Just like I would like to do with an Awakened character having both the Formula Pact (Leonization ? who needs Leonization ? Finally a mystical option for immortality that does not involve being the antedeluvian elf scion of dragons) and the Life Pact, even if the Dream Pact is cool, too, in concept, but I fail to see what the real benefit to the charcter is. However, would the Quality have to be bought twice for a double pact ? Is it per pact, per spirit, or once-over ? Apparently the rules allow for having more than one (a couple, at least) pact with the same spirit, or multiple pacts with several spirits, but they do not clarify the issue.

Judging from the relevant information in Street magic, I'd say that in many cases it should be possible to get at least two spirit pacts from the same spirit.

If it can offer only one or two varieties, then you can only enter into one or two spirit pacts with the spirit. Therefore, if your GM says sorry, that one edge spirit only has one spirit pact available, you'll have to buy the quality with two spirits.

Which may impact your character if you were planning on taking the spirit as a contact and feeding it karma.

Fair price. If Focused Concentration is handed down at 10pts/lvl, I can surely acknowledge two 1-edge spirit pacts at 10 as a rather good bargain, even taking into account periodic karma requests from both spirits. Plus, some pacts (such as Dream and Life) do tend to take care of the karma issue on their own.

I'd rather make some additional legwork and do research until I can dig up 1-edge free spirits that can offer the kind of pacts I want, singularly or in combination, rather than bothering with high-edge spirits. Unless the latter would be in the position to offer say four different spirit pacts or so. Sometimes it's not min-maxing, it's common sense

As I said, I see both Formula and Life pacts as something that would be of interest to many Awakened characters. Immortality is a huge IC benefit, which a character cannot find elsewhere unless by leonization, which is likely rather bad to essence. Likewise, the Life pact is a very good ersatz-regeneration last-ditch lifesaver, even if an ally spirit or bound spirit of man with the right healing spells and standing orders might substantially duplicate. The Dream pact I see as potentially rich in RP flavour, but I fail to see the significant IC character benefit why a PC should bother, unless it's asked by the spirit in combination with another pact. Its advantages seem to be all for the spirit. Likewise for the Magic Pact (magic boost once a day, and you can siphon all my Edge whenever you like ? No thanks, I think I'll go enchanting a power focus or summon an ally spirit instead...). If someone can explain me a decent reason why an Awakened character would bother to have them...

The Power Pact isn't something that I see most characters to bother bargaining for in the long term, since almost all powers you can as easily obtain from summoned or bound spirits, but it might be an useful tool to bargain for once in a while in provision of a dangerous or difficult run (e.g. regeneration) or something that a character cannot do on its own (e.g. I can see many mystical adepts striking "freelance" pacts for Astral Gateway, summoning the free spirit and handing him a nice chunk of karma for 24-hour access to metaplanar quests).

Drain Pact: well, if you fall for this, you deserve to be fleeced of all your karma, you drain fiend. It's the addict's way. Go bind a power focus or an ally spirit, ypou lazy bum.

Especially if you enter it with your former ally you treated well and finally set free willingly:

Both of you know each other well, how to work together and might even share a similar personality.
Combined with the formula and life pact, this is a very good reason to invest in an ally spirit.

obviously, you should get yourself some cybereyes and record constantly =P

in fact, maybe even hardwire it to be impossible to turn them off

You don't need to have your real eyes scooped out. You'd just need to find a nice place to put the extras. I'm sort of fond of the thrid eye on the forehead, myself, it is a classic.


We do need a clarification on the rules for damage. I was aware of the fact that the vessel's wound penalities apply and that physical damage effects both, but I don't believe that the damage taken by one before the possession applies to the spirit during the possession other than for the purpose of calculating penalities.

Things also get kind of wierd when considering dead vessels. Obviously, the vessel having a full physical track and full overflow doesn't hamper the spirit in any way whle just having a partially full track does.

Once the creature dies, it's not a living vessel anymore. It's considered a whole new object, so if you wanted to have it be a prepared vessel you'd need to start all over again. It's just like ripping a homunculus apart - you've got a pile of plastisteel left over so there's nothing stopping you from putting it back together and making a new homunculus - but the original vessel is "dead" and can't be possessed anymore.

So once your body dies, your dream pact is over, and the spirit can't possess your body at all. There is a pile of meat and bones there, so an enterprising magician could prepare it as a new "undamaged" dead vessel - but all the old work is lost.

If you take a house apart brick by brick - the house is destroyed. But you do have a pile of bricks and you could totally make a new house if you wanted.

-Frank

Just make a pact with a free task spirit.

Enlightening and informative post. I recant my previous doubts about the Dream Pact and now acknowledge it as quite useful to have, alongside and/or combination with the Formula and Life Pacts. Finding a trusted free spirit that would grant all three would indeed be a very good karma investment from an Awakened character, on the level of getting an Ally or a Mentor.

What about the Magic Pact ? Do you see any reasons why this Pact should be preferred to other means of boosting one's Magic ?

Only for the limited situation where you're trying to avoid physical drain on the margin. Power foci (on the most common reading) now only give you dice, not an actual boost in the rating, so the Magic Pact is the only way to increase your capacity to keep high force magic in the stun category without actually increasing your Magic. If your GM will allow you to bring it in at the very end of a binding ritual it might have some real utility, although if you're trying to bind a spirit with a Force higher than your Magic you've probably got all kinds of other problems already.

For spellcasting, you're probably better off learning the advanced Absorption metamagic and letting a friend/ally/spirit of man feed you energy to knock down your physical DV down to something manageably soakable. Or Sacrifice, of course...

While I see the point of your argument about powers that specifically rely on spiritual nature like Astral Projection, Spirit Pact or Mutable Form (which is an expansion of a specifically forbidden power), I utterly fail to see the reason wny a free spirit shouldn't be able to bestow any other free spirit power it has, since I cannot see the difference between say Regeneration, and Confusion, Fear, Noxious Breath, or any other vanilla spirit power. A power is a power. And if a free spirit is willing to renew the Power Pact long enough for the power to work, I can't see the reason why a character couldn't be bestowed with Personal Domain. Regeneration and Personal Domain are no more spirit-specific than Fear, Accident, or Concealment.

I don't know if I like this. If this is possible, I would require the Ally binding process to be more deadly, just like Invoking. In fact, the whole thing should be like Invoking. Want a Great Form power? Make enough hits AND buy it. THat seems a little more balanced.

I have no idea what you mean by this. Yes, a spirit that has hidden its life can be destroyed by a metaplanar quest and battle. But that was the case in SR3, as well. It's just that the SR3 dice rolling mechanic to soften you up and make you arrive that battle wounded and stunned has been replaced by GM created hazards. There's even an example provided of having to fight through lesser spirit bodyguards to reach your target spirit if it's particularly powerful.

What any of this has to do with the PC being on Earth is beyond me. The presence of an intact hidden life protects a spirit from the permanent banishment option on SM pg. 109. That's not that big a risk to be avoided of course, but then spirits are generally more resilient in SR4 than they were before, now only being disrupted rather than destroyed in many circumstances.

Rereading the Hidden Life description, it's possible that it's intended to protect even against the astral quest assassination option. "As long as the hiding place remains safe, the spirit cannot be permanently banished or destroyed by any means." The next sentence makes one think maybe it only protects against banishing, but... It would make the power more interesting if it also caused a one year later ressurection for metaplanar assassinations.

I was refering to the use of Power Pact: Hidden Life by a PC.

Since the Earth is the home metaplane for a metahuman PC killing the PC on Earth would be equivilant of killing a spirit on its home metaplane. The bolded sentence does make it seem like Hidden Life makes the spirit invulnerable even on its home metaplane which would, in turn,mean that a PC with Hidden Life from a power pact would be just as invulnerable.

One way to look at it, probably the best way, is that a PC with Power Pact: Hidden Life, whose body is killed, is completely screwed because PCs can't learn Possession in SR4. Being disrupted for a year and a day only to find out that your astral body is immortal but your physcial body is dead and you still suffer from hourly essence loss isn't much fun.

Oh, you were being silly.

There's obviously a bit of difference between allowing resurrection of a wholly spirit being and having a new meat bod pop out of the ether after a year and a day.