[X] My Assistant

[Yerameyahu]

Honestly, a jammer is a lot more effective. :/ Hm.

[Draco18s]

Has anyone considered a house rule that spells specifically designed to effect objects (particularly computers) reduce the OR threshold by 1?
Eg. Chaff, Wreck, Trid-Phatasm, Improved Invisibility, etc

[Ryu]

To be honest, although the OP didn't much care for his chosen action in that circumstance, he still did the wisest thing.

If someone dislikes you enough and knows you well enough to send rotodrones into your apartment, get the heck out of there. Staying and fighting, even if you win, just gives your opponent more time to do something that _will_ get you.

True, another advantage to fighting by proxy. No need to stay around yourself.

Taking a lesson from the Trid Phantasm Idea, I think that Concealment might be a better use for a Force 9 spirit than an attack task. It works against whatever else is around, too.

[HunterHerne]

True, another advantage to fighting by proxy. No need to stay around yourself.

Taking a lesson from the Trid Phantasm Idea, I think that Concealment might be a better use for a Force 9 spirit than an attack task. It works against whatever else is around, too.

I agree. Especially if you have reason to believe the opposing rigger may have a mage friend.

[Machiavelli]

If you can summon a force 9 spirit, you are so mighty that don´t have enemies left. ^^

[Rubic]

If you can summon a force 9 spirit, you are so mighty that don´t have enemies left. ^^

My upcoming character can summon force 9 spirits. Gonna be a hell of a drain roll, but it's possible.

[Irion]

If you can summon a force 9 spirit, you are so mighty that don´t have enemies left. ^^

Which is not that hard.
You need:
Magic 5+.
The spirt will role 9 dices so you need a bit more.
Drain will be between 0 and 18, avarage 6.

[Dakka Dakka]

And you need 12+ dice in MAG+Summoning to get a single service most of the time.

[DamienKnight]

And you need 12+ dice in MAG+Summoning to get a single service most of the time.

If they only roll 9 dice against your summon test, why do you need 12? Honestly, 6 dice with edge added would do the trick most of the time.

[Draco18s]

If they only roll 9 dice against your summon test, why do you need 12?

The "on average, one hit more." At 9 vs. 9 it's even odds. Half the time the summoner will do better, half the time the spirit will (on average, 0 net hits). At 12 dice, the summoner does better more often.

[Ryu]

If you can summon a force 9 spirit, you are so mighty that don´t have enemies left. ^^

Settle for a force 7 if need be.

The summoning part is easy, Magic 5 + Summoning 4 (favourite spirit +2) is already 11 dice before Edge. The tricky part is avoiding the physical drain. Still, a few boxes of drain is way better than being shot by two medium combat drones.

[LurkerOutThere]

If they only roll 9 dice against your summon test, why do you need 12? Honestly, 6 dice with edge added would do the trick most of the time.

If you edge the spirit might well reciprocate and it's edge is a lot more disposable then yours (stupid fourth edition).

[Draco18s]

If you edge the spirit might well reciprocate and it's edge is a lot more disposable then yours (stupid fourth edition).

If by "more disposable" you mean "the only critter in the game that can have more than 6"¹ then you're right.

¹7 if you're human or a pixie or have a Spethial Feath, or 8 if you're one of those and have the Spethial Feat that gives you another. But nothing gets more than that. Except spirits of a force 9 and higher.

[Dakka Dakka]

Or he just assumes that spirits always start with full Edge, whereas the summoner may have already used some of his.

[Irion]

@LurkerOutThere
If spirits start to use edge, even a Force 6 spirit is hard to summon.
Binding a Force 5 spirit is likly going to kill you.
Not saying this would be a bad thing!

But you need to establish a base line here.
RAW spirits only spend edge if you tend to abuse them. Since letting the fight and die for you does not count...
If spirits tend to spend edge more freely on the matirial plane there is not reason not to spend it, if they get shot too.
All I am saying, you open a can of worms here. That is a plane in desprate need for clear (house)-ruling.



In general: It is good to remember that a force 9 spirt (make it guardian) is quite hard to stop.
The only thing i can think of is banishing and very heavy weapons. The first buts an equal toll on the opposite mage the later might be quite hard to get and not that usefull depending on the situation and the GM.

[Elfenlied]

My house rule on Spirits & Edge is this:
-Summoning a Spirit with Force>your magic rating, the spirit edges to resist. Can be mitigated depending on certain external factors, e.g. BC, special reason for spirit to fight (e.g. a christian fire spirit defending a church)
-Summoning a Spirit with the appropriate spirit bane, the spirit edges to resist
-Summoning a Spirit whom you have abused, the spirit edges to resist
-Only certain extreme acts, e.g. letting a spirit take your drain, pumping it up with drugs, or cannibalizing it count as abuse. Summoning, Binding and combat explicitly do not count.
-The summoner freely controls how the spirit spends edge otherwise. However, he needs to expend one point of his own edge whenever he wants his spirit to edge.

I found this houserule to work well at our table. Starting characters can still get reasonably strong spirits, and it prevents a lot of the arbitrary use of edge.

[Machiavelli]

There are a lot of assumptions here. The most important one was, that you survive the summoning a spirit rating 9. We are talking about physical drain here. Even with average successes he cause 6 points of damage. If you are talking about "i summon this spirit and stay at home for the next few days to cure the wounds" THEN you are right. But i don´t talk about "i am able to survive this action", i am talking about "i am able to summon AND to be healthy enough to go on with the run".^^

[Elfenlied]

Well, if you can somehow ensure that the spirit doesn't edge, it's rather easy to pull off. Assuming you have Summoning 5+Magic 6+Focus 2+Spec 2+Mentor Spirit 2+Aspected Domain 2, you've got a DP of 19, easy enough to get a success or two. Your average DP is probably ~14 (Logic 7/Charisma 7+Willpower 5+Aspected Domain 2), meaning you soak about 4 damage, while the spirit causes ~6 Drain. If need be, edge on the drain roll, because the spirit can't edge against that.

[Mäx]

There are a lot of assumptions here. The most important one was, that you survive the summoning a spirit rating 9. We are talking about physical drain here. Even with average successes he cause 6 points of damage. If you are talking about "i summon this spirit and stay at home for the next few days to cure the wounds" THEN you are right. But i don´t talk about "i am able to survive this action", i am talking about "i am able to summon AND to be healthy enough to go on with the run".^^

That 6 points of damage can be first aided away quite fast.

[Seth]

The "on average, one hit more." At 9 vs. 9 it's even odds. Half the time the summoner will do better, half the time the spirit will (on average, 0 net hits). At 12 dice, the summoner does better more often.

One interesting things about shadowrun is the high variance on the die rolls. As an example with "fudge" you "usually" get your skill: over 30% of the time you roll exactly average. With shadowrun you get much more variability, so although you will only get a service say half the time, you are quite likely to get a few services, whereas with a much flatter variance, even if you succeeded you would probably only get one.

I have done quite a lot of "spirit wrangling", and I enjoy it. But even if I have high drain die roll, I roll those resistance die with trepidation. If I summon a rank 6 for example, I have had on occasion 10 drain to soak: very very unpleasant.

If you are talking about "i summon this spirit and stay at home for the next few days to cure the wounds" THEN you are right.

Summoned Spirits don't last that long.

Summoned spirits and Edge
I think its clear in the rules that the spirits "might use edge if you have abused spirits in the past". Don't abuse the spirits then that won't happen. As others have pointed out "what is abuse varies from tradition to tradition". I play a psionic whose spirits are her materialised thoughts, and a Voodoo houngan who has names and characters for each spirit that he summons.
In both of them draining their force permanently would constitute abuse. Fighting along side them to defeat a threat wouldn't be (even if the spirit was disrupted). But sending a voodoo spirit in alone with the knowledge that it would be probably defeated would be abuse, while it wouldn't with the thoughtform. However I can see almost no circumstance in which the thoughtform would spend edge, while the voodoo spirits are "just like people" and are much more likely to.
I leave the decisions as to whether the spirit spends edge or not to the GM.

[Machiavelli]

Of course spirits don´t last that long. That was not the question nor did i imply that meaning.

Let´s get it straight: the situation that "caused" this topic was "i got surprised by drones and didn´t find a proper way to fight them...with magic". It was not "i was sitting around in an aspected domain pumped up with combat drugs, armed and armored to the teeth waiting for somebody stepping into my trap". So calculation-examples are fine, but they have nothing to do with the reality (if you want to accept for a moment, that SR is some kind of "reality"). A highly spezialized mage has commonly around 12-14 dice for summoning and the same amount for drain resistance. Even if you maxed out magic, summoning force 9 spirits is usually 6 points of physical drain. Sometimes you get away with absolutely no wound, but most of the time you get your ass kicked. So summoning mighty spirits is nothing for "i am in serious trouble"-situations, because you cannot guarantee to knock yourself out and make the job for the assassin easier as it has to be..

Mr.J: did you finish the job?
Assassin: no, he killed himself, i just looked at him and suddenly he dropped dead

Hmmm...maybe this could be THE way to get rid of mages. Simply look like somebody that makes them think only rating 9+ spirits can hurt him, and wait if they survive.^^

[Ryu]

Of course spirits don´t last that long. That was not the question nor did i imply that meaning.

Let´s get it straight: the situation that "caused" this topic was "i got surprised by drones and didn´t find a proper way to fight them...with magic". It was not "i was sitting around in an aspected domain pumped up with combat drugs, armed and armored to the teeth waiting for somebody stepping into my trap". So calculation-examples are fine, but they have nothing to do with the reality (if you want to accept for a moment, that SR is some kind of "reality"). A highly spezialized mage has commonly around 12-14 dice for summoning and the same amount for drain resistance. Even if you maxed out magic, summoning force 9 spirits is usually 6 points of physical drain. Sometimes you get away with absolutely no wound, but most of the time you get your ass kicked. So summoning mighty spirits is nothing for "i am in serious trouble"-situations, because you cannot guarantee to knock yourself out and make the job for the assassin easier as it has to be..

Mr.J: did you finish the job?
Assassin: no, he killed himself, i just looked at him and suddenly he dropped dead

Hmmm...maybe this could be THE way to get rid of mages. Simply look like somebody that makes them think only rating 9+ spirits can hurt him, and wait if they survive.^^

Use a force that you can Summon, Force 9 is for the pros.

And yes, you can. Logic based tradition, augmented with Cerebral Booster and Trauma Damper, Logic 5(7)+Willpower 5 = dp 12 for drain resistance. Summoning 5 (Beast Spirits +2), Mentor Wolf (Beast Spirits +2) + Magic 5 + Power Focus 4 = 18 dice. Logic 8 + First Aid 4 + Medkit 6 = 18 dice to treat the drain.

The scenario has yourself caught flat-footed in your own territory with the equivalent of two high-grade enemy samurai within a few meters. I would be willing to take a bit of drain to get out.

[Draco18s]

In order to not fall unconscious, the spirit would need to roll no more than...


Drain dice is 12, average hits is 4.
Say, body 3, you're average. So your physical track is 10. Maximum boxes after resisting is 9 (to stay conscious).
9 + 4 = 13.

So, the spirit could not get more than 6 hits on [Force * 2] (12 DV). At Force 9, that's 18 dice.

6 hits on 18 dice is average. So half the time the spirit's throwing more damage at you than you can survive on average. And each hit on the spirit's 18 dice is worth additional 2 DV you need to mitigate (2 additional hits) with your 12 dice (the spirit has better odds to roll well and doesn't need to roll spectacularly well to knock you out, either).

Those aren't good odds, chummer.

Sure you can repair yourself afterwards, but only if you're still conscious.

[Ryu]

In order to not fall unconscious, the spirit would need to roll no more than...


Drain dice is 12, average hits is 4.
Say, body 3, you're average. So your physical track is 10. Maximum boxes after resisting is 9 (to stay conscious).
9 + 4 = 13.

So, the spirit could not get more than 6 hits on [Force * 2] (12 DV). At Force 9, that's 18 dice.

6 hits on 18 dice is average. So half the time the spirit's throwing more damage at you than you can survive on average. And each hit on the spirit's 18 dice is worth additional 2 DV you need to mitigate (2 additional hits) with your 12 dice (the spirit has better odds to roll well and doesn't need to roll spectacularly well to knock you out, either).

Those aren't good odds, chummer.

Sure you can repair yourself afterwards, but only if you're still conscious.

The spirit uses Force to resist being summoned, generating 3 hits on average, maybe 5 if things turn bad. Not nice at all, but surviveable.

[Dakka Dakka]

Am I missing something? Are you trying to bind a Force 9 spirit? Only then does the spirit roll 18 dice. To summon a spirit the spirit only gets Force dice but the DV is hits*2.