Awwww but I was having fun......

*heads off to start writing that TSAT essay*

I never said it would kill the party, not even the mage. All I said was that if a mage in a group I was running pulled up a force 12 spirit and it broke the mage's attempted binding and became a free spirit, I as the GM would love to grab the spirit as a bad guy to use in future sessions. If I appeared to be the "blood-thirsty evil GM" ™ (now with kung-fu grip!) it was only because of the general sillyness of the question.
I are not Troll. I use punctuation and lower-case letters.

Side note, the book does say that unless the spirits force is half or less of the mages magic, it'll want to kill the mage for trying to bind it and failing.

but what about it becoming free? I might want to thank thouse who helped it become what it now is... not slay them

yeah the free spirit question is kind of an issue. If the spirit doesn't go free, it will only have until sun rises/set to do anything. That's plenty of time to coup de grâce a KOed mage, but venance on parties unknown and a world away in an hour or two with when you don't know anyone on this plane is ... daunting. About spirits going free though, it says that a spirit with a force above 6 almost always goes free, but also says that going free is an edge (3) test with a -4 if unbound. That means an unbound spirit needs an edge of 13 to expect to go free.

Expected != almost always && 6 != 13. Make of that what you will.

Another interesting idea for defending against the F12 monster, if you summon a spirit with no counter spelling or ranged attacks you could have a F12 mana static lined up to hide in. Either have it quicken/anchored/triggered ( I forget which exactly), or have a bio monitor + wire harness rigged to yank you into the field. Thoughts?

I'm not necessarily convinced it would want to kill the summoner, much less everyone he ever knew. It might well have bigger plans. But it's very smart and very tough and probably has a bunch of abilities and knowledge that would make it it capable of being a hell of an a dangerous enemy. It's not to be trifled with.

My vote for dealing with it goes to 2 mages, one summoning it, and one ready to cast a force 12 mana static on it.

If I had to GM an F12 uncontrolled -> Free spirit I would have it do something more interesting that slag a KOed mage, that's for damn sure. But it is pretty cut and dry that burring the failed binder is the RAW move.

I have to say thought that I kind of like the idea of having a clueless, friendless, penniless, Arch-angle with a mad on for the the PCs. I'd play it as a race against the clock. The spirit rocks out if it can get someone to read it the parts of "A History Lesson for the Reality Impaired" that didn't make it to the metaplanes. From there is covers some of its bases, cuts some deals, does some favors, and makes some PCs its bitches (a fun story in and of itself). If the PCs don't like the sound of that they have get slag it while it has nothing going for it but monstrous stats. For details on what that would look like search up a dragon hunt thread. I'd see the aquisition of the spirit's true name being a big deal in that story

Tarantula sure, not all spirits have the search power, but most of them in the core book does, I haven't checked the spirits in Street Magic though. As for not understanding how to interact with the world, if you believe spirits exist as seperate beings then it is more than a little daft to claim that a ( Force 12 ) Godling knows nothing of the world. On the other hand, if spirits are lviing mana fields that are brought into being by the act of "summoning" them things are even more dangerous.

However, I do like your idea of hiring a powerful mage to overcast Mana Static.


Dumori, I disagree, the Sixth World is a dark and dangerous place, besides, I don't think anyone ever said the spirit would be able to slaughter the entire party in the space of a week.

so, let me ask you... do you randomly decide to kill the whole shadowrunning team because the face decided to talk to a mafia don and ask him for a favor? how about if the decker decides to steal a megacorp's drone during a job? or how about if the team ever accepts a run against anything powerful enough to squish them like a bug? must be a fun game, knowing that every so often you're all just going to die because the GM feels like it.

How do you get to that analogy?

We are talking about binding a Force 12 spirit, not summoning one.

Summoning a Force 12 Spirit is like your face barging in and asking a Mafia Don an inappropriate question. Maybe not the smartest thing, but not a death sentence. Binding one is like kidnapping the Don. Sure, if everything goes off according to plan, then you are fine; but if it all goes south (such a rare occurrence in SR ), yeah that Don is going to make everyone involved pay.

On the drone example, summoning is like swiping a SOTA drone, binding is more like taking one with revolutionary or incriminating technology. In the first instance the corp will try to catch you for short time, in the latter they are going to go all out to get that thing back.

Also, you keep assuming that the mage is dead and everyone is dead at the GM's whim. Not so. The player has to fail the binding, the spirit has to survive attacking the mage (per the RAW a force 12 spirit will), then the spirit has to go free.

If all thse things happen, I expect the spirit to be pissed off. Will it kill every one else? I doubt it, but it is possible. If you don't ever come up against something that might kill your character, why play? As a GM I'd love to have a free spirit that starts off extremely pissed at the runners. Maybe that changes over time, maybe it festers and grows. That all depends on the players and how the story flows.

So tell me what would you do if one of the Runners stood up and pissed all over the Don in the middle of the meet while the rest of the team stood back and did nothing to stop it?

Uhh, that means the team went to a meet. Your analogy is flawed.

A better one would be:
What would you do if the mage went over to the Don's house and pissed on him there, while all the other runners were doing their normal day to day stuff?

Me?

It depends on the situation, the back-story, and how the group acted quite frankly. In Ravor's example, unless the runner had a good reason to do that to the Don (that the Don knew), and the Don needed the runners to do the job, I'd say the runner is a goner. That would make the other runners react. If you stand up to the Don then we have a little gun fight brewing. If you back down and apologize, maybe everyone goes their separate ways.

It also depends on the character. My games don't usually allow for crazy people to survive long, so the runner would only survive if the act had a rationale. If that Don had killed the runner's family and now came looking to hire the runners because they were the only ones able to pull the job he needed done, then I'd say the Don would swallow his pride for the time being. How it affects the character's relationship with the Don is questionable, but in that case the other runners would not be held responsible.

In Tarantula's example, assuming here that the character is just kicking a bee hive out of shear stupidity, he'd probably be harmed in a way that renders him unplayable. Someone would come and "talk" to the other players, but they'd be left out of any repercussions.

A couple of things to note though.

One, a spirit is not human like the Don. It's reasons for doing things may not make any sense to a person.

Two, in the games I played and ran no one would pull this kind of stunt. I don't go for the epic film style play in my SR games. The people I played with mostly looked for the same thing out of SR. If we wanted to be silly, we'd play Paranoia. This isn't to say there wasn’t any humor in my SR games, but that irony, black humor, and sarcasm were predominant, and wild, crazy man humor (Robin Williams, Jackie Chan, Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapon movies) wasn't.

Though, I will note in the future if a mafia don ever absolutely needs me for something, i'm gonna pee on him first.

I looked up going free. To go uncontrolled, the summoner needs to succeed in the binding test but be KOed or die from the drain. Does the spirit get the -4 for being unbound or not? Was it ever truly bound? If I was the GM I'd leave in the -4 in this case. Can't have the world peppered with [edit]even more[/edit] demi-gods can we?

Considering the high chance of a force 12 spirit going free even with the -4, any conjurer would not ask people she cares about to kill it on a failed binding. She'd just risk death on her own. She could hire someone though. Then she'd still be alive, but is 16 days (28-Force, right?) to live outside of hiding really a worthwhile life? Well, yes of course it is. She'd be like a bunker hacker except with spirits.

I'd say the -4 doesn't apply, simply because the mage has to succeed at binding first, and then the drain overwhelms them, during which the spirit breaks free of the binding.

I'm not sure, a spirit can go uncontrolled on a glitch too. Plus when the spirit goes uncontrolled it loose all connection with the summoner as well as all tasks. Is a once bound spirit with no tasks still bound?

Running out of services = sending the thing home. It is not uncontrolled at that point. My question is merely if the binding is really truly successful if you passed out while binding. If you kill an opposing mage with a bound spirit present, that spirit goes uncontrolled, yes? So the question is one of success or not during binding, not whether or not it remains bound.
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If you're going to throw a Mana Static spell, you may as well cast it before you do the Binding ritual. Since it's area-of-effect, you can cast it to cover the binding circle, but leave you unaffected.

Why cast it first? Because the Force of the spirit will decrease, making it easier to bind. In fact, if you throw a Force 11 Mana Static, the force 12 spirit will become force 1. That will only give it two dice to resist the binding, making it so you'll only have to face a maximum Drain Value of 4; since the Force of the spirt is lower than your Magic, this drain is also stun. You're also more likely to get a lot of successes out of the spirit this way. Now, you let the Mana Static drop, and presto! You've got a ton of services on a Force 12 spirit, with almost no risk of Drain.

Oh, you want to add insult to injury? A force 1 spirit stands a very good chance of rolling a botch or a critical botch. That gives you even more services out of it, and (depending on how your GM plays it out) more subservience from the spirit.

Cain, you're evil. I like it. Anyone see any problems with that besides a sullen Spirit that knows I never trusted it? With almost no binding drain and virtually guaranteed big, big net success for a massive spirit, I can guarantee my GM will say something goes very wrong or it won't work, but as a Rules As Written mental exercise it looks like a winner!

'recedes at one point per hour.'

That a big enough problem for ya?

The instant you make a Spirit stand in a Mana Static to perform a Binding you're on the naughty list for life. Every Spirit uses Edge on Summoning and Binding tests.

And another thing, how are you getting 11 hits on a Spellcasting test?

You don't really have to go whole hog for the mana static really, though. It could be a more moderate level just to give you the edge and better your chances. Also, don't you have to maintain the spell for 2x the drain before it becomes permanent and thus the 1 point per hour thing? Doesn't moving it around and/or having someone/something else cast it solve that? Couldn't you also do this by performing the process at the edge of someplace with actual background count where you're out and the spirit is in? Heck grab that poor sod with Astral Hazing and have him stand in the corner. His fault not mine!

F11 mana Static...

The problem with mana Static is that the FORCE is rather moot as you would also need to roll the successes in order to get it to F11. Magic 6 & Spellcasting 6 ( would give you 14D6 and even with Foci and other fun expensive stuff you really risk a world of hurt with a 8-10P drain from the mana static.

Any kind of magic use INTO a mana static will also raise drain by successes so with a +11 to all drain/magic use...

Ouch...

Not sure how the ramifications with summoning and binding into a mana static would pan out though

Considering that people here have been discussing a Force 12 Mana Static spell to kill the spirit, I figured mentioning a force 11 wouldn't be a hassle. My point is basically that rather than waiting until someone blows the Binding roll and then trying to kill the spirit, it's better to just not fail at the Binding.

An any event, from my understanding of the spell, the results are cumulative. So, if you throw two different Mana Static spells, they combine with whatever background count is in the area, and the total equals the new background count. So, you can cast a Force 5 and a Force 6 to get the equivalent of a Force 11.

Now, it's not that I'm actually recommending that you use this trick. However, it does work. Since this whole thread is a theoretical exercise, we should make sure we cover all the bases. While ending up on "the naughty list for life" seems a bit excessive, I do agree that the next few spirits you summon or bind are going to be spending Edge to resist you. I'd say that you'd be applying lips to posteriors in order to fix things.

Hmm, Mana Static and Summoning. I'd have to be at that table to watch that episode. Sounds like quality entertainment.

Uh, no, that doesn't work.

You cast a force 6 mana static. Fine, force 6 background count. Other mage casts a force 5 mana static in the middle of that, sucks the extra drain, and his force 5 mana static instantly poofs due to being reduced to 0 force by the force 6 mana static.

Frankly my dislike of Mana Static is a whole other thread. You're right though and if you did it the other way around the second Force 6 spell would be reduced to Force 1 for a total of....

...Force 6.

So, sod all point trying that then.

Personally I think Mana Static should be restricted to 6 hits which is the maximum Background Count a Domain can have.

I suppose you could achieve this by simply changing the spell to Hits/2 for the Rating of the BC it generates.

Even fully twinked out, spellcasting 7 (+2 spec) +2 mentor spirit, +6 power focus, +6 magic = 23 dice for casting. The only way you're raising that, is slowly initiating and raising magic/your focus.

Thats 7 hits on average, I don't think force 10-12 mana statics getting 10-12 hits is going to be a common occurance without edge, in which case they're using EDGE to do it.

Precisely, 11 hits is hard work.

Although you forgot Aid Sorcery/Ally Spirits...

For getting your hits there is also ritual magic.

* * *






So here we have the RAW stating that spirits with no tasks are very likely to act on this plane, of there own free will, without services.

There is the line under Sapience: "Awakened sapient critters are capable of all magical
tasks and follow the same rules for magic as normal characters."

So I'd argue that a force 12 spirit that a PC summons gets to do things like use his 12 dice of counterspelling to protect himself. And since he gets 24 dice to perceive the spell...

But I'm just mean.

You can't counterspell a mana static. And not all spirits know counterspelling.

Yes you can. It doesn't affect you if you do. Notice the bit about multiple targets affected at once, which means it's an area effect spell. Which is also what the example shows.

Plus you can then dispel the effect.

You can't dispell a mana static, as you are not the target of it.

You could try to dispell it after they cast it, but then, as a spirit, with this example, you're force 12 reduced to 1, and as such, get screwed. (Of course, you could just walk the 11 meters out of the circle, and own their face, but by then, you're bound.)

Your are not the "target" of the manaball in the example either. It's an area effect spell.

You are the target of the manaball, as it targets anyone located within its area.

Mana static however targets the area, not the people within it.

More specifically it targets the Mana in the Area.

You can't dispel a permanent spell, and Mana Static is a permanent spell. Also, you can't dispel a background count, although you could Cleanse it. I don't think many spirits have that power, though.

You can still dispell it while its being sustained for its permanent effect.

So you just don't bring the spirit in until it's permanent. Put the spirit on standby, cast the spell, then call it.

And the spirit appears behind you. It's not stupid.

technically you can't make it go into a mana static until it is bound. "A bound spirit can be forced to harm itself to further the magician’s ends—something no living being willingly suffers." And a mana static definitely harms it.

That's debatable. I've heard of people summoning force 5 spirits of man, and making them overcast a force 10 manaball. That harms the spirit as well, but it doesn't need to be bound first.

Perhaps the games where that's happened haven't decided that the corrollary of "bound spirits can be forced" is "unbound spirits cannot be induced". You could argue either way.

It seems to be that using an Edge to do something near impossible could easily require a generic build (as you put it) to have to spend Edge to not die from binding it, Edge to attack it successfully, and Edge to resists its attacks.

A generic build has, oh... lets say 5 willpower. The F12 spirit throws 24 dice for things like Fear and Confusion. Yeah, F6 wards wont save you from that.

Banishing wont work. If it went free then it gains the Banishing Resistance of all free spirits and rolls 24 dice to resist banishing. That means since Banishing causes 2xhits in Drain [BBB p180] that each banishing attempt will cause the banisher to have to, on average, resist 16S. That generic build would then pass the heck OUT without Edge and with Edge be a few boxes away from passing out on average.

Given the scenario you painted ("Generic Build") its not possible. A twink build (Street Sam with Laser or a Main Gain from Arsenal for example) could do it but those aren't the mage and those aren't generic.

As an aside I never realized how 4e nerfed Permanent spells: BBB, p195:
"The time required to make a spell’s effects permanent is equal to twice the Drain Value in Combat Turns."

Its not based on the drain taken, its based off the base drain VALUE. Wow...

Considering that a F6 Mana static would at most take 42 seconds that isn't very much since most permanent spells arent cast in combat...

uncontrolled is not the same thing as free! You don't banish uncontrolled spirits you summon at the them.

Indeed. It does have a 12 log/int. Its smarter than to just show up willy nilly in a huge mana void.

[cough]

warp

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