I'm looking at putting together a Charisma based Magician focused mostly on summoning high level spirits, but also some pretty good spell casting. Does every mage need Ritual Spellcasting? I am thinking about taking the skills individually, and skipping ritual spellcasting. But would I be shooting myself in the foot as a mage by doing that?

No. It can be useful, but it is not essential.

Ritual Spellcasting and Banishing are widely considered useless magical skills. If you were playing a game where a lot of PCs are magically active, then Ritual Spellcasting will have a little more use; but the requirement of having a spotter really nerfs it. If you're going to have one person in harm's way for ~6-12 hours, you may as well bring the whole damn party and do things the quick way.

Banishing is useless because it's cheaper and more likely to be successful to just stunbolt a spirit. Same problem with astral combat, generally, accept AC is useful in defending yourself from astral attacks.

Yeah, and the requirement that everyone has to be the same type of mage, which is a problem since SM introduced a few dozen new options.

For the most part the only reason to get ritual spellcasting is 1. if you get together with some other party members and decide you all want it to nuke people (Watcher spirits make good spotters) or 2. RP reasons such as being in a magical group and making use of it via that.

Also, I'm guessing you meant that AC is useless, not useful?

actually, i think he was listing the one situation where AC is useful, which is defending yourself against astral combat.

The problem with watcher spirits is that with their mighty pool of two dice, you're lucky if they even understand what you want, much less find it. It's best to use a Bound Spirit for this sort of thing, which brings with it other problems.

And AC is useful for defending yourself against astral combat: if you're astrally projecting, and a spirit comes at your astral form, the extra dice will be useful in not getting smacked around, much like unarmed in the physical world. I never said it was terribly useful, just not completely useless like Banishing and Ritual Spellcasting.

Thanks. Now I don't feel so bad about skipping it. Oh, I'm also trying to decide on positive qualities. My character is going to be mostly focused on binding high force spirits-- but that doesn't mean he will be ignoring his spellcasting.

What qualities do you think would be good for this? I'm considering Attitude: Binding (10 BP, lets me get Binding up to 7), Exceptional Attribute: Charisma (20 BP, but adds 1 to my drain pool, and also lets me bind an additional spirit), or Focused Concentration (10 BP, can be taken twice, adds one to drain pool). Hm.. But I also want a mentor spirit (5 BP), and Magician cost 15 BP anyway.... This is hard to choose, when I only have 35 BP for qualities max. Any advice on which would be most useful? Or any others I'm missing?

Never underestimate the value of being able to make someone's head explode from the other side of the planet. Yes, Ritual Magic is a skill that every mage should at least dabble in.

Mentor spirits are great, they are +4 total DP for 5 BP, and offer a good RP opportunity. The aptitude is only good if you are having trouble getting a high DP, which I think is less of a problem than resisting the drain. EA is an expensive route, because you still have to increase your Cha stat for another 10BP.

I'd say Focused concentration is a good bet for handling the drain. You may also wish to consider some 'ware to help with resisting. Platelet factory gives -1 damage if damage is 2+. There is some geneware that gives +1 to all willpower based tests (Drain included). And there is Tramua Damper to reduce all S damage by 1, or shift 1P to an S. All of which can help keep you standing after binding a big spirit.

And if you were to go for a logic tradition, there is always the good old cerebral booster, but going with Charisma and an elf is likely easier way to get that.

Mentor Spirits are usually worth it. Get a Mentor spirit with a bonus to binding instead of taking Aptitude Binding - it will save you 5bp and 2x karma/bp. Also, get a specialization in the Spirit type you think you will summon the most. Spirits of Man, are generally considered the most useful, with Task spirits being almost broken for possession traditions. It's a tough call to make if you're not familiar with the ins and outs of spirits, so you can always wait to specialize in play.

Not sure if your drain pools are soft-maxed out yet, but Focused Concentration is generally inferior to just spending the 10bp on one of the drain attributes. You're much better off spending the extra bp on Edge to make sure you can succeed on the binding test, and then again on the drain test afterward. 2 Edge will be sufficient for this; use 1 each to reroll failures.

Reread Exception Attribute. It gives that attribute a natural max of one higher; you still have to pay for it. Not really a great deal for 20bp considering what you can get for 20 bp.

Edit: To be really cheap, get a Spirit of Man to cast Increase Attribute: Willpower on yourself (likely will require a F6 spirit). Then turn around and Bind it.

Super Double Edit: Also, Mentor Spirit bonuses for spirits apply to summoning, binding, and banishing that spirit type. Just one more thing to think about.

I don't know why I find that so amusing. But its quite funny to me. Haha.. anyway, I'm pretty set that I want a mentor spirit. I am considering Gryphon, but are there other mentor spirits that add to binding? The only other one I saw was Snake.

Yes, my drain pools are soft maxed. 7 Charisma and 5 Willpower. (Elf)

Oh, I forgot to mention.. I really want to spend 5 BP on the Restricted Gear trait. So I can get a rating 4 Power Focus bound at creation. Seems more effective to do that than to pay for it in Karma later.

I most likely ninja-edited you, but the "+2 to Spirit x" bonuses apply to all three skills in the conjuration skill group; just as the "+ 2 to Spell Category" apply to all three skills in sorcery skill group. Just another bonus to people who determine at Chargen what type of spirit they want to rely primarily on. + 2 to both summoning and binding is better than just + 2 to binding.

Correct. People like to say that Mages are karma sinks; but cash requirements add up quickly too. You'll probably want a sustaining foci at some point, as well as cash to bind your spirits.

That's alot cheaper than some new deltaware though

Much, much easier for the GM to take away, though.

What Mentor totem grants +2 to both Summoning and Binding? Gryphon is one of the few totems that directly adds to the Binding skill IIRC, or do you mean +2 to summoning Spirit type and +2 to x (where x could be skill/spell category/etc)?

- J.

The only other one I saw was Snake, from the core book. Are there any other Mentor Spirits that add to Binding?

And actually-- are there any other books I need to read for magician related materials? I've read through Street Magic, Digital Grimoire, and the 20th Anniversery Core Book. Am I missing anything?

If you read the description of Mentor Spirit bonuses, it states that it grants bonus dice when acting using "Sorcery and Conjuring skills" p.200. Sorcery and Conjuring are the names of the skill groups, so those bonuses (or negatives) apply to all skills in those groups. So if you take, say, Dog, you would get a + 2 to summon, bind, and banish Spirits of Man. If you take Snake, you're getting a -1 to cast, ritual cast, and counterspell Combat spells. If you compare the bp cost for the Mentor Spirit with the Karma cost of specializing in those three skills, you're getting either a slight penalty or a slight discount depending on which Mentor you take. Mentor Spirits with + 2 Spell Category and + 2 Spirit type are clearly the biggest benefit, netting you 12 karma worth of stackable specializations for ~10 karma worth of cost, plus the negative modifier. So, no, it is not overpowered.

There are a bunch of new mentor spirits in street magic. You might want to check them out. Don't know which ones might give bonuses you're looking for off the top of my head though.

I've seen the mentor spirits in the core book and street magic. But knowing how scattered all the information is in the shadowrun books.... Anyone know if there are any more randomly in another book somewhere?

None that I know of.

As someone mentioned EDGE is a very valuable stat for a summoner, this is not so much for the extras it gives you on summoning and binding but for those bad days when your force 6-8 Spirit (or force 4-6 if the GM feel edge to resist is in orde) rolls 8-12 successes on its resistance test. In many games summoning is a powerful option but risky business. Sure as heck is in mine.
An edge as low as 2-3 can help you survive such odd ball "incedents" even after using edge on the initial test.

Ritual Spellscasting *can* be amazing. It's use in most GM's Shadowrun missions varies alot though, generally on the "not very" end of the scale. For the point saver it is easy to neglect (like astral combat I advise puting a point in it "because you never know" and you can't default on it), you'll be fine without it, but it is beyond price for magical groups and if you can scare up a solid team of wizards of your tradition. To get real milage out of it take a group contact as a magical group, initiate with them, have a coven, win.

The problem with Ritual Spellcasting is that you need at least two people, requiring both parties to have at least a 2 in the skill. Then you need a spirit, presumably bound, to act as a spotter; a magical lodge with a rating at least the force of the spell AND the number of people you want in the group. AFTER all that what do you get? A few extra dice on a spell, several hours of your day eaten, and the guy on the other end still has a chance to notice it.

It's an extreme niche, and one best left to NPCs. The casting time alone makes it a tough pill to swallow, and unlike other skills, a 1 in the skill is truly worth nothing in the literal sense of the word.

It's been awhile since I've double checked the rules, and I'm way too damned happy to do so now but I'm fairly sure that you no longer need more than one Mage for Ritual Casting.

Very true, you can ritually cast on your own.



Seems to indicate that a group is optional (SR4 p175)

It is also important to notice that nowhere under the requirements does it state that you must have multiple members. In fact it states that a ritual spellcasting skill of 1 means that you can at most have one person doing the ritual spellcasting.

It takes at least two people - the spellcaster, and the spotter. Admittedly, the spotter can be a spirit.

Also note that any participants must be of the same tradition - a hermetic and a shaman could not ritually cast together.

Can't you use a sympathetic link to negate the need for a spotter? Or does that just guide the spotter? I don't remember how that works. But yes, if you need a spotter, then you need two 'people' one of which can be a spirit, and thus only requires one character.

And yeah, the tradition thing has been mentioned, and is a major factor in lowering the effectiveness of ritual spellcasting, especially for PCs. NPCs do great with it because they get together in little clubs, steal some of your hair, and f you over from the other side of the planet.