Some things don't require rolls, however. If a character was sitting watching a door and planning on doing something if it opened, would you require them to make a roll? If not, then why would you require a watcher to do so?

Honestly, I don't really include Watchers in that idea. I'm not sure they're really bright enough to care (or remember).

...as my GM runs it....

PC Mage: "OK you watch the door so nobody comes in"

Watcher "Yeah Boss. Watch the door so nobody comes in. Sure Boss. Got it Boss"

Meanwhile NPC sec team, weapons at the ready have a Demo expert apply a bit of Thermite Core to breach the wall around the corner

Back at the door, the watcher is still faithfully doing his job.

True, but I run watchers as supremely literal and scatty. How about you go up to the watcher spirit and ask it what its orders are? If any PC had the gall to do that, they'd probably get a cheerful "Oh, I have to sound the alarm if anyone opens that door without saying 'Hippopotamus'."

I tend to think of them as the guards in the tower in Monty Python's "Holy Grail."

But it's a security guard that can automatically see invisibility, warns the other security guards near instantly, can't be seen except by astral percieving mages, has immunity to mundane weapons, and can use magic.

The shaman who summons the spirit will be on active guard duty in the office.

Why would a corporation purposely weaken their defences? Especially when the corporation is half expecting the runners to give them trouble. I would feel like I was cheating the players if I made it that easy. All that my team's mage would have to do is cast improved invis to get past the drones.

Don't all spirits have immunity to normal weapons? Page 177 - unless I'm missing something...

Ought to be under the critter entries too, though.

I kind of think that professional Shadowrunners ought to be able to find a way past spirits. Like ShadowDragon said, there's no way a corporate mage is going to be exhausting himself by summoning powerful spirits for guard duty on a routine basis. And wagemages are not the Magic 6 types you see as PCs. You'll see watchers or low-force spirits.

Issues with spirits that you don't get with mundane guards:
1. Astral Perception.
2. Immune to mundane attacks for purposes of guarding (they don't have to materialise to keep a watch)
3. Instant notification of spirit's demise.

Point 1, I'm not too concerned about. The GM needs some way of catching the astral mage sometimes. Same for invisibility.

Point 2. Definitely an issue for mundane-only parties. If you have a mage, then it's her chance to shine. If not, then you have to get creative. There are ways a mundane party can deal with this (see below), but the main problem is going to be knowing that there's a spirit there in the first place.

Point 3. Probably the hardest thing for Shadowrunning teams to work around as it nulls their ability to use the traditional kill the guard quick and put the body in the cupboard. Also, spirits are immune to many of the tactics that would incapacitate a spirit. Still, there are ways that you can disable a spirit without killing it.

Suggested tactics as follows:

(magic:)
Mental manipulation spells, e.g. Control Thoughts. This allows incapacitation of the spirit without alerting the summoner by destroying it. Short term only, but at least an option.

Mana Barriers. Again not a long term solution, though you could use a spirit to sustain it. It can keep a low-force spirit locked up nicely though.

(non-magic:)

The point of these is that spirits are not much different to certain mundane security mechanism such as motion detectors - they're something you just have to work around.

Unorthodox approach routes. If you know there are spirits guarding the doors, try parachute drops or gliders, clambering up the sewers or tunneling through walls with drills and electric monofilament chainsaws. Supplement with Hush spell if available.

Blitzkrieg. A perfectly valid approach to shadowrunning is to replace stealth with speed. Trip every alarm in the place if it means you can get in and out in under five minutes. Heck, if you have a hacker, then combine it with blocking outgoing alerts to delay those reinforcements.

Misdirection. Send a false alarm to the North side, and enter through the southside. If you know how your target's guard system works, then you can manipulate your opponents reactions to your advantage. Or trigger false alarms (and burn services too) - for example, a trapped bird or office pet gets somewhere it shouldn't and the spirit goes charging off to alert its master that something has gone through. The team charge through and get to the next zone whilst the mage and security detail come galloping up to find the bird etc. The bird will probably get manabolted, but neither the spirit nor the mage knows that anyone else passed through in the mean times. Split second timing, sure. But that's what shadowrunners are all about.


So basically, I think if a team is creative and willing to adapt their tactics, then a spirit guard isn't insurmountable. There's always plan B.

This is true...but you are forgetting something.
The same happens to a squad of runners without a Hacker!

How are "non-wired" players supposed to complete the mission to find and retrieve important paydata if they only have basic computer skills and an almost-average computer?
It's nearly IMPOSSIBLE for them to get past 'net security.

And how much trouble do they have to get into against a good security system without an expert hacker?

So...
Spirits CAN be "worked" by a group of mundanes...but with great problems.
The same applyes to purely electronical stuff...a Hacker expert becomes a total necessity.

That's not quite right. Leaving aside the possibility of non-specialised characters being much more able to hack in SR4, the real point is that unlike the hacker, the mage's role overlaps with the Samurai. At least, that is, it overlaps in favour of the mage.

A mage can do everything a samurai does - area effect, super-reflexes, sniping. Heck, in a lot of ways they're better at it than the samurai. When was the last time you adjusted the blast radius of a grenade on the fly? But a samurai can only do part of what a mage does. And they operate in the same arena and with the same objectives unlike the hacker. Spirits are just the best example of this problem.

You'd love my houserule of spirits and edge. ( derived from my houserule on spirits and karma pools from SR3 )

Houserule
-------------------
Summoned spirits do not have edge but they do have access to their summoners edge pool. So if a spirit is being shot by a panther cannon the summoner may give it a point of his edge to help it survive. If a spirit is out on a remote task and its summoner isn't around to lend it a point of edge it's out of luck. ( literally )

This goes with the theory that summoned spirits just don't care. You can have a bound earth elemental manifest in front of a truck to prevent the folks inside from getting away and it will do it. It doesn't even care if it lives or dies. In order to use edge you've got to care about the outcome. Bound spirits simply don't.

I'd never allow that. First off going to the metaplane and returning is essentially a new task. Second the spirit would return to our world from the metaplane in the exact location which it left or to the location of its summoner. So the only way the spirit could do the metaplane skip past the mana barrier is if its summoner was standing on the other side.

It would, but it violates the spirit of the house rule.

The idea is that the spirit doesn't care if it is successful or not or if it is destroyed or not. It's the summoner who cares. And therefore it is the summoner who supplies the edge when it is important to him that the spirit is successful or that the spirit survives.

Besides I never have a house rule to be cruel. This houserule is more for game balance than anything else.

Something like this?

Attacker uses Willpower x 2
Defender uses ????? to avoid the hit ( probably reaction )
Attacker does (Charisma/2) damage
Defender resists damage using Force.

Here's something to think on

The burst damage modifier does not apply to armor comparisons. But the points added to DV from net hits on the shooting test does. And of course the target lowers the net hits by trying to avoid the attack using reaction.

So in an attack were the hardened armor value is only a few points higher than the weapons base DV you have a better chance of avoiding complete resistance by using a wide burst ( which lowers the spirits dodge dice and thus its ability to lower your net hits ) than with the narrow burst which raises the DV.

Things that make you go...... huh?