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> Angel Summoner, quick and easy Force 9 spirits
kerbarian
post Jul 28 2013, 02:20 AM
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It takes a bit of investment, but it's not that hard to regularly summon Force 9 spirits with minimal drain from a starting character. The main ingredients are Magic 9 (natural 6 + Force 3 Power Focus) and a large drain pool -- Edge helps, too.

Force 9 spirits are, of course, rather ridiculously powerful. An air spirit has a ranged attack of 18P/-9 (Elemental Attack, electricity) with 21 dice and a melee attack of 27S/special (Engulf + Energy Aura). It also has initiative of 22 + 2d6 (before boosting with Increased Reflexes), 18 hardened armor against most attacks, and a defense pool (Rea + Int) of 22. Oh, and it makes your whole team invisible with Concealment (-9 dice to enemy perception rolls). Other spirit types are comparable.

Here's a sample character built for summoning them (among other things):

[ Spoiler ]

Increased Willpower can be sustained with Focused Concentration, giving him a Willpower of 9 (maxxed out at natural +4). That plus his natural Charisma of 8 is a drain pool of 17. Summoning a Force 9 air spirit with 19 dice and then resisting drain with 17 dice results in an average of 3.3 services and 1.5 stun damage from drain (53% chance of no drain at all). If he's about to take drain damage, he can spend Edge (of which he has plenty) on Second Chance -- that reduces things to an average of 0.3 stun damage (87% chance of no drain at all). With some extra time, he can also quickly rest it off (adding Increased Body via a sustaining focus plus reagents gets him to 14 dice for healing stun damage).

Binding a Force 9 spirit is scary stuff, but just summoning a new one whenever you run out of services is very doable and incredibly powerful.

A couple other notes about the character: While he's incredibly frail physically, he's actually very hard to hit unless he's had to shut down his sustaining foci. If he's expecting combat, he'll generally be sustaining Increased Willpower (via Focused Concentration) and then Combat Sense on himself and Increased Reflexes on both himself and his summoned spirit (using sustaining foci). Those last three would be cast at Force 1 so they can fit in the sustaining foci but with reagents to increase their limits to 9 -- reagents are basically ammo for spellcasters. That gives him plenty of initiative to use Full Defense; that plus Combat Sense that typically gives him 21 dice for avoiding attacks, plus lots of Edge if things look ugly.

He doesn't have any weapons or combat spells. He'd be perfectly competent with combat spells, but the spirit will still hit much harder and Control Thoughts (with a decent Initiative) actually seems like a more useful spell in a fight -- I haven't tried that in actual play, though.

Edit: Since the sample character above seems particularly contentious, here's another one that's more well-rounded. He still won't do well at arm wrestling, but he's only a bit below average physically, and he adds some interesting capabilities: He's a great scout (strong detection spells plus perception to go with spirit Concealment) and all-around healer (17 dice for First Aid with a medkit, plus Heal and Resist Pain). He can still summon Force 9 spirits -- only 2.7 average services with no Mentor Spirit, but he's the same on drain resistance. Instead of a natural 8 charisma, he boosts both of his drain attributes via spells for the same total of 17 dice. He's tougher in combat with the same suite of defensive spells (Combat Sense, Increase Reflexes, Increase Willpower) plus better Body and Int + Rea.

[ Spoiler ]
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Jaid
post Jul 28 2013, 02:36 AM
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and then, one random day, instead of getting 3.3 services he explodes in a shower of blood and gore that covers everyone in a 9 meter radius.
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Slide
post Jul 28 2013, 02:48 AM
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Body 1 agli reaction 1 str 1? I think you are literally my Grandmother.
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Shortstraw
post Jul 28 2013, 02:49 AM
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Drain can only be healed by resting which is a body x2 for physical drain so you may want more than 1 body.
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kerbarian
post Jul 28 2013, 03:04 AM
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QUOTE (Jaid @ Jul 27 2013, 07:36 PM) *
and then, one random day, instead of getting 3.3 services he explodes in a shower of blood and gore that covers everyone in a 9 meter radius.

The drain is stun -- Magic 9 vs. Force 9. It's possible he'll get knocked out due to 13 stun damage, but it's a 0.02% chance even before spending Edge for a Second Chance.
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kerbarian
post Jul 28 2013, 03:06 AM
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QUOTE (Slide @ Jul 27 2013, 07:48 PM) *
Body 1 agli reaction 1 str 1? I think you are literally my Grandmother.

Yup. It's easy enough to have 2's in everything by spreading points around from Intuition and not affect his summoning ability at all, but I decided to go with the theme (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) .
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Tanegar
post Jul 28 2013, 08:48 AM
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Between Body 1, a blitzed immune system, an allergy to pollutants (in other words, 90% of everything he's exposed to, unless he's doing his running exclusively in virgin wilderness where there's nothing to run against), and zero ability to do anything remotely athletic (run, jump, swim, climb, not that any runner has ever had to do any of those things...), he is literally weaker than a kitten. Also, your math is wrong: he doesn't have 19 dice to summon spirits, he has 17: you forgot the -2 penalty for his allergy, which in an urban setting affects him 24/7 and penalizes every single roll he makes other than soak and drain resistance.

The moral of this story is that if you minmax the living fuck out of your character, you get someone who can do precisely one thing unbelievably well, but folds like wet cardboard when asked to do anything else (like, say, be a functioning shadowrunner).
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Elfenlied
post Jul 28 2013, 09:17 AM
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QUOTE (kerbarian @ Jul 28 2013, 04:04 AM) *
The drain is stun -- Magic 9 vs. Force 9. It's possible he'll get knocked out due to 13 stun damage, but it's a 0.02% chance even before spending Edge for a Second Chance.


Power foci do not actually increase your magic rating.
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sds
post Jul 28 2013, 09:31 AM
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QUOTE (Tanegar @ Jul 28 2013, 08:48 AM) *
Between Body 1, a blitzed immune system, an allergy to pollutants (in other words, 90% of everything he's exposed to...


Get him one of these Human Hamster Ball
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Tzeentch
post Jul 28 2013, 09:32 AM
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QUOTE (Elfenlied @ Jul 28 2013, 10:17 AM) *
Power foci do not actually increase your magic rating.

It says it increases "your effective Magic rating." (p. 319). Unless clarified, it would seem to apply when checking for stun versus physical damage. (p. 300)
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Elfenlied
post Jul 28 2013, 09:37 AM
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QUOTE (Tzeentch @ Jul 28 2013, 10:32 AM) *
It says it increases "your effective Magic rating." (p. 319). Unless clarified, it would seem to apply when checking for stun versus physical damage. (p. 300)


The full text says this:

QUOTE
Power foci live up to their name. They are very powerful
foci that temporarily increase your effective Magic rat-ing. That means they add to your Sorcery, Conjuring, and
Enchanting dice pools
, along with any other test where
Magic is involved.


Emphasis mine in bold. Power Foci add to your DP, but do nothing more.
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kerbarian
post Jul 28 2013, 09:58 AM
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QUOTE (Tanegar @ Jul 28 2013, 01:48 AM) *
The moral of this story is that if you minmax the living fuck out of your character, you get someone who can do precisely one thing unbelievably well, but folds like wet cardboard when asked to do anything else (like, say, be a functioning shadowrunner).

Wow, I'm sorry if that character upsets you... it's just a sample character, and I thought adding some glaring flaws would make him more interesting. None of that really has to do with the fact that you can regularly summon Force 9 spirits with a starting character.

If I wanted to just minmax it, there are simple ways to get rid of the obvious (and -- I thought -- obviously intentional) weaknesses of the character. And btw, a mild allergy only applies to physical tests, not summoning.

Also, I should clarify -- I don't think this is a good thing for the game. My main point here is trying to point out something that seems way more powerful than what I would expect a starting character to be able to do.
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Tanegar
post Jul 28 2013, 10:13 AM
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QUOTE (kerbarian @ Jul 28 2013, 05:58 AM) *
Wow, I'm sorry if that character upsets you... it's just a sample character, and I thought adding some glaring flaws would make him more interesting. None of that really has to do with the fact that you can regularly summon Force 9 spirits with a starting character.

The character doesn't upset me, he's just ridiculous. He's a very good magician, but put an obstacle in his path that can't be removed with magic, and he is utterly helpless. To be clear, if you brought this character to my table, I would gladly let you play him... and I would laugh in your face when he died on the first run.

QUOTE
If I wanted to really just minmax it, there are easy ways to get rid of the obvious (and -- I thought -- obviously intentional) weaknesses of the character. And btw, a mild allergy only applies to physical tests, not summoning.

Did they change that in SR5? SR4A says "all tests made while the character experiences the symptoms." If it's only physical tests in SR5, I think that's kind of silly; you ever try to do anything involving mental focus while hacking and coughing?

QUOTE
Also, I should clarify -- I don't think this is a good thing for the game. My main point here is trying to point out something that seems way more powerful than what I would expect a starting character to be able to do.

You spent every single point you had on one thing, and you got (surprise, surprise) a combination glass cannon/one-trick pony. I don't consider that overpowered, simply because he'll never live long enough for it to become an issue.
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kerbarian
post Jul 28 2013, 10:39 AM
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QUOTE (Tanegar @ Jul 28 2013, 03:13 AM) *
The character doesn't upset me, he's just ridiculous. He's a very good magician, but put an obstacle in his path that can't be removed with magic, and he is utterly helpless. To be clear, if you brought this character to my table, I would gladly let you play him... and I would laugh in your face when he died on the first run.

The character doesn't upset you, but you'd like to laugh in my face after he dies?...

Anyway, assuming we take away the intentional physical frailty -- say, replace the negative qualities with a Code of Honor and Loss of Confidence (Counterspelling) and distribute points from Intuition so that no attribute is a 1 -- in what way is this character less capable or flexible than the Street Shaman archetype? Certainly he's worse at running and jumping (except when he decides to spend Edge), but I don't see how that makes a character terminally useless.

QUOTE (Tanegar @ Jul 28 2013, 03:13 AM) *
Did they change that in SR5? SR4A says "all tests made while the character experiences the symptoms." If it's only physical tests in SR5, I think that's kind of silly; you ever try to do anything involving mental focus while hacking and coughing?

Yes, the new wording is "Apply a –2 dice pool modifier to the character’s Physical Tests while under the effects of the Allergy." Moderate is also "Physical Tests", but once you reach a severe allergy the wording changes to "all tests".
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Tanegar
post Jul 28 2013, 10:55 AM
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I haven't seen the Street Shaman archetype in SR5, so I really can't compare the two.

As for flexibility, the specified changes don't help him in that regard at all. Giving him Body 2 increases his maximum soak pool from laughably bad (3) to merely sniggeringly bad (6). Congratulations, you now average two (2) hits when resisting damage instead of one; or if you would only take 1 damage, you can now buy the single hit to auto-soak. I hear you say, "But Tanegar, he can spend Edge!" Yes, yes he can. But if he's doing that every time someone gives him a nasty look, even six points of Edge won't last very long.

He's now a tempered-glass cannon, but still a one-trick pony. He can cast spells and summon spirits like nobody's business, but is still a babe in the woods when faced with any problem that cannot be easily solved with magic. His Assensing and Perception pools, which were mediocre at 6, are now downright bad at 4; and his Astral Combat pools of 3 are barely worth mentioning.

If you want him to be flexible at all, able to handle more than one type of situation, he needs more skills. I'm guessing, however, that if you raise his skill priority, he suddenly won't be able to whip out a Force 9 demigod quite so handily.
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kerbarian
post Jul 28 2013, 11:19 AM
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QUOTE (Tanegar @ Jul 28 2013, 03:55 AM) *
I haven't seen the Street Shaman archetype in SR5, so I really can't compare the two.

As for flexibility, the specified changes don't help him in that regard at all. Giving him Body 2 increases his maximum soak pool from laughably bad (3) to merely sniggeringly bad (6). Congratulations, you now average two (2) hits when resisting damage instead of one; or if you would only take 1 damage, you can now buy the single hit to auto-soak. I hear you say, "But Tanegar, he can spend Edge!" Yes, yes he can. But if he's doing that every time someone gives him a nasty look, even six points of Edge won't last very long.

As described in the post, the idea for defense in combat is to rely on spells (sustained without penalty via foci and Focused Concentration) to give him a much more effective overall defense than most of the archetypes. It's true that he's fragile without those spells -- that's when the Edge would come in, on the (hopefully rare) occasions when he's thrown into combat immediately after there's some reason his spells need to come down.

It's potentially worth noting that he could swap priorities to drop his Edge to 1 and get 6 more attribute points, which is enough to reach respectable numbers all around without dropping Willpower or Charisma. I think the Edge of 6 is more likely to be helpful, though, with the new Edge rules.

QUOTE (Tanegar @ Jul 28 2013, 03:55 AM) *
He's now a tempered-glass cannon, but still a one-trick pony. He can cast spells and summon spirits like nobody's business, but is still a babe in the woods when faced with any problem that cannot be easily solved with magic. His Assensing and Perception pools, which were mediocre at 6, are now downright bad at 4; and his Astral Combat pools of 3 are barely worth mentioning.

That's one of the things I find so worrisome about easily summoning high-force spirits -- in addition to massive combat power, they provide a lot of flexibility. For example, the Force 9 spirit has all of the skills you mentioned (Assensing, Astral Combat , and Perception) with pools of 18 dice.
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FuelDrop
post Jul 28 2013, 11:37 AM
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QUOTE (Tanegar @ Jul 28 2013, 06:55 PM) *
I haven't seen the Street Shaman archetype in SR5, so I really can't compare the two.

As for flexibility, the specified changes don't help him in that regard at all. Giving him Body 2 increases his maximum soak pool from laughably bad (3) to merely sniggeringly bad (6). Congratulations, you now average two (2) hits when resisting damage instead of one; or if you would only take 1 damage, you can now buy the single hit to auto-soak. I hear you say, "But Tanegar, he can spend Edge!" Yes, yes he can. But if he's doing that every time someone gives him a nasty look, even six points of Edge won't last very long.

Actually, with no encumbrance and the probability he's wearing an armoured jacket you're looking at a soak pool of 13-14... which would be nice except that attacks are also more powerful in SR5 (not counting narrow bursts)
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Tanegar
post Jul 28 2013, 11:56 AM
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QUOTE (kerbarian @ Jul 28 2013, 07:19 AM) *
As described in the post, the idea for defense in combat is to rely on spells (sustained without penalty via foci and Focused Concentration) to give him a much more effective overall defense than most of the archetypes. It's true that he's fragile without those spells -- that's when the Edge would come in, on the (hopefully rare) occasions when he's thrown into combat immediately after there's some reason his spells need to come down.

Yes, lots of dice for dodging. That's very helpful against mediocre combatants firing SA weapons. Throw him up against trained soldiers with automatic weapons (as found in, for example, every high-security government and corp facility), and burst fire will cut his defense pool down to size very quickly.

QUOTE
That's one of the things I find so worrisome about easily summoning high-force spirits -- in addition to massive combat power, they provide a lot of flexibility. For example, the Force 9 spirit has all of the skills you mentioned (Assensing, Astral Combat , and Perception) with pools of 18 dice.

Can the spirit negotiate better pay for you? Can it talk down a trigger-happy cop? Can it help you sneak past a guard post? Can it defuse a tense standoff? Summoning virtually any kind of spirit will be taken as a hostile, or at least suspicious, act in most situations. Summoning a Force 9 spirit means you can expect multiple HTR teams, including combat mages, rolling up on you in the very near future.

It boils down to this: yes, on paper, the power to whistle up a Force 9 buddy more-or-less at will is very powerful. In practice, it's the kind of thing that wins battles but loses wars, if you take my meaning.
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Draco18s
post Jul 28 2013, 01:02 PM
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Here's the downside:

You only get one of these at a time.

As soon as you encounter more opposition than your F9 spirit can handle, guess who they're going to look at?

(Mmm, flanking...)
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Falconer
post Jul 28 2013, 01:15 PM
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Actually... oddball question.

He may have a super high dodge pool using willpower to aid dodge. But with 1's in all those physical stats isn't his physical limit an abysmal 2 to 4... Meaning that he's likely to cap out on every defense test at a low number?



The other bit... I don't think they changed power foci... but don't have the book to check exact diction. I could see it going either way though... since hits > Magic causes the stun -> physical drain... increasing drain limit would be a substantial increase in power foci.

Also I don't see them doing power foci that way because it opens up a potential other abuse... instead of a Qi focus... an adept could simply grab a power foci, increase magic, and get a PP for each one theoretically. Quite possibly adepts are simply banned from bonding all but certain kinds of foci though.

I think I remember Bull saying somewhere in another thread that it adds to magic though.
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PriorityKarmaGen
post Jul 28 2013, 06:31 PM
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A bigger concern is the hail-mary Force 12 spirit (basically unkillable except with Banishing, with an average of 24 dice pools). Any Magic 6 mage can attempt this; a Magic 6 + Summoning 6 mage has a reasonable shot if he spends a point of Edge for Second Chance. The drain is going to be a bitch: probably 8P or 10P, but the mage can probably resist 3 of that for 5P or 7P damage. Not good, but as a hail-mary it's actually not bad. It doesn't even have to be the PCs doing this. Suppose you're a bad guy shaman who's doing some unsavory things. One day, a bunch of guys bust into your compound and start killing your guards. Why not try for a big nasty/invincible spirit to hopefully kill the intruders before they get to your room? Add Invisibility and Stealth and hopefully they won't find you before your spirit turns them into pulp. When you fight any other dude with Ability 6 Skill 6, you're facing a dice pool of 12. When you fight a summoner with Magic 6 Summoning 6, you can face a dice pool of 24. You could say the Shadowrunner team should have taken more precautions and been sneakier, but what other BBEG with Ability 6 Skill 6 would warrant such caution?

My solution? Cap the Force of a summoned spirit at Magic x1 instead of Magic x2, or alternatively let spirits resist summoning with Force x2.


On the topic of this guy, you don't judge character archetypes by whether they can do everything. You judge them by comparing them to other character archetypes, none of which can do everything (except maybe a Jack of All Trades, but they can't do anything well).

QUOTE (Tanegar @ Jul 28 2013, 12:56 PM) *
Can the spirit negotiate better pay for you? Can it talk down a trigger-happy cop? Can it help you sneak past a guard post? Can it defuse a tense standoff? Summoning virtually any kind of spirit will be taken as a hostile, or at least suspicious, act in most situations. Summoning a Force 9 spirit means you can expect multiple HTR teams, including combat mages, rolling up on you in the very near future.

Can a street sam do any of these? Can a decker do any of these things? The street sam can sneak past a guard post, but so can this guy (Concealment for the whole team, -9 dice on Perception). The only thing I can see is defusing a tense standoff, where the street sam can at least use intimidation or something. Keep in mind this guy can cast spells, which also brings a lot of utility depending on which spells are chosen. Can the street sam find all magic or living creatures in a large area? Can the street sam heal people? Also keep in mind that the Force 9 Spirit is a lot stronger in combat than the street sam.

The street sam can resist damage better than this summoner, of course. Depending on terrain, the summoner can make up for it by staying behind cover the whole time.

QUOTE (Draco18s @ Jul 28 2013, 02:02 PM) *
You only get one of these at a time.

As soon as you encounter more opposition than your F9 spirit can handle, guess who they're going to look at?

A street sam only brings one of himself too. This mage is slightly better in that regard because he can still cast spells while the spirit is doing its thing.

QUOTE (Falconer @ Jul 28 2013, 02:15 PM) *
He may have a super high dodge pool using willpower to aid dodge. But with 1's in all those physical stats isn't his physical limit an abysmal 2 to 4... Meaning that he's likely to cap out on every defense test at a low number?

Defense tests don't have thresholds in general.
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apple
post Jul 28 2013, 07:40 PM
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QUOTE (Elfenlied @ Jul 28 2013, 05:37 AM) *
The full text says this:

Emphasis mine in bold. Power Foci add to your DP, but do nothing more.


I think this should/must be clarified by the devs, because both are conflicting. Is a power foci a simple dice pool modifier or indeed, as in the first part of the sentence, an increase of magic for purposes of physical/stun drain, overcasting etc.

SYL
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Tanegar
post Jul 28 2013, 07:52 PM
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QUOTE (PriorityKarmaGen @ Jul 28 2013, 01:31 PM) *
On the topic of this guy, you don't judge character archetypes by whether they can do everything. You judge them by comparing them to other character archetypes, none of which can do everything (except maybe a Jack of All Trades, but they can't do anything well).

But they can all do more than one thing. This guy can only do one thing, and curls up in a wheezing ball when asked to do anything else.

QUOTE
Can a street sam do any of these? Can a decker do any of these things? The street sam can sneak past a guard post, but so can this guy (Concealment for the whole team, -9 dice on Perception). The only thing I can see is defusing a tense standoff, where the street sam can at least use intimidation or something. Keep in mind this guy can cast spells, which also brings a lot of utility depending on which spells are chosen. Can the street sam find all magic or living creatures in a large area? Can the street sam heal people? Also keep in mind that the Force 9 Spirit is a lot stronger in combat than the street sam.

If the samurai or the decker have the skills for it, yes. That's my point: Angel Summoner doesn't have any significant capability not directly related to conjuring the biggest spirit he can. Also, Concealment is not a panacea, especially not for this character: with no Sneaking skill, he's defaulting to 1 die (Agility 2 - 1). If he tries to get past anybody with 13 Perception dice or better (not unlikely), they buy a hit and see right through the Concealment; and that's assuming he actually gets a hit on his 1 die. If he rolls a 1, which he'll do roughly one in six times? No Concealment will help him.

QUOTE
Defense tests don't have thresholds in general.

Lolwut? No, they don't, but that's roughly ten city blocks off the point. If he's capping out on defense at 2 hits, anyone only ever needs 3 hits to hit him, at which point he goes down like a 5-nuyen hooker.
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Tzeentch
post Jul 28 2013, 07:57 PM
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QUOTE (Elfenlied @ Jul 28 2013, 10:37 AM) *
The full text says this:
Emphasis mine in bold. Power Foci add to your DP, but do nothing more.

The second sentence helps clarify the first, it doesn't replace it. And it does add to Magic for things beyond dice pools, as your own bolding shows. As worded, it would help with reagent gathering (p. 317) for example (which doesn't make much sense to me, but its RAW). It probably doesn't help with determining Drain damage type, but that's something that needs to be clarified.
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quentra
post Jul 28 2013, 08:14 PM
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Just the fact that this is a chargen legal character who can, in fact, regularly summon F12 spirits is pretty awesome/terrifying. So he's shit at talking and running - that's what magic and a samurai is for.
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