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Eryk the Red
My gut says no, but I figured I'd get a second opinion. Can the Aid Sorcery spirit service be used to add bonus dice to drain resistance, instead of the spellcasting roll? I only ask because foci, which serve a comparable purpose, can do either. I figure I ought to figure this out before my group's mage asks about it.
Thanee
Hmm... good question. It doesn't specifically list Drain, but then again, it says pretty much the same thing as listed under Spellcasting Foci, where that extra sentence is added, that the dice can be used anywhere in the spellcasting process (the actual spellcasting or Drain resistance).

I can see this go either way, really, and I don't think it would be a problem to allow the dice to be used on the Drain resistance instead of the spellcasting. It's difficult and expensive enough to bind a spirit for sure.

Bye
Thanee
Eryk the Red
I think I'll allow it. This guy conjures and binds spirits constantly (I don't think he's ever conjured on the fly). He pays a lot to get these guys bound. I don't think it'd be overpowered to let him spend a full service on some extra resistance dice.
Cabral
Only bound spirits can grant the Aid Sorcery service anyway.

As to your original question, no they can't. The spellcasting focus has an extra sentence that allows you to withhold dice from spellcasting to use for drain. before you overrule this and allow any bound spirit to be used to assist drain, take a look at the Ally power Resist Drain (SM 105) which is seperate from Aid Sorcery and says the process is painful to the spirit and generates animosity towards the mage. However, it does work differently than a spellcasting foci used purely to resist drain. Apart from being able to shunt the entire drain onto the Ally, I would say it works worse.
Samaels Ghost
Drain is what keeps Mages with Magic 5 five from casting Force 10 spells all mission long. Handing a handful of easy dice to a player to resist drain means high force spells are going to be common and easy to cast. I don't like that idea as a GM. I've seen what happens when characters get lucky on Drain Resistance rolls all mission long. It gets ugly and overshadows other players. Not a good idea, no matter what the rules say.
Tarantula
Simple mechanical fix for him to get the same effect... have the spirit aid his sorcery test, while witholding some of his own dice from it to boost his drain. Same overall effect, just different dice in different places.
Toshiaki
Did they keep that rule from SR3? I don't remember seeing in in SR4. Or is it in Street Magic? I haven't gone through that very thoroughly yet.
Cabral
QUOTE (Tarantula)
Simple mechanical fix for him to get the same effect... have the spirit aid his sorcery test, while witholding some of his own dice from it to boost his drain. Same overall effect, just different dice in different places.

I don't see anything about withholding sorcery dice to aid with the drain. Where did you find that rule?
Jaid
QUOTE (Cabral)
QUOTE (Tarantula @ Sep 3 2006, 03:55 PM)
Simple mechanical fix for him to get the same effect... have the spirit aid his sorcery test, while witholding some of his own dice from it to boost his drain.  Same overall effect, just different dice in different places.

I don't see anything about withholding sorcery dice to aid with the drain. Where did you find that rule?

there is no such rule, other than the one that allows you to do this *only* with the bonus dice gained from a spellcasting focus.
Tarantula
Erm, ammend my statement to say "use a spellcasting focus and withold its dice to aid your drain" nyahnyah.gif
Toshiaki
Yeah, that would work, but then you're adding in another element, namely a focus that costs nuyen (Force x 15,000) and karma (Force x 4). In the long run that would be worth it, but it is considerably cheaper to summon and bind the appropriate spirit (Force x 500 and no karma).
Slithery D
Street Magic introduces the Centering Focus (binding cost karma x 6). Other than the spellcasting focus (itself possibly an error), this is the only "artificial" (non attribute/initiation based) method that explicitly grants extra dice for drain.

Although you could cast a Increase (Drain) Attribute and then have your bound spirit use its much maligned sustaining power to grant you the use of those extra dice for Force rounds. For that matter, a Force 9 health sustaining focus is sometimes a more karmically efficient way to get extra drain dice than a Force 3 Centering Focus if your drain attribute is 5 or less and you can get 4 successes.
Dread Polack
This all seems to make sense. Unless someone makes a good argument for its broken-ness, I'd allow a bound spirit to, as a favor, use Aid Sorcery to drain resistance tests.

I think the rule for giving up sorcery dice to resist drain was dropped from 3rd ed to 4th ed because of the scalability of spell force ratings. It's basically the same idea- you're giving up some of the kick on your spell to lighten the kick on yourself.

Dread Polack
Samaels Ghost
But why use Sacrifice if you can just bind a spirit, a less daunting task than learning and using Sacrifce, Spirit Pacts, or Allys. Seems counter to those ideas in a big way.
Slithery D
Yeah, at the high power level the limitation on godhood has to be drain, not low successes. Allowing flexible avoidance of drain is a bad idea unless you want a high magic campaign where magicians have even more advantages over everyone else.
Eryk the Red
It doesn't seem so powerful considering that the spirit must be bound (cha-ching) and that it takes a full service to do it. The same service could be used to say "fight these bad guys". The fact that it is a single, instant act rather than a continuing service is something of a balancing factor.

It's not a big deal either way, really. I won't say anything about it to the player unless he asks. And he really only suffers meaningful drain when using conjuring skills anyway. (Banishing nearly killed him twice. Binding generally means all he does is bind, rest, and tend to basic human needs that day.) He probably wouldn't make much use of it to aid drain resistance, anyway.
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