Hey All,

Im a complete noob to the game but ran my first game today to really good success. Everyone seemed really happy and into it! I have some questions though about conjuring and Im sure its in the book but reading the whole thing and preping the game may have passed me by.

1. How often do magicians make their spirits materialize and engage in combat? They seem pretty damn powerful!

2. Do most conjuring types preconjure before entering a combat situation or assess then conjure to select powers most needed?

I know this all sounds noobish but Im just trying to figure it out.

Cheers
Lass

Everybody got opinions, here's mine.

Pretty much every time. Why not? Smart people summon a decently powerful spirit (ie, one that they don't have much chance of getting their ass-kicked summoning) at dawn/dusk or when they get up. Then it's called if they need it. If you are Joe mage and get jumped you yell for your force 3-4 fire spirit to defend you, it's a lot more reliable than trying to summon in combat. There are other clever things you can do with a summoned spirit, but keeping you from getting killed should be tops on the list.

A mage should have clue how he's going to handle a fight before he starts it, so he should have cast the various spells he favors first. Assenssing is still as good idea, but complex actions when getting shot is bad. Plus people can sense the spells being cast, they can't sense that you have increase reflexes already on you.

If your summoner wants to be particularily vicisous, has access to guardian spirits, and plans ahead here's a funny one: Guardian spirit wearing Armored Vest and carrying an AK47 with the Automatics optional power.

Anything with Fear or Confusion are hillarious too and don't require much planning or forethought.

1) Almost all the time
2) Binding before hand for those neat remote tasks that only take one service or for +Force dice to spellcasting. Regular conjuring for on the fly needs.

Welcome, Lass! I'm pretty new myself, but I think I've seen some things you might find helpful.

Spirits are pretty damn powerful! You got that right. There are a few tried-and-true ways to defeat them without losing half your team, but the fact that so much work has been put into developing those strategies is testament to the power of spirits.

The best way to fight a spirit is with a magician. Stunbolt is perfect for zapping spirits, given that they treat stun and physical damage as the same, and it's relatively low drain. Spirits are also reasonably effective at fighting each other, and if you just need to escape, a spirit can keep busy a more powerful spirit for a few turns, if you're lucky. Banishing is pretty iffy; on the one hand, it produces as much or more drain as some spells, and doesn't deal any damage; on the other hand, if you're fighting a spirit way above your pay grade, it's probably the only way to beat its armour, and powerful spirits are more likely to have only a few services (because they were that much harder to summon/bind).

Outside of a magician, the next best solution is an adept with a weapon focus or Killing Hands. Both of these require getting into melee range, which is never fun, but they ignore the Immunity to Normal Weapons, which, IIRC, is the spirit's only armour. However, most adepts cannot astrally perceive, which means the spirit can escape; but usually forcing it to do so is enough.

If you're mundane, your best bet is funky ammunition. Stick'n'Shock (or SnS) ammo is best, depending on how you interpret the rules. Some say that it halves the spirit's armour, as described in the SnS rules, but others say that's a ridiculous interpretation. I'm not going to say either side is right; it's just a decision your group has to make. However, it makes perfect sense to me that APDS rounds will punch through a spirit better than a regular one, and they're effective against normal enemies as well, so keep a clip or two of that around (or consider giving it to your NPCs as needed)

Finally, there's the Attack of Will rule. This is almost never used, because it's usually a bad choice, but it bears mentioning. Anyone can roll Willpower + Banishing (if they have that skill) as an armour-ignoring melee attack against a spirit. There's also a martial art in Arsenal (if you have that) which says you can specialize in the Kiai Shout and gain a +1 bonus to Attacks of Will for a 5 bp quality which stacks up to 3 times.

I hope that helped. If you have any more questions about spirits and their use, try the search function; there's a lot that's been said about them. However, if you can't find anything, or have a specific question, there'll usually be someone who can answer it.

If you hate having your spirits zapped by adepts, with planning you can cast armor or other defensive spells on your spirits.

Good point. However, I'd personally rather just zap the adept, or Turn to Stone him, unless for some reason more than 2 or 3 adepts are attacking you.

1) + 2) I can´t speak for the other ones, but i use them as often as i can. Besides binding doesn´t work for my char. sending a ghost is more effective than just slinging spells at your enemies. So i conjure them at the rise or set of the sun and keep them until their time or wishes are expired.

Mana static(digital grimore) is one of the best ways to take out spirits IMO.

Anyways, spirits are great in a fight, and a skill conjurer can take one into every fight, but remember that they are not subtle, and magical threats tend to generate much harsher responses, both from corp-sec and the star. You may have heard the term "geek the mage first", and there is a reason for it. If the enemy figures out your a mage commanding the spirit killing them, they will focus fire on you to get rid of the spirit.

Yeah, give the troll tank some fetisches ^^

Hey All,

WOW thnx for the great responses. You've all given me a lot to think about!!!

Cheers
Lass

FWIW, remember that in order for the spirit to affect people on the physical plane, they need to materialize themselves, which is a complex action and exposes them to damage. They're still tough, but the opposition gets a pass to either run away or try to kill the spirit while it's building it's physical body.

Things that ruin a spirit's day:

• Background count - either the normal type, or by casting mana static. Reduces the force of the spirit by the value of the background. If force goes to zero the spirit pops. If the force doesn't go to zero, it may still lower the spirit enough so that his ItNW isn't that bad.
• Spells - Manabolt, spirit bolt, mana static bypass armor and will all pop a spirit pretty fast.
• Elemental Attacks - cuts armor in half, making it easier to bypass ItNW. Depending on the GM, stick-n-shock makes spirit killing easy.