I think binding in SR4 sucks, especially compared to what it was in SR3, according to what I've heard. But the thing is, any non-gimped mage will be able to both summon and bind. It's unlikely you'll be using bound spirits for combat outside of support for a summoned one. Binding's better for other stuff, like aiding with sorcery and... aiding sorcery. Okay, I'm stumped. It does suck. How do I make it not suck?

Plus, I've heard that mages now are a shadow of what they once were. Initiation+magic costs tons of karma, but magic counts for half and more of the dice pool for throwing spells, while in SR3 it was only 1/3. Also, you only have to learn a spell once to be able to cast at any force. Can anyone give me anything definite on the subject?

why wouldn't you use a bound spirit for combat? the whole point of binding is that you can take the drain now, and get the benefit later. any time it would be useful to not take drain to summon is a good time to use a bound spirit.

anyways, the bound services can be quite nice. it's also nice for having more than one spirit at a time.

i suppose you might argue that magic got a little nerfed in SR4. i personally would argue that everything else just got nerfed harder =P

Oh... so magic's proportionately awesomer?

In every edition of Shadowrun, the team with magic trounces the ones without.

Binding also allows for the Attack Pack strategy, where you have a bunch of spirits and watchers jump an astrally-active opponent. With Friends in Melee bonuses, things turn ugly really fast. I've seen plenty mages use bound elementals like this in SR3; I can't imagine why they wouldn't do the same in SR4.

But no matter what your magic is, you'll probably never be able to bind spirits nearly as powerful as the ones you can summon. Compared to summoned spirits, your bound ones are useless in combat.

Yes, but summoning the unbound spirit for combat is going to mess you up. (drain) Calling the bound one is free (relatively) since you took drain for it last week.
Plus, if that's really not enough, you can summon your one spirit PLUS the bound one. One weak and one strong spirit is still better than one strong.

hmmmm..... I'll make it 1.5xforce, not 2x. How was binding handled in SR3? I remember it being said that it was a lot better; am I right?

Binding didn't technically exist in SR3. Shamans in SR3 would get unbound spirits and Hermetics would get elementals (roughly equivalent to bound spirits in SR4). The closest thing to binding in SR3 was a metamagic called Invoking which would allow you to summon great form spirits which were essentially more powerful versions of regular spirits.

One of my players summoned up a Force 9 Earth Spirit during the last game, and sent it into combat. Abbraxis the spirit of the deep was an unstoppable monster.

Have you seen what sort of damage Spirits can do?

I watched first hand as my two force five beast spirits outright killed my wife's PC in astral combat. Yeah, I heard about that one later

I'm fond of the following alterations:

Conjuring Drain: The drain for all conjuring actions is 1/2 Force + Spirit's Total Resistance Hits (instead of Double Spirit's Total Resistance Hits). This makes drain on summoning a little heavier and drain on Binding a little lighter, but most importantly makes drain a lot more predictable so that Binding isn't such a fucking wheel of death.

Sustaining Spells: A bound spirit can hold a sustained spell for one hour per Force point for one service (regular 3 seconds per Force point). 3 seconds isn't a lot of time even in combat, especially as it takes 3 seconds just to tell your spirit to perform the task.

Remote Services: An unbound spirit on a remote service counts as your only unbound spirit allowed until it is dismissed or finishes its tasks (regular: you can have as many as you want doing various bullshit all over the planet for free). With characters unable to get more than a single spirit on any task unless they bind, bound spirits look more promising.

Put in those revisions, and suddenly people are using Bound spirits for stuff. It's not a big change to any of the rules really, it's just a tweak that makes them not blow.

And of course, the optional rule where bound spirits give you penalties like you were sustaining a spell is on crack and should never be contemplated under any circumstances.

-Frank

Those are really nice frank, bravo. I'll recommend them to my group.