One of the ideas I was toying with involved summoning and binding spirits, included services owed at character generation. I felt a static karma cost per service owed at character gen seemed a little 'odd'. This 'cost' is enough to buy the materials to summon and bind a force 2 spirit, but not much else. That the mage could in Karma gen at least initiate several times buy their magic up a few points and then be owed a couple favors from a force 7-8 spirit for only 2 karma each seemed a little over the top to me. I was thinking of charging 1 karma per force of spirit per service, as this may help prevent characters from front loading services from spirits they might otherwise be reluctant to summon.

I was also thinking of adjusting the cap on the number of Spirits a character can control unbound at a time from "1" to a total force not greater then the sum of their magic and prime drain resistance attribute. While this would allow for more lower force spirits it would be intended to provide a 'reasonable' cap on the maximum force of spirit a mage could attempt to control and prevent someone from going all 'bloodzilla'. I would also change the number of spirits a character could have bound to them so that their total force was no greater then their magic times their prime drain resistance attribute.

Are these changes likely to be broken? If they are would their be a way or preserving their flavor while maintaining balance? Are they likely to under balance summoners?

Paying karma to start with already bound services is a stop-gap measure at best. It's never balanced, because it tries to tie a cost to luck, which never works. Just have people buy the ritual materials and allow them to roll the binding tests before the game starts. No need for complicated rules.


That wouldn't usually change anything at all, because people don't summon force 2 spirits anyway, as they're not really useful, so it'll basically just mean "1" anyways. The only difference that makes is that summoning force 8 spirits becomes impossible for most mages. If that's what you want, I'd suggest a rule "You can't summon force 8 or greater spirits". Exactly the same effect, less complicated.


That change makes spirits less useful for people for whom they weren't all that overpowered to begin with while making them even stronger for dedicated summoners, so yes, that screws with balance (you reduce the number of spirits on call for the average mage, while dedicated summoners get even more). Yes, you stop people from running around with 8 force 8 spirits, but if that regularly happens, your problem isn't with the summoning rules, but with allowing people to much stacking drain resistance.

This is a good idea.


I'm going to guess most games do not involves mages with a combined magic and drain resistance stat of less then 8, as that would be a very low powered game. That would be a magic of 4 and a stat of 4, not really asking all that much at all. While it is intended to limit the number and availability of higher force spirits it does not set anything close to the hard cap you are suggesting it does.


How so? as it does not revolve around their summoning skill at all? I can't see how a dedicated summoner would have any advantage in this case.


Could you please explain the math you are doing to come to this conclusion?

His math is as follows:
A summoner will always have the max number of possible spirits they are allowed bound.
A non-summoner will only ever have a small handful bound, and so any sort of max is generally irrelevant.

In other words that change greatly benefits a summoner but doesn't help a non-summoner in the slightest.
Same reasoning applies to the 'have more than one non-bound spirit summoned at a time' Your normal mage won't really get that many or won't get very powerful ones (Because they aren't focused in summoning, they can't get as high of a force as easily, and will have fewer services from those they do summon). The summoner however will throw an army of high force spirits at everything he encounters.

Very soon the summoner mage would wonder why he even bothers with these mundanes as his spirits rip their way through armies on their own.

Personally I think it is silly to waste karma/BP on binding spirits at chargen because you can do it much more cheaply and get far more services by just buying the materials and doing it 10 seconds into the game..

Your only problem seemed to be with the initiation/raise magic/get free real high force spirits, and I don't really see a big problem with that. They'll only get a couple uses out of the spirit, and they had to spend a ton of karma to manage it.

How exactly? As things presently sit a mage can have their charisma (drain stat) worth of spirits with a force equal to up to twice their magic score.

I'm not really understanding where you're coming from?

I explained it with my entire post. When I have more time I can go through and do a numbers thing if you really really want me to.

True, but you changed 'average' to 'sum' after I replied and without signifying the edit. Look at my quote of your post, I refered to the original.

Sorry, my bad. I posted it, then thought better of the change, and hopped I had made it before anyone else had noticed.

Sorry, my bad. I posted it, then thought better of the change, and hopped I had made it before anyone else had noticed.

At character generation, you get a spirit with a number of Services equal to your BP or Karmagen expenditures,and the Force is always equal to the magic rating of the Summoner...

Compare with after character start, where they can summon a spirit at a max Force of Magic rating x2, for a variable number of services, all for money expenditures...

Oh AND, CHarisma is not a Drain stat, for summoning, for all mages... it might be for some, but not all...

I see no reasons for any of the changes you are asking about, But then, maybe I am misunderstanding your point here...

Well part of my problem is having charisma related to the ability to control spirits for all magic users anyway. It should matter for those who's tradition cares about the well being or mood of the spirits in question, but far less so for those who couldn't care less. Why should I care if my spirit likes me? It would be more a matter of shifting the functions back to attributes which should matter for the summoner's given magic tradition.

Charisma is not related to Control.... it just limits the number of Spirits that you can have bound at a single time... is this the problem you are referring to?

Tradition should (and does, as far as I interpret) serve as a function on how you summon, but it is still how you interact that would ultimately determine your "social" interactions with the spirit world (thus the cap on bound spirits equal to your Charisma... you are only so good at interaction with the spirits... All Social activity is controlled through Charisma, not Intuition or Logic, or even Willpower)... As far as I know, everything else is mostly fluff, due to the Unified Magical Theory now used as a paradigm. Your magical tradition controls how you choose to manipulate magic/the spirit world, it is the lens through which you see all things magically relevant...

I am probably rambling now...

Keep the Faith

One of them.


unless you tradition demand complete subservience from your spirits and you control and manipulate them using magical wards and 'true names' or some similar concept, as opposed to asking nicely and caring about their feelings.