Task spirits, skills and endowments, the path to hell? Options

[Bearclaw]

I'm starting a new campaign, and the combat mage wants to be able to get skills from his task spirit. So....
here's my thoughts, and what I plan to tell my player:

Invoking is a metamagic which gives a task spirit Endowment.
Endowment allows a Spirit to transfer a power to it's summoner.
Task spirits can learn extra skills as an Optional Power.
So, if you conjure a task spirit, and get enough successes to give it an optional power, and invoke it, it can use Endowment to give you that skill at it's force.
It seems like there's so much invested in this that it's not really unbalancing, but the whole idea makes me a little nauseous.

So, is this going to destroy game balance in some way I'm not seeing?

[almost normal]

As overpowered as spirits are, fortunately, you're missing something.

The spirit is converting a power into skills. Endowment transfers powers alone, not skills. The fact that those skills were purchased with a power is irrelevant to the text of Endowment.

[Draco18s]

Two things I can think of:

1) Only allow 1 endowed power at a time. If the spirit (or a second spirit) endows the player again, it replaces.

2) Enforce skill rank limits. No matter what force the spirit is, he can't get an effective skill above 6 (or 9 or whatever limit you feel is appropriate).

In any case, it's a little cheesy that he's trying to do this, but it's not that terrible all things told. He's effectively spending "100" BP to save "30" BP.

[Bearclaw]

As overpowered as spirits are, fortunately, you're missing something.

The spirit is converting a power into skills. Endowment transfers powers alone, not skills. The fact that those skills were purchased with a power is irrelevant to the text of Endowment.

I realize it doesn't follow the letter of the rules. He originally wanted to play possession based, and I talked him out of that. This doesn't seem to be a bad compromise. But again, is there any way to really abuse this that I haven't thought of?

[Bearclaw]

Two things I can think of:

1) Only allow 1 endowed power at a time. If the spirit (or a second spirit) endows the player again, it replaces.

2) Enforce skill rank limits. No matter what force the spirit is, he can't get an effective skill above 6 (or 9 or whatever limit you feel is appropriate).

In any case, it's a little cheesy that he's trying to do this, but it's not that terrible all things told. He's effectively spending "100" BP to save "30" BP.

That's what I was thinking. With all that investment, it would be easier just to have the skill. I think he may be forgetting that Invoking is part of Binding, so he can't just immediately have a skill.

[almost normal]

You're basically allowing him to take the skill "Relevant Skill" with a dicepool of at least 7 (8 if he decides to throw edge in), for every single skill, test, and knowledge in existence. This will have the handy side effect of letting your other players know they can go back to bullshitting and drinking beer (or worse, stop showing up) because the overpowered mage is handling it.

Yes, It's still a slight bit less overpowered then possession spirits, but the mundane side literally has nothing that comes close to this, and what little even compares stops far short for active skills and costs a fortune in essence and cash.

[Draco18s]

That's what I was thinking. With all that investment, it would be easier just to have the skill. I think he may be forgetting that Invoking is part of Binding, so he can't just immediately have a skill.

He'd have to whore out his binding skill too, to have a chance at binding those Force 5+ spirits with enough net successes to get Invoking.

[Bearclaw]

You're basically allowing him to take the skill "Relevant Skill" with a dicepool of at least 7 (8 if he decides to throw edge in), for every single skill, test, and knowledge in existence. This will have the handy side effect of letting your other players know they can go back to bullshitting and drinking beer (or worse, stop showing up) because the overpowered mage is handling it.

Yes, It's still a slight bit less overpowered then possession spirits, but the mundane side literally has nothing that comes close to this, and what little even compares stops far short for active skills and costs a fortune in essence and cash.

Except for the whole, takes 6 hours and (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 3000 to get that skill at 6 thing.

[almost normal]

He'd have to whore out his binding skill too, to have a chance at binding those Force 5+ spirits with enough net successes to get Invoking.

I realize everyone creates characters differently, but in a 400bp build, I tend to put around 150 in attributes, 150 in skills, and the remaining 100 split between gear and contacts. If this power is allowed, 150bp will go from a moderate smattering of skills, to quite literally, every skill in existence. He's got 50BP to pull off conjuring and binding his task spirit. You don't think he could pull that off easily?

[Bearclaw]

He'd have to whore out his binding skill too, to have a chance at binding those Force 5+ spirits with enough net successes to get Invoking.

I disagree with that. The number of services, and therefore the extra powers, is set at conjuration. Extra successes in binding will add more services, but I wouldn't allow that to feed back in and add additional powers.

[Bearclaw]

I realize everyone creates characters differently, but in a 400bp build, I tend to put around 150 in attributes, 150 in skills, and the remaining 100 split between gear and contacts. If this power is allowed, 150bp will go from a moderate smattering of skills, to quite literally, every skill in existence. He's got 50BP to pull off conjuring and binding his task spirit. You don't think he could pull that off easily?

I think you're skipping a rule somewhere.
The skill the spirit has is set at conjuration. He doesn't get ALL skills, he gets ANY one skill. THen, the spirit must be invoked, which is part of binding. So sure he can start the game with a force 6 spirit with a guns of 6 which can be transfered to him for only 6 BP. Which can be used once, right? Cause transferring the power is a service.

[almost normal]

Except for the whole, takes 6 hours and (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 3000 to get that skill at 6 thing.

How does that compare to the 100k and .75 essence loss of rating 5 skillwires? Which you still need to purchase the skills for?

Thirty three runs later, and you've still not even paid off the base cost of something that is far weaker?

[almost normal]

I think you're skipping a rule somewhere.
The skill the spirit has is set at conjuration. He doesn't get ALL skills, he gets ANY one skill. THen, the spirit must be invoked, which is part of binding. So sure he can start the game with a force 6 spirit with a guns of 6 which can be transfered to him for only 6 BP. Which can be used once, right? Cause transferring the power is a service.

Or he asks for some up-front downtime and binds them using his starting cash. And I'm pretty sure that while it's any one skill, he can summon another spirit and grab a second skill. For instance, if the team is sent to break into a bank next week, he can look through a sears catalog of skills and figure out that he wants lockpicking/safecracking, knowledge of this banks security features and robbery scenarios, etc. That leaves the rest of the party to be hyper-specialized builds, or bulletcatchers.

[Elfenlied]

You can always just play possession spirits, so I don't think it is too unbalanced. Besides, you cna only get certain categories of skills.

[Bearclaw]

Or he asks for some up-front downtime and binds them using his starting cash. And I'm pretty sure that while it's any one skill, he can summon another spirit and grab a second skill. For instance, if the team is sent to break into a bank next week, he can look through a sears catalog of skills and figure out that he wants lockpicking/safecracking, knowledge of this banks security features and robbery scenarios, etc. That leaves the rest of the party to be hyper-specialized builds, or bulletcatchers.

So, right up front, he's spent (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 9000, and 18 hours to have 3 skills at force 6, one at a time.

Of course, he could just conjure the task spirit, and ask it to open the safe, right? Without binding.

[Bearclaw]

Or he asks for some up-front downtime and binds them using his starting cash. And I'm pretty sure that while it's any one skill, he can summon another spirit and grab a second skill. For instance, if the team is sent to break into a bank next week, he can look through a sears catalog of skills and figure out that he wants lockpicking/safecracking, knowledge of this banks security features and robbery scenarios, etc. That leaves the rest of the party to be hyper-specialized builds, or bulletcatchers.

So, right up front, he's spent (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 9000, and 18 hours to have 3 skills at force 6, one at a time.

Of course, he could just conjure the task spirit, and ask it to open the safe, right? Without binding.

[almost normal]

So, right up front, he's spent (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 9000, and 18 hours to have 3 skills at force 6, one at a time.

Of course, he could just conjure the task spirit, and ask it to open the safe, right? Without binding.

Ones traceable, and effected by anti astral measures, the other isn't, but... When you put it that way, it makes me hate spirits even more.

[Bearclaw]

Ones traceable, and effected by anti astral measures, the other isn't, but... When you put it that way, it makes me hate spirits even more.

To transfer the power, the spirit would have to be on the same plane, therefore manifested. So, all the regular anti-astral measures would apply. Honestly, the more we talk about it, the less useful this seems.

[almost normal]

To transfer the power, the spirit would have to be on the same plane, therefore manifested. So, all the regular anti-astral measures would apply. Honestly, the more we talk about it, the less useful this seems.

I agree.

Just be prepared for him to get the most out of it. 5 or 6 spirits is gonna be 120 to 146 BP of skills for 15k and some downtime.

[Bearclaw]

Honestly, the more I think about it, the horror of being able to conjure and send out a task spirit might actually be worse for game balance than the immunity to weapons thing for a possession tradition. I notice that the only traditions in Street Magic to have a task spirit are all possession based. They may have been trying to tell me something.

[Bearclaw]

Upon continued reflection, I'm thinking that the task spirit in general makes the rest of the party unnecessary except for combat. Is there any limits placed on their abilities by RAW?

[Neraph]

How does that compare to the 100k and .75 essence loss of rating 5 skillwires? Which you still need to purchase the skills for?

Thirty three runs later, and you've still not even paid off the base cost of something that is far weaker?

10,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for R5 Skillwires, 40,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for R4 Skillsoft, 46,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for R4 Skillsoft with R3 Pluscode and Personalization; all permanently. 3,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for the ability to get a single skill at R6 for maybe a day or two.

Stop complaining.

EDIT:

Upon continued reflection, I'm thinking that the task spirit in general makes the rest of the party unnecessary except for combat. Is there any limits placed on their abilities by RAW?

Any technical or physical skill (page 98, Street Magic). This means Physical Active Skills (page 124-125, SR4A) or Technical Active Skills (page 126-127, SR4A). It's still a good selection, but getting only one at a time (Endowment, page 99, Street Magic) and from such a large list you're looking at someone who will shine only when parachuting, repairing something, running, swimming, or something similar.

[almost normal]

10,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for R5 Skillwires, 40,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for R4 Skillsoft, 46,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for R4 Skillsoft with R3 Pluscode and Personalization; all permanently. 3,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) for the ability to get a single skill at R6 for maybe a day or two.

*baby crying*

Stop being ignorant. I clearly cited the .75 essence loss, but I'm sure your attention span couldn't handle more then one set of information at once.

[Halinn]

Upon continued reflection, I'm thinking that the task spirit in general makes the rest of the party unnecessary except for combat. Is there any limits placed on their abilities by RAW?

That fact that the game master, not the player, actually controls them. Sure, the mage can give orders, but it is up to the spirit how to interpret them. Also, they can't do hacking, given that they have no way of receiving input from the commlink. They can't bypass a maglock, since their astral sight does not show detail on non-living, non-magical objects. They don't pick up social skills either. Piloting is its own skill category as well. There's not much actual infringement.

Anyhow, the endowment trick does not actually work.

Skill (a task spirit may be given an additional Technical or Physical skill instead of an optional power)

It is made clear that the skill being given is instead of a power, so it's not a power, so it can't be endowed.

In addition, one can only receive one power with endowment at any one time, regardless of how many spirits they have.

No character may gain more than one power from a spirit in this way at a time.

[Bearclaw]

So, I'm aware that the original idea isn't exactly RAW. I was trying to find a way to weaken the possession/task spirit thing. At this point, even with ITNW, a task spirit possessing the character would be better than the task spirit running off to do whatever.

edit---I also think that giving a task spirit a technical skill, then saying they can't use the skill because they can't see right is bull. They can manifest and use the same light that we use.