All about ally spirits, Unanswered questions Options

[GunnerJ]

Sorry if I'm covering old ground, but my searches have been fruitless.

1) Familliar Ordeal

MITS states that making an ally spirit can count as an ordeal if the karma cost of the ally is greater than or equal to the karma cost of the initiation w/ ordeal, and that the magician does not lose a point of magic in conjuring the ally spirit. First, does the karma spent on the ally count as karma spent towards the ordeal? I'd say no, but then, why make a minimum like that except to limit a karma cost reduction cheese? Second, if the magician doesn't lose a point of magic to the ally spirit, does he gain a point of magic from initiation anyway? I'd say no, as the spirit of the law seems to be that the magic gained from initiation replaces what would be lost in making the ally, but it's not explicit.

2) Senselink

Can this be used for remote spell targeting? I think so, since you do have LOS from the ally's POV.

3) Forms and stats

In a lot of ways, the rule that the ally's stats remain the same regardless of form make no sense. If I give an ally a form as large as a troll, does it get +1 reach? Why wouldn't it? If it holds a sword in its materialized arm at that size, the sword can extend farther than if the form were smaller. Of course, this can lead to incredible cheese in ally form (if it's a pillar of flames, can it actually burn things? If I give the form the actual organs and appearence of a great dragon, can it breath fire and have hardened armor?), so I think a few balances would be needed. Suggestions:

a) Limit ally form size/nature
b) Charage extra karma for forms with special abilities
c) Balance special abilites with flaws in the form (can work with (b))
d) GunnerJ is full of shit and there's nothing wrong with the form rules.

4) Other powers

What would you think of allowing allys to have normal spirit/elemental powers for an added (probably substantial) cost? I wouldn't try to get it past my GM (our team's characters give him enough trouble already), but I'd allow it for players if I GMed. If it is allowed, should there be limits based on tradition (shamans can give their allies nature spirt powers, mages elemental powers, etc.)?

5) Ally Demeanor and "Treating it Well"

Does the summoner get to chose the personality of his/her ally, or is this up to the GM? It would suck for an ally of high moral standards to be summoned by a person with few inhabitions for the right price, or an active, adventurous spirit to be summoned to a boring lump who just wants to live in quiet. Does this have an effect on how the ally likes its treatment? Would the active and restless spirit restent a master who never wanted to do anything? What constitutes the bound of "good treatment?"

6) Death, etc.

I might have missed it, but I don't see a section in MitS dealing with ally spirits dying. Do they? If an ally takes deadly damage and goes over overflow, is it gone for good? What if its disrupted by stun damage?

[Kanada Ten]

2) No, Senselink is magic and magic cannot be used to enhance LOS, per the rules. I might allow indirect fire of Elemental Manipulation spells, but it wouldn't be simple.

3) Search. This has been discussed in detail. (Not saying it can't be again).

4) I've considered it, but usually one power in place of Power Focus.

5) Both the GM and player come to an agreement about the Ally. Ultimately it is an NPC.

6) It is disrupted by physical damage in the say way as stun. Look under the Inhabiting power.

[Cain]

[Kanada Ten]

Ally spirits and manifestation

Ally spirit appearances?

Ally spirit info

Searched the old form for you :) Hope some of it helps.

[RedmondLarry]

1) No, the Karma spent for the spirit does not help with the cost of the initiation. The Karma restriction is so that you don't get a tiny little ally in order to get a big savings on your initiation. (E.g., a zero Karma-cost ally)

For an ally conjured as part of an initiation, you don't lose the Magic Point when you create the ally ... but you have to check for Magic Loss when you lose or banish the ally. Yes, you do get to keep the Magic Point you gain from the Initiation.

For a regular ally spirit, you pay the magic point up front, and don't lose any more when you lose the ally. You can even get the Magic Point back if you banish such an ally. (MitS.113)

[Yum Donuts]

1) Yes, he doesn't lose the point of magic. Summoning as an ordeal is the only way to go

2) Hellzma-NO.

3) Game balance purely, with some definite distinctions. If the form doesn't have hands, it can't do jobs that require them
Also, think about carrying a matress. Matresses aren't that heavy, they're just big and awkward without good handholds. the larger you are, the easier it is to manage their bulk, and I would apply that. keeps people from having the gnat with the strength of 15. leverage still aplies.

4) You have to declare when you summon it what type of spirit it is. It may be possible to buy other powers of that spirit's type at set costs, however I would greatly advise against this. why?
An ally elemental could always have aid sorcery on. now you're getting (force) dice to all your sorcery skills for having an ally.
And this would give a large bonus to shamans since nature spirits have many more powers available than elementals (to make up for their decreased stats).

5) the answer is "Both" do you get to choose the demeanor your friends have? no. but they all have demeanors you like. With your ally, it's a chunk of yourself. It's not you exactly, but if you're a kill crazy fiend, it won't be mother theresa. I try to imagine the character's best friend and go from there.

6) like any other spirit. death=death. but disrupted means it can come back in 28 days -force, or you can astral quest to bring it back.

[Moonstone Spider]

Next question: Can a magician have multiple ally spirits? I have the crazy vision in my head of some poor wizard with 4 allies all clamoring for more karma, attention, and shiny things.

[shadd4d]

Dunkelzahn (apparently) pulled it off; there's nothing that says I can't have more than 1, but you'd better be earning karma by sweating if you've got more than 1.

@Moonstone Spider:

I hope none of those allies have alternative forms as babies who need to be changed. That would just suck.

Don

[Moonstone Spider]

I was thinking more of the unholy spellstorms you could command if you had 4 allies, all with the sorcery skill, working at once.

[shadd4d]

Got a question for allies and ritual sorcery.

Isn't it better to have the ally act as a ritual partner than as a power focus in ritual sorcery? You'd have your spell pool, plus the sorcery pool of your skill + ally's skill. That's a lot more than having just your spell pool + Spirit's force + your sorcery skill.

Don

[toturi]

The PC pays karma equal to the ordeal, goes through all the rigamole, gets an ally spirit and access to a new Metamagic technique.

[Lilt]

Well: Technically the ally would provide more dice that way but it'd need to know the spell at the desired force too which costs karma.

I personally am all for a more defined set of rules for ally spirits forms. As-for getting into a materialised ally spirit: The form of the ally still takes damage but it won't be bothered by it. I'm wondering about a karma cost system based on cost, availability, and overall stats of a form. IE: You could have a main-battle-tank ally form, but you would need more karma than god to pull it off. You could perhaps scale it so that if the creator knew how to make an item (a main battle tank or a sword, for example) then it would be cheaper.

[Lilt]

Hmm. I have another question: Can allies bond foci? Could an ally helping-out in a ritual use expendable foci to add even more dice? Could they themselves bond and wield weapon foci?

[Moon-Hawk]

I don't think so. They don't have karma. They don't earn any, since they're not independent beings. I would think a free spirit could, but even they have to have their karma donated.
Although, I think if a PC came to me with puppy-eyes and wanted to donate (at 1:1) some karma to their ally so they could bond a weapon focus, I'd definitely consider letting them.

[toturi]

Free your spirit. Then you can donate at 1:3 ratio.

[RedmondLarry]

For years we've allowed a magician to have multiple ally spirits. We've found that allowing a magician to have one more way to use up Karma hasn't unbalanced the game.

[GunnerJ]

My biggest point of contention is with the Senselink being used as remote targeting and forms having stat changes. Yes, I understand that they are intended for game balance (even though MitS does not explicitly prevent LOS from senselink). This is not a mystery to me. My problem is that they don't make sense.

As for senselink, comparisons to clairvoyance are not potent. Senselink is not clairvoyence, it is the direct substitution of the ally's senses for the its master's. MitS even states that you can use the ally's astral senses to assense things. In what way does this not logically count as LOS? SR3 explicitly states that assensing can be used to target for spells. Also note that this is an important enough issue that I think if it weren't allowed by canon, it would be explicitly nixed. But as far as I can see, it wasn't.

It's not like it's terribly imbalnced, though. No more so thatn a drone rigger using his remotely controled autogyro to fire its minigun at a target he can't see. There are some differences, so I might impose a TN modifier of some sort, but just not allowing it makes no sense.

Now as for forms: I'm glad that someone mentioned the fact that a larger spirit should be able to handle a large and unweildly thing better, not because of weight but because of physical leverage. This is just basic physics. But it's also basic physics that if your arms are longer, you have longer reach.

I'm not suggesting this as a way to munch out but as a way to counter potential munching and find a more logical solution than simply making all materialized spirits have the same stats, no matter how absurd it is. This has the added benefit of being more fun in that it allwos for greater creativity in form design, as well as utility and a cost to balance it. If you want to make a huge spirit form with +3 reach, the only thing stopping you is an illogical game balance mechanism. Wouldn't it be more sensible to have to pay for mechanical advantages in materializaed form, or limit the types of forms that can be taken for one karma?

[Kanada Ten]

GunnerJ, if you could use Senselink for casting spells (other than in Ritual Sorcery which I would allow), don't you think they would specificlly mention that? They went through the trouble of mentioning Astral, but not spells, why? Think about Eyes of the Pack, it replaces the mage's sense but also can't be used as remote spell casting.

[Lilt]

I'm with OurTeam on the topic of mages being able to summon multiple allies. You may want to apply the ally against the Charisma limit of bonded spirits though, or at-least apply them on another counter in the same manner as watchers.

I am torn as to wether or not the sense link power can be used to cast spells through the sense link power. On one hand it is very powerful, on the other the sense link allows the character to percieve through the spirit's senses. There is also the fact that astral attacks can't reach the mage through the sense link, shopuld it then be possible for the mage to attack astral entities through the link? It's not a spell, so it's not subject to the same restriction as clairvoyance. There's also the fact that if the spirit can see the target, it can cast spells anyway. The sense-link and aid power abilities also can't be used simultaniously as aid power is exclusive.

What it really depends on is wether the GM considers the senses to have been altered in the same manner as simsense ETC do. I suspect many would say that it does, but I'd be interested to know if anyone has played that it is possible to cast through the sense link.

[Lilt]

[Kanada Ten]

I don't recall the restriction be limited to spells, but rather "Magical Effects" or something of that nature. I think they would have stated it counts as Line of Sight if it did because that is a huge deal in Shadowrun.

[GunnerJ]

[Apathy]

[GunnerJ]

[Lilt]

Question: If an ally spirit wears armor (or any spirit for that matter), does the armor reduce the power of the attack before the immunity to normal weapons applies?

Assuming yes: If a force 4 spirit is wearing armor clothing, could it take damage from a rugger thunderbolt burst fire? Why do I ask this? There are two ways to look at this:

Reading 1:
Attack does 12S
Subtract 3 for armor, attack does 9S
Base power of attack unmodified by burst fire is 9M.
This is greater than the rating of the hardened armor -> the attack gets through
Immunity to normal weapons lowers attack power by 8
Attack does 12-3-8=1S damage
Or
Reading 2:
Attack does 12S
Armor effectively lowers base power of each bullet by 3 to 6M
This is less than the rating of hardened armor -> the attack is ineffective