Watchers: how do I make them a bit useful Options

[Seth]

So as a mage I can summon a watcher. It has two die for its primary skill watching. Everytime it makes a watching roll it has about a 1/3 chance of seeing something blindingly obvious, and about a 1/3 chance of critically glitching... pretty grim odds.

How do I make them actually useful?

If I make them too useful, then they stop shadowrunning being possible. If they are as rubbish (I am being polite) as they are now, then they are useless and they might as well not be in the game.

What do you do in your games. I am particularly interested if anyone using RAW has found a way to make them useful.

[Yerameyahu]

I vote for 'leave out of the game'. Mages get enough love.

[Prime Mover]

Watchers in 4thed really don't live up to their name. If you use shrinking dice pool for extended test watcher's won't find or spot anything unless it's close and obvious. What they can do is act as a distraction or basic early warning system for obvious threats. Also I've seen them used as two way astral communications. Watcher maintains mental link with caster and is ordered to stay with non astral team members to relay communications.

[LurkerOutThere]

As mover points out watchers do have their uses, their just not as game changing as the other stuff in the mages arsenal, which works fine for me as their essentially free.

[Yerameyahu]

Honestly, mobile communicators is *pretty* handy, and it saves you from using a real spirit. So let's just call them Talker spirits instead.

[Blog]

Watchers are what they are, want something better then summon a real spirit.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

So as a mage I can summon a watcher. It has two die for its primary skill watching. Everytime it makes a watching roll it has about a 1/3 chance of seeing something blindingly obvious, and about a 1/3 chance of critically glitching... pretty grim odds.

How do I make them actually useful?

If I make them too useful, then they stop shadowrunning being possible. If they are as rubbish (I am being polite) as they are now, then they are useless and they might as well not be in the game.

What do you do in your games. I am particularly interested if anyone using RAW has found a way to make them useful.

You can always aspect them to make them more useful in their "Watching" role... Rules for such in Street Magic.

[Fyndhal]

"If this door opens, alert me at once."
"If this thing moves, alert me at once."
"Follow this man. If you lose him, alert me at once. If he begins bleeding, alert me at once."

Watchers are good at watching and letting you know if something obvious happens. They are a handy way of spreading out your attention.

[Summerstorm]

I myself hybridyzed the ruled from 3rd edition: Watchers are summoned at force of half your magic. - at no extra costs for summoning... drain still is just hours.

They also get a +2 dice pool bonus for their only power as well as perception throws. (So a nice, good force 3 watcher, even in 2 point-Background count still can see something - 6 dice left)

That helps a LOT. The whole "Yay, we are force 1"- totally doesn't work. There are bubbles of background count everywhere... they would pop too easily.

[Adarael]

Yeah, that pretty much hits the nail on the head. Here's a couple of facts:

1) The watcher doesn't need to roll to spot something blindingly obvious - if something IS obvious, there's no roll. If something is poorly hidden, then yes, it's crappy at noticing. But a watcher doesn't need to roll to notice people entering a room, or a spell being cast if it's Force 6 (TN to assess is 6 minus Force, after all), or whatever. Just as you wouldn't make a player roll to notice blindingly obvious things, so it goes for watchers.
2) The watcher also doesn't need to roll dice to do things like relay communications. "Go tell <person> we're being attacked" is not a rolling sort of situation. They're also good for things like, "Go to place X. Tell me if it's warded."
3) You can always utilize the teamwork test rules to let a pack of watchers be more effective than a single one.
4) You can extend watchers lifespans to Hits in days, rather than Hits in hours.

[DMiller]

HOUSE RULE:

At our table we simply have watchers summoned with the summoner's mental stats. This makes them useful without making them over powered.

-D

[DireRadiant]

Think of Watchers as the casual everyday magic party trick. They are not powerful, but useful.

A Mage can have at least 4 Watchers at all times that just hang out with the team mates and relay communication. Useful, hard to eavesdrop. Great for surveillance.

Don't forget situational bonus. +3 for actively looking.

A watcher is a freebie, it should be useful, but it's not meant to be as Uber as summoning a Spirit.

By itself a Watcher is useless. Against skilled opponents they are almost useless. With a creative and skilled Mage who understands their limitatinos they can become useful tools to extend the reach and knowledge of the Mage.

[Prime Mover]

Watcher spirit at parties. Ok keep an eye on this drink whenever I sit it down and remind me it's mine.

[CanRay]

One trick I figured out as part of the backstory with Pup The Dog Shaman was that he was a spotter for a Urban Sniper who taught him shooting.

He'd use a Watcher Spirit to find out when a target stopped moving (Like he was sitting down to watch the Combat Biker game), and show up on the other side of the wall right where the fellow's centre of mass is. He'd then use his "Wreck Wall" spell to put a hole in the external wall large enough for a bullet. Once the hole was there, his partner took one shot, and it was Miller time.

Watchers are also great for a low-end magical radio system for a group. Just make one Watcher per person, and have them communicate with each other at the speed of spirits. No radio chatter at all to be picked up electronically, perfect for no/low-magic areas.

Finally, they make GREAT distractions.

[Bodak]

If your magician is of a possession tradition, then a watcher can possess dead bodies. It'll probably only be able to do so if you prepare the body as a vessel to give the watcher bonus dice on its possession attempt. So it isn't a way to drop a guard and spontaneously reanimate him on your side now. But it can be useful if you come across a particular body you appreciate and would enjoy keeping around, for the tasks it could feasibly perform for your benefit. Vessel preparation retards degeneration. In SR4 where you can't get a dikoted ally spirit, this is a mage's friend with benefits that won't talk back.

[Tanegar]

If your magician is of a possession tradition, then a watcher can possess dead bodies. It'll probably only be able to do so if you prepare the body as a vessel to give the watcher bonus dice on its possession attempt. So it isn't a way to drop a guard and spontaneously reanimate him on your side now. But it can be useful if you come across a particular body you appreciate and would enjoy keeping around, for the tasks it could feasibly perform for your benefit. Vessel preparation retards degeneration. In SR4 where you can't get a dikoted ally spirit, this is a mage's friend with benefits that won't talk back.

Wow. That's a level of squick that I had not previously considered.

[TheOOB]

Yeah, that pretty much hits the nail on the head. Here's a couple of facts:

1) The watcher doesn't need to roll to spot something blindingly obvious - if something IS obvious, there's no roll. If something is poorly hidden, then yes, it's crappy at noticing. But a watcher doesn't need to roll to notice people entering a room, or a spell being cast if it's Force 6 (TN to assess is 6 minus Force, after all), or whatever. Just as you wouldn't make a player roll to notice blindingly obvious things, so it goes for watchers.

Watchers are astral, any spellcasting is obvious. Watchers have a ton of use and utility and don't need to be buffed. If I want a better watcher, I'll summon an air spirit.

[Udoshi]

The best use if watcher spirits I've seen suggested in a game was in jest.

"Summon a bunch of watcher spirits, and then order them all at the enemy mage in chorus!"
"Won't he get rid of them fairly quickly, though?"
"Yeah... exactly as fast as I can summon them."
"That's not a chorus, that's a round. And a bad one at that, since they're rating 1."
"That's kind of the point."

It hasn't actually been used yet, sadly. The party ended up doing something else against the enemy team.

[TheOOB]

I do a lot of "alert me if someone comes through this point" I don't care how bad their perception, and how good your stealth, you can't follow us through a narrow sewer pipe without the watcher seeing you.

[Garvel]

If you need more dice for the watchers perception, you can simply summon a huge mob of them. NPC groups roll ("highest dicepool of a single member" + "number of teammates") dice for a perception test. If you have 6 watchers, that are 8 dice. If the watchers stay only one hour, they don't cause drain anyway.

[Fyndhal]

I do a lot of "alert me if someone comes through this point" I don't care how bad their perception, and how good your stealth, you can't follow us through a narrow sewer pipe without the watcher seeing you.

That's incorrect. A watcher still needs to make an astral perception roll to spot a stealthed character walking past an arbitrary spot, unless the arbitrary spot has something that the stealthed character must manipulate in order to pass. Infiltrate does work against unseen, astral observers.

[Ascalaphus]

That's incorrect. A watcher still needs to make an astral perception roll to spot a stealthed character walking past an arbitrary spot, unless the arbitrary spot has something that the stealthed character must manipulate in order to pass. Infiltrate does work against unseen, astral observers.

That's why you put the watcher to watch a door; "if this door opens, warn me".

[Prime Mover]

That's incorrect. A watcher still needs to make an astral perception roll to spot a stealthed character walking past an arbitrary spot, unless the arbitrary spot has something that the stealthed character must manipulate in order to pass. Infiltrate does work against unseen, astral observers.

Sometimes as a GM you have to make arbitrary decisions regarding stealth and circumstance. Just because you you have an awesome success on your stealthy check and the opposing player doesn't even have enough dice to match you. If your walking down a narrow well lit hallway with the opposing player two feet away you really need to bring common sense to bear. My players have argued this with me in several different games but I stand firm in some situations.

[Ascalaphus]

Stealth isn't invisibility. It's the art of remaining unnoticed when that is possible. If there's an opportunity to sneak past the watcher unseen (due to cover, ruthenium polymer clothing, or invisibility spell), the ninja would get a check. That's why you place watchers in such as way as to give no opportunity; hence watching the door that must be opened to pass through it.

[Fyndhal]

Sometimes as a GM you have to make arbitrary decisions regarding stealth and circumstance. Just because you you have an awesome success on your stealthy check and the opposing player doesn't even have enough dice to match you. If your walking down a narrow well lit hallway with the opposing player two feet away you really need to bring common sense to bear. My players have argued this with me in several different games but I stand firm in some situations.

Agreed, unless you have concealment, invisibility and/or ruthenium + sound dampening. That's when you use the "toss a pebble around the corner" trick to distract the guard. If he doesn't buy it...you may be screwed. Even with the exceptions above, I'd still give bonus dice for the circumstance. I'm AFB, but it'd probably end up:

Skill + Int +3 (Actively watching) +6 (Dangerously close proximity) +3 (Enhanced senses) -0 (light penalty) -4 (Ruthenium)

If we assume skilled guards, say skill 4 and Int 3, that would end up with 15d to discover the Infiltrator. The infiltrator could still have more dice, but it's not exactly easy. A watcher, to bring us back on topic, would be slightly worse:

Skill 1 + Int 1 +3 (Actively watching) +6 (Dangerously close proximity) +2 (Astrally Perceiving) -0 (light penalty) -0 (Ruthenium, doesn't apply to Assensing) = 13d to perceive an infiltrator within 2 feet of it with no good cover.