Making the most out of Invoking/Binding, How to handle the drain? Options

[Elfenlied]

With my current character, a Mage with a Magic attribute of 8 and Summoning/Binding 5, binding spirits with invoke has been a bit of a gamble. While I've bound a F6 Air Spirit in Great Form, any subsequent attempts have usually ended with me eating 16+ points of drain, which, needless to say, renders the whole ability kinda useless.

So, how can I make this more reliable? I've got no Foci thus far, but my lifestyle incorporates an aspected domain. Summoning/Binding are also unspecced; the spirits available to me are Guardian/Air/Man/Guidance/Task, and the tradition is Materialisation based, with Wil+Cha as Drain attributes. What specialization do you guys recommend?

[Whipstitch]

Well, for one thing, quit trying to summon at F6+.

Half the beauty of Invoking is that you can get more bang for your buck from lower Force spirits provided that you have the dice to consistently score 3 hits or more on the Invoking test, which actually isn't that hard if you have a mentor spirit, specializations or foci. Even a Force 3 Spirit can serve well as a second line combatant with LoS(A) Engulf and an extra Optional Power, and you can still always summon real bruisers on the fly if you really have to. Plus, it's quite cost effective to bind weaker spirits since it's easier to rack up more services when summoning. Jacking up a weaker spirit to Great Form status can end up being the difference between using Astral Gateway every once in a blue moon and being able to have the ability on call for multiple sessions.

[Makki]

there's nothing safer than knowing there's a force7 great form plant spirit with B18 A14 R17 S19 up there to help you out, if things go wrong (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
but i used Edge 3 times....

i usually use my sustaining focus with Increase Willpower for Binding processes

[Elfenlied]

Well, our games tend to be pretty high-powered and deadly, with everyone else sporting a dicepool of 18+ on their main abilities, and most enemies have at least some degree of Cyberware and/or IP boosters, so I don't really think a F3 Great Form will make any difference, since its dicepool is so low that everyone simply resists the Engulf.

[Whipstitch]

Force 3 isn't as bad of a deal as you might think with the right spirit selection. For example, a Force 3 Great Form Guidance Spirit can provide decent counter spelling backup via Magical Guard to any mundos in your group and can wield LOS(A) Fear, which is Magic+Willpower vs. the target's Willpower. That means they have at least even odds against nearly anyone and will average a net hit against a Willpower 3 opponent. It's not lethal, but it can definitely take a target out of combat for a turn or two or force them out of cover, and with their Great Form power they can force things to go dual natured, which is rather fun if you're well-suited to ambushing people with your Astral Form. Perhaps that's not as scary as a high force Spirit, but the binding materials are cheaper and the drain is a hell of a lot safer, so you can actually make a good run at meeting your bound spirit maximum without spending an arm and a leg, and the number of services you get is high enough that spending them on a trifle becomes less of a big deal. Besides, you can still always summon a Force 6+ spirit on the fly if you really want a big bruiser. I tend to go that route anyway, since a Force 6+ spirit will usually be a fairly competent threat of whether it has GF powers or not, after all. Heck, such Spirits often don't really need any extra optional powers anyway, so Invoking them is a pinch redundant.

[Elfenlied]

Ok, Guidance spirits seem to be a prime candidate for low Force invoking. Looking at Air in particular, Storm with a F<6 seems kinda lackluster, and even though I have a Force 6 Air Spirit invoked (optional powers are Elemental Attack, Energy Aura and Fear) with 9 successes on the invoking table, the Elemental Attack/Engulf with LOS(A) seemed to be way better than Storm.

[Whipstitch]

The thing about Storm is that it has a truly massive area of effect by street level Shadowrun standards-- you're just not going to be able to find other stuff in the books that threatens physical damage over a 600 meter area, much less one you can call to your side quickly. It's just something that's more useful as a GM tool than a player ability, that's all. I'm sure an army would find it to be a fun way to ruin somebody's day, but runners generally want to both up the intensity and the discretion.

[dirkformica]

Great Task spirits have Endowment.

Here's a link to a thread with some ideas about the Endowment power.

Highlights from the thread include things like giving yourself the Materialization power, never glitching again for 500 bucks and a point of karma, enhanced senses like Low-Light or Thermal for the same, counterspelling for yourself and force other members of your party at the level of the force of the spirit you invoked, and for Mystic Adepts, a force 1 spirit can give you Astral Form so you don't have to worry about not having access to the astral like a full magician.

Also, on the handling the drain front, you can always summon/bind one or two Spirits of Man with the appropriate Increase Attribute innate spells. Just have them cast and sustain them while you do your summoning/binding. You should also do the Invoking/binding during downtime so you can recover from your wounds, or do it in a sterilized med facility with someone or something with extremely high first aid skill and a med kit (this can include a Task spirit) to heal away the damage. If you are overcasting and afraid of instant-gibbing yourself due to drain, you might also want to use the Shapechange spell to take the form of something with more body. All those hits divided by 2 turn into extra damage boxes.

[Thanee]

Just use Edge. 16 DV Drain should be no problem to survive (no need to resist it completely, as you do not do Binding in the midst of a firefight, anyways).

Or do it the broken way and get a Pain Editor. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Just use Edge. 16 DV Drain should be no problem to survive (no need to resist it completely, as you do not do Binding in the midst of a firefight, anyways).

Or do it the broken way and get a Pain Editor. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Bye
Thanee

Of Course, a Pain Editor will not work if the Force of the Spirit is greater than the Magic Rating of the Summoner...

Keep the Faith

[Shinobi Killfist]

Of Course, a Pain Editor will not work if the Force of the Spirit is greater than the Magic Rating of the Summoner...

Keep the Faith

since he has a magic 8 i farkin hope he aint summoning great form versions higher than his magic..

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

since he has a magic 8 i farkin hope he aint summoning great form versions higher than his magic..

Yeah, I would hope, but this IS Dumpshock, and there are more than a few references, here in the forums, to Force 10+ Spirits beiung summoned...

Keep the Faith

[Whipstitch]

What kills me about it is that people don't seem to accept that by the RAW the practice of binding powerful spirits is roughly as safe and sane as shooting yourself with an APDS loaded heavy pistol. I mean, I'm sorry, but it just shouldn't really be considered routine, no matter how people try to spin it, particularly since you can't just magic away drain damage.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

What kills me about it is that people don't seem to accept that by the RAW the practice is roughly as safe and sane as shooting yourself with an APDS loaded heavy pistol. I mean, I'm sorry, but it just shouldn't really be considered routine, no matter how people try to spin it, particularly since you can't actually just magic away drain damage.

I am in total agreement with you there Whipstitch... I cannot fathom that myself, but there are a lot of arguments for the practice... Just not from me... as for teh healing from Drain... Apparently First Aid is the magic Bandage for that... Something else that I do not really agree with either...

Keep the Faith

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, I mean, I don't forbid it at my table or anything, particularly considering that a Magic 8 Magician is a pretty powerful customer and shadow running is so dangerous-- You can after all make the argument that not having the backup is more dangerous than taking the risk in a somewhat controlled environment. But with that said, I do find it a li'l off when people discuss it as a routine thing. I mean, ouch.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yeah, I mean, I don't forbid it at my table or anything, particularly considering that a Magic 8 Magician is a pretty powerful customer and shadow running is so dangerous-- You can after all make the argument that not having the backup is more dangerous than taking the risk in a somewhat controlled environment. But with that said, I do find it a li'l off when people discuss it as a routine thing. I mean, ouch.

Indeed... With me having witnessed a gigantic beatdown on a Summoning from a Force 5 spirit (10 Successes for resisting Summoning, 20 Boxes of Stun), I just do not want to even contemplate spirits close to the double digit range, even if they are ONLY Force 10...

Keep the Faith

[Whipstitch]

In a way the randomness is the saving grace and the worst part of the whole deal. You get so much power out of the deal and from time to time you don't even pay much for it, so I can totally see why someone would be tempted to bind a big hitter. Of course, other times it's like getting hit by a not-so-small vehicle. It's a toughie.

[Elfenlied]

Well, First Aid kits don't work vs Drain on our table, so you're actually limited to binding them during downtime (which isn't that much of a deal, since we have a Technomancer). However, I would like to avoid getting implants for my character, since it just doesn't fit her. And no, that wasn't a double-entendre (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

In our games, having a few higher-level spirits at your disposal is crucial, since the opposition usually employs weaponry able to wound anything beneath F6.

[Makki]

depending on tradition the mage might see drain from summoning/binding as sacrifice or symbol of worthiness. so, the more damage taken the better...
it's not like people cut their hands or eyes for mumbo jumbo reasons - oh wait, they do.

[Shinobi Killfist]

What kills me about it is that people don't seem to accept that by the RAW the practice of binding powerful spirits is roughly as safe and sane as shooting yourself with an APDS loaded heavy pistol. I mean, I'm sorry, but it just shouldn't really be considered routine, no matter how people try to spin it, particularly since you can't just magic away drain damage.

Binding high force spirits is just brutal. Force 8 means its rolling 16 dice to resist you it will usually be causing 10DV in drain and 14+ isn't outlandish. Still I do not like the shooting yourself comparisons. Physical damage covers a wide range of types of damage and getting shot just exaggerates the visual a bit too much IMO. My way of looking at it is more along the lines of exercise fatigue. Stun drain is aerobic exercise, physical drain is muscle building weight training. When you are trying to bulk up the muscles a bit you are tearing the muscles and when they rebuild they get bigger and stronger. That is why when you weight train the fatigue lasts for a couple days and not minutes to hours like with aerobic training. You are tearing those magical muscles down and if you go to far you have a magical hernia or even a total collapse and die.

But given the randomness of spirit drain it is not wise IMO to bind high force spirits often because eventually the dice will go against you.(day one if you are me) Summoning though, eh unless you have TJ's tables rule going where all spirits above a certain force use edge you can be fairly safe in summoning force 8 spirits. Yeah its possible the DM will roll 8 for 8 successes but it is really unlikely. Still I'd say my spirits hover around force 3-5 normally and if I am expecting a big fight or am caught off guard by one I'll risk a force 8. Though the concealment power is just awesome sauce at high force so I can see going for high force there a lot. Add in invoking and you are just insane to go for high force great forms. 15DV drain on average for a force 8, who can shrug that off? Even if it is stun only you need 5-6 hits on your drain test to stay conscious and not have the spirit go free. It rolls 6 hits on its 16dice and you need to resist 18 DV and even with edge most mages are unconscious there.

[Whipstitch]

Agreed. That's why I tend to summon my heavy hitters on the fly and bind li'l guys en masse. I use bound spirits for their modifiers and utility powers as opposed to expecting them to actually win fights, which is why as crazy as it sounds I've been known have Summoning specd in Guardian or Fire spirits while having my Binding specd into Task, Guidance or Plant, for example. As far as combat is concerned, just because a Force 3 can't solo can encounter doesn't mean that they can't contribute, after all-- there's still penalties for being outnumbered in melee or having defended against multiple attacks in a single pass. Likewise even a guy with a Will of 5 is likely to break if 4 Force 3s start force feeding him Fears. Beyond that, there's the simple fact that Spirits can let you have a proxy in a few places at once, which is pretty nice when you consider what Movement, Concealment, Guard and Magical Guard can bring to the table. There's also the potential for Task Spirits making teamwork tests together, which can get pretty ridiculous pretty quick, particularly since bound spirits stick around long enough to meet even Extended thresholds.

Binding high force spirits is just brutal. Force 8 means its rolling 16 dice to resist you it will usually be causing 10DV in drain and 14+ isn't outlandish. Still I do not like the shooting yourself comparisons. Physical damage covers a wide range of types of damage and getting shot just exaggerates the visual a bit too much IMO.

I only made the comparison because they don't have a damage code listed for say, the kind of cell death that occurs after crushing trauma, so guns are a better analogy for the severity of injury we're talking about in terms of pure lethality. Unless you're pretty specialized or holding back dice, you're going to resisting the drain with roughly a ten or so dice and not much else while binding a force 5+ spirit can easily result in damage codes of a DV of 5 and up, so as far as straight line comparisons go it's fairly apt.

[Dreadlord]

Unless you're pretty specialized or holding back dice, you're going to resisting the drain with roughly a ten or so dice and not much else while binding a force 5+ spirit can easily result in damage codes of a DV of 5 and up, so as far as straight line comparisons go it's fairly apt.

Where does it say in SR4 that you can hold back dice from Spellcasting/Summoning to lower drain? I looked for it, and it was nowhere. I know SR3 had it, and my understanding was that it was intentionally done away with.

[Whipstitch]

Hrm. I'm away from book, but there's a pretty decent chance that it's one of those things that I've allowed for so long that I couldn't tell you for sure if it's RAW or not, because usually I can just point right at a page number by memory, and in this case I cannot. I'm almost 100% certain that at least dice from foci can be withheld to resist drain, but like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm wrong because for once I'm drawing a blank. Sorry about any confusion.

[Tyro]

Hrm. I'm away from book, but there's a pretty decent chance that it's one of those things that I've allowed for so long that I couldn't tell you for sure if it's RAW or not, because usually I can just point right at a page number by memory, and in this case I cannot. I'm almost 100% certain that at least dice from foci can be withheld to resist drain, but like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm wrong because for once I'm drawing a blank. Sorry about any confusion.

The ability to withhold casting dice for drain was removed in 4e.

The ability to withhold focus dice for drain was removed in SR4A.

[Whipstitch]

It seems like SR4A is forever tweaking things that never bothered me a whit. And yet the grenade rules...

Oh well.