First I need to mention that I got the idea for doing this from various threads here (Brahm and Franktrollman come to mind, but I'm sure there are others). So while the idea of nerfing Spirit skills, attributes, and making them more difficult to summon, isn't wholey mine, this approach puts it all together in a nice, elegant package.
The concept: Summoning spirits past Force 4 becomes increasingly difficult. When summoning, use the Difficulty for the desired Force spirit for all tests which use the spirit's Force for a variable.
Here's the table (derived from using (Force +3)/2 with a max of Force ):
Full Version: My Spirit Nerf
| QUOTE |
| Difficulty | Force of Spirit Summoned --------------------------------------- 1 | 1 2 | 2 3 | 3 4 | 4 6 | 5 8 | 6 10 | 7 12 | 8 14 | 9 16 | 10 18 | 11 20 | 12 |
So, for example, if a magician wants to summon a Force 6 spirit, he would use the rules in the BBB except it would be treated as if he were summoning a Force 8 spirit. Anytime the rules have you use the Force of the spirit, use it's difficulty instead. So, summoning a Force 8 spirit under this houserule would now have the same opposed tests as a Force 12 spirit under RAW.
Bonding remains unchanged and uses the actual Force of of the Spirit. The above table only would apply to the initial summoning.
Oh and Tinkergnome's (heh, thought it was Hobgoblin, woops) houserule for having unbonded spirits on remote service apply towards the magician's bonded spirit limit is an elegant houserule as well to nerf the 'spirit rush'.
What does everyone think (criticisms, questions, flames welcomed)?
EDIT: Thanks for the catch, Frank... I had it written out, but I was going from memory anyways.
EDIT 2: For clarification, the actual Force of the spirit, rather than the Difficulty, is used to determine what Force spirit can be attempted when considering the Magic rating of the summonor. For example, a Summoner with Magic 6 can still attempt to summon a Force 12 spirit.
I'm a little confused by your table. Am I right to think that you can choose to summon a Force 6 spirit with 8 dice rolled against you or with 9 dice rolled against you? That seems... odd.
-Frank
-Frank
Interesting chart...I think I will try it in my current campaign.
I was looking for a way to limit spirits with 5-6 force ratings.
RB
I was looking for a way to limit spirits with 5-6 force ratings.
RB
It should work out perfectly for you. I can't believe I actually used algebra to solve a problem (I plotted a curve then found the function). Crazy.
I definitely agree that canon spirits are way too powerful. I'll give this a try...
Halving the Skill dice isn't that hard on spirits, especially if you round up. That is only a 25% reduction at most on their dice pools.
However what you could do instead of that slightly hassling table is look at drain and the size of the dice pool for the spirit resists summoning and binding. Drain is already the main deterent from bringing in large spirits, with secondary help from spirits resisting to keep the number of services low.
FrankTrollman had a suggestion for Binding drain that gave a more consistant drain DV. You'll definately want to include something like that because increasing drain enough to deter summoning monster spirits will get relativly well behaved characters killed from freak dice rolls.
However what you could do instead of that slightly hassling table is look at drain and the size of the dice pool for the spirit resists summoning and binding. Drain is already the main deterent from bringing in large spirits, with secondary help from spirits resisting to keep the number of services low.
FrankTrollman had a suggestion for Binding drain that gave a more consistant drain DV. You'll definately want to include something like that because increasing drain enough to deter summoning monster spirits will get relativly well behaved characters killed from freak dice rolls.
You can cut dice pools in half by saying that spirits don't have skills period. Doing so also prevents a magician from summoning a force 12 spirit and sitting it in front of a computer doing research all day.
| QUOTE (Brahm) |
| Drain is already the main deterent from bringing in large spirits, with secondary help from spirits resisting to keep the number of services low. |
I agree. There are two ways to tackle the issue (if you find it a problem). You can do as this houserule suggests and raise the difficulty of summoning a spirit or you can go the other way and just raise the cost of summoning the spirit. Raising the minimum drain DV to be equal to force would probably do the job pretty well.
Something else to consider is sharply limiting the edge use of spirits. For instance, unless the summoner has the Spirit Affinity edge for that particular type of spirit, then the spirit will never use edge.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| You can cut dice pools in half by saying that spirits don't have skills period. Doing so also prevents a magician from summoning a force 12 spirit and sitting it in front of a computer doing research all day. |
Umm.....spirits can't do that anyways. Sure, they could default, but that's assuming they know how to use a computer.
You could claim them incompetant with them. Skills for spirits are preset, and no power lets them know otherwise except for Analyze Device. Even then, a spirit of reasonable power may take it personally if you use them for something as 'simple' as legwork.
As far as making spirits more dangerous, why not make the summoning a plea as much as a summon? If you can't coax the spirit to 'play nice' they use edge on you???
| QUOTE (Angelstandings @ Feb 4 2006, 10:04 PM) |
| Oh and hob's houserule for having unbonded spirits on remote service apply towards the magician's bonded spirit limit is an elegant houserule as well to nerf the 'spirit rush'. |
err, what houserule? im guessing your refering to me, but i only commented on a bit of text someone else found in SR4. a bit of text that could have multiple interpetations, but to me worked best if a unbound spirit on remote service counted towards the number of bound spirits you could have...
| QUOTE (Cold-Dragon) | ||
Umm.....spirits can't do that anyways. Sure, they could default, but that's assuming they know how to use a computer. You could claim them incompetant with them. Skills for spirits are preset, and no power lets them know otherwise except for Analyze Device. Even then, a spirit of reasonable power may take it personally if you use them for something as 'simple' as legwork. As far as making spirits more dangerous, why not make the summoning a plea as much as a summon? If you can't coax the spirit to 'play nice' they use edge on you??? |
Sexy librarian Spirit of 'Man'.
hmm, should i get the dikote heated up?
Oh, yeah 
| QUOTE (Brahm) |
| However what you could do instead of that slightly hassling table is look at drain and the size of the dice pool for the spirit resists summoning and binding. |
That's what the table does for summoning, but leaves binding alone. I personally don't think there's a problem with the difficulty of binding, although I know others think it should be easier.
What the table effectively does is reduce the dice pool of high force summoned spirits while leaving force 4 and under alone.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| Doing so also prevents a magician from summoning a force 12 spirit and sitting it in front of a computer doing research all day. |
Using the above table would also solve that problem, as a summoned force 12 has the same drain as a force 20 spirit.
Here's a further clarification you need:
When you say it is the "difficulty of a Force 20 spirit," do you mean that it requires a Magic Attribute of 10 to summon at all or do you mean that it simply rolls 20 resistance dice and can potentially generate a Drain of 40P?
-Frank
When you say it is the "difficulty of a Force 20 spirit," do you mean that it requires a Magic Attribute of 10 to summon at all or do you mean that it simply rolls 20 resistance dice and can potentially generate a Drain of 40P?
-Frank
Hood question, Frank. The answer is: Nah, the magician could still attempt force 12 with only a 6 magic.
| QUOTE (hobgoblin) |
| err, what houserule? im guessing your refering to me, but i only commented on a bit of text someone else found in SR4. a bit of text that could have multiple interpetations, but to me worked best if a unbound spirit on remote service counted towards the number of bound spirits you could have... |
Damnit, I checked and it was Tinkergnome... Woops
hey i like getting praise as much as the next person but i dont feel like taking credit for something i didnt come up with
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