Summoning for Beginners, Spirits Are Always With You! Options

[Summerstorm]

Aye, physical.

Well, i just have the following observation in my group: a highly specialized mage doesn't "get" drained. In my case it IS a pixie (which is awfully miss-statted, in my opinion), but with a bit help here and there any mage can be that good.

Of course "on the fly summoning" of something REALLY big can seriously cramp your style with some bad luck, yes. But let's make it this way:

Say you are a good mage, say: 5 Will+5 whatever and have miscellenious bonus dice (extra willpoer/whatever, centering and/or foci for 4 points) That is a drainpool of 14. Say we also have 4 Edge just in case. You are summoning something with neutral of better disposition. And made sure you can appease the spirit (so it doesn't edge out on you).

Summoning begins. You are calling, say a force 10 spirit (which IS totally insane) and get one net hit for one service. Drains will be.. OH NO... BAD LUCK: say 14 physical (which is unusual high).

You throw your 18 dice , get maybe 6 hits (which is low): you get 8 damage.
Now your friend uses first aid: -2 dice because you are a mage. Get's say 5 hits: You are down to 3.
You throw on some NoPaint, and start the run. Any opposition you accidently encounter can be vanquished without any problems (Other than someone rolling better than you and banning the spirit)

Of course it is not universal, foolproof or anything. But just the scale and possibilities are just so skewed and weird. I, for example oppose that spirits should have skills at their force-level. They can be better than the masters of skills (metahumans) on a world they don't even belong.

Maybe with taking down the skill level to 2/3 round up or something? (Oh... and maybe a slight dent in the hardened armor?)

[Draco18s]

You throw your 18 dice , get maybe 6 hits (which is low): you get 8 damage.
Now your friend uses first aid: -2 dice because you are a mage. Get's say 5 hits: You are down to 3.
You throw on some NoPaint, and start the run. Any opposition you accidently encounter can be vanquished without any problems (Other than someone rolling better than you and banning the spirit)

This is a problem with the medical rules and really shouldn't be used as a "don't worry about the drain" downside of summoning.
That said, I've abused the healing rules too. But first aid is really too fast for its benefit.

Of course it is not universal, foolproof or anything. But just the scale and possibilities are just so skewed and weird. I, for example oppose that spirits should have skills at their force-level. They can be better than the masters of skills (metahumans) on a world they don't even belong.

I don't know how we should do spirit skill levels, but you're right, that they shouldn't exceed "6" and probably shouldn't scale 1:1 with Force.

Especially considering that Watcher spirits are "always force 1" and thus their skills (all two of them) are at 1, making them pitifully useless at the exactly two tasks they're supposed to be the "go to" for.
(In 3rd edition they had special rules for finding people, that was more guaranteed than the Search power other spirits had).

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

You throw your 18 dice , get maybe 6 hits (which is low): you get 8 damage.
Now your friend uses first aid: -2 dice because you are a mage. Get's say 5 hits: You are down to 3.
You throw on some NoPaint, and start the run. Any opposition you accidently encounter can be vanquished without any problems (Other than someone rolling better than you and banning the spirit)

Don't forget your First Aid Threshold, and Time Requirements. With a Threshold of 2, you only healed 3 boxes, not 5 (so you are still sporting 5 boxes of damage), and you still spend 3 full combat turns healing those boxes. Also, for The time required (IF IN COMBAT, OR ON THE FLY), it should be enforced as No Movement, because it is really hard to first aid and move at the same time.

And with only a single net hit for services, chances are good your spirit is gone on the first banish attempt by a competent mage.

[Draco18s]

And with only a single net hit for services, chances are good your spirit is gone on the first banish attempt by a competent mage.

For unbound spirits, yes. It's really the only reason to have/use banishing.

[Lanlaorn]

It would still be easier to stunbolt the spirit than Banish it.

[Draco18s]

It would still be easier to stunbolt the spirit than Banish it.

Generally, because you're rolling either Spellcasting or Banishing + Magic and need more hits than the spirit gets by rolling Force.

Except that the stunbolt needs F+Net Hits to be >= 10, whereas the Banish needs Net Hits to be > Services, which is unknown value.

Except that you don't have the bonus dice to banishing that most people have to spellcasting.

And it's an extra skill...

[Zaranthan]

It's more the drain than the dice pool. I'm AFB right now, but IIRC, stunbolt's drain is F/2 whereas Banishing's drain is identical to Summoning: spirit's hits x2.

[Draco18s]

Stunbolt is (F/2) - 1. I use it.
All the time.
With impunity.
It is my very large hammer.
And all my targets are nails.

I am disapointed that my GM forbade multicasting (or I would, and be about 30% more effective). I don't see why though, as he made melee combat a simple action. I can, on average, down a single target in a complex action. The two melee people can down 1 target in a simple (albeit 50-50 odds for them to still be conscious) and often get to take out two.

[Lanlaorn]

Yea those are some odd houserules Draco, lol. Does he let you multicast non-combat spells at least?

Anyway yes my point was, in the "Summoning for Beginners" thread let's never, ever suggest that someone take Banishing. It's strictly a trap, less effective, more drain and requires a skill that is otherwise 100% useless.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

For unbound spirits, yes. It's really the only reason to have/use banishing.

Are you telling me you are going to reliably get more than a single service from a BOUND spirit of Force 10? I call Shennanigans at that point.
I will agree that Stunbolt is a great spirit killer though... Unless cast at a Force 10 Spirit with Counterspelling...

[Whipstitch]

I am disapointed that my GM forbade multicasting (or I would, and be about 30% more effective). I don't see why though, as he made melee combat a simple action. I can, on average, down a single target in a complex action. The two melee people can down 1 target in a simple (albeit 50-50 odds for them to still be conscious) and often get to take out two.

Spellcasting and 4 spells is more flexible than the entire Close Combat skill group, is ranged, is only defended against via attribute plus a rare skill, punches through Immunity and is effective on the astral. It honestly seems pretty fair to me even if it's a bit of a flavor change to make melee combat pretty nasty. Really, it's the relative rarity of counterspelling and the fact that combat spells depend on an attribute/skill combo that most magicians would be taking anyway that has always been the trickiest thing about magicians. Even a utility oriented spellcaster can add glass cannon to their resume for the karma cost of learning Stun Ball despite the fact that Spellcasting would still be quite viable even if combat spells did not exist at all. Really, I've long felt that combat spells are as good as they are largely because the Combat Mage is a long-standing archetype that few people really want to get rid of.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yea those are some odd houserules Draco, lol. Does he let you multicast non-combat spells at least?

Anyway yes my point was, in the "Summoning for Beginners" thread let's never, ever suggest that someone take Banishing. It's strictly a trap, less effective, more drain and requires a skill that is otherwise 100% useless.

I actually disagree with this sentiment, but I do get where you are coming from. In a game where Force 10 Spirits are common, then Banishing is no good. In a more sane game, where spirit levels are from 3-6, it is quite good. Of course, Spiri... Errrr, Stun Bolt is often a better choice due to Drain curves, as long as the spirit does not have counterspelling.

[Draco18s]

Are you telling me you are going to reliably get more than a single service from a BOUND spirit of Force 10? I call Shennanigans at that point.
I will agree that Stunbolt is a great spirit killer though... Unless cast at a Force 10 Spirit with Counterspelling...

A bound spirit resists with Force + Summoner's Magic. It may only have one service, but the odds that it has more dice (and thus more hits) than you is pretty much guaranteed.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

A bound spirit resists with Force + Summoner's Magic. It may only have one service, but the odds that it has more dice (and thus more hits) than you is pretty much guaranteed.

Again, I call Shenanigans... Unless, of course, you are using overpowered spirits (any higher than Force 6). If you are, then the argument is going to go nowhere.

[Draco18s]

Again, I call Shenanigans... Unless, of course, you are using overpowered spirits (any higher than Force 6). If you are, then the argument is going to go nowhere.

You said "force 10" and I said, "yup, force 10" and now you're saying "bullshit, unless force 10"

Make up your bloody mind.

I'd also like to point out that my group doesn't roll around with F10 spirits. An occasional F8 as a GM-tool? It's come up. We've never fought against them, they're a deterrent.

[Whipstitch]

My problem here is that a "sane game" as defined by TJ isn't really representative of an awful, awful lot of games out there. In any case, an anti-spirit skill with the caveat of "Unless the Spirit is a Force 6+ meanie" isn't exactly something I'm in a rush to add to my repertoire.

[Draco18s]

My problem here is that a "sane game" as defined by TJ isn't really representative of an awful, awful lot of games out there. In any case, an anti-spirit skill with the caveat of "Unless the Spirit is a Force 6+ meanie" isn't exactly something I'm in a rush to add to my repertoire.

Banishing works against any unbound spirit fairly equally well across the board (fewer dice to resist, but a larger number of services). Drainwise, however, it's more effective to use Stunbolt in nearly all cases (as the spirit has the same resistance pool of Force, but it's stun track is the same length, all the time, and hitting that threshold is much less drain-inducing).

Not to mention that if a magician sic's a spirit on you, you can't really know for sure if it's summoned or bound (do you want to risk that extra 6 dice it gets to resist?)

The only reason to have banishing is to go "pokemon" on other mage's spirits (banish them, and then resummon them yourself to get spirits outside your discipline). And even that is a marginal use.

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, I'm familiar with the pokemon tactic. I just think it's weak sauce relative to what else a magician could pick up with the same points.

[Draco18s]

Yeah, I'm familiar with the pokemon tactic. I just think it's weak sauce relative to what else a magician could pick up with the same points.

Oh, agreed.

[Whipstitch]

These things are all relative, really. It's kinda like how monks in 3.x wouldn't really be a "trap" option if it weren't for like, every other class ever.

[Draco18s]

These things are all relative, really. It's kinda like how monks in 3.x wouldn't really be a "trap" option if it weren't for like, every other class ever.

I've seen some really good monk builds.

But yeah, if it weren't for "every other class ever" they'd be ok.

(In the pathfinder game I'm in, we've got a monk who I'm pretty sure is going to get errata'ed: he never runs out of kii and never runs out of hitpoints. Every time he crits (and he built TO crit: flurry gets him 6 attacks, and he crits on a 17, so on average 1 kii gained back every round) he gets a kii back, and damage dished out is also healing*).

*I think, I don't recall the exact details, but he has some ability to heal himself based on "hitting things."

[Lanlaorn]

Even against a Force 3-6 spirit, you could Stunbolt it or you could try to Banish it. And Banishing is going to be less effective, cause far more drain and, worst of all, requires you waste BP/Karma on the Banishing skill. And of course against a very high force spirit you simply won't be able to beat its rolls with Banishing, but stunbolt will do the job.

If you want to roleplay a spirit exorcist of sorts you absolutely need to convince your GM to houserule Banishing into something useful. It just doesn't work in its current form.

[Whipstitch]

I've seen some really good monk builds.

But yeah, if it weren't for "every other class ever" they'd be ok.

(In the pathfinder game I'm in, we've got a monk who I'm pretty sure is going to get errata'ed: he never runs out of kii and never runs out of hitpoints. Every time he crits (and he built TO crit: flurry gets him 6 attacks, and he crits on a 17, so on average 1 kii gained back every round) he gets a kii back, and damage dished out is also healing*).

*I think, I don't recall the exact details, but he has some ability to heal himself based on "hitting things."

Yeah, I should point out I'm not really familiar with Pathfinder. My experience with D&D mostly boils down to those not-so-halcyon days back before people decided that maybe it's best to pretend that Polymorph never happened.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yeah, I'm familiar with the pokemon tactic. I just think it's weak sauce relative to what else a magician could pick up with the same points.

Indeed, I hate that tactic. Fortunately, we have never had an occurence, at our table, of said tactic. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Draco18s]

Yeah, I should point out I'm not really familiar with Pathfinder. My experience with D&D mostly boils down to those not-so-halcyon days back before people decided that maybe it's best to pretend that Polymorph never happened.

No worries. I'm not terribly familiar with pathfinder either.