Summoning for Beginners, Spirits Are Always With You! Options

[Blitz66]

This is similar to my thread on drones. I know summoning spirits is an important element of effective Shadowrun play, but how do you utilize it most effectively?

So, here are my questions.

What spirits are best for which common tasks?

Is there any tradition that has a truly standout spirit list?

What sort of tricks are available to get the most utility out of summoning, binding, etc?

[UmaroVI]

The short version:
Spirits of Man are very blatantly the best type of spirit overall. There are niche uses for other spirit types, but Man brings almost every utility power you care about and is also really good at fighting. How they roll is with Innate Spell (Stunbolt).

To be good at Summoning, you don't actually need a whole lot of dice. Spirits roll Force, you roll Magic+Summoning+Specialization+Foci bonuses + possibly Mentor bonus. What you need is a high Drain soak, because the damage you take is their hits x2, so it is really spiky - F5 spirits will sometimes zap you for 6S for daring to summon them.

Very broadly useful spirit powers: Concealment (hide like whoa), Search (find things like whoa), Movement (go places like whoa), Fear (very hard to resist, since it's just straight Willpower, no Counterspelling or anything). Magical Guard (lets the spirit provide counterspelling for your team; you can teamwork counterspelling which is cool).

Good idea: If you don't need a big spirit for something particular, you should have a low-force spirit hanging out with the standing order "if somebody gets into a fight with us, help out." You can always dismiss it for a bigger spirit.

Type by type:
Man: Win and awesome.
Fire: Good at killing people with Engulf + Elemental Aura (Fire); this makes its melee attacks do damage like whoa. Also flies.
Air: More utility than Fire and hits slightly better with high Agility, also flies faster. Basically fire but better.
Water: It has Weather Control, but other than that is overshadowed by other types.
Earth: crap
Beast: more crap
Plant: oddball spirit type. Plant spirits have Magical Guard, Concealment, Movement, Search and Fear, and are hella tough, but they have trouble attacking with anything other than Fear. Basically, they bring all the utility powers to the yard, and are extremely hard to kill. The only real drawback they have is that with their low agility and no flying, if you want offense that isn't Fear they don't bring it very well. Silence is niche but nifty.
Task: Win and awesome for utility because of the "Any technical or physical skill" thing. Fail and suck for everything else.
Guidance: Divining but otherwise rather meh.
Guardian: Oddball spirit type. Guardian spirits are decidedly meh at fighting normally, but they can come with any Combat skill. Carry around a Guardian Spirit Care Package of some armor and a machine gun, and you have a very solid combatant... but the gear doesn't go with it when it dematerializes, which is a weakness.

Traditions: Voodoo just very blatantly has the best spirit selection.

[squee_nabob]

EDIT: Ninja’d by Umaro, but I’m still going to post this because he's a ninja

I am not an expert on spirits, and my friend UmaroVI is (so if he corrects me, I default to him since he plays a mage), but here is my understanding:

Materialization and Possession are fairly balanced in that Possession mages can grab channeling and compensate for a low magic (because they have ware or chose not to buy it up) with the spirit’s magic, and replace their spellcasting with the spirits (if man). Possession is obvious however. Materialization mage and a Materialization Spirit together are better than the self-possessed mage because they get to attack twice and the mage isn’t dual natured all the time. Figure out which one you are though, as they differ. Low force possession spirits are better than low force materialization spirits (because they can possess melee weapons for bonuses or corpses). High Force possession spirits will run into augmented maximum caps while materialization spirits will not.

In terms of kicking ass:

Guardian – if you are willing to give it gear it will kick a lot of ass, it does require more work.

Man – Nearly as good, but will be spamming your attack spells (like stun bolt) instead of using an AR

Air is very useful

Fire does not provide concealment but is fully capable of murdering people.

Water is slightly less good at murdering people (I think this is due to accident, energy aura, and energy attack being optinal powers for it and it has no way to get fear)

Earth and Plant spirits come in at the middle of the list because they are just average (not bad)

Beast Spirits are down here being sad, they have fear and can get concealment, noxious breath or search, so it’s not that they suck, they are just less good. All spirits are decent at pwning people so it’s a relative thing.

Task and Guidance spirits are for niche activities rather than pwning people, but are quite useful.

Make sure you have 1 good battle sprite then the rest are just for utility. Voodoo has the best Spirit list.

For using them: I’ve seen Fear, Concealment, Fear, Movement, Fear, Search, Fear, Engulf, Fear, Noxious Breath, Fear, and Innate Spell all used to great effect. Know what your spirits do.

Also, getting your spirits to assense someone is usually better than doing it yourself.

[CanRay]

Lesson one: Never summon anything bigger than your head.

[Blitz66]

Thanks for the info, guys. Very informative.

[Mardrax]

Fire: Good at killing people with Engulf + Elemental Aura (Fire); this makes its melee attacks do damage like whoa. Also flies.
Air: More utility than Fire and hits slightly better with high Agility, also flies faster. Basically fire but better.

Why would these two be the only ones able to fly? I thought this fell under the general purview of spirits may look like wtuff, but really aren't" handwaving for every spirit?
Do spirits actually have movement speeds laid out somewhere?

[Lanlaorn]

Yes, right in the boxes with all their other stats.

[Hida Tsuzua]

Why would these two be the only ones able to fly? I thought this fell under the general purview of spirits may look like wtuff, but really aren't" handwaving for every spirit?
Do spirits actually have movement speeds laid out somewhere?

They used to all be able to fly in older editions and can still do so on the astral, but in SR4, only air and fire can fly. Spirit movements are on page 302-303 of SR4A. I believe none of the ones in Street Magic can fly either.

[Hound]

Why would these two be the only ones able to fly? I thought this fell under the general purview of spirits may look like wtuff, but really aren't" handwaving for every spirit?
Do spirits actually have movement speeds laid out somewhere?

yeah it's kind of weird, because the rules for free spirits state that, because spirits are not physical beings, they can automatically fly. Yet not all the spirit types can fly, and they all have different speeds.

[Sephiroth]

It's only the difference between flying and floating. ALL materialized spirits can move in 3 dimensions, unhindered by gravity, even a spirit of earth, but only spirits of air and fire can actually FLYYY and have the skill to "sprint" and whatnot when flying.

[Hida Tsuzua]

Looking around a bit more, all spirits don't care about gravity (SR4A p. 186). However most spirits that aren't fire or air stay close to the ground. I'm not sure if I consider normal metahuman speeds (30kmph) to be merely "floating". Does this mean that spirits of the earth can just hover dramatically several inches off the ground if they feel like it? Does that mean they can run up buildings but merely prefer to take the stairs? Can they punch planes out of the sky?

Honestly, if all spirits can fly but just don't feel like it most of the time, then they really do have flight because their summoner will remind them of their ability to fly. On the other hand, being a flying dude isn't the auto-win button it often is in some games since everyone has a gun.

Edit- I'm very meh on the flight means they have the flight skill! A force 12 fire spirit can almost double his speed if he spends 2 simple actions for flying. He also could just use movement for x12 speed for a complex and it stays up. Or he could astral and travel 5000m for two complex actions. Having that skill isn't that important.

[pbangarth]

Flying is a Skill, just as Running is. All spirits can move in three dimensions. Only those with the Flying Skill can increase their speed the way Running Skill can increase one's speed on the ground.

[longbowrocks]

Hollows are pretty good, but Don Kanonji probably disagrees.

[Summerstorm]

I disagree with the Guidance-Spirit. It is VERY good.

It pretty much has access to a metamagic (One of the most gamechanging/gamebreaking even). And has straight up the best engulf (Stun damage, no armor possible.)

[UmaroVI]

Divination is the reason to use it. The engulf is in theory good, but its low agility means in practice, not really. The extra dice a Fire or Air spirit rolls help more, and it's not hard for a decently large spirit to kill people plenty dead already.

[Summerstorm]

Lesson one: Never summon anything bigger than your head.

Ah and that... i find untrue (Well, depending on how big your head is anyway.)

Through the way the overall powerlevel is rising with spirits i found that being just incredible ballsy with summoning/binding, willing to use edge and prepared some security, the RETURNS for that risk are steadily rising.

Using a Force 3 spirit isn't THAT good (even though he can/might crack a low-risk situation... but you could probably do without it anyways. Rise it to 4: okay, 5: Whoa, nice. 6: AMAZING. And from that one Spirits become a "Get out of any situation but social per service"-card.

While a Force 6 spirits can pretty much go toe-to-toe with any usual enemy, you can assume a Force 8 one can take a whole group without fail. The spirit power are even worse. They seem to be scaled to be risky but worth it at force 3... unbeatable at force 6. And it goes HIGHER.

Mindcontrol: Spirits. Instant incapacitation: Spirits. Extra-combatant on level of equipped and good beginner samurai: Spirit. Debuffing: Spirit. Become near undetectable (if you have moderate stealth): Spirit.

I might by a bit cynical about that all, since i am gm for a group with a pixie mage (VERY good at summoning). But yeah, she does overall more damage than the whole other team, can jump over most legwork/detective stuff with use of Claivoyance/Mindcontrol/Suggestion/Memory alteration and Mind probe.

A good summoner is his own team. (Everything but certain high-society, matrix, and social problems can be solved by spirits, their powers and a bit of added magic.)

[CanRay]

Sorry, I mistyped: "Never summon anything bigger than your ego."

[Blitz66]

Hollows are pretty good, but Don Kanonji probably disagrees.

Only one Bleach comment since I started this thread, even with the description being what it is? It's almost like these people aren't even nerds...

Summerstorm: I believe CanRay was quoting an old webcomics ad. Dork Tower's advertising contained that line, at some point.

[Fatum]

Sorry, I mistyped: "Never summon anything bigger than your ego."

I don't think there are ANY mages in SR capable of that.

[DMiller]

I don't think there are ANY mages in SR capable of that.

Actually I think they are all capable of that, as everything will be smaller than their ego.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Edited to add smiley (not trying to be rude).

-D

[pbangarth]

Sorry, I mistyped: "Never summon anything bigger than your ego."

I don't think there are ANY mages in SR capable of that.

"that" = "summoning anything bigger than your ego"

Actually I think they are all capable of that, as everything will be smaller than their ego.

"that" = "never summoning anything bigger than your ego"

And so 17 pages of counterarguments begin.

[Draco18s]

Using a Force 3 spirit isn't THAT good (even though he can/might crack a low-risk situation... but you could probably do without it anyways. Rise it to 4: okay, 5: Whoa, nice. 6: AMAZING. And from that one Spirits become a "Get out of any situation but social per service"-card.

The problem with summoning a F6 or F8 spirit is the "net hits = services" bit. They roll 6 (or 8 ) dice to resist your summoning roll (4 skill + 6 magic + 2 focus/mentor spirit). 12 dice versus 6 is good odds for 2 tasks. 12 vs. 8 is good odds for 1 task.

The really bitch part is the drain. A F8 spirit will knock you on your ass, pretty much all the time. It's got good odds (53%) to hit you with at least 6 stun, and risky odds (25%, 10%) to hit you with 8, 10, or more stun (25% chance to do "at least 8" and 10% to do "at least 10").

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

The problem with summoning a F6 or F8 spirit is the "net hits = services" bit. They roll 6 (or 8 ) dice to resist your summoning roll (4 skill + 6 magic + 2 focus/mentor spirit). 12 dice versus 6 is good odds for 2 tasks. 12 vs. 8 is good odds for 1 task.

The really bitch part is the drain. A F8 spirit will knock you on your ass, pretty much all the time. It's got good odds (53%) to hit you with at least 6 stun, and risky odds (25%, 10%) to hit you with 8, 10, or more stun (25% chance to do "at least 8" and 10% to do "at least 10").

And that before any Edge Expenditures are figured in... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[HunterHerne]

The problem with summoning a F6 or F8 spirit is the "net hits = services" bit. They roll 6 (or 8 ) dice to resist your summoning roll (4 skill + 6 magic + 2 focus/mentor spirit). 12 dice versus 6 is good odds for 2 tasks. 12 vs. 8 is good odds for 1 task.

The really bitch part is the drain. A F8 spirit will knock you on your ass, pretty much all the time. It's got good odds (53%) to hit you with at least 6 stun, and risky odds (25%, 10%) to hit you with 8, 10, or more stun (25% chance to do "at least 8" and 10% to do "at least 10").

If you have magic 6, that stun damage from the force 8 spirit is more likely physical damage. And that can be risky on the fly.

[Draco18s]

If you have magic 6, that stun damage from the force 8 spirit is more likely physical damage. And that can be risky on the fly.

At 1:30 in the morning I didn't feel like double-checking spirit drain S/P. I was pretty sure it went physical, but I never play a summoner.