane skillwires. Summoning a force 5 is all that is needed.

You can do the task yourself or even make someone else do it.
Making someone else do it will often be better:

Need to get into that door?
Possess the mook guarding the door with a task spirit and he can wire the door open for you (electronics).
Need company intel?
You could possess a mook to send you information in an email (computer).
Just want him out of the way?
Have him climb / jump somewhere he can't safely return from (athletics).

There is technically nothing that prevents you from having a tradition with both task and gaurdian.
This grants you combat, technical, and physical skills (though not all together).

The rating 8 spirit from before in a psionicist with channelling and a decently loaded commlink rivals most dedicated hackers (you will be limited to AR, though this may not be an issue depending on optional rules).

OF course, all of this could be done with a Task (or other) spirit without Possession.

[pbangarth]

OK, I sat down and actually created a troll possession mage. The *only* thing wonky about it is that he would create his own tradition... probably something called "Manifest Destiny" or whatever. He basically only summons spirits that look like people or animals (Guardian, Guidance, Task, Man, Beast).
Base Stats:

[ Spoiler ]

Body 9

Agility 1

Reaction 5

Strength 5

Charisma 3

Int 2

Logic 4

Willpower 5

Edge 2

Magic 6

Logic and Willpower are the drain stats (if I wanted to powergame more I would have the tradition be willpower and intuition.. but meh).

The above costs 40 (metatype) 180 (atts) 75 (special atts) = 295 BP.

His qualities cancel out. He has a Mentor spirit (sun), 3x restricted equipment, and magician for positive qualities and Sensitive System and the one where you owe people money x 4 (so he starts with 20K more money).

His skills are:

Summoning 4, with a specialization in guardian

Binding 6, with a specialization in guardian

spellcasting 4 with a specialization in manipulation

62 BP (up to 357)

His only spell is: Mana Static (this is reduce the force of spirits when/if uncontrolled and to combat enemy mages by lowering their magic assuming lowering the force of his force 8 spirit is not going to hurt nearly as much as doing the same to other mages/lower spirits).

3BP (up to 360)

No contacts.

He has 2 bound force 6 spirits:

Task (with First Aid as a skill) and 4 services

Man (with Mana Static as a spell) and 2 services

6BP (up to 366)

With one restricted item he picks up a level 4 power focus

Cost = 100K, (20BP) binding = 4BP.

(up to 390 BP)

With the second restricted item he picks up the Spirit binding material for a Force 8 spirit = 4000

With the third (and last) restricted item he picks up the heavy military armor 20K (now remember that I have the "i owe money" quality so that will pay for this).

I pick up the upgraded military helmet = 18500 and the following mods:

radiation shielding rating 6 (to protect from lasers) 1200

gyromount 4000

chemical seal 5000

non conductivity rating 6 1200

str upgrade rating 3 - 4500

quick release - 500

medkit rating 6 - 600

ballistic shield 1500

This totals 41000 leaving 9000 for whatever gun you think is best and any more upgrades you want to shove into your military helmet.

Now, here comes the tricky part... binding a Force 8 spirit at character creation.

First thing I tell my task spirit to use my medkit and heal me when I am hurt (the force 6 spirit has 18 dice toward first aid using the medkit).

I summon the force 8 spirit.

I resist drain and have my task spirit apply first aid, the only thing I care about here is having no boxes of damage after a successful summoning (I have 18 dice towards summoning a Force 8 guardian spirit, and 9 dice for drain, I will not use Edge for either test).

If I am not at full health I release my spirit and try again a different day.

If I am at full health I start the binding process (this takes 8 hours of doing god knows what).

I tell my spirit of man to possess me and get me out of wherever I am if I go unconscious - my task spirit still is supposed to heal when it can.

I then do my binding, I have 20 dice vs. the spirit's 16, I use Edge on this test.

Once I bind the spirit I use Edge on my drain test (using all my Edge up) and hope to not take 13 boxes of damage once all is said and done.

All Edge tests are rerolls, not additional with exploding 6s.

Now I have my Force 8 bound spirit. When possessed I have 58 ballistic soak, 54 impact soak, all the goodies to prevent gas/toxins/electricity/lasers and a minimum of 16 dice towards counterspelling.

My stats are now

Body 17

Agility 9

Reaction 13

Strength 16 (the suit adds 3 str)

Cha 8

Int 8

Logic 8

Willpower 8

Edge 8

Magic 8

I also am assuming I give my guardian spirit the skill of whatever gun I sink my money into.

The final piece is what is the likelihood of the binding being successful and you not dying? Well, the math would be a nightmare to do... so I wrote a program that simulated the process.

I assumed that if you went unconscious you probably still died... but who knows what 2 force 6 spirits can do against a force 8.

Trying this process 100000 times you successfully summon with no boxes of damage about

78% of the time. Thankfully you only die from the summoning about 50 times. Which means it is a pretty safe bet to attempt the summoning.

The binding success rate is good too. Overall you successfully bind the spirit about 72% of the time (that is including the summoning failures). If you assume you are only binding if the summoning is successful (which is really the only thing that can happen), if you summoned the spirit you bind it about 92% of the time.

Unfortunately, your likelihood of dying during binding goes up too. Overall you die about 4% of the time. Again though, if you are looking at it as only dying from binding if you are successful summoning you die about 5% of the time. The good news is that rebinding isn't nearly so deadly and that if you *do* bind the spirit you get about 6 services out of it.


EDIT:

On top of this you could also have a spirit possess the armor you are using on top of you being possessed by the Force 8 spirit. I am not sure how the ItNW would stack but arguably you would have another 12 hardened armor stacking... giving 70 soak dice vs ballistic and 66 vs impact.

This is kind of interesting. So, if I understand this character correctly, standard operating procedures (SOPs) lead to death one time in twenty... damage of some sort considerably more often. Plus, he has no Edge for at least the first run after each Binding.

The procedure listed above uses Restricted Gear to get the binding materials the first time. After that, the character has to get them through regular/irregular channels. Availability 16 requires a Negotiation +Charisma (16, 2 days) Test. But he has no Negotiation Skill, so he defaults to 2 dice from his CHA 3. To get 16 successes. Every time he wants to activate his SOPs. The ones that kill him one time out of twenty. And the evasion of damage requires the use of bound Force 6 spirits which only require materials that come from a Negotiation +Charisma (12, 2 days) Tests. With 2 dice.

Do I have this straight?

So when he fails the acquisition of Binding materials, he's stuck with Summoned spirits only. At least, they don't kill him as often.

[McCummhail]

OF course, all of this could be done with a Task (or other) spirit without Possession.

You are correct in that task spirits have the ability to use skills without the need for possession.
However Possession + Task spirits opens up possibilities that task spirits, possession or mental manipulations alone could not achieve.

One example is to have the mook from the previous example sabotage something he is guarding with a skill he does not possess.

The goal was to highlight a tactic available to possession traditions. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)
There are also a number of situations where it is more useful to have a skill personally than to summon a minion who can use it.

[sn0mm1s]

This is kind of interesting. So, if I understand this character correctly, standard operating procedures (SOPs) lead to death one time in twenty... damage of some sort considerably more often. Plus, he has no Edge for at least the first run after each Binding.

The procedure listed above uses Restricted Gear to get the binding materials the first time. After that, the character has to get them through regular/irregular channels. Availability 16 requires a Negotiation +Charisma (16, 2 days) Test. But he has no Negotiation Skill, so he defaults to 2 dice from his CHA 3. To get 16 successes. Every time he wants to activate his SOPs. The ones that kill him one time out of twenty. And the evasion of damage requires the use of bound Force 6 spirits which only require materials that come from a Negotiation +Charisma (12, 2 days) Tests. With 2 dice.

Do I have this straight?

So when he fails the acquisition of Binding materials, he's stuck with Summoned spirits only. At least, they don't kill him as often.

No, the 1st binding attempt leads to a death 1 time in twenty only if the 2 force 6 spirits on standby can't save you from an uncontrolled force 8. You can't really model that, plus the spirit is a possession spirit so it can't materialize... it would have to either possess you (but you have the spirit on standby to do that if you go unconscious) or it has to go possess someone else. It is likely that you could get away alive... but I just put forth the worst case scenario.

Rebinding would almost never result in a death since the bound spirit does not become uncontrolled on a rebinding.

Generally speaking, *most* groups of runners have a face that can do negotiations for you. I mean, it isn't like everyone negotiates their own deal with a Mr. Johnson.

[svenftw]

plus the spirit is a possession spirit so it can't materialize... it would have to either possess you (but you have the spirit on standby to do that if you go unconscious) or it has to go possess someone else.

Spirits don't materialize(/possess) when they are summoned, they manifest. A possession spirit can still manifest, so that part of the summoning wouldn't change.

[Walpurgisborn]

hmmm, does that mean a possession spirit that you fail your summon check on, might just stick around astally, waiting to rip you a new one?

I kinda like that idea, a spirit patiently waiting to murder you if you ever go astral.

[sn0mm1s]

Spirits don't materialize(/possess) when they are summoned, they manifest. A possession spirit can still manifest, so that part of the summoning wouldn't change.

I was under the impression that to affect the physical world, not communicate, that a spirit either needs to materialize or possess something. If you screw up the binding of a materialization spirit they can do just that. The Force 8 spirit would need to possess either the person being possessed by the task spirit... or the summoner before the summoner is possessed by the spirit of man on stand by.

[svenftw]

I read it again and see what you are saying now. At first I thought you were saying that the possession happens during the summoning process. If a spirit breaks loose all bets are off, obviously.

[knasser]

plus the spirit is a possession spirit so it can't materialize... it would have to either possess you (but you have the spirit on standby to do that if you go unconscious) or it has to go possess someone else.

Just a mention, but if you go unconscious, then it's a race between your bound spirits and the hostile one. But if your bound spirit does possess you first, then you've just opened yourself up to being beaten on by the hostile spirit by becoming dual natured (as well as hampering the bound spirit by tying him to a physical form and starting his damage track off at nearly unconscious). If the hostile spirit wins, it's game over your bound spirits can't drive him off without hurting you.

[knasser]

hmmm, does that mean a possession spirit that you fail your summon check on, might just stick around astally, waiting to rip you a new one?

I kinda like that idea, a spirit patiently waiting to murder you if you ever go astral.

Spirits are never obliged to leave once their services are completed. That's true of materialisation spirits and possession spirits. Of course, if you've invited the possession spirit to control your body, then it's a considerably more serious matter. Dangerous either way, though. You should always treat your spirits respectfully. Normally, I don't have spirits stick around, but it depends on their personality, and the higher force the stronger that personality is. I've had beast spirits stay on because they're enjoying the combat too much. Doesn't happen often, though.

K.

[Patrick the Gnom...]

Spirits don't materialize(/possess) when they are summoned, they manifest. A possession spirit can still manifest, so that part of the summoning wouldn't change.

But they can't do anything to you when they're manifested, even if you were astrally perceiving during the ritual, you'd stop immediately once you passed out, and then it has to possess something to do something to you, which, if you're in your magical lodge, leaves it with somewhat limited options once your stand-by sprit has possessed you. I don't know though, I still think it's better to bite the drain and summon a high force spirit for a mission than actually risk death when binding it. Sure, the drain's going to hurt, but it's not going to outright kill you, and with a decent drain pool and bound task spirits with first aid, you can definetly bring drain down to manageable levels, even down to nothing. Plus, you'd never summon a high force spirit in combat or when time is an issue, situations like that call for lower force bound spirits who, while not quite as broken as a force 8 summon, can certainly make you the equal of any street sam. When you did summon a force 8, it would be at the beginning of the day or any time when you'd definitely have enough time to get first aid afterwards. Then you'd keep it on standby, at which point it's just like a bound spirit 'til the end of the day. Sure, every once in a while when you and your task spirit rolled extremely poorly and the force 8 rolled rather well you'd have to deal with 5P or so on your track, but more often than not it would be more like 1 or 2, well worth it for +8 to all your physical stats and an increase of all your mental stats to 8 and 16 ITNW.

And considering that a topic of interest so far has been the comparison of materialization spirits to possession spirits, lets look at the benefits a force 8 materialization spirit would give you has compared to a force 8 possession spirit.

Advantage of Possession spirits 1) Possession spirits can wear armor and have weapons
A force 8 possession spirit can wear armor fitted for whatever it's possessing, adding usually about 6 to its armor and as much as 18. How do you put armor on a materialization spirit? Are you going to use a service to get something fitted for an Aztec Guardian Spirit in the form of a Jaguar? And even if you do find armor that fits, how long is it going to take to put it on the spirit everytime in materializes? In the case of weapons, a materialization spirit, depending on its form and your tradition, may be able to carry a weapon if you carry one around for it and give it to him when he materializes, while you could either do the same for the possession spirit or have it use whatever weapons the body it possesses uses.

Advanatage of Possession spirits 2) Possession spirits almost always have higher attributes
Considering that guardian spirits tend to make the best combat spirits (IMO, not really a debate point), I'll use that for my example. In any situation where a possession mage is fighting living creatures and has a spirit as powerful as force 8 under his command he will be able to possess one of his enemies and gain its attributes, weapons, and armor. Sample attributes for guards given in SR4a gives them Body, Agility, and Strength of 3 and a Reaction of 4, 5 points higher than the stats of a materialized guardian spirit. And this advantage only increases with the power of your enemies. In a situation where a mage is fighting mechanical enemies, a possession spirit's options are more limited. While it's certainly possible for a spirit to possess a drone, the chances are a bit too low to rely on them in combat. In this situation, the materialization spirit has an offensive advantage, it can materialize and take the weapon you provide for it to deal effective damage against drones. But a possession spirit has a defensive advantage, it can possess you or your armor to make you virtually immune to a drone's bullets while you assault the drones with lightning bolts, and honestly, spells are really the better answer to drones than materialization or possession spirits anyway. Finally there's the magic opposition, which can take the form of a spirit vs spirit battle, a mage vs spirit battle, or an astral form vs spirit battle. In spirit vs spirit, it ends as either a tie or an advantage for the possession spirit, it will either have higher stats on the material plane than a materialization spirit or equal stats on the astral plane. This pattern persists for astral forms, who will have equal stats for astral combat. In a mage vs spirit battle, the spirit will possess the mage and win by jumping out a window and unpossessing before the fall. Seriously, I don't care how much you've buffed your intuition and willpower, they're still not 16. A materialization spirit in this situation gets hosed by a stunbolt the turn after it materializes because it can't take anything out on the turn it enters battle.

Advantage of Possession spirits 3) Possession spirits have mind control
Self-explanatory and mentioned earlier in this thread, a possession spirit takes out one enemy when it enters the battle. A materialization spirit has to take a turn materializing before it can do anything, and any enemy you meet is going to have a whole lot less trouble mowing down an energy being than his own ally. If your opponents have the means of taking out a force 8 spirit, at the very least they'll have to take out one of their allies too when you're using possession spirits.

Advantage of Possession 4) Channeling
A mage may use his possession spirit to buff his own stats, something that materialization spirits have no equivalent for. This can mean better mental stats for drain and a higher magic rating and more physical attributes for dodging and taking bullets, not to mention ITNW thrown into the bargain. This is something that materialization has no answer to and the main reason why possession is always a better option for summoners.

Advantage of Materialization 1)
Materialization spirits don't need a body or an object in order to appear, they just do. At lower forces and against drones this advantage is at its greatest. A summoner can summon a number of force 3 or so spirits onto a battlefield and have all of them be effective without having to worry about finding bodies for all of them. Of course, in most battles this is just going to mean a whole bunch of disrupted force 3 spirits, but it's a tactic. This also becomes important for utility summons, such as when you want to use search or something else which requires mobility. However, in most cases a well prepared possession mage can carry around prepared or natural vessls that even a low force spirit will be able to possess and gain the same benefit as a materialization mage would. Besides this, materialization spirits don't have anything that makes them a better choice than possession spirits.

I haven't seen anyone bring up anything that would justify preferring a materialization tradition over a possession tradition. Please, please, prove me wrong.

[sn0mm1s]

Just a mention, but if you go unconscious, then it's a race between your bound spirits and the hostile one. But if your bound spirit does possess you first, then you've just opened yourself up to being beaten on by the hostile spirit by becoming dual natured (as well as hampering the bound spirit by tying him to a physical form and starting his damage track off at nearly unconscious). If the hostile spirit wins, it's game over your bound spirits can't drive him off without hurting you.

Yeah, I am not saying it was likely to escape but if you have any other friends/runners with you it might be possible. Still, without the backup plan, you have a 5% chance of dying or a 95% chance of having a character with potentially 70 soak dice. I don't know how often runners die, but I don't know if I would expect to live through 20 out of 20 runs as a "normal" character.

[knasser]

Yeah, I am not saying it was likely to escape but if you have any other friends/runners with you it might be possible. Still, without the backup plan, you have a 5% chance of dying or a 95% chance of having a character with potentially 70 soak dice. I don't know how often runners die, but I don't know if I would expect to live through 20 out of 20 runs as a "normal" character.

Fair enough. A lot of this all has to do with playing styles. In my games, the first bear-shifter example would be killed off by her own team as a liability. In a game where "you enter a 10'x10' office. A Steel Lynx is guarding a prototype" sort of game, then it's less of a problem (though that particular character build is going to implode regardless anyway). If you're shrugging and saying 20 runs then make a new char, that's fine. My feel is that most people try to make a character last longer than that, but game styles vary. I'll point out though that a 1 in 20 chance of killing yourself doesn't mean you live through 20 sessions. It means on average you life through 10 as that bad roll can happen in any of those 20 games. If it happens, it's a 1 in 4 that it happens in the first five games, remember. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

K.

[svenftw]

I know sn0mm1s IRL so I can vouch for the fact that he is well aware such a character would never see an actual game table. At least one of *our* game tables.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

OK, I sat down and actually created a troll possession mage. The *only* thing wonky about it is that he would create his own tradition... probably something called "Manifest Destiny" or whatever. He basically only summons spirits that look like people or animals (Guardian, Guidance, Task, Man, Beast).
Base Stats:

[ Spoiler ]

Body 9

Agility 1

Reaction 5

Strength 5

Charisma 3

Int 2

Logic 4

Willpower 5

Edge 2

Magic 6

Logic and Willpower are the drain stats (if I wanted to powergame more I would have the tradition be willpower and intuition.. but meh).

The above costs 40 (metatype) 180 (atts) 75 (special atts) = 295 BP.

His qualities cancel out. He has a Mentor spirit (sun), 3x restricted equipment, and magician for positive qualities and Sensitive System and the one where you owe people money x 4 (so he starts with 20K more money).

His skills are:

Summoning 4, with a specialization in guardian

Binding 6, with a specialization in guardian

spellcasting 4 with a specialization in manipulation

62 BP (up to 357)

His only spell is: Mana Static (this is reduce the force of spirits when/if uncontrolled and to combat enemy mages by lowering their magic assuming lowering the force of his force 8 spirit is not going to hurt nearly as much as doing the same to other mages/lower spirits).

3BP (up to 360)

No contacts.

He has 2 bound force 6 spirits:

Task (with First Aid as a skill) and 4 services

Man (with Mana Static as a spell) and 2 services

6BP (up to 366)

With one restricted item he picks up a level 4 power focus

Cost = 100K, (20BP) binding = 4BP.

(up to 390 BP)

With the second restricted item he picks up the Spirit binding material for a Force 8 spirit = 4000

With the third (and last) restricted item he picks up the heavy military armor 20K (now remember that I have the "i owe money" quality so that will pay for this).

I pick up the upgraded military helmet = 18500 and the following mods:

radiation shielding rating 6 (to protect from lasers) 1200

gyromount 4000

chemical seal 5000

non conductivity rating 6 1200

str upgrade rating 3 - 4500

quick release - 500

medkit rating 6 - 600

ballistic shield 1500

This totals 41000 leaving 9000 for whatever gun you think is best and any more upgrades you want to shove into your military helmet.

Now, here comes the tricky part... binding a Force 8 spirit at character creation.

First thing I tell my task spirit to use my medkit and heal me when I am hurt (the force 6 spirit has 18 dice toward first aid using the medkit).

I summon the force 8 spirit.

I resist drain and have my task spirit apply first aid, the only thing I care about here is having no boxes of damage after a successful summoning (I have 18 dice towards summoning a Force 8 guardian spirit, and 9 dice for drain, I will not use Edge for either test).

If I am not at full health I release my spirit and try again a different day.

If I am at full health I start the binding process (this takes 8 hours of doing god knows what).

I tell my spirit of man to possess me and get me out of wherever I am if I go unconscious - my task spirit still is supposed to heal when it can.

I then do my binding, I have 20 dice vs. the spirit's 16, I use Edge on this test.

Once I bind the spirit I use Edge on my drain test (using all my Edge up) and hope to not take 13 boxes of damage once all is said and done.

All Edge tests are rerolls, not additional with exploding 6s.

Now I have my Force 8 bound spirit. When possessed I have 58 ballistic soak, 54 impact soak, all the goodies to prevent gas/toxins/electricity/lasers and a minimum of 16 dice towards counterspelling.

My stats are now

Body 17

Agility 9

Reaction 13

Strength 16 (the suit adds 3 str)

Cha 8

Int 8

Logic 8

Willpower 8

Edge 8

Magic 8

I also am assuming I give my guardian spirit the skill of whatever gun I sink my money into.

The final piece is what is the likelihood of the binding being successful and you not dying? Well, the math would be a nightmare to do... so I wrote a program that simulated the process.

I assumed that if you went unconscious you probably still died... but who knows what 2 force 6 spirits can do against a force 8.

Trying this process 100000 times you successfully summon with no boxes of damage about

78% of the time. Thankfully you only die from the summoning about 50 times. Which means it is a pretty safe bet to attempt the summoning.

The binding success rate is good too. Overall you successfully bind the spirit about 72% of the time (that is including the summoning failures). If you assume you are only binding if the summoning is successful (which is really the only thing that can happen), if you summoned the spirit you bind it about 92% of the time.

Unfortunately, your likelihood of dying during binding goes up too. Overall you die about 4% of the time. Again though, if you are looking at it as only dying from binding if you are successful summoning you die about 5% of the time. The good news is that rebinding isn't nearly so deadly and that if you *do* bind the spirit you get about 6 services out of it.


EDIT:

On top of this you could also have a spirit possess the armor you are using on top of you being possessed by the Force 8 spirit. I am not sure how the ItNW would stack but arguably you would have another 12 hardened armor stacking... giving 70 soak dice vs ballistic and 66 vs impact.

So, You deliberatly create a "Tradition" that has access to all of the very best spirits out there... Yeah, nothing wrong with that at all...

Keep the Faith