You obviously haven't read those rules very carefully. On a press through attempt in the BBB, you have to score an extra net success for each spell you want to bring through a ward. You need to be astrally perceiving to make such a test. Is that really what you're likely to be concentrating on when you're walking through a door/ward in a secured building? And can you get that many net sucesses on a Magic + Charisma vs. 2 x Force test when you're facing a ward of Force 4-6? Survey says...no.

And the SM rules for fooling wards via masking are much harder than they were in SR3. You have to find one of the guys who made the ward (often with an astral tracking test with an interval of one hour), observe his aura (beating any masking) (presumably without being observed and questioned/pursued by any watchers or other spirits he has in the vicinity), and then make a similar spoofing attempt...which will once again require extra net successes, unless you've also got Extended Masking.

Many people forget the Steath spell. It should always be combined with II because it makes the character immune to auditory perception and untrasound unless the spell is resisted.

With Stealth + Improves Invisibility the Samurai is left with no way to dectect the mage other than smell and radar.


Any magician or adept could specializes such that he is far better than a samurai in one area. However, that specialization will cost him dearly. You might as well compare the Pornomancer to the generalist face.

I don't think this is possible at chargen.

Just all the security mages and spirits in the whole place.

Cyberware is common enough to not really draw that much attention. All you need are some licenses and a convincing backstory for your SIN.

Bye
Thanee

Well, let's not put TOO much weight on this particular limitation. In the scenario described (dark basement of the house of a twisted mage), a spellslinger could fall back on, oh, a flashlight There are plenty of situations where that isn't practical (because it attracts too much attention), but there are just as many where the opposition all have thermo, and turning on a light doesn't make it any easier for them to see you.

Well, I was replying to a specific character, who has these spells:

Besides, I don't really see how Stealth affects Ultrasound in any way. That's not a sound the target of the Stealth spell makes, so it's unhindered by the spell.

Bye
Thanee

No it isn't. Out of the box, it's not really possible to create a mage with all the skills he'd really need to be an all round Shadowrunner - at least not without leaving him perhaps fatally weak at the areas he's supposed to be good at. A samurai usually does and just to emphasize the point, unless he's utterly optimised to killing things and taking damage, it's possible to give him or her a semi-decent secondary role, e.g. basic hacker or rigger or face.

I hate to say this mate, but it's not enough to simply state that mages make samurai obsolete. Not in this crowd. Although I skipped 3rd Edition, I've actually been playing since 1st. A lot of the people you're arguing with have been playing for either a similarly long time or at least more gaming time in total. If I can't create a mage that replaces a samurai, and most of the other people here don't think it's possible, then we really need to see you create a build that proves us wrong.

To make the Samurai obsolete, your build needs to have the same strengths as a Samurai and no additional weaknesses. That is to say, he can handle the same situations. Don't get too hung up on people saying that he'll be gimped by background counts and mages on the astral. A GM can always kill a character if he chooses. Just give us a starting character (400BP), that will fill the same role that the Samurai does on your standard see some magic, see some gunfire, sneak past the motion sensors run.

Excuse me. I reply to posts as I see them. If you expect me to read an entire thread (hitting refresh multiple times) before even composing a reply then you are expecting too much from me, and others.

additionally, I was replying to your absurd belief that Summoning a Spirit and ordering it to Possess you was somehow acceptable behavior. HA!

"I'll just whistle up +5 to all my physical stats at no cost to myself! YAY!"
"And Immunity to Normal Weapons! WOOO!"
"Lookit! Ponies! Gleeee!"
"After I spend 13 karma I'll actually be able to move and eat Pizza!"

I suppose it could be worse, you could have taken the Munchkin Mask off completely and proposed something like this:

Magic 5 Summoning 6 (Gurardian Spec) + Magic Focus 2 = 15 Dice 5 Successes + 1 Edge re-roll +3 more total 8

Force 10 Guardian = 3 Successes net services owed 5

Drain 6 Physical vs Will 5 Cha 7 + Summoning Focus 3 and 1 Edge = 8 Successes.

I'm shure there are those who think "Glowie-Eyed" Cyberzombies are "Interesting" and "Playable".

What exactly have you given up? You can still summon Spirits beforehand. You can still give them commands via your mental link. You just can't pat them on the back and rub butter on them until you Initaiate and pick up channeling.

If you don't utterly smoke him on the initiative roll and gut him first. But lets just say he wins Init. The Possessing spirit is gone. You Power Bolt the offending mage. Next IP you summon a new "Zoot-Suit".

LOL After he picks up the Easy Button ™ hes going to work on being well rounded. Good luck finding a GM willing to sit for that.

As a GM after seeing you pull that trick once, if you have used up all the services owed the Spirit would stick around in you body. Then either throw itself from a great height or look for similar certain death situations.

------------METALSMITH----------^^^^

Why dont' we clearly define what the strengths of a Samurai are, then, and what weaknesses are allowable for our Mages. Once we have clearly defined goals/boundaries, we can quantify the degree of comparative munchiness, and see if we can't find some rational conclusion to this debate?

I.E, 1) A Samurai will have at least 14 dice to roll to soak damage, because Samurai are 'Tough'. Anything less than 14 dice to soak damage constitutes Samurai Superiority.

2) A Samurai will always have high Initiative, of at least an initiative score of 10. Anything less than a score of ten, is an obvious no-contest initiative victory for the Samurai.

3) A Samurai can roll at least 14 dice, prior to adding equipment mods, to attack with, without detracting from the utility of the character. If a Mage cannot provide general utility, and roll at least 14 dice to attack with, this constitutes Samurai Superiority...

...etc


Edit: To include Examples - Suggested Guidelines, entirely debateable

All the Loa were universally respectful of their "mounts".

You will never find one Voodoo story about a a Loa being forced to appear and possessing a mount and then exacting a measure of revenge on the impudent Hougan who summoned him.

--------METALSMITH------------^^^^

Yep. Being a one-trick-pony is never a good idea.

Well, the lines that you were missed were the first four of the post that you responded to. To save you the arduous task of reading the whole thread and having to leap in near the end full of misconceptions (again), I'll requote the relevant lines for you:

At which point I got a response from you telling me how I'd failed to show that Samurai were obsolete. Amongst other things. Now I'd suggest that you go and remind yourself that it's just a game and that other people play the game differently to you (including the designers themselves, apparently) and that this is okay. And then when you're nice and calm, you might be ready to read on because I'm about to go through the rest of your post and say what I think of it and I don't want your blood pressure getting too high.

Well it seems to be acceptable by the game designers who wrote it into the rules. And I would imagine it is acceptable by most people who stick with the rules as written. Let's have a look at what seems to be your chief objection:

First, let me remind you that the character gets these bonuses for short periods only. Secondly, it takes a moment to bring them on. Thus the character is strong when initiating a battle, but weak when surprised. This is especially so when you recall that summoning a spirit on the fly is a little random and it's not going to be infrequent that your first attempt to summon a spirit and get the necessary services is going to fail. That's a bad thing in the middle of a fight. This can be made more reliable at the expense of power and vice versa. Not quite "Lookit! Ponies!" though I suppose the character could have a possessed pony if he wished. He's a dwarf after all. I quite like the idea of a possessed dwarf riding into battle on a possesed pony - thanks!

As to the no cost to himself. Let's look at that. To begin with, to make the character viable for this sort of possession-based combat, he needs decent physical stats in the first place. How often do you see a starting mage with base Body: 4 Agility: 5 Reaction: 5. They COST, believe me. Did you notice that I had to leave the character with a Logic of 1 and an Intuition of 2? This guy has severe problems. Luckily it suits my character concept of beserk little houngan. But still, it's a big equaliser.

I'm sure there are. But Nano is not really the same, is he? Besides, a cyberzombie is hardly much good for dialogue but meeting with the Johnson with this guy is going to provide great role-playing.

You've kind of lost me here. You realise that Possession Traditions can't have spirits that materialise? The Channelling metamagic has nothing to do with that. What this character has given up is access to instant allies in combat, assassins that can appear anywhere without warning, servants that can go and get things for you, earth spirits that can take a bullet for you or hold the guards off while you retreat or air elementals that pick you up and carry you away through the air when you're hurt. He's lost the ability to set loose a pack of Force 3 fire elementals to wreak havoc when the flit hits the shan. He's given up a lot. And he will never, ever be able to rub butter on them no matter how many times he initiates.

Again, it would be nice if you had actually read the character build before getting so upset by it. He doesn't have Power Bolt. Or Manabolt. In fact he only has two spells as I couldn't really afford any more and he's not the strongest of casters anyway. Besides, I don't know which sort of mages your GM provides you (or that you create as NPCs), but most of mine aren't easy to Powerbolt to death in one shot and leave you in any kind of shape to summon a spirit the next phase. In the meantime, you've just lost half your attributes and your prime armour.

Well, aren't you the sweetheart. After seeing a GM do that to a character out of spite, I might pull out my Troll Combat mage and show the GM the real meaning of the words "Power Creep".

Nano isn't quite playable, but because he has too many weaknesses. So if it's not too much to ask (and it probably is), try reading a post before you criticise.

Thought I'd just tack on an addendum as I didn't like you setting up a strawman so you could take apart something I'd never said.

For the above, il if you want to spend 2 edge every time you begin a combat, then I'd say that's the start of balance right there. For the rest of the balance, look at your numbers. For a start, I couldn't create a starting character that had the abilities you quote - he's got 1 edge and no magic focus. That was the price of making him suitable for possession based combat. Even allowing that the character eventually acquired these, that Force 10 Guardian Spirit is one heck of a risk. Rolling 20 dice on its summong test, the average drain is 7 physical. But it would be statistically all too easy for that drain to rise to 10 or 11. Keep up this sort of tactic and your going to be hit with a 15P drain quite soon. Regardless, one bad roll on your drain test and your character is going to be fragged for the rest of the game. And bear in mind that this is a non-bound spirit so you're trying all this at the start of combat. Sounds like a character that likes to live on the edge. Or will be once the character I created actually has the karma to get the stats and possessions you've given him.

EDIT: Munchkin, indeed! *mutter*

No, summoning dice for a spirit are Force, or 10 in this case. Binding dice for a spirit are twice Force, or 20. But you do double the spirit's successes to get DV in both instances, so the 3.3 average successes of your 10 dice summoning become 6.6 DV (or mostly 6 but often , near enough your 7, and it is indeed physical.

Rrrrr. I meant to say "double drain value" rather than "20 summoning dice." The keys are, like, right next to each other.

Oh alright - I was wrong! Well, I was right, but only because I made a mistake. It's a good job that I wasn't right or I'd have come out with the wrong figures.

I think.

LOL. You must see enemies everywhere if you are that paranoid. Calm down, check your own blood pressure if need be.

The above was just an example of what a determined starting possesser is capable. You dont need to Summon before combat you can do it hours ahead of time. I dont know why you insist on doing it just before combat. Summon your little Monster, tell him to possess you. Mental Orders: follow around the Face and watch his back. (1 Service) If you get ambushed, so what? During a fight you can give specific orders (services).

Why you need to crank your physical stats so high is beyond me. If you can't create a starting character capable of the above, I'm sorry.

After 13 karma it gets even eaiser. Wake up in the morning Spend 2 Edge, put on your "Zoot-Suit" of "Whatever Force you feel like today" and wear it for 12 hours. Your edge pool will refresh in a scene or 2. Aside from a few minutes each day You can just summon a new one.

Slithery already handled the 10 dice 20 dice thing.

ATTENTION LEGITIMATE QUESTION DO NOT LET YOUR PARANOIA FOOL YOU INTO THINKING THIS IS SOME KIND OF STRAWMAN: A possessing spirit boosts your physical attributes. Is there anything that says the Possessing Sprit can go past the Maximum Augmented Attribute Value? I'm just wondering if I've over looked that.



-----------------METALSMTH-------------^^^^

Which is precisely your problem. Much of this is obviously beyond your ability to comprehend.

He needs to crank his physical stats so high because he needs to match Street Samurai reaction, initiative, and firearms skill. Having very high Agility and Reaction are the best way to do that, since if he's going to play a mage he can't very well take high firearms skills to begin with, and spirit possessing is a better method of attribute buffing than health spells.

I do see enemies everywhere. How did you know that? Are you in league with them? Why do you want to know what my blood pressure is?

Well in the case of the character above, he is a starting character so without the Channeling metamagic, he is essentially handing the reigns of his body to the spirit for the duration. Different GMs will play that differently, but in rules terms, he's giving up access to his skills and magic use. Perhaps even astral perception. It gets better with Channelling though. You're right that the summoning doesn't have to take place right before a combat, but without bound spirits (which have other implications), This is very likely to happen. If there's more than one combat in a mission, then the mage is very likely to have burned through one set of services already and have to re-summon. It's still a nuisance and even a potential risk in the middle of a run.

The reason for this is that the character intends to get in the thick of combat, either melee or gunfire. The higher his starting stats, the lower the Force of the spirit needs to be to make him good at this (though skills are also an issue). If I create the mage with Bod 2, Agi, 2, Rea 2, then I'm going to need a Force 7 spirit to just hit what a human samurai or a troll would consider baseline, and Force 7 is edging into something that is going to have consequences if it were habitual (i.e. every combat).

I personally would consider that quite munchkinny. After all, I can't imagine a character wants to spend his whole day possessed by another entity riding around like a passenger in his own body. I think it would also burn through services like you wouldn't believe. It depends how the GM rules it, but personally, while I might allow trivial tasks to come free - e.g. go here, drink beer - but combat, infiltration tasks, etc, seem more servicey to me. I'd also have a problem with social interaction while possessed.

Indeed. But while he pointed out my mistake, he was gracious enough to also point out that my conclusion was correct. The drain is still problematic for the mage.

Okay - I was a bit snitty with you. Sorry for that. But after the third person misreads my posts and ignores the opening sentances explaining what the build is for, I do get that way.

There's nothing in Street Magic that implies this and there's a clear opportunity for them to do this if they'd meant to. There was some discussion on this and the general consensus (including the designer, I'm pretty sure) was that the boost is not limited by the augmented limit. There were people who considered otherwise, though. I'll dig it out.

It's a bit of a judgement call but SM does state that for mages that are possessed by the spirits they summon that the mage can retain indirect control over the spirit that they've summoned. It makes an explicit comparison to hacking and rigging. Still no skills etc until you get channelling. Incidentally, channelling doesn't explicitly allow magic use either and a strict interpretation would be that you can't. GM call, but it's the other reason why you wouldn't want to walk around possessed all the time. Lowest mental attributes for resistance tests, too.

There's lots of downsides to this approach, which is why I wouldn't have a problem if a player wanted to try it. In fact, I'd warn them of all the potential problems quite carefully so that they could make an informed choice.

@mintcar These aren't advanced characters. Everything so far has been 400BP. Some people have talked about tacking on 13 karma for the first initiation. Be afraid.

Yes continue the beating me and your anger at 2 other posters.

Short Periods? When did they change the 12 hour rule? Weak when suprised? why are you insisting you have to summon it before combat? Why do you insist on summoning them on the fly? As for claiming that Ambushes are a glaring weakness, ambushes suck for everyone. Except those with good Init and Perception both of which you can pack on in Spades at character creation.

I don't know why you want to use BIG PHYCSICAL STATS when the Force eaisly makes up for any base stat deficiency. And your poor Logic and Intuition stats for a "Sam" type character who wants to 'Zerk and punch things are just as about common as low Agility and Strength for a "Mage" type character who wants to 'Bolt things. It all washes the same.

You're right. I didn't realize that Possession Traditions couldnt have normal Materializing Spirits. In the long run however, it doesnt change much. Wake up in the morning, Summon your Zoot-Suit and put him on. Hand Wave up a few Force 5's (Ponies) and set about your daily life.
If you need an instant ally in combat, tell some of those waiting Spirits to possess the low mental attribute opposition, or their clothes (2-3 successes), or their gunz (3), or their car (3-4). Assassins that can possess the target or bodyguard and take them out. Servants that can Possess the Neighbor's kid and go and get things for you. Earth spirits that you dont need to take a bullet for you because you have Immunity to Normal Weapons. or Possess the guards while you retreat. Possessing a Drone or Helicopter or a Guard that picks you up and carries you away through the air using their movement power when you're hurt. He sets loose a gang to wreak havoc when the flit hitsh the shan. He's given up Nothing.
He can rub Astral Butter ™ on them

In fact, he's actually gaining actions. (from a Spirit point of view)
Example: IP 1 Mage orders Spirit to attack the Guards. Spirit Manifests. Guards React. IP 2 Manifested Spirit Attacks Guards.
Example 2: Possessor Mage orders Spirit to attack the Guards. Spirit Possesses Guard. Guards -1 react. IP 2 Spirit attacks remaining Guards.
Just sticking with the Averages a Force 6 Spirit handwaves possessing any average Mundane Living Creature and any Complex Manufactured Object. Just as any professional Mage can handwave 4 Drain

There you go again beating the reading horse.

It's not my fault you chose to not take a 'Bolt. Power, Stun, or Mana. I'm just elaborating on the flaws of the whole possessed by a Spirit idea.
Why you wouldn't want to throw a force 10 Powerbolt (1 Edge 7 successes) at a mage who just shucked you out of your "Power Armor" I can't say. Thats obviously your decision. If you want to find the Build Points you can. Besides who Summons a Spirit next phase? I'd have one of the Ponies in my Herd Possess Me, after I powerbolt him.

Those "Weaknesses" you see are all in your head. If you are not able to accept honest critisism I apologise for confusing you.


------------------METALSMITH-----------^^^^

Down with that crazy talk! You get full control of your body and can use your skills. Magic use is...use of a skill. While the mechanics have changed, the use of SM Channeling is the same as in Target: Awakened Lands - you get attribute boosts and immunity to normal weapons, but you stay in control. Plus you can use spirit powers as your own actions (this part is less clear in the rules, but I think that's what they intended, and anything else would be problematic), but doing so will burn services faster than putting the spirit back in charge of your body and giving him a broad goal to accomplish.

I agree that there are social problems with being possessed, and it should be obvious if we're talking about Force 5-6. An overlay of a guardian mask, wispy or watery stuff around you, a friggen burning energy aura for some, etc. The biggest social problem is that ever guard in sight will be staring at you with itchy trigger finger. And in post-Shedim SR, being possessed is probably illegal and shoot on sight in many jurisdictions; certainly so in the CAS.

Lowest of each mental attributes doesn't impose a penalty on the mage when he's possessed by a worthwhile Force 5-6 spirit. You'll just keep your own lower ones. That's a fair deal for being in control of your body with physical attribute boosts and a fair whack of immunity to normal weapons.

Binding Force 5 spirits isn't exactly easy for most starting characters. I vaguely recall this guy would have had 9 binding dice, so he'd fail most of the time. More reasonable would be Force 3 or (maybe) Force 4, who are going to fail possession attempts against average mental attributes often enough to make it risky if you need it done right the first time in a firefight.

Possessing clothes would be helpful for Energy Aura and Engulf spirits, but only to kill one person. For everything else, you've got to rely upon LOS powers from a fixed point. Not very efficient.

Believe me, I was one of the early panickers about Possession and thought it horribly broken. It's not. All of your bitching is mostly about spirits, period. The only real difference here is that materialization spirits can kill samurai while the mage hides, while possession guardian spirits can let the mage kill samurai (or at least go along for the ride) in a samarai-like style.

Frankly, I'd be slightly more worried about a Force 5 fire spirit with 9 points of engulf damage after it wins its 12 dice unarmed combat roll than I would be about a Force 5 guardian spirit possessing someone and rolling at most 15 dice on a firearms test. The latter is just a matter of different style - magical samurai style. Both are going to kill you.

Well I'd rule the same way and let a Channeling mage cast spells, etc. But there is ambiguity in the rules unless you've spotted something I haven't. Normal possession explicitly disallows magic use because the special attributes are those of the possessing spirit. The Channelling metamagic description just says that the character can now have greater control over his own body (useless fluff) and that he can now access his own skills (ambiguous). Not arguing with you as I agree, but I think you can see why I chose to raise it as given the five page thread on the Quake power because people might not read to the end of a sentence, the potential ructions over this could be cataclysmic.

There is a potential problem with the lowest mental attribute, though. It depends how common quickened Increase Charisma is, etc. And whether the GM would consider it to apply to the resulting dual being or only one part of it (and thus ineffectual). Again, a GM call and potential five page threader.

@Lorechaser: Thanks for letting me know that Nano has been yoinked. I always feel a warm glow when someone steals a character. He actually had a predecessor that was more playable - a shy mambo (voodoo priestess) who would become a totally different person when possessed by her loa. Ultimately she was going for an ally spirit to make a more interesting role-playing scenario. But unfortunately, I don't get to play her as I can't find a game to play in at the moment. :_( GMing is good and all, but just sometimes I create a character that I'd like to play.

I was thinking about Summoning with 12 hour durations not Binding. A force 5 will get approx 2 successes and I'm figuring a clever mage will be able to resist 4 Drain or atleast heal up 1 stun in an hour while eating breakfast or watching the news.

I also was thinking a Strength 5 pair of Pants or Shirt would make it difficult to move, aim, run while wearing them. A gun that refuses to Fire. A car that drops its transmission.

I had an Idea: What about a spirit that possesses an Armored Jacket? Tougher Armor?

In general the Possession rules seems to be an easy cheat around the old Combat Mage. Summon up a Force 4 Spirit. Put it on. Have Channeling. You now get +4 Agil, Strength, Body, Reaction and 8 points of Hardened Armor. To hell with Sustaining Spells! You've just multiplied your combat survivability by a huge amount. all for the cost of a Summoning skill of 3 and 13 karma.

-------------METALSMITH---------------^^^^

No you weren't. You said: "Wake up in the morning, Summon your Zoot-Suit and put him on. Hand Wave up a few Force 5's (Ponies) and set about your daily life." The 'Zoot-Suit' is your one summoned spirit, the others, your 'ponies,' are necessarily bound spirits hanging around in astral space to fulfill the other roles you discussed. Unless you'd care to admit you're just babbling incoherent shit at this point?

There may be a dumber and more wasteful use of a spirit, but I'm pretty sure only you could think of it. For your next trick, maybe you could fire a rocket launcher into a wall to summon your buddy with the light pistol to come help you in a fight. I'll just let my materialized spirit use Accident, Confusion, or Binding to accomplish the same, if for some reason I'm bored by the idea of actually killing anyone.

Hiding and letting your materialized spirit do all of the attacking is even better for combat survivability. And you can take a different metamagic, too. This isn't a cheat. You pay in foregone options that are just as good overall, and better in some circumstances.

I had not considered the special attributes.

At first glance, if Possession and Channeling disallowed Magic use, I'd have no problems with either of them.

The potential, and I would say automatic, abuses of a Channeling and simeoutaneously Spellcasting mage is what makes me think the whole Possession Spirit was broken.
4 Physical Spells sustained for free and Immunity to normal weapons?

When you Mana Bolt a Possessed Mage, Who takes Damage?

----------------METALSMITH--------------^^^^

The body, using the increased damage track from the attribute boost. It's possible to drop dead when the spirit leaves and those extra Body dice go away.

You have confused me. But mainly because you have gone back and replied to an earlier post after you've already responded once and I've replied to you and covered these points already.

I'll rush through what you've said quickly though. I have apologised for being a bit sarcastic in my first response, but the "weaknesses in my head" are in fact the rules as written and what I (and any good GM) would hit the player with if they had such a character in my game. Not vindictively you understand. Just for balance against the good stuff.

Short periods because I've already given several strong reasons why you don't want to walk around possessed all day. It isn't a viable option in anything other than a dungeon crawl. Weak when suprised and sucky at ambushes because it takes a complex action (on the spirit's IP pass after yours, incidentally), to get your stats. A Samurai can get shot in the back and still have his Body 8 and armour. The possession mage has to sit it out a while. And he wont even have decent magic or firearms skills to play with in the meantime because you have to give up so much to be any good at being a combat-style possession mage like this one.

I've covered this quite clearly last time you raised it. Every point you don't put into physical stats is another point you have to put into the force of the spirit you're summoning. You use the word 'easily' in the quote above. Force 5 is as high as this character can reasonably dare to summon on a regular basis. You've been tossing around numbers like Force 10! Very risky on a regular basis. Also, without those high stats (and they're poor for a combat character), the starting weakness is even worse.

It changes a lot. I'll go through the examples you raise to illustrate.

This is nice - it's the counter to not having a spirit materialise. In either case you get an ally in battle. But it's not as reliable. For a start you need to have a low-mental stat opponent handy. Fighting drones? Fighting mages? Fighting the Big Bad End Guy? Fighting Renraku Red Samurai or Knight Errant? Lots of times you wont have this. Even when you're facing Joe Security Guard there's still a chance that it will fail and that uses up a service too. Especially if Joe uses Edge as he almost certainly will when something tries to take over his mind. Don't get me wrong, it's good! But with materialisation I get an elemental every time. Want that elemental to go astral and appear on the other side of the door that's just been locked by the fleeing target? Sorry - the possessor has to release it's victim and burn another service to posessess another target on the other side. Lots of advantages to materialisation. Some to possession, but don't tell me that the possession mage isn't giving anything up.

3 to 4 successes require a Force 5 to 6 spirit to pull off on average. More to perform reliably. You can do a lot more with a Force 6 Earth Elemental than you can with possessed clothes (they could catch fire and engulf but then so can a Fire Elemental. The gun will get dropped (free action) and lie there looking Evil™ and the car...? Well that's nice but then so is having a Fire Elemental appear inside one.

All possible. Better than a materialised spirit in some circumstances worse in others. More traumatic for the victim though.

See earlier point about possessing the enemy.

Possible, but again you're tossing off these Force 6+ spirits very casually. To be honest, I'm going to have to say that you need a Force 7 or 8 to possess a drone reliably. Otherwise you're gambling quite badly. Not so with a materialised spirit.

Which brings us to another point. A force 2 Fire elemental can really ruin someone's day. It's not going to bother Harlequinn, but unleashing one of these is casual for a mage. It's even quite cheap to bind a little swarm of them for those rapid exit scenarios to cover your retreat. A force 2 earth elemental can still hold a door shut or take bullets for you. To possess people, you really need to be looking at a Force 4 or better though. So the possession mage has cut himself off from the lower end of summoning which is where you want your spirit gangs. Binding a set of Force 6's is expensive and mildly dangerous, but it's the only option for the possession mage who wants to use them en masse.

It costs you 2 aditional karma points to give your ally spirit a Cow form (unless you chose it as your primary form). That's more karma that a possessing mage has to give up that a materialisation mage doesn't. AND it's not available at char gen.

I really think you should play with possession to see how it goes. It isn't as terrible as you think.

EDIT: I was trying to make polite concilliatory noises in that last line, in case I'd been a bit too harsh in my previous posts. But I've just seen Slithery's post and I sound fairly mild after all. Sometimes I forget where I am.

LOL I guess aside from trying to ridicule my methods of how to harm someone via possession when they have high mental stats you have no other problems.

Hiding and sending spirits out to kill people doesnt even sound like playing the game. But you have fun with that ok.

Special Edit: For both of you. You seem to be hung up on Binding. You dont ever have to bind a spirit if all you want them to do is possess people and equipment and use their bog standard powers. Simple action to call one of your "Ponies" from your "herd"

You seem to be hung up on Drain. Drain is not a problem. avg 13 Dice to resist Drain is enough to handwave the 4 drain that a force 6 spirit will cause. If there is any exaggeration in the the averages Edge can be spent to eaisly compensate.

Force 6 spirit gets 12 dice for possession thats 4 successes. Its enough to trump any cop with a 5 Will and 4 Intuition. Its enough to possess any drone thats giving you problems. Its enough to lock the wheels of any vehicle chasing you. Shure I know its 4+ successes on the object resistance table but how complex of a drone do you need to worry about?

Then there is the Scale of surviving damge. Body 3 Mage +6Spirit +8 Ballistic Armor +12 Hardened Possession Armor = 29 Dice + 10 reaction. Thats pretty nice for a "Combat Mage" who only had to spend 1 edge and 13 karma.

Even going onto the small end. Force 3 is 20Dice to resist and 7 Reaction.

I shudder to think that you also want all of the above and cast spells while doing it.

---------------METALSMITH-----------^^^^

The weaknesses I referred to were your conceptual weaknesses of Nano.

NOT referring to mental weaknesses as an insult to you.

You appear to be confused. Spirits on "standby" are BOUND spirits on standby. You can only have one unbound spirit summoned through summoning skill alone, and in this scenario it's already possessing the summoner's body. Any additional spirits necessary to possess or whatever anything/anyone else must be bound spirits, with the limitations the binding rules place on how easily you can summon and bind high Force spirits, especially for this build with only 9 binding dice.

As above, your "waiting spirits," in addition to the summoned one you've mentioned is possessing the summoner's own body, are necessarily bound spirits, and thus, given this character build with a moderate 9 binding dice, only Force 3-4 (assuming he doesn't spend a lot of time on expensive wasted binding rituals hoping for the occasional lucky rolls) and therefore not useful for these purposes.

You can have one unbound spirit on stand-by as well.

Bye
Thanee

Okay, well that's cool. There's nothing in personal in this for me and I'm hoping you aren't offended by me, either.

I have to say though, that each of my points that you ignore in my post, I take as a concession that I was right about them. In which case, I hope that you're satisfied that giving up the materialisation power for possession is a sacrifice that costs a player a lot of interesting options.

I think one problem (and I don't mean this to be insulting) is that you don't actually know the rules too well. Firstly, you weren't aware that possession and materialisation were mutually exclusive. Secondly the below seems to show a misunderstanding of the summoning rules:

It suggests that you think you can have several unbound spirits hanging around. You can't. You can have ONE unbound spirit on standby. If you want more, then the additional spirits have to be bound. This means that it's not just a simple action to summon one of your ponies from the herd. If you want a new spirit you have to go through the whole summoning. And you can't do that until the previous spirit is released. I presume this is the reason that SlitheryD started talking about binding spirits. It was a natural conclusion from the way you were describing using them.

I can only say this so many times. If you're regularly conjuring Force 6 spirits in the middle of a run (and as you're not binding them you must be), then you're going to get more than 4 drain sometimes. It's double the successes rolled by the spirit. Yes - on average that will be 4P, but it could easily be 6P and 8P. Sooner or later, it's going to be 10P. This is going to hurt and repeated possession and combat really burns through the services. You can't keep this up.

There's also the issue of the stats you are using for your character. If you'll notice, Nano actually only has a Magic of 5. I couldn't afford to take him all the way up to 6 and I couldn't afford a power focus either. He only has an edge of 1 too! This sort of build is very BP intensive. I think you're basing your thinking on a character that you wouldn't actually be able to build. If you can do better than Nano for a character that gets possessed and enters combat, then I invite you to try.

The truth is that it's not a good method of dealing with someone who has high mental stats. Possessing someone's clothing has a threshold of three. Three successes is the average resistance you'd expect from someone with Int 5 and Will 5 - very good mental stats. You haven't made things any easier by possessing their clothing or their gun. Less so in fact as you don't get the new ally, either.

I'm going to have to bow out of this now as I have things to do. Again, I seriously suggest that you go back to Street Magic and re-read these rules. It might resolve some of the problems you have with Possession.

Not in this hypothetical situation, because it's already possessing the summoner.

Ah, I see. Havn't read all the posts, obviously.

Bye
Thanee

Put Up or Shut Up!
I don't need to take Infantile crap from you.
Page numbers and even quoted text would be nice but that may be too adult of you.

Its really quite plain and I dont know why you insist on behaving in such a retarded fashion.

SR page 179 Under the Summoning section, Rightmost colum on the right page.

"Summoned spirits appear on the astral plain and manifest so that they are visible in the physical world as a ghostly image. The spirit can stand around in astral space awaiting orders, or as the magician can instruct it to return from where it came to be called at a later time - as long as it is called before its services expire. Calling a spirt placed on "Stand-by" takes only a simple action. A Magician may only have one unbound spirit summoned at any given time, and no more bound spirits than her Charisma attribute. Spirts on remote service and on standby count toward this total."

So let me rehash this for those of you who are having a hard time keeping up.

".. to be called at a later time - as long as it is called before its services expire. Calling a spirit placed on "Stand-By" takes only a simple action."

You tell me, genius, when do the services of BOUND SPIRITS EXPIRE?
No of course they dont expire. page 180 "The services of a bound spirit do not expire while the magician is alive and it will wait indefintly to perfor those services.

"no more bound spirits than her Charisma attribute. Spirits on remote service and on standby count toward this total."

Tell me again, genius, do BOUND SPIRITS PLACED ON STANDBY COUNT TWICE?
No of course they dont count twice. It was referring to 2 different types of Spirts.

Now I see where your opinion differs from mine. Its a matter of interpreting the rules.

My Mage Cha 7 wakes up and Summons 3-4 Spirits when he gets up in the morning and places them on "Stand-By". Summons up a Bodyguard Type Spirit and leaves him as unbound. When needed he Dispatches one of the "Stand-By" Spirits to do something as a remote task. No violation of the 1 Unbound Spirt rule at all.

This is how my current GM is interpreting this but I will advise him of your P.O.V. but without your insulting crap.

--------METALSMTIH----------^^^^

SlitheryD is right. You can have only one unbound spirit at any given time. The part about spirits on standby and remote service counting towards the total of bound spirit maximums, means precisely that. If you have two spirits that you've sent off on remote service and a Charisma of 5, then you have capacity for three bound spirits, no more. You most definitely cannot have several unbound spirits hanging around on standby.

You'll find pretty much everyone here understands that the rules to mean this (including the designers). Sorry - your GM has misunderstood it. He can change things if he wishes, but it makes conjuring much more powerful than it is intended to be and mages horribly powerful. Get ready for some downgrading.

EDIT: Re-reading your post, I think you may also have misunderstood Remote Service. It's just a hunch, but it doesn't include things like attack my enemies that are right in front of me pointing guns at me. There's a thread around here somewhere which lists some of the most common misconceptions about magic and overlooked magic rules. Possibly someone can post a link.