This came up in a game of mine the other day, and frankly, I'd never really considered it. Can more than one spirit be used to Aid the same spell. For a working example, say you're doing a ritual spell, and you summon three of the same type of spirit (bind that is), and then use them all to boost the same spell. Is that possible? I looked but didn't see anywhere where it was expressly forbidden?
I' d always thought it was limited to one for Aid Sorcery tests, but again, didn't see anything to back up my position.
Full Version: Multiple Spirits for Aid Sorcery?
Sure, just use the rules for Teamwork. That would be my suggestion.
Aid Sorcery IIRC is limited to one spirit at a time. The only exception I know of is that Allies don't count toward that limit. So if you had 10 Allies, knock yourself out. =)
Don't get me started... 
I wonder how much of an effect it would have on the game if you did allow multiple spirits to Aid Sorcery? With a hard limit of raw hits (not net hits) of the spell's Force, I'm thinking it wouldn't matter a whole lot if you did allow multiple Aid Sorcery's. Even if he threw a million dice at the test, he still can't exceed the force cap.
It costs the spellcaster a lot of bound spirit services and that isn't cheap. Even if he enchants his own binding materials, that's a lot of time blown on one spell. And if he's invested tons of karma on Ally spirits, that's limitation enough.
I'd love to know how you're playtesting of this goes, one way or the other.
It costs the spellcaster a lot of bound spirit services and that isn't cheap. Even if he enchants his own binding materials, that's a lot of time blown on one spell. And if he's invested tons of karma on Ally spirits, that's limitation enough.
I'd love to know how you're playtesting of this goes, one way or the other.
| QUOTE (Buster) |
| Even if he threw a million dice at the test, he still can't exceed the force cap. |
Edge!
Also, if you're blowing that much karma on allies, at least 1-2 of them should be double-digit force, and therefore much better off casting the spell themselves...
| QUOTE (Fortune) | ||
Edge! |
Ah but only the hits from the Edge dice can send you passed the force limit, not all million dice.
| QUOTE (darthmord) |
| Aid Sorcery IIRC is limited to one spirit at a time. |
See that's what I thought as well. But it's also the problem. It's what I think but I can't find any way to confirm it.
| QUOTE (Buster) |
| Ah but only the hits from the Edge dice can send you passed the force limit, not all million dice. |
That I hadn't noticed before , but according to the BBB, you're absolutely right. Thanks, that pretty well handles the problem . Would still like to know if there is a rule on this anywhere.
| QUOTE (Buster) |
| Ah but only the hits from the Edge dice can send you passed the force limit, not all million dice. |
True, but it does still allow you to exceed the Force in actual hits. And the more dice you throw, the higher the chance of attaining that max (including Edge).
Another thing to keep in ming is the exploding nature of Edge, which can make it hard to ascertain a maximum limit if the caster rolls exceptionally well.
| QUOTE (Fortune) | ||
True, but it does still allow you to exceed the Force in actual hits. And the more dice you throw, the higher the chance of attaining that max (including Edge). Another thing to keep in ming is the exploding nature of Edge, which can make it hard to ascertain a maximum limit if the caster rolls exceptionally well. |
Not really. The caster had a million dice and an edge of 8. He casts a force 4 spell. The million dice will get the 4 hits max for the force 4 spell no problem. He also rolls 8 edge dice. These should be a different colour or rolled after so as not to confuse the two pools. He rolls the 8 dice getting say 3 hits and one of those is a 6. He re rolls with a 5 and gets to exceed his 4 hit cap by the four hits from edge dice. As long as you make the player roll edge dice after or in a different colour dice then there really is no problem separating the edge from normal dice.
What about the 66,667 hits he gets from the million exploding dice? They only explode because of edge, so do they bypass the force limit?
| QUOTE (Da9iel) |
| What about the 66,667 hits he gets from the million exploding dice? They only explode because of edge, so do they bypass the force limit? |
Yes, they should but like anything else in the game, ask the GM first.
I just think it's silly that magic gets such an exclusion from the normal Edge rules. House rule that and a lot of potential abuse goes bye-bye. (Always sad when you have to house rule an exploit away, especially when the exploit makes very little sense to begin with...)
| QUOTE (fistandantilus3.0) | ||||
See that's what I thought as well. But it's also the problem. It's what I think but I can't find any way to confirm it.
That I hadn't noticed before , but according to the BBB, you're absolutely right. Thanks, that pretty well handles the problem . Would still like to know if there is a rule on this anywhere. |
Well, I was mistaken. Aid Sorcery isn't limited to one spirit at a time. Aid Study is and the only exception to that is an Ally Spirit.
Page 178 of the BBB and page 105 of SM.
Thank god the game designers thought to limit my abuse of the tutelage rules. I was this close to taking over the world with that loophole. 
But seriously, since the Aid Sorcery is conspicuous in its absence from the exclusion, I think their intention was that the force limit to hits was the real limitation to the trick.
But seriously, since the Aid Sorcery is conspicuous in its absence from the exclusion, I think their intention was that the force limit to hits was the real limitation to the trick.
Looks like. Thanks a lot guys.' Preciated.
There are other loopholes quite capable of destroying the world out there...
| QUOTE (Big D) |
| There are other loopholes quite capable of destroying the world out there... |
Willing to share? From one supervillain to another?
| QUOTE (Buster) | ||
Willing to share? From one supervillain to another? |
Blood Spirit + Subdual Combat + Area Engulf + Essence Drain.
As the Blood Spirit drains essence, the area of the Engulf automatically becomes larger. Since he's using subdual combat with his Engulf is is able to fully drain his victims so his Engulf area increases by about 6 per victim, on average.
Blood Spirit Essence Drain is not limited to metahumans or even corporal sapients, it works on all living creatures capable of feeling base emotions, including spirits and astral critters, and many non-sentient critters. If your GM is very foolish, this may even include small and plentiful insects.
Buy a bunch of living emotive pets and summon and bind a bunch of normal spirits with low forces. Then, rest up and summon a Force 1 Blood Spirit. Rebind him as many times as you reasonably can.
Once you have a satisfactory number of services, tell Bloodzilla to area Engulf as a subdual attack and Essence drain anything he captures. As the cuddly wuddly animals die, Bloodzilla's becomes larger and engulfs more. If you have enough animals, he'll outgrow your house and start eating your neighbors. If not, you can sacrifice some of the spirit's that you've bound.
As Bloodzilla keeps growing in force and in size, he'll become practically invincible and will, eventually, Engulf the entire planet.
You know what that'd look like?
The end scene in Akira.
Eew.
The end scene in Akira.
Eew.
Blood Spirits are one of them. I don't like them, myself, because eventually you're gonna lose control, and then it's probably gonna go all Cthulu on the planet. It'll take dragons and nukes to (maybe!) take it down, and since Logic scales with Force, *if* it can overcome its base instincts, it'll figure out how to kill most of the planet, and keep the remainder around as slaves/breeding stock for extra essence snacks.
My preference is the succubus karma cheat, followed by creating an uberally army.
The first step, of course, is to bind a succubus, or otherwise somehow get it to commit to a long-term agreement without backstabbing you. The latter is all up to your RP skills, so I'll leave that alone. The former can be done by initiating, going to whatever metaplane succubi are from, and running a quest to get the formula of a F1 succubus.
Once you have the formula, make a couple copies for safekeeping, then summon/bind/bind/bind/... well, bind it as much as you dare without getting spirit banes. Then, burn services on spirit pacts; several of them are useful (but not, of course, Dream Pact). Finally, use services as needed for Power Pact (Karma Drain). I could go into detail past this point, but I think everybody can figure it out from here. Note that you can do something similar with a muse, and you do not have to "participate" in order to drain. Also, there are several spells (beyond the obvious) that will assist you in this.
The key part of this is that by using a succubus or muse, you are able to drain karma *without* causing immediate collateral damage that attracts lots of attention. In fact, there's no reason you couldn't own a think tank or brothel, and make lots of money in the process. Just be very, very careful that nobody ever finds out what you're doing, or you will be perceived as an immediate threat by a good number of parties (including those who want to copycat you).
Once you're drinking karma from the firehose, it's a pretty simple matter to initiate a dozen times, learn every spell you can get a formula for (or have an uberally make new ones), and, of course, summon uberallies. There are a few tricks that you can do to ensure optimal success and survival when dealing with uberallies, but this post is already too long; if there's actual demand, I'll cover it separately.
In order to stop this, the GM response should be to dissuade/distract the mage. Failing that, drop an immediate spirit bane on him, and follow up with "rescue attempts" by other shadow spirits, or even other types of free spirits "hired" by them. Use the "you kidnapped the queen's kid" or whatever rationale you like; you're basically retaliating in a metagame war at that point.
My preference is the succubus karma cheat, followed by creating an uberally army.
The first step, of course, is to bind a succubus, or otherwise somehow get it to commit to a long-term agreement without backstabbing you. The latter is all up to your RP skills, so I'll leave that alone. The former can be done by initiating, going to whatever metaplane succubi are from, and running a quest to get the formula of a F1 succubus.
Once you have the formula, make a couple copies for safekeeping, then summon/bind/bind/bind/... well, bind it as much as you dare without getting spirit banes. Then, burn services on spirit pacts; several of them are useful (but not, of course, Dream Pact). Finally, use services as needed for Power Pact (Karma Drain). I could go into detail past this point, but I think everybody can figure it out from here. Note that you can do something similar with a muse, and you do not have to "participate" in order to drain. Also, there are several spells (beyond the obvious) that will assist you in this.
The key part of this is that by using a succubus or muse, you are able to drain karma *without* causing immediate collateral damage that attracts lots of attention. In fact, there's no reason you couldn't own a think tank or brothel, and make lots of money in the process. Just be very, very careful that nobody ever finds out what you're doing, or you will be perceived as an immediate threat by a good number of parties (including those who want to copycat you).
Once you're drinking karma from the firehose, it's a pretty simple matter to initiate a dozen times, learn every spell you can get a formula for (or have an uberally make new ones), and, of course, summon uberallies. There are a few tricks that you can do to ensure optimal success and survival when dealing with uberallies, but this post is already too long; if there's actual demand, I'll cover it separately.
In order to stop this, the GM response should be to dissuade/distract the mage. Failing that, drop an immediate spirit bane on him, and follow up with "rescue attempts" by other shadow spirits, or even other types of free spirits "hired" by them. Use the "you kidnapped the queen's kid" or whatever rationale you like; you're basically retaliating in a metagame war at that point.
| QUOTE (Da9iel) |
| What about the 66,667 hits he gets from the million exploding dice? They only explode because of edge, so do they bypass the force limit? |
They wouldn't because they were not the edge dice. Only the successes on the edge dice count for exceeding the limit. If you went by the logic that you only got those extra dice because you spent edge then you could just reroll all the failures and say that they would count as you only got them from spending edge.
From page 172 main book, "This limitation does not apply to Edge dice that are used to boost a spell." It's right beside the spell formula table.
Also from page 67 main book,
• You may declare the use of Edge before rolling for any one
test (or one interval roll on an Extended Test). You may
add a number of extra dice equal to your full Edge attribute
to the dice pool. All dice (not just Edge dice) rolled
on this test are subject to the Rule of Six (p. 56), meaning
that if you roll a 6, you count it as a hit and roll it again.
• You may declare the use of Edge after you have rolled for
one test. In this case, you may roll a number of extra dice
equal to your full Edge attribute and add their hits to
the test’s total. The Rule of Six (p. 56), however, only applies
to the additional Edge dice rolled, not the original
dice pool.
Both sections for the adding dice to your dice pools make reference to two distinct sets of dice the dice pool and the edge dice, so no the exploding regular dice are still regular dice and wouldn't count.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| As Bloodzilla keeps growing in force and in size, he'll become practically invincible and will, eventually, Engulf the entire planet. |
Becoming Blood-lactus, Destroyer of Metaplanes!
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