[SR5] Force as Summoning limit?, Isn't this a bit counter-intuitive? Options

[melquisedeq]

Hey ya,

My usual SR3 group recently branched into a parallel campaign, to allow us the chance to rotate GMs and to try SR5.
Anywhore... after being brought to my Conjurer's attention that the limit for Summoning and Binding test is the target spirit's force, one question remained: why the bloody hell?

I mean, shouldn't it be easier to completely reign over a sad pushover little astral dude than a being combining Spider-man's physical ability with Prof. Xavier's mental prowess?
I understand that lower force spirits will have less dice and therefore barely a chance to resist at all, but still... Without using edge or reagents, is the most I can get out of a force 1 spirit really only 1 favor? While in the same circumstances and a cartoonishly lucky roll I can boss around a force 6 badboy who owes me over a handful of favors?

I'm hoping that there's something I'm missing, or a different reasoning as to why this is that would make better sense to me, rather than looking at this as yet another example of this 5e tendency to nerf down logic and verisimilitude for the sake of balance or whatever it is kids nowadays buy. Is there?

[SpellBinder]

I think you answered your own question in the question: To make said conjurer spend Edge or Reagents.

In SR5, there's no such thing as "Free." Everything has its cost, no matter how trivial.

[Beta]

Magic limits are a bit weird. You get a magic limit, but I'm not sure it is actually used anywhere?

[Glyph]

A lot of SR5's bad design decisions do seem driven by their idiotic "everything has a price" mantra, but in this case, I think it was just a matter of the applying a similar formula to other tests (where Force/power is the limiter) without considering the game implications (low-Force spirits are harder to successfully summon than high Force ones).

[melquisedeq]

So it's an open and shut case of retardation, as I suspected. Thank you, chummers.

[Moirdryd]

Coming from 3 - 5 was a bit of a shock with a few things. However the logic of why is present, the problem in seeing it is the Universal Magic System. In 3rd Shaman can summon spirits on the fly but Mages required prep time and use of (IIRC) Force x 100nuyen in magical materials (and/or Hermetic Circle of appropriate element). Sr5 developing from what they did creating the UMS in 4 blends both of these together and the old Mage magical materials for summoning are now simply Reagents, but they become optional but useful. So yes a raw summoning of a Force 1 or 2 Spirit limits actions etc in a way that's counter intuitive to Shaman or Mages in 3rd (because it's drawing from both styles) but throw a few Reagents in and it's easy to get far more services and the spirit has almost no chance to resist. The bigger spirits you might get more from on a lucky roll, but it's increasingly likely the summoning will fail or limit the services anyway.

It's still more than a little weird though to think that you'd use reagents to get services from a weak spirit instead of hedging your betsvagainsta stronger one. A Variant House Rule I came up with for summoning was:
Summoning Limit = Magic - Desired Force of Spirit. Reagents can be used to set Limit instead.

[Sengir]

Without using edge or reagents, is the most I can get out of a force 1 spirit really only 1 favor? While in the same circumstances and a cartoonishly lucky roll I can boss around a force 6 badboy who owes me over a handful of favors?

Depending on your DP, the chance of summoning the big boy might even be better. The single success a Force 1 spirit needs to negate your roll happens 1/3 of the time, a good summoner will pull an F 6 spirit with more certainty...

[DMiller]

Simply as a House Rule our group decided that for summoning and binding, use Astral limit. That has worked quite well for us so far and still seems to fit in with the other mechanics of the game.

[Smash]

So it's an open and shut case of retardation, as I suspected. Thank you, chummers.

Not really, I think the writers would have noticed it and gone "Meh, who summons spirits less than force 3 anyway?"

And really, who does? The drain is negligible and any spirit with mental stats less than 2 is going to be mostly useless anyway.

[Cain]

Coming from 3 - 5 was a bit of a shock with a few things. However the logic of why is present, the problem in seeing it is the Universal Magic System. In 3rd Shaman can summon spirits on the fly but Mages required prep time and use of (IIRC) Force x 100nuyen in magical materials (and/or Hermetic Circle of appropriate element). Sr5 developing from what they did creating the UMS in 4 blends both of these together and the old Mage magical materials for summoning are now simply Reagents, but they become optional but useful. So yes a raw summoning of a Force 1 or 2 Spirit limits actions etc in a way that's counter intuitive to Shaman or Mages in 3rd (because it's drawing from both styles) but throw a few Reagents in and it's easy to get far more services and the spirit has almost no chance to resist. The bigger spirits you might get more from on a lucky roll, but it's increasingly likely the summoning will fail or limit the services anyway.

It's still more than a little weird though to think that you'd use reagents to get services from a weak spirit instead of hedging your betsvagainsta stronger one. A Variant House Rule I came up with for summoning was:
Summoning Limit = Magic - Desired Force of Spirit. Reagents can be used to set Limit instead.

It's a bit more involved than that. Even though shamen could summon spirits on the fly, the elementals summoned by hermetics had advantages, too: they stuck around longer, had a wider array of services available, and you could have more than one at a time, no domain concerns, etc. While there were ways to sort-of get multiple nature spirits at once, elementals were more reliable as the astral attack pack.

Not really, I think the writers would have noticed it and gone "Meh, who summons spirits less than force 3 anyway?"

And really, who does? The drain is negligible and any spirit with mental stats less than 2 is going to be mostly useless anyway.

Honestly, under the new rules, I'll probably be summoning low force spirits instead of Watchers. Rituals look like an overly-complicated and semi-useless skill set anyway; summoning watchers is now an annoyingly long and complex procedure, so if I need a weak spirit for a quick task, it's actually cheaper, easier, and faster to summon a Spirit than an actual watcher.

[melquisedeq]

Not really, I think the writers would have noticed it and gone "Meh, who summons spirits less than force 3 anyway?"

And really, who does? The drain is negligible and any spirit with mental stats less than 2 is going to be mostly useless anyway.

That's retarded* game design, to me. What if it was "Handout pistol shots in SR5 now sound exactly like a long, painful, wet fart, every single time" and the justification for it was "because who the hell uses handout, anyway?"


*not literally, obviously.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Not really, I think the writers would have noticed it and gone "Meh, who summons spirits less than force 3 anyway?"

And really, who does? The drain is negligible and any spirit with mental stats less than 2 is going to be mostly useless anyway.

My Mages do... My latest mage (Occult Investigator Arcano-Archeologist) routinely summoned Spirits of Force 1-3. With Force 2 being the most common.

[SpellBinder]

Not really, I think the writers would have noticed it and gone "Meh, who summons spirits less than force 3 anyway?"

And really, who does? The drain is negligible and any spirit with mental stats less than 2 is going to be mostly useless anyway.

Honestly, under the new rules, I'll probably be summoning low force spirits instead of Watchers. Rituals look like an overly-complicated and semi-useless skill set anyway; summoning watchers is now an annoyingly long and complex procedure, so if I need a weak spirit for a quick task, it's actually cheaper, easier, and faster to summon a Spirit than an actual watcher.

Was thinking the same thing myself, especially since the process of summoning watchers now breaks what has been an established law of magic since (IIRC) 3rd Edition at least: Sorcery cannot summon spirits.

Spend a minute and a bunch of reagents to summon a Force 1 watcher at your lodge, or spend three seconds (at minimum, if you're lucky) to summon a Force 1 spirit on the spot?

[Smash]

Honestly, under the new rules, I'll probably be summoning low force spirits instead of Watchers. Rituals look like an overly-complicated and semi-useless skill set anyway; summoning watchers is now an annoyingly long and complex procedure, so if I need a weak spirit for a quick task, it's actually cheaper, easier, and faster to summon a Spirit than an actual watcher.
Was thinking the same thing myself, especially since the process of summoning watchers now breaks what has been an established law of magic since (IIRC) 3rd Edition at least: Sorcery cannot summon spirits.

Spend a minute and a bunch of reagents to summon a Force 1 watcher at your lodge, or spend three seconds (at minimum, if you're lucky) to summon a Force 1 spirit on the spot?

I have to bring it back to 'Why would you summon a spirit of less than force 3'? A force 1 spirit isn't going to be good for much more than fetching your slippers anyway and given the minimum drain value there's almost no extra drain for summoning Force 3 spirits over Force 1.

Yes, Yes there are always the TJs out there who have Magic 1 Spellcasters and expect it to be viable, but that can't be said for logic 1 deckers or agility 1 (effective, not base) samurai, so why magicians?

There are a couple of real easy fixes though if you need one. Removing the limit on summoning might work, or perhaps implement a rule where you can summon a spirit at a higher force, roll the resist and drain dice separately and get more successes for lower spirits..............Or just summon force 3 spirits?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yes, Yes there are always the TJs out there who have Magic 1 Spellcasters and expect it to be viable, but that can't be said for logic 1 deckers or agility 1 (effective, not base) samurai, so why magicians?

Kinda Rude (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) . My Occult Investigator had a Magic 5 (split 3 Sorcery and 2 Adept). Besides in SR4, Logic 1 Hackers were extremely common (Very sad state of affairs that was corrected with optional rules, if you chose to use them).

Low to average magic works out not too bad, as long as you actually pick a strength and stick to it. Magic 3 Casting worked out QUITE well, in fact. Helps that out of the 60 or so spells that the character had, only 2 were Combat Spells that hurt targets (And limited ones at that - Spirits or Individuals with Cyber enhancement). The rest were Support spells of one sort or another.

My Typical Caster clocks in at a Magic 3 or 4 for the most part (Adepts tend to fall in the 4-5 Range). I have never had any issues with it. Are there things that may be out of your capabilities. Sure... That does not mean you have to have no impact in those situations.

[Cain]

I have to bring it back to 'Why would you summon a spirit of less than force 3'? A force 1 spirit isn't going to be good for much more than fetching your slippers anyway and given the minimum drain value there's almost no extra drain for summoning Force 3 spirits over Force 1.

Yes, Yes there are always the TJs out there who have Magic 1 Spellcasters and expect it to be viable, but that can't be said for logic 1 deckers or agility 1 (effective, not base) samurai, so why magicians?

There are a couple of real easy fixes though if you need one. Removing the limit on summoning might work, or perhaps implement a rule where you can summon a spirit at a higher force, roll the resist and drain dice separately and get more successes for lower spirits..............Or just summon force 3 spirits?

Even at Force 1, a regular spirit will still have huge advantages over a Watcher. Also, the drain on them is so negligible, you can make a good case for buying successes, as long as you're using them for noncombat purposes. So, they can do everything a Watcher can, plus quite a bit.

Of course, you do have a point-- you can summon a force 3 spirit for very little risk, and that spirit will be many times smarter and more powerful than a Watcher. But that just shows how pointless Watchers are now.

[Smash]

Even at Force 1, a regular spirit will still have huge advantages over a Watcher. Also, the drain on them is so negligible, you can make a good case for buying successes, as long as you're using them for noncombat purposes. So, they can do everything a Watcher can, plus quite a bit.

Of course, you do have a point-- you can summon a force 3 spirit for very little risk, and that spirit will be many times smarter and more powerful than a Watcher. But that just shows how pointless Watchers are now.

Yes, but as the mechanics currently stand a watcher is more reliable to summon and much less fickle (will do more than 1 thing). People may find it counter-intuitive, but it's justifiable. Perhaps such weak spirits are hard to pinpoint and to weave into an entity?

[SpellBinder]

Learned a little more on reagents looking through the core rule book. I'll amend my previous post by posing the following choice (assuming the magician is not at home in his nice, toasty lodge):

* Spend 1 reagent and an hour to set up a temporary lodge followed by 1 more reagent and a minute to perform the ritual to conjure a Force 1 watcher spirit
* Spend 0 reagents and 3 seconds to try and conjure a Force 1 spirit with a 1:3 chance that it actually doesn't show up

Or if you're a bigger fan of the Force 3:

* Spend 3 reagents and three hours to set up a temporary lodge followed by 3 more reagents and three minutes to perform the ritual to conjure a Force 3 watcher spirit
* Spend 0 reagents and 3 seconds to conjure a Force 3 spirit

Oh, helping Cain back up his statement with the numbers, watchers have mental attributes equal to Force -2, as opposed to spirits having mental attributes equal to Force; the three skills watchers have is at half Force (round up), while spirits have the same three skills (and more) at a rating equal to Force. Means a Force 3 watcher has a pool of 3 dice for any of its skills, while any other spirit has a pool of 6 dice in those same three skills.

[Cain]

On top of what Spellbinder said, remember that Watchers only have three powers; and other than Search, the rest are just window dressing. Earth spirits have fewer powers than any other type, and they have seven. Of those, only two are window dressing: Sapience and Astral Form, with a maybe in the case of Materialization. They also have Search, and a couple other useful powers. They also have more skills, and if you summon them at Force 3, they've got an optional power as well. You can also summon them instantly, without reagents.

Really, I can't see why anyone would summon a watcher anymore.

[Beaumis]

There are actually a few reasons to summon watchers. First and foremost, they have assensing. For characters with access to ritual spell casting but not astral perception, this is incredible. Especially if you don't have conjuring either. Other spirits have this too, but their services are much more valuable. Also, pretty much every order you give a watcher will qualify for the observe in detail bonus for a +3 to perception and assensing tests. Finally, yes they are slow, weak and stupid, but they are an additional combatant in astral combat. This gives you a +1 for attacks and the defender eventually a -1 for multiple defense rolls. It takes an action to kill the watcher, which is an action that is not used to attack you. Since there is no armor in astral combat except for the spell, watchers actually hurt in astral space.

The main reason to summon a watcher is because he doesn't count against your spirit limit. This is especially important if you don't have binding. (Which incidentally, returns a lot of the SR1-3 Shaman feel to a magician.)

Finally, for a bit of math: Imagine a group of magicians. They work together to summon a *big* watcher. Lets say each has 16 dice for watchers through foci, specializations and stuff. Also assume buying hits. That means each member beyond the leader adds 1 to the limit and 4 dice, or one hit to the leader. At this point, this becomes a simple math exercise.
Imagine a Force 10 Watcher. Drain is bough off with reagents. With buying hits, he gets 5, so with the leader and two members, we get a watcher for 10 hours. A third increases this to 20 and so forth. A group of 10 magicians summons a Force 10 watcher for 90 hours and 18 drams of reagents per watcher. Imagine this group is a corporate group that gets together every four days and spends 10 minutes per member to summon a watcher for each. That watcher is roughly equivalent to a force 6 spirit in astral combat and has 13 dice for assensing, but its services never run out until its time expires. This is a fringe example and requires quite a bit of cheese to pull of, but unlike most cheese, this is something that corps would figure out and do in the game world. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Smash]

Oh, helping Cain back up his statement with the numbers, watchers have mental attributes equal to Force -2, as opposed to spirits having mental attributes equal to Force; the three skills watchers have is at half Force (round up), while spirits have the same three skills (and more) at a rating equal to Force. Means a Force 3 watcher has a pool of 3 dice for any of its skills, while any other spirit has a pool of 6 dice in those same three skills.

Meh, Force 3 spirits it is then (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Tanegar]

Oh, helping Cain back up his statement with the numbers, watchers have mental attributes equal to Force -2, as opposed to spirits having mental attributes equal to Force

Is there a minimum value? I'm going to refrain from assuming, on the basis that I've read a lot of stupid things about SR5; but wouldn't mental attributes of 0 mean that a watcher of less than Force 3 is either unconscious or DOA?

[Draco18s]

Oh, helping Cain back up his statement with the numbers, watchers have mental attributes equal to Force -2, as opposed to spirits having mental attributes equal to Force; the three skills watchers have is at half Force (round up), while spirits have the same three skills (and more) at a rating equal to Force. Means a Force 3 watcher has a pool of 3 dice for any of its skills, while any other spirit has a pool of 6 dice in those same three skills.

And this is why Watcher spirits post 3rd are broken.
In 3rd, watcher spirits had an additional power called Search that no other spirit got. Search did not succeed or fail based on a skill roll. No, it always succeeded, no matter what all the time every time. The limiting factor was how LONG the power took to finish (and whether or not your summoning time ran out first).

How about we go back towards 3rd edition rules, where it was a Force check, and the time it took was N hours divided by successes. Where N is 2 for people, 4 for objects, and 6 for places. In 3rd Edition, the Threshold on the test was 9 - [Summoner's Inteligence], which meant that a reasonably smart magician (5 int) summoning a F3 watcher, had good odds to find whatever it was he was looking for (TN 4, rolling 3 dice to get a 4 on at least one of them).

And

http://oi53.tinypic.com/mlqx45.jpg

http://oi54.tinypic.com/258wn7o.jpg

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

And this is why Watcher spirits post 3rd are broken.
In 3rd, watcher spirits had an additional power called Search that no other spirit got. Search did not succeed or fail based on a skill roll. No, it always succeeded, no matter what all the time every time. The limiting factor was how LONG the power took to finish (and whether or not your summoning time ran out first).

And you did/do not think that the power as you describe it was way overpowered, even in the slightest? Wow.... I always saw that as extremely overpowered, especially for a watcher. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Draco18s]

And you did/do not think that the power as you describe it was way overpowered, even in the slightest? Wow.... I always saw that as extremely overpowered, especially for a watcher. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Instead we have 4th, where every spirit except a watcher is equally good at the task and has the power. The watcher instead gets lower force, lower skill ratings, and lower power selection.

There is literally no reason to summon a watcher spirit over any other type in order to perform a Search or Astral Patrol DO ANYTHING.