Has anyone read the free spirit rules? I am a little lost as to how to make one.

If i increase my force from 2 to 4, I have to raise all my attributes seperately with BP? in one line it says the force acts as both the minimum and maximum for the attributes but in another it says they have to be raised seperately.


is this correct?

Yep. Raise your force to 4, your max attributes are now 4, but you must raise them to that with BPs separately.

They sux

As I read it, you have to raise the force and attributes seperately. I interpret the line about min/max levels as a misprint, and instead use 2 as the min, Force as the max.

It doesn't say that. It just says that the Force is the natural maximum for attributes.

EDIT: Actually, it does say that. Sorry about that. I'm not sure where it came in; the final draft didn't say anything about minimums. It's probably an error of some sort.

Though if all the attributes automatically were equal to force, that would make spirits significantly more powerful than before, as you only had to spend BP and Karma on one attribute at the normal rate...

Hope we get the clarification on what it should say soon. Hooray for another item for errata!

I have a quick spirit question.

When increasing a Spirit's force at char gen, does that last point of Force cost 25bp (same as other stats)?

It doesn't specifically say, but I'd assume so, as all BP cost patterns are the same.

I personally think they intended to say that the attributes are equal to force at character creation. after character creation if you raise force you have to raise attributes seperately.

my reasoning is that when summoned those are the stats at the time of summoning, but i could very well be wrong. the cost to be a free spirit are already so high and you still have to invest a load into skills, edge contacts etc.

but at this point who knows.

As for the last point of 25 BP I think that it says to treat it as a normal attribute.

<<jklst: i just saw that today soooo.... I still suck even a little more.>>

Shame on you Aaron for missing that!

Yeah, assuming that there would be minimal editing once I've submitted a final draft is actually pretty dumb on my part. It even says "we get to edit your stuff any way we like" (or something like that) in the freelancer contract. I sound my barbaric duh over the roofs of the world.

That's just a variant of the "it is always your fault, even if it is ours" clause.

seriously Aaron, what is the intent? i was just trying to poke fun with the force at summoning. I to date I know that only way that "free spirits" occur is pretty much when the summoner dies in the middle of summoning. (besides female mantis spirits live births)

do tell though i would like to hear how to address this issue of minimum and maximum.

A free spirit would be too cheap if all you had to do was raise force to get all attributes at 6 from start.

I would say that Minimum attributes are at initial F2 and if you raise your force you only raise your maximum rating.

I can start the game with a F6 / Edge 6 spirit with 2 in its attributes and 12 armor immunity for 360 BP
If we could raise all attributes through force i would have for 305BP
Force: 6
Edge: 6
Attributes: 6
Armour 12

You also have 6 points to buy powers from...

Seems a WEE bit too powerful at 400BP campaign.

Besides, spirits can become free at many circumstances - like the death of a summoner in the middle of a service...

Latest idea i have for a free spirit is a HK drone possessing watcher with two tiny mechanical arms.
Force 5/Edge 5, dumb as a brick...
Concealment, Silence, Movement and Guard. Have no clue about hiding his aura except for his concealment fooling people...

Who would look for a fly sized drone anyway...

Hmm, since you use BODY for mechanical arm strength would you calculate the value from possessed drones augmented value?

HK microdrone from arsenal has Body 1 and Armour 2 - would that then be BOD 7 ARM 8? And would then the grapple arms i added have STR 7...

Why do i have this picture of a tiny itty bitty drone throwing mooks across the room...

My original intent was to have character-building rules that were finer in resolution than the free spirit rules in Street Magic. I was trying to avoid having a situation in which there were, in the entire world of PC free spirits, only six different kinds (when I submitted my final draft, free spirit attributes started at 1 and the cost was 85 BP). My working theory was that since it was unrealistic to assume that every Lone Star officer had exactly the same stats, it was equally unreasonable to assume that every free spirit had the same stats, and that the rules for attributes and Force were intended for NPC spirits. As a result, I wrote rules that disconnected attributes from Force, but kept them affected by it.

I suspect that whoever had the final say on the rules wanted PC free spirits to look more like NPC spirits, and so made those changes. I'm not sure how many changes were made; as evinced earlier in this thread, I'm still finding changes. As such, I may not be the best authority on the intent of the rules for free spirit PCs.


In order to truly address the issue, you'd have to wait for official errata; I don't have the authority to go around changing the rules as written for anybody but the folks at my table (and then only if there's a consensus). Personally, though, I think it's pretty obvious that Force is the maximum for attributes, not the minimum. I think the best you can do with that "minimum" clause of the sentence is try to convince your GM that six attributes worth of boost should be 10 BP each, but it's a pretty weak argument.

Aaron,

Thanks for your answer. I think they need to be a little more balanced at character creation, but rules are rules.