I am going to be starting a new game, along with the one I play with Dashifen, and I will be playing a variant of the Radical Eco Shaman that Whipstitch whipped up. That character primarily relies on summoning, so I need some help with it.

Any help on the following questions would be appreciated. Assume the question is asked 3 times, starting with force 3, then force 6, then force 9 where it makes sense.

What is the best combat spirit?

What is the most versatile spirit?

What is the most disguisable spirit (I'm sure fire spirits stand out)?

Are task spirits good/useful?

Feel free to post anything else of use for a newbie summoner.

A lot of these answers really rely on your GM. But here's what I can offer:

Wait, so pretty much only Ally spirits can have the Realistic Form power? I was wondering about that, because I couldn't find any normal, summonable spirits that had it.

What is the best combat spirit?
Guardian +elemental attack/+heavy weapons /+Concealment (order varies). Beats beast by having counterspelling. Force 9 is serious evil. I like Air spirits, too.

What is the most versatile spirit?
Man. Everything except combat, unless you count Fear.

What is the most disguisable spirit (I'm sure fire spirits stand out)?
Anything with concealment. Hide in plain sight.

Are task spirits good/useful?
Yes. I do not like their ability to partially take away the role of technical archtypes, but it definitly makes them useful.


Feel free to post anything else of use for a newbie summoner.

- Bind force 4 or 5 spirits, they are worthy of the slot they take up and you get enough services.

- Always have Concealment available.

- Use spirits for general support. Your fellow team members can handle combat.

- Water spirits can have Weather Control in addition to their Concealment. Pouring rain is not that uncommon in Seattle, and gives penalties to Perception.

BIG EDIT: I misread Buster's post and thought he'd said it wouldn't cost a service to get across a mana barrier. In fact he said the opposite and his take on it is mostly the same as mine. I'm leaving the paragraph below untouched because it's useful to have a take on what constitutes a service if you're a new summoner. But please mentally edit any parts where I said "Buster is wrong" to read "Buster is right." I remain kind of advising against picking a possession tradition for a new player, however.

Everything that Frank said about possession spirits, plus my own experience with possession spirits in play as follows:

First off, Buster is making some assumptions about how the GM will play the spirit that definitely aren't universal and certainly wouldn't pass in my game. Ordering a spirit to get out of you for a minute so that you can cross a ward and then climb back in would use up a second service. It is very easy to burn through services with possession spirits. My general approach to defining a spirit service, and it's my advice to new GM's, is that a service should be easily defined and not resort to "macro-services" e.g. those that lead on to new ones. A command like "possess me and do as I say all day" is such a violation due to the "do as I say all day." It's rolling a bunch of services into one through the wording. That's an obvious abuse of power. Some people assume that spirits are like the genie in Aladdin and must do everything they are told, bound to the wording of the command, but it doesn't really fit. Each tradition has its way of dealing with spirits. Hermetics likely threaten or strike bargains, Shamans beseech aid in a common cause, Voodoun beg the honour of being ridden by the spirits, but none of them have the ability to suddenly "wish for a hundred wishes." Spirits are intelligent beings (they're smarter than most people you know by Force 4+). The whole dice rolling summoning process is what determines what you can get out of them. They don't sit there saying "gosh darn, he worded that command well - now I'm stuck here all day." Most GM's will give you short shrift if you expect to just take one fire elemental each morning and wear your super-suit all day long.

Also, without the Channeling metamagic, you may be in for a slightly dull first few game sessions.

Finally, there are some strong downsides to being a possession mage. For a start, you lack the extra man-power that you get with summoned spirits. No more swarms of cheap fire elementals providing back-up. Low force possession spirits are much less useful than low-force manifesting spirits due to the chancy process of having to find and possess someone. That predisposes you to binding higher forces with the concomitant costs. Furthermore, manifesting spirits, like drones, are excellent decoys, bullet sponges and disposable rear-guards. But if your chief tactic is to get possessed, then the opposition is now shooting at you. Less tactically attractive!

I'm not saying that Possession mages aren't good. They are and they have advantages, but in my experience they are less good than manifesting spirits. And turning yourself into an inconsistently powerful samurai is also not as good as it may appear.

I wouldn't call Possession traditions over the top awesome, although Voodoo has the best spirit layout of any stock tradition I've seen. Generally speaking, the more powerful your Mage is as an individual, the less you want to use possession traditions. Why? Because two pairs of hands can accomplish more than one; a powerful Sorceror and a powerful materialized Spirit is often going to accomplish much more than a single uber-entity. Materialization mages don't have to bother with making sure they have some sort of vessel available for all their spirits, bound or unbound, which is a pretty big advantage since workhorse Force Spirits (3-4, occasionally 6) aren't very reliable when it comes to forcing their way into unprepared vessels. On the other hand, characters like the Radical Eco Shaman can get some great use out of Possession traditions because they only really offer social skills and summoning in the first place, and generally if you're pulling Spirits out of your hat it's no longer time for subtlety, so letting the loa ride you isn't much of a loss.

Anyway, for a character who doesn't do much if any sorcery of their own, here's the spirits I think are particularly noteworthy:
1. Guardians, because they are awesome once given a firearm skill as an optional power; they're my favorite combat spirit and can counterspell.
2. Task Spirits. Pure awesomeness, even if they can't counterspell and kind of suck at combat. If nothing else they can take First Aid as an optional power.
3. Plant Spirits. Counterspellers, great base set of powers, high body and make great cannon fodder, especially if you manage to invoke one to great form for Regeneration. My favorite spirit type to have bound at low force due to the sheer number of utility powers they come with, although Silence and Regeneration are their only unique powers. Also move too damn slow.
4. Guidance Spirits. They come with a metamagic and can counterspell.
5. Air Spirit/Fire Spirits: Air Spirits at high force, Fire Spirits at low force; the air spirit has better stats and optional powers but the fire spirit is a bit more durable and has a slightly better base combat power set. They fly and are a great alternative to a Guardian Spirit if you don't have any spare weapons to hand over to Casper. Water Spirits are also worth considering for possession traditions due to their great all around attributes.

Man spirits are awesome, but they're simply not suited for a character with few if any spells of their own like the Eco Shaman.

Im going to dumb things down!!

-most disguisable spirit? All spirits show up primarily in astral plain first and only cast a hazy reflection into the physical plain. They shouldnt be a big problem visually unless you tell them to materialize which they will only do when they need to use their powers or skills on something that is only in the physical plain like a bunch of mundanes or a car.

-Bound spirits stick around until you use all your services and can do things unbound spirits cant but its also very draining to bind them. Unless you need the extra things a bound spirit can do dont bother binding them. Of course you can only have one unbound spirit.

On the other hand if you have bound spirits always make sure you rebind them before you use all your services so that they wont try to kill you if you screw up.

Oh people keep saying beast and gaurdian for combat spirit. Air spirits who take the optional power "elemental attack" make a very good long range weapon. They get F+3 agility and F exotic ranged weapons with a damage value of F.

For a Force 6 air spirit that would be 15 dice to hit and 6DV elemental damage(probably lightning/cold) that can be unleashed anywhere the spirit can see.

Air Spirits are great but they don't counterspell and they pretty much need to be Force 6 and up to deal decent damage since Elemental Attack is a Complex Action. Meanwhile, a Force 3 Guardian has counterspelling, the same body as the Force 6 Air Spirit and when armed with a gun with a laser sight has 9 dice to attack with twice around and threatens to deal anywhere from 4P to 7P -3AP per hit. Move up to a Force 6 Guardian w/ laser sight and you're looking at 15 dice, more body, the same reaction and a far higher damage potential due to effectively having twice the number of attacks.

Scooby Doo is a terrible comparison on many levels.


Anyway, all Frank is saying is that high Force Spirits are about as subtle as Linda Blair's projectile vomiting and that nothing can really be done about it.

It would be good if the RAW provided more detail on exactly how metahumans "sense" possessing spirits. Could a drone sentry recognize a Possessed mage as such? Could a metahuman looking though a security camera? These are situations likely to arise in Shadowrun, but for which few or none of us have any real-world reference, so giving us only the size of the dice pool isn't adequately clear or helpful.

If all metahumans have some low-level sixth sense, perhaps enough that an unAwakened person will occasionally experience a strange "unearthly chill" or bad feeling that they can't name articulately or connect with what's happening, but that DOES relate to astral events, then that's worth stating upfront and outright, given the lack of consensus on whether that happens in RL.

If metahumans have such a sense, then a person should sense "something's wrong with that person", and then whether they can infer "the problem is a spirit possessing that person" depends on their knowlege of magic; perhaps most shadowrunners can make that connection, but if the rules assume that *everyone* knows what spirit possession looks/feels like, then that should be explicit.

The rules as written do not differentiate between types of observers, so the drone can happily sense the inhumanity. The camera is merely a tool for observing, so again, no problem.

A sixth sense for everyone (and everything) does not fit the setting. At all.

How about slow changes in form for all spirits, which become more noticeable with higher force? Same mechanic, but way better explanation IMO. Physical mask not working could well be explained by astral interaction of spell and spirit - if one wants.

Spirits, Magic spells, physical, mana, indirect or not. Mundanes can perceive it. All Mundanes.

Is it sight, sound, touch? Who knows, it could be all or none, but they can perceive Magic.

If you really want a good explanation for Mundanes "sixth sense", you can always try "mitoclorians".

Otherwise I enjoy having the freedom to have it be a spooky magic effect of my or my players choice.

Also, living metahumans can perceive astral bodies moving through their auras.

RAW or not, I can't see any sensible explanation for drones being able to sense that something's a spirit.

I can see a sort of 6th sense for mundanes, though. Kind of like how once I walk into a room, everyone knows I'm a badass. It's nothing to do with the 5 senses; they just know. Same with spirits.

The rules for spotting spirits only apply to "sentient observers" so drones are normally not going to get the spirit spotting freebie.

-Frank

Argh, should practise reading! Drones are out, there is indeed talk of "sentient observers".

@Whipstitch: I´m afraid I knew about auras passing through auras. That is no reason to give my <1 essence street sams an immediate "sixth sense" for any spirit they see on camera, even if said spirit happens to be inside an item, physical masked as that item, and unmoving. If I am the GM, I´m quite willing to give out the heebie-yeebies by having the possessed grow horns, earth-like skin and fiery eyes. There is quite a number of less lazy ideas to explain why spirits are detected, my sams do not need to grow perfect antenna for magic.

A threshold 4 test is hardly an example of guaranteed perception.

Visibility and cover adjustments to the pool would still apply as well, so a possessed potted plant mostly around the corner in a dim room isn't all that likely to be identified as such.



edit: aaaaand I'm confusing the pass-through with spotting something physically there. Short weeks always get the better of me.

Ah, well. Still, any threshold at all (like the table on p. 117) prevents it from being a guaranteed ID. As long as said possessed ficus doesn't do anything unusual, it's still going to be at least threshold 2...who looks all that closely at a office plant, anyway?

Everyone does, because everyone needs to roll to determine if he feels the supernatural vibe. For force 4+ spirits the threshold is 2-, and that is not hard.

But again. The mechanic does not disturb me, the explanation does. That explanation would need a very different mechanic, giving boni for the awakened and esp. those with sensing metamagic. And a malus depending on lost essence.


It was easy to fix the explanation, I left the rules unchanged.