Hi guys. I'm a new Shadowrun player - and my group is incredibly small. As in, me and my GM small. We're both new to 4th edition and I wanted to make a character who could survive challenges that usually require a team - and so I was looking at a Qabbalistic mage (I figured Task spirits could supplement my skills where I didn't have them, and Possession would make me tough).

We used Karmagen, so I'm a troll and bought Initiation to grab Channeling and an Ally Spirit. The problem is that I'm afraid the character is a little -too- indestructible.

Let me see if my numbers are right...

A Troll with 9 Body, possessed by a F7 spirit now gets a +7 to all his physical attributes and Immunity to Normal Weapons (granting 14 points of armor). Wearing (for example) a Mortimer Greatcoat, Form-Fitting Body Armor, and various other accessories to bring armor up to 16/13, with Immunity he's gonna have 30/27 with 16 Body and roll 46 dice to soak up damage - my math says he can pretty reliably take an explosive rocket to the face and shrug it off - not to mention anything -short- of that. To make it worse, he could have a spirit possess his armor to bring it up to 37/34.

The character is a Fomor (so he's got Arcane Arrester) and a mage with Counterspelling and high Willpower. I'm worried that he's just going to be way too unkillable, but it looks like a completely legal starting character - am I missing something? What is the weakness to this sort of walking rock of a character? Am I missing some rule that's being broken?

When you can eat a full burst from an assault rifle or LMG and still not take a single point of damage, THEN youre overpowered. Until then, you shrug off small arms, meh.

Yes, you can do all that, and be difficult to kill. Nothing is impossible to kill, and since you are the only player, the GM can safely tune the game to handle your PC without overpowering anyone else. There are many detractions to possession that the GM can and should use that go a long way towards balancing the great power that comes with it. I leave it to him to surprise you.

I think that's the point he was making with the "shrug off an explosive rocket to the face" comment.

[edit] Damnit, pbangarth!

Yeah, that was indeed what I'm saying. Say that a Street Sam gets 5-8 net hits on a long burst and tosses a DV of 20P at me, I'm pretty sure I can still shrug it off with a 'meh' - even if I take 1-2 points, I can toss off a Heal spell and still split pool toss a Stunball/Stunbolt/Knockout. But I'm pretty sure only really aberrant rolls will make for taking even 1-2 points of damage, and that's at extreme levels of challenge.

So basically, what people are saying is that Possession really -is- that unbalanced? What are the downsides...not having the spirit manifest physically? Having it possess an enemy seems pretty superior to regular manifestation, and they can use their powers by possessing an inanimate object (or me!). Their physical stats are actually a lot higher than regular in a lot of cases through possession (a F6 Earth spirit possessing a cybered-out troll would totally wipe the floor with a F10 Earth spirit straight manifesting) and it seems like there's a lot more utility to possession than to regularly manifesting spirits, too (have them possess the guy you're escorting and he's nigh-invulnerable, have them possess your car and you've got a psychic link to your new driver - plus your car is now indestructible and an utter beast at, say, ramming other cars). Hell, have a spirit possess -any- random car on the road and turn it into a missile.

You can't pass through wards (without alerting the mage who made the ward) while the spirit is inhabiting you. You're also (I think) leaving a trail on the astral plane for hours.

I'm not sure if Arcane Arrester affects you and your spirit or not.

I'm pretty sure that Arcane Arrester would have to - it's a part of the body, as much as its Body or Strength rating is. Part of being a Fomor.

But I don't think that Possession is much different from anything else that renders you dual natured - like Astral Perception. Having an active spirit possessing you isn't much more inconvenient than a sustained spell, and with an Ally Spirit with Possession it's not like you're giving up a ton of services by telling it to leave you and repossess you.

Hell, with Channeling you're not even giving up your spellcasting.

Words for You: Poison Granades. If someone throws a Chem granade at you, you will be properly put into the dreamlands. Even with body 16. Some of them are colorless, odorless AND cause 10 stun damage per turn. If i was a Spider at a security building, i would have a CANISTER of that stuff to floor corridors.

Also, here's a relatively easy one: stunbolt. Or mana bolt. Or banishing. Or engaging the spirit in astral combat. Or mind control. Or a physad with killing hands. Or mana static.

If we want to go a nonmagical route, as was said, poison. Or aimed, called shot rifle fire with APDS. Or a fully automatic weapon with APDS for that matter. Flamethrowers. Acid.

Sure, a tank troll posessed by a force 7 spirit is scary. But so is a tank troll with a manifested force 7 spirit. In the first case, it's one nigh-unkillable machine. In the second, it's two mostly unkillable machines with twice as many actions. You pick your poison, you know? I've never found posession to be particularly overpowered.

Possession mages are still glass cannons. Bigger cannons, but still glass.

As for common mundane threats, Stick 'n shock rounds are your worst nightmare.

1. Half impact armor means half immunity to normal weapons. This takes a serious chunk out of your defensive capabilities. Same is true for other (less common) elemental-type attacks. Flamethrowers, lasers etc.

2. They can be loaded into small guns. SnS rounds in a hold-out pistol is just as powerful as in a sniper rifle (6S, always), but is way more concealable. My current PC has had bad luck fighting against spirits. Now he carries what he calls "spirit repellent": SnS-loaded machine pistol. Called shot+narrow burst= dead spirits.

3. Dirt cheap, not too hard to get ahold of, and common among many opponents. Some Corps use less-lethal in their defense system as a matter of course, and not necessarily out of the kindness of their hearts. Having a prisoner to interrogate is sometimes better than having a dead body. Also, it means you can fire indiscriminately amongst your own workers, which is especially helpful when there is risk of employee extraction/escape.

4. The secondary effects of electrical damage can ruin a PCs day. Being unconscious for 1 or 2 rounds is very similar to dying "fair and square". Granted, a possessed troll mage isn't likely to fail this check, but less durable summoners should take note.

Given he has 14 points hardened armor... I'm pretty sure he CAN in fact shrug that off.

Said troll's armour doesn't stack with Immunity IIRC.

- J.

Except arcane arrester means because the spirit is now a part of the mage because of possession, that said stun bolt will attack at 1/2 force, and face counter spelling as well, so depending on how the whole net hit limited by force of spell thing works out, you might just sneezing at such a spell.


Given the availability of APDS, they should be exceedingly rare, and if the GM starts tossing them at you like candy, there's a problem. Also even with the APDS the guy still has 10 points of hardened armor, and can have spirits possess his armor and use their powers to help keep him safe. I don't really see this working out well either.


Much better chance of actually working, but depending on the protections he has in his armor, he could still fight off much if not most of this. Without specialized protections in his armor however, he's pretty much boned. The only question is who are you running against that uses flame throwers and acid filled super soakers as standard weapons?

For resistance dice, it does, for dice to ignore the attack all together, no they don't.

Umm.... how does that work?

- J.

I believe a posessing spirit can still be astrally attacked independently of the troll. The stunbolt may be at half force, but frankly, so what? If we're stacking out the Troll so much, I'll build me a mage that can throw Force 16 stunbolts and burn through some edge to survive. The troll's willpower won't be enough, and the troll doesn't get to counterspell unless he's also got Channeling. If he has Channeling, then I have Filtering and drop a mana static first, watch the spirit's force plummet, and then I unload on him.




Rarer than this troll?! No way. APDS is hard to get. It's not "I want a railgun" hard to get. I *regularly* have players who can get ahold of APDS. Like I said above, if the Troll gets to roll around min-maxed for death, the opposition will as well. We're also assuming the troll is a PC, no? Corpsec can run around with APDS if they want, and anything Trollmental attacks will probably be high value.




Anyone with a mage capable of casting elemental attack spells, or anyone with an Ares Squirt or capsule rounds who wants to take him alive. Or acid spray him. Who are you running against that uses a min-maxed troll geared for posession and channeling? It's a theoretical situation. If you have a PC make a min-maxed troll like this, and make all the opposition rolling 10 dice and armed with pistols, of COURSE they're gonna get rolled. Hell, any optimized PC will roll them.


Trust me, I had an ork posession shaman in my last game, and they're not all that they seem to be, even when minmaxed. They're hard as hell to hurt with bullets and whatnot, but they sure ain't invulnerable.

There are a few issues that are being overlooked, or at least I haven't seen them mentioned...

With Possession, unless the Spirit has the Realistic Form power, and is actively using it, anything above a Force 4 is likely to be spotted by most people. Force 6+ will definitely be spotted. (Spotting Spirits, Street Magic, p. 95) That means that everyone who sees the troll is going to automatically know that he is being ridden by a very powerful spirit, and will generally trigger an immediate call for security, Knight Errant, etc.

Magically, the best way to defeat one is to use banishing if the spirit is unbound. Banishing isn't helped by the Arcane Arrestor, counter-spelling, etc.

Physically, Called Shot to bypass armor (ignoring the physical stuff) and then shoot them with Stick n Shock or chemicals.

Also, the Arcane Arrester quality cannot be taken by anyone with a Magic attribute. This would mean that any metavariant that has it automatically, either cannot be a mage or loses the Arcane Arrester quality.

Poisons and drugs may slow you down. It could also become a war of attrition if the GM sends his possessed troll to engage you in combat. Or perhaps he attacks you with his team of a combat mage, possessed troll and killing hands adept. If the GM wants to threaten your character and make you fear for your character's life, trust me, he will be able to.

I was leaving the surprises for the GM to spring on him.

But....

Just have an adept use Commanding Voice and tell you to "Release your spirit." Problem solved.

Ooooh! Cool!

other spirit powers (such as a spirit of man's influence power) would be good options for challenging this character.

...and that's why I'm not allowed to make characters with the Commanding Voice power anymore. Derail one plotline by making the NPC drop the MacGuffin, and suddenly "the power's broken."

"Possession Traditions, Are they entirely too powerful?" - Teethree

Yes. Our group has banned them. Several people have commented above on ways to take down your possessed troll. However these require high level opposition and/or enemies who are expecting a possessed troll.

Average enemies (such as the sample NPCs in the rulebook) have no chance against your troll. If the GM actively creates an enemy who can take out your troll, that enemy would be seriously overpowered against the rest of the PCs. Such conflicts can easily result in a TPK.

I Banned it in my games too. Too many complications for a first campaign. Therefore, NPCs Only.

No you can't. You're possessed. You're a passenger in your body. Of course, you have a mental link to the spirit and can command it, but you can't do anything except that. You can't use your skills, spells, talk to people, or anything like that. You can only command your spirit.

In my experience, Possession isn't overpowered so much as it is overspecialized in extreme durability when used by certain character builds. In practice, materialization traditions do just as well if not better at anything but specialized tanking since the ability to have a second pair of hands at will without having to overcome a vessel or otherwise require any sort of preparation makes them rather flexible. After all, the utility of even relatively weak force 2 or 3 spirits is actually quite high when you factor in powers like Movement power or Concealment yet such spirits are unfortunately the ones that are most likely to require a prepared/willing vessel.

My players only just realised how broken this is. I've reminded them of the law of reciprocrity and they've left it alone.

- J.

I am new to Shadowrun GMing so forgive me if the answer is obvious.

The OP indicates that he is summoning a Ally Spirit and then being possessed by it, as his tradition is a possession tradition.



No mention is made of possession.

However



Taken together theses passages, at least to me, are imprecise. Can an ally spirit have the Possession power? It would seem that this would limit some of the power of the OP's character; he could no longer use the "free services" of his ally spirit possessing him.

This troll does have channeling, and I'm pretty sure that a possessed creature is a 'single' dual natured target, because they have a common health bar.




If john Q guard had them, then they'd have a lower availability as getting them would be no real chore. I could see the HRT having them no problem, but to simply hand them out to every tom, dick and harry when they are outside starting availability violates the spirit if objects with high availabilities.


I'm just talking having armor with features like chem seal, fire resistance, or any of the other protections which work on various damage types.


Never said they were, but I am saying that MOST people the troll should be facing are unlikely to be packing flame throwers and acid filled super soakers. These weapons are kinda rare and often too destructive for them to be widely used. Even a corporate mage is likely not going to be using a flame based spell inside the building he's protecting. Even if he does, I 'think' the arcane arrestor feature of the troll will cut the force of the spell, and depending on the interpretation the number of hits available for damage in 1/2.

Channeling metamagic.

I think that the intention is that magicians with possession-based traditions would have possession ally spirits. That's how I would rule it. (Although we don't allow possession traditions in our game.)

Its an ally spirit... not sure how well that would work. More likely then not even if successful you'd have him simply stand there for a bit looking confused.

Most potential opponents of a shadowrunning team are outclassed by PCs out of the box no matter how the BP are spent. Most security teams in the SR universe are also outclassed by any PC team that thinks at all. The security personnel know it, and use Retreat-Delay-Reinforce tactics to deal with the intruders. In both these cases, which constitute the vast majority of potential conflict situations in SR, whether a mage is possession tradition or not, or whether there even is a mage on the team makes little difference. Where it does make a difference is in those situations in which the PC team confronts relative equals. In those situations, the weaknesses inherent in possession are likely to be known to the opponents.

A recent example given above is the dual-nature of the possessing spirit. Because the host and the possessing spirit share damage tracks, astral damage done to the spirit is also taken by the host, even if the host herself is not astrally perceiving or projecting. A bonus to this effect is that a powerful possessing spirit will likely be forced to have a smaller stun damage track than it normally has because it is forced to use the lower Mental Attributes between host and spirit. Vice versa, if the mage is looking for a 'little boost' and decides to use a lesser spirit, not only is the mage forced to use the spirit's Mental attributes while possessed, but often will find the lesser spirit fails to overcome the mage's resistance roll.

With a critical success - which is almost guaranteed - the spirit would at least end the possession.

Its up to the GM, and given that ally spirits are naturally loyal and defensive of the mage that created then unless otherwise abused, you'd have to really beat the mage's resistance check for me to say that happened.

All you are doing is having the mage send the spirit back to astral space - or at least no longer inhabit the mage's body. However, as for beating the mage's resistance check, that is pretty easy for a social adept. I am sure that their willpower+leadership will be dwarfed by the adept's charisma+leadership. If the GM really doesn't like the command then you could instead say "Send your spirit far away." Then there is no confusion on whether or not you are trying to break the ally spirit/mage bond.

The OP never mentioned an 'ally spirit'... he said ally spirits... which to me means as a newbie he used the wrong word.

Ally spirit has special meaning (and he probably doesn't have the initiation needed NOR the karma spent for a force 7 ally spirit!!!).


Spirits are not necessarily helpful when summoned and their service may need to be compelled. There's a suggestion in SR4a that a mage take a sustaining penalty for trying to control a spirit (or more than one spirits)... it's a sidebar suggestion in the magic section.


Also there's a lot of confusion here... without channeling the OP is a mere observer in his own body and needs to use a service every time he changes or issues new orders to the spirit. With channeling the spirit is a passenger passively augmenting his body while he does stuff, excepting when he orders it to do things such as use a spirit service.

Possessed forms share a physical damage track, but they have independant stun tracks (though when one takes damage the other takes the same type of damage). Using astral combat on the possessed mage is kinda a nasty idea. He'd resist it using wilpower + astral combat... and use the lower willpower score (not to mention most mages scrimp on astral combat). He'd have to give over his possed form to control of the spirit to gain use of it's astral combat skill.

In any case, I heartily do not recommend possession traditions to new players and GM's... there's too many areas in which they are too hard to challenge or keep in line w/ other players/opposition. Or it's very easy not to read the rules and misunderstand them and misapply them.


Though since the player is qabbalistic... the traditional reason they're possession isn't because they possess themselves but because of the use of golems. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that score.

If the adept puts a ton of points into leadership then ya, however I feel the likely hood of the spirit willingly departing and leaving its mage defenseless is low. Depending on the bond of the spirit and the mage, it might leave the mage's body, and try and lay claim to the adepts, just to toss it off a building, or into heavy traffic or something. If the mage was a jerk to its ally, then the ally might take this chance to flee, and hope for the worst for the mage.

double post.

An ally spirit of force 7 is 56 karma I think. The 1 initition needed is like 13? Unless I'm calculating it wrong, that isn't too pricey if you're using Karma gen, especially for the powers and utility it gives you.

Well, the spirit really has no say in the matter. If the mage is possessed by an ally spirit I think it is safe to assume that they are on reasonably good terms. The mage is issuing a harmless command to the spirit which I am sure the spirit would obey. There is no reason that the spirit can't repossess the mage ASAP - but in game terms the adept can essentially prevent that as long as his Commanding Voice power is effectual.

An ally spirit may have some say in the matter, as it is defined as being loyal enough to go out of its way to aid its mage. Knowing it is bad for the mage to dispossess him may lead the spirit to try to find some way around the problem. Nevertheless, whether the mags sits confused as the spirit dithers inside of him, sends the spirit out only to be repossessed (with a contested and potentially failed roll again), or gets it to go far away, the duo is wasting time instead of nuking the adept.