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> Spirit...Spirit some people fear it...., Even better than before.
Brazila
post Sep 11 2005, 12:06 AM
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One of my big issues with SR3 was the huge power spirits had. The gigantic karma pool alone, mayed them god like to starting PCs. Now they are even worse. It is highly possible that a starting mage can summon up a F 12 with service or two. That is a big balance issue. Spirits attributes based on there force can go well beyond the scope of what a PC could have. Take a F12 earth elemental for instance. It could slaughter an entire team, and the only person who would stand a chace against it would be a spellcaster as it would have immunity to virtually any non magic offense. AND it would have a freaing Edge of 12. I plan to house rule them in a few ways. Here is what I am considering.
I plan to use some or all of these if my group allows.
The spirits edge is capped at the Summoner's
Taking the Max force you can summon down to 1.5xMagic.
Changing drain value to Spirits Force.
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Kanada Ten
post Sep 11 2005, 12:24 AM
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I must have missed something, and sorry for the slight off topic, but can anyone quote SR3 on summoned spirits getting karma pool?
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Cochise
post Sep 11 2005, 12:33 AM
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QUOTE (Kanada Ten)
I must have missed something, and sorry for the slight off topic, but can anyone quote SR3 on summoned spirits getting karma pool?

Should be somewhere page 189 SR3. It's in the last paragraph on Spirit combat right before Controlling and Banishing ... Karma Pool is Successes of Conjurer on Conjuring Test plus one and there's a quite hefty debate on whether or not this pool increases every time a hermetic prolongs an elemental's services for which he has to do a new Conjuring Test ...
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Kanada Ten
post Sep 11 2005, 12:37 AM
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QUOTE (Cochise)
QUOTE (Kanada Ten)
I must have missed something, and sorry for the slight off topic, but can anyone quote SR3 on summoned spirits getting karma pool?

Should be somewhere page 189 SR3. It's in the last paragraph on Spirit combat right before Controlling and Banishing ... Karma Pool is Successes of Conjurer on Conjuring Test plus one and there's a quite hefty debate on whether or not this pool increases every time a hermetic prolongs an elemental's services for which he has to do a new Conjuring Test ...

That's about the dumbest rule I ever - nevermind. Defiantly not in my game (maybe something like one point per service sacrificed).
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blakkie
post Sep 11 2005, 12:40 AM
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The Reaction on most of these Spirits seems insanely high for SR4 (it would have been so-so for SR3). They do only ever get 2 passes, thankfully, but as far as i can see a Force 6 is going to go ahead of the most tricked out PC.

BTW there isn't anything about Immunity from weapons in the Spirits section on page 294, but i thought someone said it was elsewhere?
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FrankTrollman
post Sep 11 2005, 12:50 AM
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I've been pretty happy with max force of Magic + 3. This keeps things from ever getting "all crazy".

And Limiting Immunity to Normal Weapons to Force instead of Forcex2.

And removing Spirit Edge altogether. Summoned creatures should have an Edge of zero.

-Frank
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Cochise
post Sep 11 2005, 12:52 AM
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QUOTE (blakkie)

BTW there isn't anything about Immunity from weapons in the Spirits section on page 294, but i thought someone said it was elsewhere?

p. 177:

Physical spirits have the power of Immunity to
Normal Weapons (see p. 288), giving them Armor equal to twice
their Force against all attacks.
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blakkie
post Sep 11 2005, 01:04 AM
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QUOTE (Cochise @ Sep 10 2005, 06:52 PM)
QUOTE (blakkie @ Sep 11 2005, 02:40 AM)

BTW there isn't anything about Immunity from weapons in the Spirits section on page 294, but i thought someone said it was elsewhere?

p. 177:

Physical spirits have the power of Immunity to
Normal Weapons (see p. 288), giving them Armor equal to twice
their Force against all attacks.

That needs errata in one of those two places then. Because that is a Power, and none of the spirits has that Power ther list.
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Serbitar
post Sep 11 2005, 01:21 AM
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its linked to materialization, the materialization power includes immunity to normal weapons when materialized
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Cochise
post Sep 11 2005, 01:30 AM
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QUOTE (blakkie)
That needs errata in one of those two places then. Because that is a Power, and none of the spirits has that Power ther list.

As Serbitar said, Immunity (normal weapons) linked to Materialization. All spirits do have that power. What actually misses is something that links the Dual Nature Power with Spirits, because p . 176 says:

Spirits in physical form are in fact dual natured,
interacting with the physical and astral planes simultaneously.
Spirits dislike taking physical form because it makes them vulnerable
to physical attacks.


But the Materialization (and any other power) lacks a reference to the Dual Nature Power (which happens to lack a reference that says that dual natured entities do not suffer a modifier on mundane actions, but I already put the latter in the Errata Thread) ...
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blakkie
post Sep 11 2005, 06:26 AM
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Ah, that's how it gets linked in. I'll go removed my entry from the errata thread then.
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Toshiaki
post Sep 11 2005, 07:32 AM
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On the topic of powerful spirits, remember that casting a spell(Overcasting) or summoning a spirit(Oversummoning?) at a force higher than your Magic causes physical drain. Conjuring drain is twice the Spirit's hits from the opposed test. On average, a force 12 spirit would get 4 hits, causing 8 damage. Nothing is stopping it from scoring more. One of my players wrote up a Uber mage, to try just this stunt. He dropped dead from drain 5 minutes into the game.

Now, I know that this is the exception rather than the rule, but it can and will happen. Corps aren't going to be sending force 12's at the runners unless they have major cause. The corp could have sent two or three smaller spirits at the runners without risking one of their wage-mages falling dead. Paying death and dismemberment to the family is bad for the budget.

Similarly, runners should only be trying this trick when it's do or die. It is not something that I would encourage my players to try as part of thier on hand stable of spirits.
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mintcar
post Sep 11 2005, 08:49 AM
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A starting mage in my campain could reliably summon force 3 spirit with a couple of services at most. They are made with 300 BP. A default level starting character would maybe be able to summon a force 12 spirit with one service 50 % of the time, and get like 5 physical boxes every try. And thatīs only if the character is trinked out to the max.
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blakkie
post Sep 11 2005, 09:14 AM
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The real problem comes in if they can pull off the binding without dropping, and then heal up. A few days under good conditions, or apparently much faster if you have a second mage to heal you since it seems that P drain can be healed magically (nothing saying it can't be). You then have a bad ass on tap.

As far as i can see though there is enough variance in drain that is it very dangerous even for a high Bod troll.
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mintcar
post Sep 11 2005, 09:39 AM
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Come on blakkie. Nobody will ever pull of binding a force 12 spirit. Not a starting character. :)


It would be so dangerous that you would have to make a new character a few times before you succeed, I think. Who in their right mind would try such a thing?

What if your knocked out or die? A free roaming force 12 spirit would propably kill you first if your not already, and then whipe out your family, your friends, your dog and your high school sweet heart.
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Phoniex
post Sep 11 2005, 10:01 AM
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Aww come on, you can always do it if you twink, and that is the only thing you do.

the MAX a starting character can have, doing nothing other than magic is:
magic attribute 6
summoning 7(9)-air elementals specialiation
mentor spirit with +2 air elementals
force 3 summoning focus (air elementals)
force 2 power focus
edge of 7.

I don't think i forgot anything. If I did someone just throw on the correction please :)

Anyway you can roll 6+9+2+3+2+7 dice at character generation. That is 29 dice. Although depending on how you rule on what is a bonus verses augmentation die; and how specializations fit into the cap on dice of 1.5 x skill rating. You might be be rolling a lower number. With that you should be able to get a net hit on a force 12 spirit. But if the spirit rolls even a little higher than its average a body 4 or less mage would die. And a body 5 mage could still very easily die.

Finally do note that this is for summoning, binding it would be gambling with marginal odds in your favor of succeeding in the binding test. But certain death on the drain resistance test. If a force 12 spirit rolls twice its force and you take twice the number of hits in damage boxes. Well even the troll is going down there..

Althought if you only had points in willpower and the other drain resistance attribute.. and you rolled edge on the drain resistance test. It get much more possible, especially if your a troll with a high body.


just some thougths.
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blakkie
post Sep 11 2005, 10:02 AM
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No problem if you have your charater on computer. He dies 5 minutes into the first session? Go over to the computer, change the character name at the top, and print off a new sheet. Paper is almost as cheap as imaginary friends and families. :silly:
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fistandantilus4....
post Sep 11 2005, 10:15 AM
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you're families cheap? Man I'm sorry. Christmas must suck.

:P
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mintcar
post Sep 11 2005, 10:42 AM
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<edit> nm, I wasnīt thinking.

(Good twinking Phoniex, are you sure thatīs not too expencive though?)
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blakkie
post Sep 11 2005, 11:00 AM
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QUOTE (fistandantilus3.0 @ Sep 11 2005, 04:15 AM)
you're families cheap? Man I'm sorry. Christmas must suck.

:P

Well, yes they are. And no they don't. But that isn't what i was talking about. :P

I meant the ones that the freed spirit ripped to shreds like so many dead PC character sheets.
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Narmio
post Sep 11 2005, 12:46 PM
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You can't just let players create dozens of identical clone copies of themselves! What is this, Paranoia?

Seriously, apart from being so abusive it makes me cringe, that kind of behaviour is going to hold up the entire session, and make the mage's player no friends whatsoever.

Oh, also, I'm choosing to believe the "Fx4" etc in the spirit Reaction entries is in fact a legacy from the old format where that was running multiplier. It most certainly is NOT their Reaction. Someone Errata it, if it hasn't been done already.

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FrankTrollman
post Sep 11 2005, 04:10 PM
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QUOTE
A default level starting character would maybe be able to summon a force 12 spirit with one service 50 % of the time, and get like 5 physical boxes every try. And thatīs only if the character is trinked out to the max.


This is false.

Magic Attribute 6
Summoning 6
Specialization in Spirits of Man: 2
Dog Mentor Spirit: 2
Summoning Focus: 3

That's 19 dice. You summon a Force 12 pirit successfully almost all the time. In fact, the average number of services is 2.333 per summonng attempt. Meanwhile, you're averaging 5 physical wound levels in drain, which can be healed straight off by your own force 4 bound spirits of man (who roll 12 dice and get the rule of six when casting heal on you, averaging 4.67 wound levels healed).

A starting character can easily summon force 12 spirits and beat people with them. Not that it matters of course, because even a force 7 spirit is immune to Panther assault Cannons, because the power level of all weapons was dropped going in to SR4 and the power level of immunity to normal weapons was not. While you can crush people with your force 12 spirits as a starting character, there's no particular need for you to do that. A force 9 spirit is more than enough to crush absolutley any opposition other than another force 9+ spirit or a banishment specialist.

-Frank
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Autarkis
post Sep 11 2005, 04:52 PM
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But not as "true" as you are putting forth.
QUOTE
Characters can easily summon force 12 spirits and beat people with them.
Starting characters are not going to be throwing around Force 12 Spirits. There is a good chance they can die. We have a drain resistance test ranging from 2 (minimum) to 24 (maximum).

(And for those wondering how Frank got to 2.333 services.)
19 dice times 1/3 = 6.333
12 dice times 1/3 = 4
Average Net= 2.333

And here is the detail behind the "average" 12 dice the spirit will be rolling:
CODE
Hits        % DV
 0   0.77120% 2
 1   4.62649% 2
 2  12.72094% 4
 3  21.19838% 6
 4  23.84460% 8
 5  19.07282% 10
 6  11.12414% 12
 7   4.76677% 14
 8   1.48939% 16
 9   0.33093% 18
10   0.04963% 20
11   0.00451% 22
12   0.00019% 24


And the mage rolls...lets say 12 dice to resist the DV value? Maybe less if they aren't a "tricked out" conjuring mage. This doesn't look "easy" to me when it comes to resisting drain and not dieing or becoming incapacitated (in either case no matter how many successes you get for services, the spirit leaves.)

Legend:
Hits: The number of successes
%: The probability of getting the stated number of successes
DV: Drain Value mage will have to resist based on the number of successes earned by the summoning mage.
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FrankTrollman
post Sep 11 2005, 07:05 PM
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Autarkis, what did you do to generate those numbers? The simplest case of getting no hits at all on a 12 dice test is exactly 4096 times out of 531,441 rolls - which is to say 0.77073466292589%. That's very close to your reported value of 0.77120%, but it's not exactly the same. So what did you do, just have a computer run a 100,000 trials or something?

In any case, a character with a decent body who is willing to spend edge on the matter can and will survive a DV of 16, meaning that the chances of going down are very small indeed (although let's face it, you're going to take big damage and possibly have to spend edge to pull this off).

-Frank
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Autarkis
post Sep 11 2005, 09:00 PM
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I used binomial probability:

CODE

                        N!
P                  =  --------  (p^k)(q^[N-k])
 (k out of N)         k!(N-k)!



P = the probability that the desired outcome will occur
N = the number of opportunities for the event to occur
k = the number of times that the event occurs
p = the probability that the event will occur on any particular occasion
q = the probability that the event will not occur on any particular occasion

So, for the above, P is what we are attempting to solve for, N is the number of times 1 die 6 is being rolled or 12 (the dice pool of the Force 12 Spirit), k is the number of times a "hit" will occur, p is the probability that a "hit" will occur on 1 die 6 (.3333), and q is the probability that no "hit" will occur on 1 die 6 (.6667).

I didn't really attempt to do the calculations myself. :D I ran it through a statistics program.

I do internal consulting for my firm, so I am part finacial analyst/part accountant/part statistician/mediator/probability analyst, so I use an Excel add-on tool (Business Statistics in Practice 2nd Edition by McGraw-Hill Irwin) for my more cumbersome work. There probably is a more recent version but I purchased the program myself and wrote it off on my taxes back in 2001. :nuyen:

There are also probably several web pages that have calculators you can use (most universities have one or two statisticians working on their PHd and using these on-line models as part of their thesis.)

I almost convinced myself to take my hand at gaming design (MMORPG's,Turn Based and Paper) but since I have several friends in those areas, I know the pay to hours isn't that great and I have yet to hear of any "old" designers. 8) You should see the probability models that they have to use and the comparitive models to understand the dynamic impact to other events.
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