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raverbane
Using a plant spirit variant that replaces Materialization with inhabitation, I am planning an Invasion of the Body Snatchers sorta story-line.

Anyone done something like this and have any advice / suggestions ?
ThreeGee
I dabbled in an Innsmouth scenario, Coastal town under the thrall of a Free Water spirit of an inhabitation tradition. The Inhabited forms all had gills, webbed hands and feet, goggly eyes...
Zhan Shi
For inspiration, see the original "Creepshow". But I've never done anything like this, so I can't give actual advice about mechanics, etc.
FrankTrollman
Inhabitation merges are bad ass. Seriously, while the Immunity to Normal Weapons isn't that big of a deal, the Reaction and Agility of C + F is huge. It's really hard to take these guys down. Spirits o all kinds have a tendency to be offensively anemic, but of course a Flesh Form can use shot guns and chainsaws with the best of them. The result is a group of enemies that can put severe hurts on the PCs over and over again.

My suggestion is to keep a horde mentality going on. It's really easy for a single inhabitation spirit to take on and kill the entire team (Street Samurai Flesh Form FTW!), but if you instead use Professional Rating 0 nd 1 goons and fill them up with Force 4 or 5 spirits, you can have a good zombie movie experience.

-Frank
Ophis
Franks comment has just reminded me of the one bit of SM I really dislike, Hybrid merges (or Bad Merge Fleshforms) in the old language having Immunity to normal weapons it makes it difficult to get that Aliens bug hunt slaughter the monsters feel, with the trueforms standing out as scary hard, nowadays the Hybrids are nastier than the Trueforms, though Good merges/Fleshforms still do quick ass greatly. Some of this applies to possession spirits as well I'd really like none greatform spirits to give only force armour when in a body, it would make possession mages less grim at outset as well.
Jaid
QUOTE (Ophis)
Franks comment has just reminded me of the one bit of SM I really dislike, Hybrid merges (or Bad Merge Fleshforms) in the old language having Immunity to normal weapons it makes it difficult to get that Aliens bug hunt slaughter the monsters feel, with the trueforms standing out as scary hard, nowadays the Hybrids are nastier than the Trueforms, though Good merges/Fleshforms still do quick ass greatly. Some of this applies to possession spirits as well I'd really like none greatform spirits to give only force armour when in a body, it would make possession mages less grim at outset as well.

it isn't the ItNW that makes flesh forms/good merges so tough, it's the fact that they gain the skills of whatever they inhabit and that they also have their physical attributes boosted to the host's attributes + force.

so, for example, a troll sammy with firearms group 4 and heavy weapons 4 (grenade launchers +2) inhabited by even a force 3 spirit will have a very good dicepool for his firearms, much better than a similar force 3 spirit who manifests might have as an offensive dicepool. not to mention the damage of a grenade is much scarier than the damage of a force 3 spirit's attack...

that being said, it should be noted that higher force spirits are more likely to have a true form than low force spirits, so there is a good explanation for why the true forms might be more scary (particularly if you consider they can float through the air, retreat into the astral, etc)

if you look at frank's suggestion, you'll see he was essentially saying just that: use mooks that have been inhabited, and you can have a group of enemies. if you use something like an ork street sammy, and have that inhabited, it can get scary really quick.
Ophis
Mostly I want the team to be able to mow through Hybrids really quickly. Fleshforms as written I think are great, huge stats and lots of skills, love em to death and now they are hard to kill... It's the Hybrids (the mid range ones) that I want to weaken. With force 4 spirits as per Franks example, they have 8 hardened armour against the gun bunnys, that means that ARs loading regular need two net hits to harm them and then the beastie gets around 13 soak dice, it's not overly grim but makes them a bit to tough for what I want, force 5 gets worse (4 hits to hurt, 16 soak) and is what most competent mages can summon and bind easily so would make up the majority of the spirits a bug shaman would have. I want a serious cannon fodder feel to my hybrid merges I guess.
Mercer
I'll be honest, I don't know a hell of a lot about SR4 or spirits, but why not just use Force 2's? A competent insect shaman might be able to bind Force 5's, but if he's pumping out a lot of them in a short time the lower forces will be a lot easier. And not every shaman in the hive has to be competent, and not every competent shaman has to be motivated.
Buster
QUOTE (Mercer)
And not every shaman in the hive has to be competent, and not every competent shaman has to be motivated.

Invasion of the Slackers! biggrin.gif
Buster
A particularly insidious form of toxic plant spirit infuses its host with feelings of shame, insecurity, and a lack of self-worth. This toxic plant spirit initially forces its host to do fairly innocent self-sacrificing actions such as donating blood or donating money to street beggars. Soon the full malevolence of the toxic plant spirit is felt when the host begins donating organs to organ banks and eventually body parts to organleggers and ghouls. Known as "Chump Spirits", these foul creatures have been known to seek recruits even amongst children through the spread of insidious propaganda literature such as this book.

biggrin.gif
Lagomorph
Here's a new hero to make:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp_Thing
Magus
QUOTE (Buster)
A particularly insidious form of toxic plant spirit infuses its host with feelings of shame, insecurity, and a lack of self-worth. This toxic plant spirit initially forces its host to do fairly innocent self-sacrificing actions such as donating blood or donating money to street beggars. Soon the full malevolence of the toxic plant spirit is felt when the host begins donating organs to organ banks and eventually body parts to organleggers and ghouls. Known as "Chump Spirits", these foul creatures have been known to seek recruits even amongst children through the spread of insidious propaganda literature such as this book.

biggrin.gif

My Kids have that book also "Where the wild things are" Would that be a guide to the Metaplanes? love.gif love.gif
raverbane
Thanks for all the cool comments and suggestions
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