The spirit is not acting here and is not being asked to use Edge on any test.



In exactly the same way the knasser insists that he should be permitted to use Magic that is not entirely his own.



The strict reading of the SM restrictions prevents you making the SPIRIT spend it's own Edge.

Er, you're using a way different argument than I am. The distinction between making rolls that use one of the special attributes, and being permitted to spend Edge, is clear.

Incidentally, you seem to be ignoring my posts whilst repeatedly invoking my name as some sort of feature of your argument. Also, you're really starting to blend reality and fiction in the above. I (knasser) insist I should be permitted to use Magic that is not entirely my own, do I? Oh, if only.

K.

I don't entirely agree with knasser, either, but that's neither here nor there. (Of course, I also feel that the latest ruling limiting attributes to the maximum augmented values of the host limit the possessing spirit to a Magic of 6 (- Essence Loss + Initiation Grade) and an Edge of 6/7 (depending on metatype)).




Reading something into the wording != strictly reading it. You can (and have been) make the argument that reading the rules to restrict the Channeler from spending Edge is "reading into the wording", but the explicit rules given (and quoted ad nauseum) support a game design element that a Mage CANNOT GET MORE EDGE BY USING SPIRITS.

If it were to come up in my game, I would probably say that (because the lowest applicable stat applies for defensive purposes) that a Channeling mage would have access to their OWN Edge, but I'm something of a softy when it comes to letting my players use Edge.

You are certainly welcome to continue to argue with knasser and sn0mm1s, but our discussion has reached an impasse; I refuse to continue to argue with you over "what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

Actually, The majority of my Mages only summon middling Force 3 and 4 Spirits... On occassion, I summon something more powerful (5-6), but it is the rarity, not the norm... I generally avoid summonig anything more powerful than the Character's Magic Rating...

Just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

Actually, the STRICT reading of the Rules says that Possession and Materialization spirits are treated EXACTLY the SAME for all purposes, with the exception of how they bridge the Astral Plane... Pretty much in Print and was quoted several posts ago...

So therefore, You CANNOT force EITHER a Possession OR Materialization to Spend Edge or Not...

Seems pretty clear to me...

Keep the Faith

This is where I disagree. PCs need not be suited for the missions they face. Powerful characters can steal poorly guard but highly valuable artifacts and low power characters can be asked to steal heavily guarded (but worthless) prototypes. So the possession mage can possibly run against rent-a-cops guarding the Sextant of Worlds.

Powerful characters in my games are free to say they want to go and beat up gangers if they want to (and sometimes they do to my very great boredom). I also run a game without boundaries. If the players don't get the hint and decide to assault the navel base in Everett, then they can do that too, though generally the pained look on my face is enough to clue to them in when they're doing something they should know is stupid. But I provide them by default missions that are geared toward their competence. This I find is most fun for all involved. I don't make everything perfectly suited to them though, I keep things realistic. My personal philosophy of GMing is to set up missions where the PCs will fail or die, and leave it to the players to avoid those fates.

Anyway, I think this is a tangent. Possession mage, materialisation mage, troll with LMG, if they're up against "rent-a-cops" it makes little difference in terms of challenge.

K.

There is a parallel effect to the sharing of Edge that leads to a potentially interesting paradox. I'm not so much interested in the can he/can he not use Edge argument, but rather the potential paradox IF the magician can use the greater Edge of a strong spirit that possesses him.

The parallel effect I refer to is the Damage Track. When the spirit and the vessel combine, they gain one, shared Damage Track, which takes on, and adds together, any separate Damage either the spirit or the vessel had before the possession. This is the only other example I can think of of the two entities combining some kind of expendable characteristic. I suppose this effect can be used as an argument in favour of the magician being able to use the Edge acquired during Possession. That's not what I am interested in.

Once the two Damage Tracks are combined into one, any Damage sustained by the combined entity belongs to both. This is demonstrated by the fact that when the two split apart, the total Damage is maintained by each individual. Given that the Damage Track usually gets bigger during Possession, this can lead to the unfortunate circumstance of one or both of the individuals dying because they have received more Damage than their separate Track can handle.

One can see that this could be the case with the Edge "Track". Edge is different from the other Attributes in that its points are both expendable and regain-able in the course of conducting business. Just as Damage is. Now, given that the points are expendable, one can take from the example of Damage that should enough points of Edge be spent, one could come to the state in which more Edge has been spent than one or both of vessel and spirit started with. (More than the spirit started with in the case of Possession by a spirit whose Edge is lower than the magician's.) This leads us to the paradox: at the time of separation, if either of the two had a sufficiently small Edge before Possession, he/it would be left with a negative Edge after separation.

What do you do with a character with negative Edge? The other Attributes are described as being debilitating if brought to zero, but Edge can be brought to zero without any immediate effect. No other Attribute can be brought below zero, but the use of more Edge points while possessed would appear to create the possibility of taking that Attribute below zero.

What does this do? Merely debilitate the character? Kill him?

EDIT: This brings up the further problem with the shared Edge. The spirit can use the Edge too. What's to prevent it from being 'eager' and using Edge left, right and center? "Oh, you will die if I use one more Edge? Gosh, you better let me go, huh?"

I like the idea of having an Edge track. If you are going to use the version promoted above where the Magician gets to use the Spirits stat's rather than his own during Channelling at least he is not getting any freebies on Edge.

The situation of having negative Edge would also be amusing, is there not an Unlucky negative quality? You could temporarily assign that to a character until his Edge refreshed.

edit

Cursed, from Street Magic, might fit the bill, it even scales so you could adjust it depending on how negative they've gone.

I like this idea. That would certainly be a deterrent to abuse: "Go in the negative, and your Glitches get worse... forever."

A possession tactic (forgive me if this was previously mentioned).

1) Build a Plasteel Homunculus (SM87)
2) Cast physical mask on it to make it look like a real person, animal, whatever you want (quicken or sustain the spell on the Homunculus)
3) Have your GF Guardian Spirit endow you with possession
4) Possess the Homunculus
5) Mask the physical mask spell

I would think you also have to mask the Endowment too, wouldn't you? Your own Aura may not need Masking, depending on what image you wish to present, but detecting the Endowment would be a dead giveaway that something was amiss.

Its only going to walk if the mage in question is abusing it as per the mage's tradition. If the mage has not be abusing the spirit, and it decides to leave for gm fiat reasons, that GM would likely encounter some opposition for the remainder of the session, and have the player he did that to walk out of the game.

Good point.

So let's see you have physical mask to hide the physical signs of possession and to make you look like a real person. However on the Astral you have possession of an object, endowment, and sustained spells. Manascape would be the way to hide that.

So instead of masking, you would need to quicken two spells Physical Mask and Manascape. A bit of an investment, but a way cool remote body to walk around in...

The magician doesn't have to be abusing the spirit. The book even gives an example of "magician relying too much on the ally spirit." Anyway, the situation of something that powerful being beholden to some petty mortal magician would be untennable. Don't worry - players in my game would have had plenty of warning signs all along as to where they were heading if they kept investing all their development into something outside of themselves. I play spirits as very real characters. Trust, me this would work in my game and not result in players walking. Players that would have walked would have walked long before things got to the point of having a Force 12 Ally spirit.

I don't know, I think there are reasons that a powerful being like that would remain with a weaker mortal, although most of them are examples I draw from manga... It could be a devil the mage has summoned and promised his soul to in exchange for his service until he dies, it could be an angel who feels the mage has a positive impact on the mortal coil and is therefore willing to protect him, it could be a djinn whose life the character saved while on a metaplane who is now indebted to the character until such time as it returns the favor or is released from service, it could have orders from a yet still powerful deity to protect this mortal and assist him in accomplishing his tasks as they suit the deity's interests, it could be that the mage has made some other form of pact with the spirit in exchange for a body part or karma (literally true in fact) and that it is honor bound to serve now. Any arbitrary removal of a 100 karma expenditure by the GM without significant role playing reason is certainly grounds for leaving the table.

On a different note, has anyone noticed that possessed beings don't specifically share a stun track with their vessels? It mentions a damage track but never a stun one. Does this mean that when a possessed being is hit with stun damage in damages the spirit and vessel individually? That when the spirit's track is filled it gets dismissed, leaving the vessel unharmed? What do you guys think?

I think the spirit and vessel share both tracks.

No, I mentioned this elsewhere... maybe not this thread. But the possession sidebar, states only physical damage is tracked as a single entity.

Still if you do stun damage, both entities in the form take it though, but it does leave possible the chance of potentially knocking the spirit unconcious w/o hurting the victim too badly if it was low force and the victim had higher wilpower. Though far more likely is the spirit has higher wilpower and this just results into some of the stun damage overflowing into the physical track a little sooner than some would think.

Been away from this thread a long time. Nothing to add at the moment, but I was scanning through to refresh my mind on a point, and caught this comment.

knasser, you clearly have not seen me interact with my dissertation.

Sadly Knasser has been absent far too long.

Holey rusted metal batman! I've been reading through this thread in my spare time for like 2 weeks, then 2 minutes after I read the last post it appears on top of the active threads list. Beautiful.

And I can sympathize on the dissertation PB&G, good luck with that.



~R~

Sorry for the necro posting, but I wanted to add something that I didn't see in my careful reading for the first 8 pages, and my skimming of the last 7...

Playing an Egyptian Tradition caster in the current SR4(a) game I am in, and I dunno, I guess maybe my GM and I completely took something else away from possession as you guys. I never saw possession as a way for the character to buff herself, but she owns and has trained several pets (see Running Wild), and frequently uses them as vessels. She has a trained hell hound she uses for heavy combat that frequently acts as a vessel for fire spirits, and a cat (Egyptian Mau, of course) as a vessel for guidance spirits. In the process of saving up enough karma to have an ally spirit permanently bound to the cat. (No, she's not a Bast priestess, she actually has no mentor spirit and calls upon all of the pantheon equally - with maybe a slight bias toward Isis)

I didn't see anyone else suggesting pets here, and most of the arguments I saw seemed to be based around how much control the mage had while possessed. This seems to be the best of both worlds, so I figured I'd throw it out there.

Many people focus on the possession of the summoned mage by the spirit he himself summoned because they see this as the worst part of possession as a game mechanic, the part where the most abuses are seen to be possible. Some, myself included, don't have the same problem with possession as a game mechanic.

I agree, there are lots of helpful and fun ways to use things like animals, familiars, homunculi that do not beef up the stats of the magician herself.

Necro-threading seems appropriate for a topic about possession. A RECENT THREAD asks about possession mages.

As much for the thematic fluff as for the stats, here are a couple of Possession Tradition mages I have built. I invite others to submit theirs, too.

From the 800 BP PC thread, a Voodoo magician UNCLE ZOLA.

From the online Dawn of the Artifacts campaign, a Qabbalistic Tradition mystic adept. Sorry, parts distributed over several posts.

CHARACTER CONCEPT

20 QUESTIONS and STATS

VIGNETTE 1

VIGNETTE 2