Mages and spirits possessing cyberzombies, An interesting thought Options

[Joker9125]

I was recently just messing around designing an NPC mage trapped into a cyberzombie body when a thought occured to me.

Since the mage is trapped in the cyberzombies body and is still capable of doing magic can he still channel spirits? If so would the physical attribute boost and immunity when channeling great form spirits still apply?

Now heres an interesting thought. Wince the spirit is basically posessing the cyberzombie would it have to make the same escape test as the magican? What if it fails? Would you have the attribute boost for good or not?

[A Clockwork Lime]

Uh, how is he "trapped" in the body?

[Joker9125]

He tried to posess the cyberzombie. Ill have to look it up but im pretty sure if a magican tries to posess a cyberzombie he has to make a test to escape and if he fails he is trapped int he cyberzombies body for good.

[Abstruse]

Spoilers for a Shadowrun novel.

[ Spoiler ]

It happened in the Dragonheart Trilogy of novels, but I'm not sure if there's canon rules for it or not. Basically, the spells that bind the cyberzombie's aura to their body after they reach sub-zero essence can also hold in the aura of a spirit or mage trying to possess it. However, an astral projecting mage would probably be a bad choice for this as a mage dies after he has been out of his body essence number of rounds. A free spirit, though, might work...you'd probably have to create rules for it though.

Plus, also remember the spirit possessing the cyberzombie in the novel was MUCH more powerful than your average spirit...

The Abstruse One

[Herald of Verjig...]

M&M page 57 has a section on what happens when something possesses a cyberzombie. The rules apply to both astrally projecting and spirit possessors.

Being trapped is entirely possible.

[Joker9125]

Its been awhile since i read the rules for cyberzombies in M&M and itll be awhile longer since i no longer have access to that book but as i understoof it the mage didnt lose essence while trapped in the cuberzombie body. Hmm yes a free spirit would work well for this situation.

Could a mage channel spirits while posessiong a cyber zombie?

[Tal]

That could eventually get pretty twinky... Not to meantion schizoprhenia inducing.

[Joker9125]

Its an idea for NPC's only maybe a run idea to send charactrs to blow up the research facility im not exactly sure but its an interesting thought. My GM had an interesting solution to PC's posessing cyberzombies. The mages that performed the sevice would no doubt expell and destroy the mages aura when he comes back for his cyberzombie cocktale to keep from dying

[Entropy Kid]

[Tal]

Okay, I am so making a new cyberzombie with a hermetic mage trapped inside him... The way I see it, the mage gets desperate after a few hours and started calling spirits to bail him out, but they got trapped too, and now they're all going insane from the karma hazing. The mage loses his grip on the poor cyberzombie's mind, and now he's got a mental audience for everything he does... Man, this guy's gonna be fun as all hell!

[Arethusa]

[Joker9125]

Whats great is that if he starts channeling spirits and they get trapped you have perminant arrtibute boosts and immunity to normal weapons. Yea the more i think about it the better this starts to sound.

[Tal]

Hmmm... My runners are all still pretty weak suckers, so I guess I'd better give them *some* kind of chance...

Hmmm... Maybe if the various spirits/mage/cyber-zombie all vie for control of the body...

[Entropy Kid]

[A Rodent of Unus...]

Trapped or not, you're still considered to be in your astral form. Possession only makes you dual-natured and able to affect the physical world, but that's about it. Since you can't use summoning while astral, it won't work.

Not sure what's up with your fascination for "attribute boosts" though. Considering your meat body dies and you're not stuck on the constantly diminishing health of your new host, life isn't exactly going to be peachy for the couple of months, max, you have to live.

[Tal]

I was thinking of it more as a vehicle for an insane, magically-powered cyberzombie...

[Joker9125]

True but then again this isnt for PC's its beginning to form into a run idea possibly for an online game Im not exactly sure ill have to think about it.

[danbot37]

[ Spoiler ]

In the novel the possessed CZ tried to cast (the trapped spirit anyhow), and despite the very powerful nature of the spirit, could only manage very weak spells and it would almost instantly drain and knock the duo unconscious

[BitBasher]

woah um:

[ Spoiler ]

In the DragonHeart trilogy the CZ could cast hellblast and referred to it as an "easy spell" with no discernable drain. In fact, that was the first spell he ever cast! :eek:

[A Rodent of Unus...]

That's another point. All Drain would be physical, too.

[Joker9125]

Thats also a novel and lethe was the specter of a dragon. Another thing all those novels were writen in the 2nd ED so their not exactly cannon

[A Rodent of Unus...]

The bit about Physical Drain is canonical. Has nothing to do with the god-forsaken novels. A projecting mage -- even one using Possession -- still has to deal with Physical Drain on all of their spells and, I'm not 100% sure on this point, I think they still only get to use Willpower for it unless the Force exceeds their Magic Attribute. But if so, that high Body score the 'zombie likely has won't be of any help. Not that any of the Body boosting 'ware would help to begin with, mind you.

[Joker9125]

I know that spell darin is physical ont he astral i meant the part abotut the spirit only being able to cast low force spells. And A mage posessing a cyberzombie is pretty fragging scary because not only are they extremely hard to kill int he physical they can also cast spells and the like.

[A Rodent of Unus...]

Actually, they're worse off. Their skills (which the possessor doesn't gain) are those of the mage, so it's doubtful if he knows how to use that BFG his new body is toting around... at least to the level the 'zombie originally was. Likewise for all his other skills.

Magically, he's suffering in a major way. Every spell he casts that he doesn't fully remove all drain from wounds him just as if he were shot. He produces a background count that increases all of his own TNs. Even better, since all of the drain is affecting his astral form only, even implants like a Trauma Damper or even a Guardian Angel have no effect in lowering it.

Best of all, *all* of his TNs suffer a +2 penalty as the 'zombie keeps trying to take back control, and he's suffering all the pains that come from being dual-natured to boot.

So yeah, whoop-ti-do, he has a bunch of cyberware and attribute boosts. But he's now a horrible sammy and a horrible mage. This assumes, of course, that the mage wins the Opposed Willpower Test when he gets trapped (while likely, it's not guaranteed, especially since he suffers a +2 penalty).

I'd much rather face something like that than a regular mage or a regular 'zombie any day of the week.

[Zazen]

Well, the clever way to do it is to have a cyberzombie with a latent, repressed possessor who has failed his rolls to take control. The CZ is just as good as he always was, but if he ever gets knocked out, well, he gets to just wake right the fuck up under new management. He also takes seperate damage from mana-based spells, making the CZ pretty goddamn resilient when it comes to that.