Spirits are powerful.

The average starting PC mage can easily summon a force 5 spirit. Looking at a force 5 earth elemental, they have body, strength, initiative, reach skill etc. on par with most melee charaters... AND they have 10 points of hardened armor against non-magic weapons. On top of that, the spirit has 5 EDGE.. KERPOWEEEE... this spirit can really own!

With just 13 karma, a mage can initiate and get Invoking, and with a little luck (or well placed edge) they can invoke a spirit with area affect powers. Suddenly a mage with just 13 karma has summoned a force 5 greater form fire spirit, which can easily use its Elemental strike, which it has 15 dice to attack with, against an area affect of targets. Oh, and he has 5 edge, so using a point to reroll failures is going to average him 7 successes.

Now defending against this flame strike, the targets get to try and dodge (average cyber guy may have 6 or 7 reaction, with 3 or 4 dodge) and get 3 successes. He is now resisting 10DV fire damage (only half impact). With an armor jacket and a nice 5 body, he may have 8 dice to resist, and on average he is going to take 8 physical damage. Yeeowiiee! This is REALLY powerful! Also, since this is a power not a spell, counterspelling does not help against it!

As tough and potentially unbalancing as that is, Possession traditions are worse. Now we are talking about a character possessed by a force 5 Guardian spirit, with the optional power of Elemental Strike. Greater form, he can select one power to grant for free (no services) to up to 10 people.

Now the entire runner team has an area affect flame strike, with selective targeting, their agility to attack with, and the possessed caster having most likely 15 dice to attack with. Not only is this immune to counterspelling, but causes ABSOLUTELY NO DRAIN on the team.

Oh, and correct me if I am wrong, but a Spirit's guard power doesnt even protect against an Elemental Strike.

With a power like this, the only thing capable of stopping the team is a foe with even more powerful greater form spirits. If I have to do this every game, it is going to get boring.

HELP ME! How do I tame my possession tradition Invoker?

The Universe abhors overwhelming power. The Universe has infinite means of dealing with it. Your paltry Possession Mage inhabited by a spirit is as nothing compared to the power of the universe. The universe has a lot of resources. Dice and mechanical number mean nothing against it.

Gosh yes, mechanically it's got a big number that Possesion Mage with a Force 5 Spirit. Then again, so does a Panther Assault Cannon, HMGs, full body armor, trolls with full security suits and compound bows, missile mastery, elves, dragons, tanks, and sundry other things.

Run the possessed mage over with a truck. Try it. It works.

I'm pretty sure your average character would be better off throwing a grenade than using Elemental Strike, because it requires its own skill which doesn't come with the Endowment. I'm also not sure how the spirit gets 15 dice, wouldn't it just be skill (equal to force) + magic (equal to force)?

However, your question was how to challenge this guy, and I will attempt to answer that.

-Possession has a huge inherent drawback; you can do NOTHING (not move, not talk, not take a leak) without asking a service while you are possessed. If you ask a spirit to fight in a battle, he'll fight the whole thing for one service (unless new combatants enter and the spirit is anal about the definition of which battle is which), but then he's moving your body, he's using his powers as he pleases and your spellcasting isn't happening. I'm not even sure you can counterspell when you're possessed. The workaround to this is Channelling, but that's another metamagic, and every one of those is successively more expensive.

-It might well get boring, but the clearest way to counter Awakened nonsense is other Awakened nonsense. I'm not saying it always has to be another Great Form spirit, but Awakened is best. Examples; if the spirit has lots of services, it's probably low enough force that a serious Stunbolt or two will disrupt it. No armor against those, remember. If force is high enough, or counterspelling is serious enough, that spellcasting is a poor option, then have an opponent use Banishing; the drain's a killer, but it's great for spirits who took so many hits to summon, they only have a service or two left over. Finally, an enemy adept with Killing Hands (especially if combined with Elemental Strike to reduce mundane armour) or a serious weapon focus will cut many spirits down to size.

-Goblins (HMHVV'd dwarves) are absolutely immune to fire, and also regenerate all damage done anywhere but their heads. I'm not sure how many corps have goblins working for them, but running into one on an HTR team or in a crime syndicate isn't unreasonable.

-Fomori and gnomes (metavariant trolls and dwarves respectively) both have Arcane Arrestor. I'm not sure how that would work with Elemental Strike, but if you wanted, you could just houserule that it does. The other benefit is that fomori are just like trolls, only harder to kill, and gnomes can pretend to be children. Work 'em in!

-Changelings with Astral Hazing and cyberzombies would both ruin any spirit's day. Nobody summons a force 8 spirit lightly, let alone binds one, but put him in the same room as a Hazer and all of a sudden he's force 4, and a Ruger Super Warhawk punches through that easy, let alone bigger guns.

-Drones are very difficult to affect with direct spells, so if you threw together 3 Crimson Samurai drones with rating 6 armour mods (fire, cold and lightning proof them) and slapped on some tank-killing firepower (rockets, assault cannon, sniper rifle etc etc) those would give your PCs a run *snrk* for their money, and might not even break the bank too hard.

-Summoning and binding are hard work. If he's really causing chaos and mayhem left and right, he might piss someone off badly enough that they're motivated to blow his magical lodge to smithereens while he's inside doing that hard work. If he's nice and drained already, even better.

Good luck, and tell us how it goes!

I'm a lot more terrified because you can give Guardian Spirits ANY COMBAT SKILL as a power - such as, oh, Automatics.

Assuming a bare-bones average meatbag, we're looking at 7 in all physical attributes, a dodge and attack pool of 12 (assuming Full Defense) with an Ares Alpha, plus Immunity to Normal Weapons and 3 IPs.

In case you forgot, this guy's also a Mage.

Just putting it all out there.

Putting a called shot sniper round with APDS into the head of any posessed target tends to pop the target real quick. So do spells, banishing, and explosives.

Oh, and ramming them with a car with a ram bar.

1) the great form spirit's powers can be used in an area. if it loans them out to the runners, this is now no longer the great form spirit using the power, so it is not an AOE effect.

2) ummm... guard protects you from glitching, and the accident power. i'm not sure why you would have thought it is in any way related to elemental strike.

3) actually, it does cost a service to grant the power to all those people, though you are right that each person using the power does not cost a service. initially granting the power is a service though.

4) the group probably has to all stand in the same area continuously. it is a sustained power right? that means that the spirit can sustain the power in the area, not on the people who are in the area when it starts. so the group has to stay pretty close together

5) 10 hardened armor is not that much. a pistol with APDS ammo and one net hit (ie the normal amount required to hit) means it's no different than normal armor. make it a rifle, or an assault rifle, or a machine gun etc, you're going to make that look even weaker. not to mention stick-n-shock rounds.

6) last i checked, elemental strike had a DV equal to the spirit's force. not sure where you got 10 DV, it's 5 DV base, vs the players reaction + dodge (which can be plenty respectable, and is not nearly as bad as a manaball), and then they even get to resist with 1/2 armor. also, you don't get to order the spirit to spend edge. it spends edge if it bloody well feels like it, and that's up to YOU, not up to the player. you control the spirit, not him. he gives it orders, the spirit fulfills those orders however it wants, and spending edge is only likely to happen if the spirit gets along well with the character, or if the spirit is attacking someone who has an appropriate spirit bane quality.

7) the rest of the team getting a DV 5 AOE attack is rather underwhelming. when you add in the fact that this attack is made defaulting to agility even more so. you can do this much more easily and better; it's called "grenades". you will find them to be rather inexpensive, and easier to get than force 5 great form guidance spirits with FIVE hits on their awesomeness test (note: if they don't get those 5 hits, the . make it a chemical grenade if you want to make it really unpleasant.

if a force 5 great form spirit is more threatening than the mage, then count your blessings, because the mage presumably doesn't actually have the slightest idea what he's doing. i would be much, much more worried about having a powerful magician than having a spirit possessing someone with what are likely to be relatively unimpressive physical stats. the fact is, for less drain than binding that force 5 great form spirit, you can probably cast stunball force 10 for a BASE DV of 10, hitting a larger area, with the opposition having a smaller dicepool to defend with. and you don't even have to initiate for that.

seriously, this is no more a problem than the party getting a few gas or splash grenades and protecting themselves from the effects by wearing appropriate protective gear, even if it does work (which it doesn't). there are far more frightening things than this that could be done with an initiated magician.

The only abusive use of a Possession spirit was in a high-powered game that started with 1,000 Karma (old rates on Attribute costs). The Magician sunk 200 or so into a Force 6 Ally Spirit with Possession. 6 dice of Aid Sorcery on EVERYTHING (along with a Power Focus 4) and all of the benefits of a Fore 6 Possession with Channeling... she was a frick'n super-hero...

Sure, they just use agility. The possessed mage gets his racial max now (9) plus he can use the spirit's skill, which is 6. There are the 15 dice.
Invoking + Channelling = 2 initate grades. For a starting character, that is just 29 karma away... considerably less if they find a group and take an oath. Of course the mage I am dealing with has both metamagics.
Those things work great against a spirit. Against a possessed mage with decent combat ability otherwise, its flimsy.
Banishing is a neat idea, but the spirit has edge equal to its force to use against banishers, and a greater form possession spirit likely has resistance to banishing.


I will keep these in mind, but drones and cyberzombies are probably going to kill the other characters. That is the problem, anything tough enough to take him on when he is possessed and channeling will likely wipe the floor with his teammates.

Yeah, I can make his house blow up. I could do that to any player. The point is to challenge them and give the whole group a good time, not just off the tough guy before the run starts. It is a threat I will keep in mind though, especially if he begins to make more enemies with a magical ability to track him down.

Hate to say it, but not likely. A spirit provides magical hardened armor. The most powerfu sniper rifle is just 9 damage. Unless the sniper gets alot of successes, a possessed mage with a 5 or 6 force spirit is unlikely to even have to roll to resist the shot.

Good point. The teammates would not get AOE, and as McAllister pointed out, the would only get Agility to resist. However, the possessed mage is still using an AOE with no spell resistance and no drain.

Indeed, I did say that it did NOT help. Maybe you read it wrong. My point is, there is no ability for a mage or spirit to protect you agaist this spirit power (except maybe for a mage having a spell to protect you from the specific element.

Yes, for the entire party to have this nifty power, it would cost all of one service. They could use it a thousand times each, and its just one service. I am glad you see how powerful this is.

There are some range restrictions, but no more than that of a sustained spell. There is no need for LOS once the ability is granted.

Oh, and the spirit can grant this power to up to two times his force in people. 10 people each using this power... all for one service.

This is true of normal spirits. For a spirit possessing a mage, he is stacking the immunity with the mage's armor, which is likely at least 6 points. I can throw around a swat team with assault rifles and APDS, but again, this is going to Kill the other runners, who have a paltry 6 or 8 armor total.

Oh, and in the last run, the runners encountered some ghoul orcs. The mage had a force 6 spirit which he used to posses the orc ghoul, who was wearing Full Body Armor (trying to up the difficulty). Now the orc had +6 body, +6 strength, racial max agility and reaction, and 10 ballistic armor, plus 12 points of hardened armor from Natural weapon immunity. They encountered an entrenched minigun placement and the spirit walked through it. It used one edge to resist a full auto blast from the minigun.. and took no damage.

As you noted about guns, Elemental strike's damage value goes up per net successes of the spirit. My earlier test assumed 15 dice (1/3 successes = 5 successes) with edge reroll (10 rerolled averages 3 successes) = 8 successes. Assuming an elite reaction of 9, that is average 3 successess on dodge, which leaves + 5 DV, on top of the 5 base DV = 10DV.

as noted by others, the team would not get an AOE. The benefit of the spirit power when in AOE form though, is that it can target alot more people than a grenade, over a much larger area. Also, fire and electricity elements provide 1/2 armor, while HE is full impact to resist. It is considerably more controllable than grenades, and slightly more powerful.

If he can cast a force 10 stunball, then we must assume he can get away with a higher force spirit... at least force 8. I would prefer an invoked possession spirit with elemental strike anyday over a foce 10 stunball. The stunball is going to do physical damage drain that will cause a little stun, which will add up. The force 8 spirit power will give you exactly 0 boxes of drain. One thousand casts, 0 drain. HUGE difference. Try casting your force 10 stunball 10 times. Oh, and the fire is going to beat on non-living, like vehicles and drones, while the stunball does nothing.



I have yet to see any serious answers, other than 'Insta-kill the mage with a sniper rifle', or 'blow up his house'. I need to challenge the entire group, and make sure everyone has fun.

Ah, so the real problem is the Possession mage relative to the rest of the team. Not in and of itself.

Use Background Count, in theory almost everywhere should have at least ( Rating 1 ), with higher counts not being uncommon.

Firstly: You just realized part of the mantra of Shadowrun: "Eggshells with Hammers". As in: Everything kills everything else dead. Whoever gets to act first is the first to take a few enemies out of the fight. That nothing special about spirits, it's true for everything.
Secondly: Almost everything you listed has nothing to do with possession. Materialisation spirits could do the same.
Thirdly: A spirit throwing down about 8-10P twice per combat turn with elemental attack is a lot less scary than a human acting 3 or 4 times, throwing 2 grenades each (because it's only a simple action), which is 10P up to eight times. With the cheapest of grenades. He could just as well throw gas grenades to automatically waste almost anybody hit, which means he just depopulated more than 100m3. And he can even start using burst-fire or fully automatic grenadelaunchers to really up the ante. For absolutely no drain.
Fourthly: A drone, while being a bit more fragile, usually packs more punch than a spirit and you only need to pay for those if you actually lose them, not everytime you bind them.
Fifthly: Spirits use Edge when they want, not when the summoner wants. They may use a point to make their attack more effective, but they are more likely to keep their edge to help with avoiding damage, if they use it at all.

Yes, magic is in a lot of things more powerful than technological means.
No, raw damage through spirit summoning isn't one of those things.

EDIT: Gah, an answer while I was posting. Will answer to that shortly.

and it's resisted with stats the players actually have, and then it's resisted again with 1/2 armor. still not as bad as other stuff. you want to talk about problems, go get yourself the fear power, or engulf. elemental strike is a joke.

you then later asked if it helped.


you're missing the point. it's an area power, not 10 single target powers. it hits an area, not people. yes, the spirit can choose who gets it and who doesn't, but it is sustaining on an area, not on people who happen to be within the area. it's a 5 meter radius within the spirit's line of sight, and if they move further, that's it. it's over. if they move out of sight, that's it, it's over.

hardened armor bounces attacks. X points of hardened armor + Y points of regular armor does not equal X + Y points of hardened armor. DV 10 or 12, respectively, will get through (though they may deal stun)

yes, but grenades can go around corners, and don't require you to initiate. and can be fired by drones.

you don't need 10 stunballs, because people can't resist them effectively. you just need 1.

Treat spirits like sentient beings. They're intelligent, they're summoned mostly against their will, and they are forced to do things. If he tells the spirit to fight the battle, fight the battle. To the end. Don't let the spirit break off unless he uses a service.

I had a PC nearly kill himself summoning a force 13 great form fire spirit. I wanted to see what he would do with it, so I fudged the dice roll. He got a couple services out of it, and I got to role-play a spirit that was incredibly intelligent, driven, and upset at being bound by a useless meatbag. The PC asked it to destroy an underground data center as a service, and it did. It also burned his name in 10 meter high letters on the ground above the destroyed center, so that EVO would know who did it.

That same spirit went back to his meta-plane and badmouthed the PC, resulting in him acquiring a fire spirit bane.

I like the first part, but even I think the latter was alittle harsh to say the least.

Damien:
Problem number one.... spirits using edge liberally... the player does NOT control the spirits edge use. Unless that spirit REALLY has a liking to him... that spirit better not be spending edge. (banishing simply releases the spirit from service... it doesn't hurt it... so edging someone banishing is really overkill here). I recommend only having spirits spend edge if spirit bane or it's opposite quality are in play, OR IF THE CASTER HAS REGULARLY ABUSED HIS SPIRITS (in which case by all means have them resist summoning and binding w/ all their hearts).

Problem number two... ItNW DOES NOT STACK W/ NORMAL ARMOR. Read the power... it's clear as day it doesn't stack. Your orc above does not have anywhere near that much armor. (yes 30'ish soak dice... but still not insurmountable when exposed to heavy automatic weapons fire... just a point or two slipping through each round is all it takes).

Those services get very expensive... make sure you're playing the 'wish' game... if his orders aren't good or vague make him use more services to change them or update them. Under possession it states... same level of control as a rigger issuing commands to a subscribed drone. Each time you issue a command you use a service.

YOU control the spirit once the orders are given, not him. (generally i find this is more of a collaborative thing... as my Gm doesn't like to run the spirit... but he is very strict on making sure the spirit follows the wording I gave it... orders given in a single pass in combat can't be long and complicated either). But you should be getting the point. The spirit does not have his innate understanding of things and has a different worldview than he does. The spirit may not care as much that the acid will leave disfiguring scars on his temporary body or somehow else leave the possessed puppet crippled.

Channeling does NOT share skills. So yes granting the elemental attack power does a whole lot of nothing to everyone. As none of them have the exotic ranged attack skill. And this is important, INCLUDING THE CASTER. If he had him grant magical guard instead... would you allow everyone to aid counterspelling at spirit's force? No. If he wants to use the elemental attack.. he has to order the spirit to do it (even w/ channeling.. it's right there in the channeling description).

Jaid: you're wrong on the one bit... once the spirit grants the power w/ it's service it doesn't have to stay close at hand to keep it in effect. There is a touch limitation (has to touch targets to be endowed). There's nothing saying the spirit can't go back home to it's metaplane and the service is still running (generally my GM requires that a spirit be reasonably close in the ethereal... but doesn't require that it be right at the scene of the action).


Another thing I notice... you evidently don't understand the magic rules very well. I don't recommend that anyone w/o an intimate familiarity of the magic rules (and especially the limitations of spirits) allow any player to even consider a possession tradition.


Another problem I see... you obviously don't understand how to hurt a spirit... called shot head for damage (-4 dice attack, +4 damage) even better if you have a melee grunt tying up the target (-3 reaction to avoid getting shot). Light pistol, 4P +4called, -4AP... that's a force 6 you say... take your 1 net hit and roll your soak for 9 damage.

You really need magical threats to counter his magical threats as well. Either that or a drone army and make object resistance the absolute bane of his existence (OR5, needs force 5, and 5 hits at least to affect a drone w/ anything). Also great, as it makes your rigger and deckers feel loved (more toys after cleanup, and ohh things to hack and turn against their silly masters if a decker).

When you do shoot at him, use wide bursts (and remember the armor doesn't stack and he can't spend the spirits edge). Why wide, damage increase from narrow doesn't count for breaching threshhold, however every dice you reduce his 'you miss me' pool is one more net hit of damage which does count for exceeding threshhold. (narrow is a great way to hose soak if you're already over that theshhold though).


There's other routes... read the sidebar on p102... if you had a char w/ 2 cyberarms... the spirit would be helpless (possessing spirit cannot access AR or DNI implants). Great you possessed the body, but can't move it much. How many passes did you say that orc ghoul had? If it was more than 2 (spirit meatspace normal) you were doing something wrong.



Again possession sidebar p103... ONCE THE SPIRIT HAS COMPLETED IT"S SERVICE IT LEAVES THE BODY. Once it leaves it cannot repossess the same person for a period of time leaving it immune to the spirit for the purposes of combat. So again... was the order "possess that guy and await my next order". If it was "possess that guy" once possessed the service and complete and on the next action the spirit leaves the body. Now in order to use another service... spirit needs to be ordered again (2nd service), unless he included what he wanted done after possessing the poor schlub.


I'm not saying hose him completely... but you seem to be missing a lot. Also remember possession caps at augmented maximum.

Some things which can be used to pare him down to size... "Mana static" create an instant background count... when his spirit suddenly drops from force 6 down to force 2... he WILL get hurt. (even better, as a purely astral mage out of melee reach can cast it on astral and still effect meatspace with it). Rediculous force barriers... it costs a service to have his spirit possess him (even w/ channeling)... how's he getting through it (masking + advanced masking is now initiate grade 4).

And if it would have been a materialization spirit, he'd never have to walk through the minigunfire in the first place. Possession was weaker in this situation. And as has already been noted, the spirit most likely wouldn't use his edge for that. Let the mage pay up.


Which is less damage than a single gas grenade and about half of the single target damage an actual combat character can dish out.


It's a complex action, compared to the simple action of throwing a grenade. It's actually less effective than using the cheapest type of grenade available.


A force 10 stunball does 6P drain, which a mage could reasonably reduce to about 1-2 points, even before initiation. After getting centering that gets reduced even lower.
Invoking a force 8 spirits does, on average, 15P drain, which is enough to send most mages straight into overflow and sees the spirit going free. It will spike up to around 30P about every 8 tries, which is enough to force the mage to burn edge to even get to overflow and not be instagibbed.
No, those two aren't comparable.


So, your actual problem is a single character that's alot more optimised than the rest. The difference between properly built characters and those that aren't isn't as big as in D&D, but still more than enough to cause serious problems. I can understand that. But it doesn't directly have anything to do with Possession, so you should perhaps talk to your players and try to keep your group on the same level.

in that case, you're looking at using a power 10 times to affect 10 people. if it's touch, then it doesn't become LOS(A), which means it's only hitting one person when you use it. personally, if you have the spirit sustaining 5 separate instances of a power, i would be inclined to make the spirit deal with at least some sort of distraction modifier. truth be told, i'm not sure i would feel inclined to allow a spirit to even use the same endowment power 5 different times at once.

'Standard' sniper rifle is 7P, -3 AP. APDS improves AP to -4. A called shot for -4 dice gets you +4DV. The one net hit needed to hit the target means that you'll do 12P, -7AP. A spirit would need to be Force 10 to not have to check for damage.

Not necessarily.... Endow these 10 people w/ this power.

One service... not done in one round... but it's one service nonetheless. (or maybe like multicasting... touches 10 people in a circle around it in a single action).

The power itself says it can affect up to Forcex2 targets... so it is not a stretch at all. (as opposed to 'use movement on those 3 cars' each use of movement only affects a single vehicle IIRC, so that's 3 services). Combat is only one example given of a case where a spirit can use multiple powers in the completion of a task. Another example... I would like you to give this target a message and a good scare. (spirit needs to use it's search powers to locate target, deliver message, and then use fear power... or worse depending on spirits vindictiveness/will. Wording isn't explicit so spirit discretion can come into play).


BTW: I don't agree w/ the ability to put a spirit power on anything and then watch the spirit go basically invulnerable by going to it's home plain. Just saying the rules are very vague on this point.


Thought of another potential way to hose the cheeser. (especially good as a magical HTR response)
The astral attack pack.. get a good charisma tradition with good astral combat skills (and preferably spirits w/ magical guard. Tons of counterspelling). When player goes dual natured have the non-materialized astral spirits gank him while he's dual natured. (3 passes in astral combat, as opposed to his mere two), plus tons of friends in melee... and his awesome physical attack stats don't come into play because he needs to use 'willpower' astral combat to attack you back. Any armor he's wearing is meaningless.

Again remember he doesn't share skills w/ the spirit... if he attacks astrally depending on who has control of the body use either the spirits astral combat skill or his (probably suck and astral combat is TRAINED ONLY).

in point of fact, if you *really* want to be mean, get yourself a great form guidance spirit with the astral gateway power. why *wait* for him to go astral? you start by nuking all his foci into inactivity, then you finish up by forcing him astral and nuking him! (and you can do it without hitting anyone else too, by making only those you want to hit go astral, and then dropping an astral nuke)

(like i said, if we're going to talk abuse with moderately high-force great form spirits, endowing elemental attack really isn't all that impressive...)

Well, it wouldn't have happened it it hadn't been a F13 spirit. I equated it with basically being powerful enough to be royalty in its home meta-plane, and basically instructing other fire spirits to give the PC as much shit as possible.

Do you have every one elses abilities bite them in the ass if they try to use them to there fullest?

If he had mistreated the spirit go for it, have it bad mouth him. If he just summoned it it shouldn't even have burned his name into the sidewalk to let evo know.

A lot of the key points have been covered, but most are key enough that I will just agree.

1). Mage can't force a spirit to use edge. Though I think it is fair to allow the player to use their own edge to effect the spirits rolls.
2). Spirits armor doesn't add to possessed characters armor. Meaning if an attack penetrates the spirits Forcex2 hardened armor, the player soaks with their Body + Armor.
3). GM decides how the spirit interprets the mages commands. The best way to do this though is allow the player to roll the dice for the spirits, if the commands are vauge, like fight the bad guys, you can decide which bad guy the spirit attacks. This will get the player give the spirit more specific commands, which will most likely use up more services faster.

Clarify some things. Using Elemental Attack is Agility + Exotic Ranged (Elemental Attack) so if it is endowed to any group members.... most likely they are going to be defaulting.

Also, nobody has mentioned it, but Possession spirits don't necessarily remain possessing the character. Lets say your player asks the spirit to possess them. Then asks the spirit to fight the bad guys, well the spirit will probably take whoever it thinks is the most dangerous. This forces your mage to ask the spirit to fight a specific bad guy, so the spirit fights then and knocks them out. The spirit then decides, since it is being shot at a lot, to depossess the mage and wait in astral space for its next task. This leaves the mage standing with no cover to die, spirit doesn't really care.

The other thing is spirits are spirits, sure they may be really smart (Force 5 spirits have 5 logic, pretty smart). But if they haven't seen something they can't possibly understand it. So a force 5 spirit possessing a mage probably doesn't know what a grenade is, cause you don't see them a lot on the metaplanes. Which means a spirit isn't going to decide to avoid a grenade on its own, the mage will have to explain it. You, as the GM, can use things like that to your advantage.

Also, something I do because I think it makes more sense. Have your player roll two sets of initiative. One is his mage, one is the spirit. Then the player gives the spirits tasks on his initiative and the spirit asks on its. This makes being possessed much more realistic to me, because it adds another degree of separation between the players control of the spirit.

I am currently playing a possession based mage, and I have done some pretty awesome stuff, but nothing more crazy than our troll street sam.

Although on a separate note, do you guess think it is fair to allow a mage to astrally project, ask the spirit to possess their body, then allow the mage to act on the astral plane and the spirit to control their body? Or does the astral mage get forced back into his body when the spirit possess them?

No, I just happened to think that a sentient being with all its mental skills at 13 would be pissed at being controlled by a wheel-chair bound 70 year old man, and even more pissed off when that old man refuses to free him. Especially after that old man fawns on it and gives it a god complex.

I'd allow it, but if the mage isn't keeping very close tabs on his body, he may find controlling the spirit awfully hard.

In a previous discussion, I was told that there's a rule in the Digital Grimoire saying that a possession spirit can remain in possession of its host after its service is done. Can someone clarify this one?



I wouldn't think a puny human could give a F13 spirit a god complex. Though I can see where it would be smart enough to see through the fawning. INT/LOG 7 is pretty damn smart. How nasty is a F7 spirit going to be to you?

It's a gray area, but I add the damage from "called shot for extra damage" after AP has been calculated (like bonus damage from autofire).... but that's me.

My 2 things to add:

1) Want to know how to beat spirits: Mana Static. Combine that with some Stick-n-Shock or APDS ammo and the Possessed guy isn't so scary. Want to hear the best part? Since the Possessed Mage is dual-natured Mana Static will work even if cast purely in the Astral Plane. And oh how that Possessed Mage does glow on the Astral Plane.
2) Also keep in mind that noticing Possessed individual has a Perception Threshold of 6 - Force. So, it's not like "hey, there's something slightly odd about that guy" it's: "there is no Dana, only Zuel." This is also a physical effect, so it can be seen on cameras, sensors and other technological devices. Everyone will know your Possession Mage is coming, not to mention all his friends with their weapons that are on fire.

Possession is like strapping on Full Military-Grade Armor: yeah, you're protected but you're going to draw a lot of fire.

Try reading the Hardened Armor rules.

No, actually, it's not. Automatic fire is the only thing that increases the DV after determining if the damage is Stun or Physical (or, in the case of Hardened, if damage is even dealt).

How you appear to run it is a house rule, with absolutely no room for debate (& a rather stupid one at that).

Where is standing that you are subject to racial max. attributes while possessed? I also see no problem with stacking spirit armor and personal armor from the char. And that the immunity doesn´t count anymore (like somebody pointed out) as soon as the damage is greater than the armor, is bull***. Never heard anything about that. It would be great if somebody could answer with page-references. Thank you.

Pg 102, Street Magic




Pg 62, Core.

Hmm it's harder than I thought. My stab at it was just going to be that your maximum attribute while possessed will be the augmented max. With magical or technology you can go higher than the natural max, but not the augmented max. Since possession is a form of magic, possession can't do it if the spell Increase Attribute can't do it.

I've read a lot of people saying stat gain from possession is limited by racial augmented maximums..... That's actually not true, from the SR4 FAQ:

"When a spirit uses Possession or Inhabitation on a character, are the dual entity's attributes limited by the character's maximum augmented attribute values?

No. Both powers represent a merging (temporary with Possession, permanent with Inhabitation) of the character's physical body with the form of the spirit. For the duration of the possession/inhabitation, the dual entity's maximum augmented attributes are equal to (character's attribute + spirit's Force) x 1.5, rounded down. "

I haven´t been sure where i have read it, but i knew that there was a reason, i choosed a possession traditon.^^ Thanks for the reference.

Actually apart from being rude your take is the "stupid" one - think about it -a called shot for extra damage is aiming at things like the CNS and vital organs - now where do you suppose the most armour is going to be?

Unfortunatley RAW agees with you - doesn't make it correct though

Things i dont use in calculation of beating Hardened armour:
Burst fire
Called shots for extra damage
no more than doubling the base DV from extra hits - sorry but a light pistol would not be getting through the latest military assault armour without actually aiming for a weak spot

I also make people make knowledge and "observe in detail" rolls to find weak spots - i dont allow someone to know that the left knee joint on red samurai armour can only stiop 9mm rounds because the plating is faulty without some knowledge.

Wow you can spit a lot of vitriol is not many words.

Let's take a look at what the rules say for a "called shot for damage"

All it says is that the "DV of [the] attack" is increased.

Here's the rule about determining if the attack is Stun or Physical:

This rule specifically names the "base Damage Value" of the weapon. The prior rule simply states that the "DV of [the] attack" was increased. Is that the "base Damage Value?" I'm not sure... it appears to be vague.

Interestingly, by an extremely strict reading of the rules, only a Narrow Burst's damage is added after AP is calculated:

It specifically states that the DV doesn't apply. What do other bursts say?

Huh, no specific statement about not comparing it to the armor rating. In fact, the wording is more similar to the "called shot for damage." The text for a Full Burst has the same wording as the Long Burst.

You may rule it one way Muspellsheimr, but the rules leave enough unstated that it could be interpreted differently. I choose to add in the extra DV after AP because a called shot to bypass armor is a different action with a different set of penalties. It doesn't make sense to me to have a "bypass all armor" action and a "bypass a little bit of armor" action. As already stated, vital areas are generally the most protected by armor. However, if you do manage to punch through the armor, you're probably going to do more damage to the person because you hit a vital area, represented by the damage bonus.

You can disagree, but I'm speaking from multiple in-game experiences where this specific mix has done in a spirit. It's not hard, really. Even a Force 8 spirit has 16 hardened armor. You take a sniper rifle with 8p damage, -3 AP. Add APDS for 8p, -7 AP. Call a shot for -4 AP, leaving you with 8p, -11 armor. You've already defeated the hardened armor on the spirit - even though on some level it might seem wonky to "bypass" the inherent armor, you could envision this as calling a shot to the eyes or something, since the rules don't disallow . And even if your GM says, "No, no calling shots", you only need 2 net successes to deal damage to the target, since APDS and the rifle itself reduce 16 hardened armor to 9 hardened armor.

Edit: Looks like many people responded in the same vein as me. I'm slow, sorry. Also, I think there is a note in a separate section about burst fire DVs not adding specifically when determining if an attack does stun/physical or penetrates hardened armor. I don't have a page reference, but I'm positive they don't.

You sir, are rude. It seems you are untrained in Etiquette, and defaulting to your 2 charisma has resulted in a critical glitch. Try keeping the personal attacks in PM's, or better yet, keep them to yourself. Bless us all by refraining from posting further insults in this thread, and you will be forgiven.


Thanks for clarifying that Animus. This is horrible horrible horrible news. I think I am going to have to houserule it in order to keep my possession tradition mages in check.



1. Can you do a called shot to the head on spirit? I dont think I would allow that in my game, as they have no brains to scatter.
2. Can you do a called shot to avoid armor on a spirit? Definately not. They are not wearing their weapon immunity in a vest, but it is part of their entire being.
3. If a possessed character has armor, YES it does stack with weapon immunity. No one has presented any proof otherwise.
4. If a possessed character has armor and someone shoots them with a -7AP sniper round, the -7AP would affect the physical (real world) armor first, then if there was any negative ap left it would affect the immunity.

Example. Orc wearing Full Body Armor (armor 10) possessed by a force 6 spirit (12 natural weapon immunity).

Sniper rifle damage 9DV, with -7 AP from APDS sniper round. 1 net success.

Body armor is reduced to just +3 dice. 9+1 DV vs 12 points of immunity = possessed character does not have to roll for the attack.


If you were a spirit with 6 edge to spend, wouldnt you spend 1 point it to keep yourself from getting killed by a minigun?

As far as possession spirits, they will probably use their edge to prevent banishment, especially if they are being channeled (any power the caster uses from them will require the caster's own edge)

Oh, and the discussion about the manaball... I cannot continue to argue if you do not see the power. Drain one time for a spirit, which can be done prior to a run and healed up before the action... VS drain EVERY TIME you CAST the spell.

On top of that, the spell can be resisted by counterspelling, the spirit power cannot. No contest.





Excellent. These are three very good points that are going to play heavily into me keeping the Possessed Channelling demi-god busy while the other players arent totally overwhelmed. Thanks alot for your replies.

Also, someone else made a good point about character balance. The player is reasonable, so if I find him too powerful, I will try pointing it out to him outside of the game, and hopefully he will work with me a bit. Thanks for the suggestions to all of you who posted here to help a DM in need. I am feeling much better about running SR tonight!


Oh, and:



Nice. +1 karma for the excellent Ghostbusters quote.

I don't know where you guys got this idea, but Immunity simply gives you Hardened Armor = 2x your Magic against said attacks. Goblins are not immune to fire, per se, they have a much greater resistance to it.



And besides, Posession tradition mages are not neccessarily that powerful; all you need is some SnS ammo/tasers/stun batons. If you want to see a powerful thing, check out the link in my sig.

Acc. to RAW, "natural spell" is handled exactly like a mage would speak it, so counterspelling DOES apply. But AFAIK he has no drain, so it is still quite good.

I would just like to point out that in fact the spirit would not be killed, only sent back to its realm. Since it was ripped from there by the summoning and forced to serve some meat bag, then it would not really care if the body it was possessing was killed and it was sent back home.

True, but it is mentioned in fluff that the act of disruption is painful to spirits.

One of the ways I reward possession traditions acting "posessiony" - like Voodoo priests giving gifts and cake to their spirits - is that the spirits are more likely to spend Edge in their service, because they like getting gifts. Seems pretty IC, and an subtle reward for RP.

Yes very important, Immunity when used on this context is misleading. The critter/Spirit only get Hardened armor towards the effect.

1 & 2. These are up to the GM. But someone can certainly do a called shot to inflict more damage on the person who is possessed. The two are a single merged entity according to the Possession rules with damage affected both simultaneously.
3. I see no proof that the Hardened (Immunity) Armor does stack. Page 102 of Street Magic says that a Possessed Vessel has Immunity to Normal Weapons, and the description of Immunity to Normal Weapons power says it has armor equal to Magic x 2. Neither says "plus any additional armor worn" or some such.

Here's how I run things. The Hardened Armor stacks with worn armor when acting like "standard" armor, but only the Hardened value is counted when making the test to see if the attack penetrates the Hardened Armor.

Let's use your example: an Orc with 10 Ballistic Armor, Possessed by a Force 6 Spirit, is shot by a Sniper Rifle with a base DV of 9P, and AP -7 from APDS rounds. The attack has 1 Net Hit.
First, we check to see if the attack has a chance of doing any damage. We compare 9 + 1 (net hit) vs. 12 (Force x 2) - 7. The attack 10 > 5 (defense). So, the attack has a chance of doing damage, now we figure out what happens, first we determine if this attack is going to do Physical or Stun. Again 9 + 1 (net hit) vs. 10 (Orc's armor) + 12 (Spirit's Armor) - 7: 10 < 15, so the attack is doing Stun. Now the Orc would roll Body (let's say its 8 + 10 (ballistic armor) + 12 (spirit armor) - 7 = 23 dice to reduce a 10P attack. Odds are good that attack will be reduced to 2 or 3 boxes.

That's how I run it.

alright, damienknight, you seem to have a lack of understanding on how hardened armor works with other armor.

let's go back to that DV8, -7 AP sniper rifle vs the force 8 spirit possessing an ork with 10 armor.

for the purposes of the hardened armor, the orks regular armor means absolutely nothing. zip. zilch. zero. i don't care if the ork has 100 points of REGULAR armor, that doesn't factor in to the HARDENED armor check. the ork has 16 points of hardened armor, reduced to 9 by the AP. if the sniper gets a couple of net hits, the DV goes to 10, and the hardened armor does not kick in.

so what we have is an attack with an effective DV of 10 facing hardened armor with an armor rating of 9. the attack is not negated. now, those 9 points of hardened armor still count as regular armor, which means the ork is resisting the damage with 19 + body dice (which will be at least 11, so 30+ dice, which has quite a reasonable chance to reduce the damage to 0), but the hardened armor is checked BEFORE the damage resist test, not after, and the ork does need to make the check (and while the damage has a reasonable chance of dropping to 0, it also has a reasonable chance of not dropping to 0)

vs the more likely force 5 spirits (when we're talking about great forms, at least), that's going to punch through easily. even a heavy pistol with APDS will break through.

as to your houserules about aimed shots/hardened armor and spirits, well, it's like this:

if you DELIBERATELY go out of your way to make the spirit tougher, going against the default rules, then you REALLY shouldn't come whining to us when you find that spirits are really tough to handle in your games. seriously, i'm not kidding. don't expect any sympathy for the situation if you keep on choosing to make it worse on yourself.

so if you're going to go out of your way to make spirits more powerful, well then then you're just gonna have to suck it up. you made your bed, now sleep in it. don't complain to us about how you have a hard time dealing with the spirits that YOU houseruled into invincibility, and then complain when we tell you that the problem is that you've houseruled the spirits into invulnerability. that's YOUR problem, that YOU created.

Hey hey, back down a bit. You know what the rules say about all called shots?

So, determining that a Spirit has no "vital spots" to increase damage, or that its Hardened Armor cannot be bypassed by a called shot are both valid interpretations/options in the rules. Incidentally, I agree with damienknight on the second point: a Spirit's armor cannot by bypassed via a Called Shot. In the case of a Possessed person, I would rule that the called shot for extra damage does apply because the Spirit inhabits a physical vessel (which does have vital spots) and the two share the same condition monitor/damage.

However, in the case of a regular Materialized spirit: I would say that neither can be done. There are no weak spots in a spirit's "armor" nor do they have "vital areas" that can be targeted.

Meh, I have to agree with Jaid, IF SnS works against spirits (I've ruled that it most certainly does not.) than called shots do as well.

Malachi's method is what I use too. May not be 100% RAW (and I don't really care if it is), but it works for me and my game.

This is also the way I've been doing it. The called shot rules were intended, I think, to represent shooting someone in the face instead of on their nice armored vest. And a materialized spirit not only has its spirit armor all over, as it's part of its being, it's not cephalized, and doesn't have vitals per se that would cause critical problems were they to be injured there. A possession spirit does, while it's controlling a living body, and the fused being has these drawbacks. Also makes non-living vessels more attractive.

I really haven't had too much trouble from the possession mage in my game, largely due to what Malachi's said before about it drawing attention. Generally, the possession mage is quite capable of rushing a bunch of guys if he's got a spirit summoned, and unless they have Awakened support he's damn near invincible. That said, wards seem to cause him huge problems, as he can't cross them fused or bring the spirit without the creator knowing. Secondly, Stunbolt spam does the job just fine in many cases if the opponents are Awakened. Everyone's going to concentrate fire on him. And finally, it's just not subtle at all to rush in glowing like a Dragonball Z character (which is what Perception test (6 - Force) implies for high end spirits). People notice. On any run that's not open warfare, it's a bad idea. I've only had to worry about it occasionally, on those encounters that do resemble open warfare. So no, I don't think it's an immediate gamebreaker.

who says spirits don't have more vulnerable points? if a spirit that looks humanoid or like some sort of beast shows up, why couldn't you shoot it in the places that would logically be more vulnerable were it a real creature? even a spirit such as a fire spirit or water spirit might have some visible indications in it's form of weak points; maybe it looks like there's a more 'thick' area of elemental fire/water, or something that generates the rest of the element?

but my point is: he's specifically making decisions that lead to spirits being tougher. then, he comes and complains to us about the fact that spirits are tough to kill. the solution here is obvious: don't make spirits so tough to kill if you don't want them to be so tough to kill. it's like my 2 year old nephew... he'll throw away a toy, then complain when another one of my nephews/nieces plays with it, or when he throws it someplace he can't get it, he complains he can't get it. except that my nephew is a 2 year old who has an excuse for not knowing any better.