Just a small critical historical point. Vehicle armor IS NOT hardened armor in SR4. (SR4a clarifies the wording slightly, but the effect is the same) It is EFFECTIVELY hardened armor because vehicles can't take stun damage. (any damage equal or less than rating is converted to stun and the vehicle is immune to stun damage). The book does not say the vehicle has hardened armor. (vehicle armor p167,

I think you're missing my point. There is functionally no difference between shooting a character behind a reinforced wall and an armored car door. They both add their armor ratings, however, things like APDS really shine here as it reduces both armor totals. (you'd reduce both the vehicle armor, and the characters armor by 4 points, for 8 points less armor if you shot APDS). This is also the reason APDS can be a huge overpenetration problem when you're trying to limit collateral damage.



Okay toxic zone...
Now... how does this not bone ANY MAGE. Materialization spirits STILL have it worse than possession spirits due to less dice and smaller attributes!


Edit: I've made my point... I don't want to hijack the thread, I'm not going to address this further here and reargue the same points raised in other threads... I've listed the what 7 8 9 point list of advantages which you haven't address, which are relevant to a possession guide.

It acts the exact same way as hardened armor as far as is relevant to the line of thought. Also, you may want to check "shooting through barriers" again:



and



Since the armor is added for the damage resistance test, you only subsract AP once, not twice. Unless you find a ruling that specifically says otherwise, of course,





That was not your question. You asked how you could screw the possession mage without toasting the rest of the team. Unless the rest of your team are mages, your objection is unfounded.



Alright then, let's drop it. I just didn't like how you tried to argue your own point as valid, when you have zero basis in the actual rules to back it up, yet you demanded specific rules sections to be quoted by others. I don't like hypocrisy very much.

See p166. Shooting through barriers. Look at the example.

The modified armor is added to the resistance test, not the starting armor.

Every GM I've ever played with has treated people in vehicles this way. So I don't think this is going out on a limb.


Also the difference is very important. Even if you do exceed the armor rating if it's stun damage (from say gel).. it doesn't matter.

Well you can't actively not do something, but that aside, you've not answered what I said, but something of your own invention. I didn't say that the FAQ was an errata as you've just said it isn't for the second time. I said that it didn't need to be an errata because the rules as written say exactly what I've said they do: The two entities merge and are considered a single dual natured entity and its attributes are new atttributes. For example, the spirit's mental attributes are used for the new entity. Or would you also argue that if a troll character were possessed by a Force 9 spirit, the resultant entity would not have a Logic of 9? If you were to argue that then you would plainly be contradicting the written rules which state that it does. If you don't argue it, then you accept that a merged entity can have attributes that do not conform to the vessel's x 1.5. And why should they? This is a new entity, not an augmentation of the original. This is made quite clear in the text. I don't know why you want to see this differently. And that you say the official FAQ "fails spectacularly" seems an ad hominem of sorts. I don't think the FAQ "fails spectacularly" and it's the developers' own clarifications. You seem to have a pre-set conclusion and are determined to prove it even when the text says otherwise and the clarifications from the developers say otherwise. Possession is not augmenting anyone's attributes. It creates a new entity. We even have cannon examples of this: In Ghost Cartels, we have a human character who has all Physical attributes at 3 normally, possessed by a Force 8 spirit and the printed stats for the possessed version give 11 for the resulting entity. (Ghost Cartels, pages 122-123). There is another example in a different chapter where a human woman with stats of Bod 4, Agi 3, Rea 4 and Str 3, is replaced with a possessed version having Bod 4(12), Agi 3(11), Rea 4(12), Str 3(11).

So basically you are ignoring the actual text, the clarifications from the developers and published examples on the basis of comments like the following:



You find a mistake in one place and therefore throw out other parts that disagree with your desired conclusions. Please face facts - the rules aren't what you're saying they are and you have no basis for telling people otherwise. By all means house rule if you like, but if you're going around telling people incorrect information, that's wrong. Especially when you have the presumption to tell them to set your interpretations above those of the people who actually wrote the rules and in contradiction to published examples.



This is a specious argument as I'm sure you must know. One cannot simply make something up and then challenge people to find a statement that contradicts it. I might as well say: "People called Henry get +4 dice pool - show me where it says they didn't." I can't and you can't and nor can anyone else. So instead we look at seeing if there is any reason to think that people called Henry should get +4 dice pool. In that case, there is none. In the case of Immunity to Normal Weapons, the basis of your argument is that "Hardened Armour doesn't explicitly state that it doesn't". That's hardly a powerful case. It grants armour, all other cases stack, including mystical ones such as Armour spells and Mystic Armour. Published examples of beings with natural armour or worn armour and ItNW all have the armour stacking. Basically I'm just going to turn this around and point out that all the natural conclusions based on the rules are that ItNW does stack and tell you to show us where it says it doesn't. That seems a great deal more sensible to me. Unless you're going to start dismissing published examples again.



I'm not sure what your point is - you said that it was: "After this point... you start to run into a real problem as a GM... how do you challenge the possession player? Anything you can do which can realistically challenge him... will fry any other party member."

I provided a fairly long list of ways one could do so as a GM, of which the comparative scarcity of decent binding materials compared to bullets was one. To leap in and say that a suggested possible way of challenging a possession mage is flawed because it's not always possible begins to seem like you just want to try and shoot down things I say. Aside from that, have you actually read the reagent rules? There are many scenarios where the team is not going to want to stop so that someone can make Survival + Intuition (8,1 hour) tests to locate reagents for each point of raw reagent, followed by the Enchanting + Magic (number of reagents, 1 day) test to turn them into Refined reagents, followed by the Enchanting + Magic (Force of materials, 1 day) test to turn the refined reagents into Binding Materials. And don't neglect that you have hand-waved a couple of extra skill dependencies into the possession mage in order to demonstrate how one single example of how a GM can add challenge to a possession mage is sometimes not always viable. This really does start to sound like you just want to argue rather than accept that a possession mage can be challenged without "frying any other party member".

EDIT: Hit the maximum quote limit again...

continued...



I'm not sure what the point of the long numerical list following this. It seems to be arguing that possessing an enemy is often better than using a materialised spirit and that this is held up as a counter to something I said. I'll repeat my point: I said using possession spirits to possess and take out grunts is seldom worthwhile and I compared it to a magician taking people out with stunbolts. So first off, setting it up in comparison to materialised spirits doesn't address what I was saying at all. Secondly, I was explicit in stating that it wasn't often worthwhile unless you were dealing with more powerful enemies, not typical security guards. I said paying force x 500¥ / number of services to deal with grunts wasn't a good deal in comparison to a samurai's bullets and that summoning non-bound possession spirits at sufficient force to do this reliably on the fly was inefficient in comparison to just getting a couple of action phases of Stun Bolt in (or better, Stun Ball which at Force 6 has the same drain as the typical result of a Force 4 spirit summoning without the unpredictable risk of the spirit rolling high). So basically, the long comparison of Possession's advantages in this scenario over Materialisation aren't really germaine. If you really need to take control of an enemy grunt you can do it more quickly with Control Thoughts than with on the fly possession spirits - and the victim wont have glowing eyes and an energy aura to give him away, either! The point is that this all suggests this Possession tactic isn't actually that worthwhile against grunts, which is what I said. Save it for going against the cybered up troll family or something.

That point made, there are still a couple of issues with what you said anyway.



It's true that the Possession spirit starts "attacking" directly from the Astral. It's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other though. For one, it might fail completely whereas the Materialisation's failures will be partial. Even if its attacks aren't doing much damage, it's at least drawing fire, in melee with your enemies, etc. Basically, it depends on the circumstances. Want something to cover your retreat as you flee? Materialisation wins. Want to take down a lone guard before he can send an alarm? Possession might be the best. "MUCH more effectively" isn't supportable. The answer is: it depends.

Regarding "2x Force vs. standard mental attributes isn't even a challenge", this is arguing a general case from presumed specifics. If the average grunt has a Willpower and Intuition of 3, then you need a Force 4+ spirit for the odds to be in your favour. I basically reject you handwaving the availability of Force 4's summoned on the fly the whole time. There's a good chance you'll get drain doing this on a run, something the samurai or the adept doesn't have to worry about. And even at Force 4, the odds are hardly "isn't even a challenge". The odds of successful possession are actually only just over 53%. Boost yourself to a Force 5, and the odds become 70% in favour. That's a really bad cost to benefit ratio.



This has been addressed. And given all the disadvantages of Possession, they'd better get some breaks. If you're limited to only using available victims to get your spirits into combat rather than Materialisation spirits appearing wherever and whenever, they'd better come with some bonuses to balance them. (Incidentally, while I'm on the subject of the availability of vessels - "drone opposition." That's all I'm sayin'



I never said that. ItNW stacks with armour. The hardened quality only adds up to its normal limits. This is pretty clear. So someone with Ballistic Armour rating of 6 who suddenly gets possessed by a Force 3 spirit, now has Ballistic Armour 12 against mundane weaponry, and hardened armour of 6. So attacks need to beat the 6, and soaks against any that get through are rolled against with 12 (adjusted for AP).



This is slightly out. It's not +24 dice to resist damage. It's some extra to avoid getting struck, some as armour or body). The system has boundary conditions meaning the average results of separate tests can't simply be added together, especially when all these tests are subject to different modifiers. But yes, it's a big help in not dying. It's a Force 6 spirit. There's nothing wrong with it being a monster. It's supposed to be. You've either paid 3,000¥ for it (the cost of 66 grenades or four high explose rockets), or you've taken a big old risk in summoning it during run time. If you're the sort of magician who uses Force 6 casually, then you're the sort of magician who should be facing very dangerous opposition.



Yep. But the samurai is keeping her abilities all day long, fight after fight, with minimal cost, no occasional bad drain rolls, and without requiring notice and without being subject to all sorts of magical restrictions such as Mana Barriers, wards, background counts and aspected domains, sniping from astral attackers. Magic in Shadowrun has always been great gains at significant cost / risk. Basically, I'm fine with what you see as a problem. I've had to deal with a cybered up troll in an otherwise non min-maxed party. I can deal with a part-time version.



I don't know where you get the idea that having your armour possessed does anything to increase the Strength of the person wearing it. Digital Grimoire even explcitly states problems with doing such things.



I'm not sure of your point here.



I don't like this. You're implying that you wont deign to address to me or that I'm not worth addressing. Pretty rude and offensive and then going on to tell them to ignore what I've been saying. I think people can make their own minds up, you'll find.

I can't do it now, or for a while, as I am really supposed to be doing some heavy writing in RL, but sooner or later I think I will put the helpful hints and warnings into a list in the first post, giving the date for the latest edit, so that those who are seeking guidance can find it without wading through the acrimony that I fear may build up here as in other threads.

Thank you one and all for the helpful hints, and keep them coming!

Would you be willing for me to host a version of it on my site as a PDF, with a creditation to you? It would remain current that way as my site gets a lot of traffic and it would always be visible, rather than sliding down the forums.

K.

Sure! Thanks. But it will be a while, yet. I am trying to finish my doctoral dissertation, and hope to have the revised draft done this week and sent off to my supervisor. After it is done, I will have more time to futz with postings etc. God, maybe even play a game!

Except the digital grimoires take on how possession affects armor is somewhat backwards. Lets say I have a spirit possess the trauma plates in my armored vest. The plates themselves are rigid already, and their resistance to being flexed, bent, or broken can not in realistic terms impair my mobility any more then they already do regardless of how hard they become.

I always wanted to have a possession mage by a drone like a steel lynx, and gut most of the expensive electronics from it. Sensors, wireless, and all the stuff the spirit couldn't use anyway. Then prepare and possess it with a moderate force guardian spirit. You will have a) lowered the OR of the drone by gutting its overly complicated components, and rendered it unhackable, and you can still remotely operate it by leaving a set of physcial switches inside the drone the possession spirit can manipulate to allow it to drive the drone through wards if it needs to.

But,what if the possessing spirit, by increasing the armor value and barrier rating of the device (however it might do that), makes it heavier?

This sounds cool.

Or one could by a medical clone of a troll, have it cybered up to drop its essence and make enchanting it easier. Then just hook it up to life support, and take it out of storage whenever you need to do a run, call a force 4+ spirit in the morning to possess it, and have it play tag along.

It's not really a drone in that case though, it's a dual-natured being as opposed to being just an inanimate processed object. That's one of the first things I always point out when people bring up things like military strike forces built up entirely of possessed main battle tanks. It's technically possible and has some advantages to it in theory, but in practice you're often just adding a bit of immunity to normal weapons to something that was already highly armored to begin with while making it vulnerable to attacks from the astral. That's rather problematic when you consider that mana bolt doesn't really give a crap how much armor you have, so it's not really that great of a trade regardless of whether or not the GM lets you keep its Object Resistance. After all, a tricked out Steel Lynx is already pretty nasty to begin with and can definitely school your average security guard with or without Spirit assistance. I guess it would be wireless hack proof though, which is nice, but I actually think the Drones 'n' Spirits combined arms approach is an area that favors Materialization over Possession.

Which, really, brings me back to perhaps my favorite gaming moment. When the Big Bad shapeshifter villain of the campaign had his uber-spirit possess him in a last ditch effort to wipe out the team. I said "Oh, hey, a twofer!" and used my Edge to Mana Bolt him from hell to breakfast.

I didn't say it would be immune to magic, but if you have the spirit posses a control housing inside the steel lynx, it would be. Basically have arcade joysticks the spirit possesses, and have it ride around in the lynx. Or you can have it possess the lynx itself. This would work well if the opposition you're expected does not have a lot of magical support.

I have to say, I still like my troll idea.

What I'm talking about is not Rules™ or some "evil genie perverts your wishes" nonsense here, but rather suggested aesthetics for role playing, meant to demonstratively and emphatically remind everyone at the table that the mage is possessed. As in Linda Blair there is something else inside of me controlling my body possessed. As in cursing, spitting, lewd, crude Papa Ghede is now riding that hungan. Everyone at the table should be painfully aware that Mr. Wizbang ain't here no more and a fully conscious alien entity is staring out of his eyes. And yes I misspoke when I was talking about services to stop actions, but I clarified that. I was not attempting to make a "Rules Reading" here but to instead suggest how one would play and interpret a possessed character, again, from a role playing perspective. You may not put authenticity in role playing high on your list of priorities, so, if this advice doesn't really concern how you game, feel free to ignore it.

Oh, and fyi, saying that you would attempt to ruin a game and then flounce because you were asked to talk through proxy during brief periods of full body possession is terribly childish, and reiterating as much isn't civility.

Actually I got the idea that you were suggesting that the GM forcibly play the spirit in a manner that was deliberately different to what the player intends under the guise of roleplaying. Which I think was the same as what Mordinvan thought you were saying.

If your suggested roleplaying of the spirit did not entail additional mechanical disincentives, then I am sure that there would be no reason to attempt to ruin the game. However, if the GM were to house rule in such a way as to curb a player's fun, then it is the GM that is being childish and reiterating as much that a player would likely reciprocate in like manner is more civil than I would probably be.

Yeah, I was posting in a hurry and was very unclear. I totally understand how he could have come away with that impression.

That's never been my intention in a game. Still, allowing a player full control over his possessed character in the form of role playing the spirit directly doesn't seem right to me when there is potential still for "angry spirits" to resist the mage because he's dominating play to the detriment of others, er, I mean "being abusive towards spirits." As such, I like the proxy approach to make abuse less appealing.

And how that comes off will be based on the tradition of the character, and the relationship that tradition says the character has with their spirits. If I belong to a tradition in which spirits are nothing more then mana constructs, and slaves to my will, it can't do anything I don't want it to. It 'may' attach prefixes to all phrases, such as 'master says', or 'My summoner feels' but aside from that the message will transmitted as faithfully as the spirit can, and considering the link, that should be pretty well. It may well be completely devoid of emotion when it issues from your mouth, but the intent will be present.


This again all comes down to tradition. If the tradition says they are either shaped by your own personality, or fragments there of, it would not be beyond reason that depending on your mood they may be nearly indistinguishable from your actual character. Their apparent mood 'may' not be appropriate to the situation at the time which could be creepy, like a manic spirit howling in laughter in the middle of a fight, or a contemplative spirit calmly observing a grenade rolling in its direction, cause its already 'calculated' the thing won't get close enough to cause injury.


Even if I do, I'm MORE then capable of playing such roles on my own thanks, and having a GM telling ME that I'm going out of my way to piss of the corn flakes of someone I have no intention of picking a fight with in direct contradiction of the rules for being a possession tradition mage is going to see me make my POINT abundantly clear.


To say that I am going to walk up to a ganger and trash talk him, and pick a fight when I have no intention of doing so is MORE then grounds for me to mess with you in return. Having some spirit I have not otherwise pissed off intentionally twisting my words and intentions to make my life hell is full and complete justification for me to show you in return what it is like for someone to twist your intents and ruin your fun right back at you.

Wow, so how about you take how the player us actually supposed to interact with the spirits of their tradition into account, instead of tossing in your own houserules and fiates all the time? Unless by THAT tradition I'm somehow pissing off the spirits, then as a gm you should NOT be interfering with my interactions with them. If I grant the whatever forms of offerings, control, respect, or demands my tradition suggest, it shouldn't matter if I use them with surgical effectiveness. Not unless you're ready to have a sammy's gun jam just because he has enough dice in it to mow down a small army in 1 pass, or is in a decent ambush position. As a player it is my JOB to use the tools I have to the best of my ability to overcome the challenges of the game, and if I'm better at overcoming challenges then you are at making them hijacking my character to cripple me IS going to result in sub orbitals 'landing' in downtown Seattle.

And everything is great until some yahoo Wagemage banishes the spirit.

Or stun bolts it.

Spirits are not the end all, be all, but they are useful tools.

I believe what he intended in his original post was not that the spirit would force you into conflicts, but that you should choose to enter conflicts via provocation rather than directly telling your spirit to attack a group you need attacked, because provoking the gangers to attack you would cause the spirit to be forced to defend itself, something that wouldn't require a service. I don't believe it was his intention to imply that a spirit should be allowed to act outside the orders given to it by its summoner, after all, clarification of the manner in which a spirit should fulfill a service shouldn't require a service.

Now that's nice if you have the money - a genetically clean clone with no messy history and any implants you want. Of course poor Houngans have to make do with abducting trolls off the street.

With this approach, Inhabitation is actually more useful than possession, I'd say, assuming you can pull it off somehow. Which reminds me, something that I don't think has been raised so far which is a definite good tactic for possession mages is: Ally Spirits. Having an ally spirit be the one that possesses you gets rid of many of the disadvantages we've been discussing. Of course you have to be nice to it, but until it starts getting more powerful than you are and wondering why it should listen to you instead of the other way around, you have a spirit that wont run out of services and is unlikely to turn on you. Downside is the cost. If you want a Force 5 Ally spirit, that's 40 karma. In fact, I take it back - that's very cheap for what you get. Some people think Possession is overpowered. It isn't. But throw in an Ally spirit, and now we've got a scary mage.

My advice to GM's. If you see a magician character hording karma for more than a few sessions, kill them - they're up to no good.

K.

That's a really clever idea. I'd let that fly under the right circumstances. Of course, a medium force spirit isn't stupid. If you tell it to go up and hassle gangers, it knows you're asking it to start a fight (assuming the gangers don't run for their lives from the glowing-eyed, flame-aura'd freak). It would count that as a service. But if you're team-mates were in on the gag and started the fight on your behalf, perhaps you'd get away with it. It would depend on the spirit in my game. If it were a violent sort that wasn't antagonistic to you, then it probably would slap down an attacking ganger without charge. If it weren't that sort of spirit, it might well just wander off to get away from the conflict it wasn't interested in, in which case your back to making demands. Of course this sort of reliance on the spirit's own choices can work both ways. Say some people start hassling you and you don't want the Beast spirit that's possessing you to bite their throats out. Now you've got the opposite problem. Basically, I say all this is good - it's more interesting and it allows players to use their role-playing cleverness to get ahead whilst at the same time offering me as GM the implicit agreement that they're willing to accept spirits as actual people. Exactly what I want.



Heh! Says the mage's player. But the GM just says: "Beware the monsters from the Id", and smiles cryptically.

In other words, the more powerful the thought-form you create from your own mind, the more refined your skill in drawing only those aspects of you that you want to, must be. Example, a Chaos magician who has a penchent for abusing those weaker than himself summons a powerful spirit. Much is his dismay when the spirit casually lashes out at some innocent as they pass without any instruction from him.

Just in case people take the above and think I'm out to punish possession mages, that's not in fact the case. Firstly, I apply interesting personalities to Materialisation spirits just the same. Secondly, I try to be as generous as I can be cruel and to make players aware of how things work in advance. So for example, we had a Beast spirit summoned to take out some guards. It was high enough force that I considered it to have a fair amount of personality. It revelled in the fight, enjoying this world of new smells and tastes and prey so much that it not only spent Edge in the fight to do better, but continued to rampage around the compound wreaking havoc. Now if the players wanted to be stealthy, that's a downside, but as they wanted to make a mess, it was great. The point is that players get a feel for what spirits are like and can roll with this. I don't carry this too far, but my aim in a game is excitement and involvement, and you're short-changing yourself imo if spirits don't have some character.

K.

Depending on the spirit and tradition it might be fitting that you don't pay a service to have the spirit 'start' killing, but you may have to pay one to make stop.

To follow up knasser's thesis, here is a vignette about a Qabbalistic mystic adept I played recently. Unfortunately, the campaign died early. I was getting to like him. His name is Hodder. Kudos to anyone who figures out the connection for the name.

LINK TO POST WITH VIGNETTE

Without looking at the character but being a huge Friday the 13th fan I'm going to guess that the name is in reference to Kane Hodder - the true Jason.

Good guess, but not the one. Go more esoteric.

Get over yourself knasser. Your ego is a little too fragile and overinflated if that's what you think.
Only the first portion of my post was meant to address a particular poster, the rest of it was just a generalized reply to multiple items brought up by multiple people.



Mordinvan: few points...
One it's magic... there's magical effects which make things magically slower faster, no reason it can't increase the weight/rigidity/encumbrance of armor while it enhances it either.

My point was military armor can be and often is equipped w/ strength enhancement, and mobility enhancement... IE: similar to battletech powerarmor... a spirit which can move a drone should have access to these mobility enhancements as well, allowing it to counter the encumbrance penalty it would add.

Two: your steel lynx idea won't fly. Anything possessed becomes dual natured... so even if your spirit is inhabiting some control box in the middle of the drone. That box bolted to the drone can't simply pass through the ward. Even if somehow the spirit locked the joystick forward, unpossessed it, then let the drone go through, the spirits astral form is still stuck on the other side of the ward minus his ride.

Three: roleplaying your spirits... here's the issue here. Spirits are ALIEN intelligences... while especially at moderate/high force levels they become fairly intelligent. They still come from a completely different plane of existence and will not have your view of things. The primary reason to allow the player to roleplay is to keep them engaged in the game and not forced to sit idle off the side for long periods of time. However, this only makes the overpowered nature of possession spirits worse as well.

I don't see what the problem people have with possession spirits is.

Sure, a possession spirit can be used to take out a mook on the pass it comes onto the battlefield, in exchange it has the chance to fail its possession test and waste one of its two precious IPs doing nothing.
Sure, a possession spirit can possess a mage to make him virtually immune to lead bullets, in exchange now all the tactics normally used to take out spirits (stick n shock rounds, stunbolt, APDS) will be slightly less effective on the possession spirit, but will also take out the mage, so while the possessing spirit may be harder to kill than a materialization spirit its life is now connected with its conjurer, and if it gets taken out, so does the conjurer. Not to mention that regardless of whether or not you have Channeling, you still have lost the offensive capabilities of either your mage or your spirit to enhance the defensive capabilities of the other.
Sure, a possession spirit can be used to possess armor and make the mage obscenely hard to kill, in exchange the spirit loses access to most of its powers (which are primarily melee in origin) and becomes pissed with its summoner for being used as a meat shield. Maybe that won't be true for some spirits, but really, unless it's a guardian spirit of a tradition that gives the mage a lot of power over the spirit, it's gonna be pissed at being used to block bullets.
Sure, in general possession spirits have higher stats and armor when possessing a body than materialization spirits, in exchange they are limited by the body's augmented attribute maximums (I don't care if the possessed creature is a new creature or whatever, it's still possessing the body of a gnome and is limited to a gnome's maximum stats) and again have the chance of failing their possession test and wasting their time (not to mention that if your command to a spirit is "possess that guy" and he fails, he has to wait 24 hours to try again and uses up 1 service no matter what)

I think people look at the potential for abuse in possession spirits and immediately reject the idea without actually playtesting it. They're really not as good in practice as they look on paper.

Unless it deep astral shortcuts past the barrier.

It could find its summoner that way, because the summoner on the inside could call it. Could it find a steel box the same way?

Mordinvan:
A ward cannot be bypassed by using the astral path, UNLESS one of two things has happened.

The summoner is already INSIDE the ward and expends a service to call the spirit to him inside.
The spirit has already been inside the ward. (very unlikely if you're trying to sneak through a hostile ward)

So, no that doesn't work.

And if the summoner is already inside the ward... then putting the spirit inside a control box is kinda pointless, as the summoner could just order the un-possessed drone to chug through the ward anyhow and use the service to bring the spirit through.

Don't go injecting house rules and then saying its a disadvantage of the tradition. The rules for the physical stats of a possessed person are their stats + the spirits stats, with maximum augmented stats being 1.5 times that. Which depending on the person involved can get rather high rather quickly.
(Agility 6 + F6)*1.5 = 18... so if you can cast and augment attribute spell and get 6 successes... you're going to be quite the monster.

What are you talking about "house rule?" A spirit augments the possessed person's attributes by its force, nothing about that allows the spirit to augment a possessed person's physical attributes above their natural augmented maximums. The only examples in any of the books of stats being able to exceed augmented maximums (such as the strength mod upgrade of military grade armor) specifically state that that enhancement is capable of bringing its user's attribute above its augmented maximum. There are numerous examples in several of the books of enhancement bonus being implicitly understood not to be able to augment a character's stats above his augmented maximum (such as muscle replacement or reaction booster) without specifically stating that they can't. There's no house ruling about this, unless an enhancement is specifically stated to be able to increase a person's attributes above their augmented maximum, it is understood that it can't.

No it does not. This is the crux of the matter. The new entity replaces the original entity, stats and all. The possessed entity is explicitly stated to be a new entity. The FAQ reiterates that augmented maximums are irrelevant (not because the book says otherwise, but because some don't believe what it says). Published examples of possessed people show physical stats in excess of the vessel's augmented maximums (there are two such examples in Ghost Cartels, which I referenced earlier). The developers themselves have said so here on the forums. Possession doesn't provide a boost to someone's stats. It creates a new dual entity with different stats. Mental stats are explicity stated to be replaced by the spirit's also. If a troll were possessed by a Force 9 spirit, would you say that it would not have Logic 9? If you do argue that then you are in contradicting what the rules state. If you don't, then you've accepted that stats can be replaced with ones in excess of the vessel's augmented maximums.

We're in agreement that Possession isn't some game-breaking monster, but on this point, I have to say that augmented maximums of the vessel don't have any bearing on the newly created dual entity.



Yeah, refute my statement that you're being insulting with, er, insults. That really supports the case for you not being rude, doesn't it?

And anyway, what I said was that it was rude for you to say you weren't going to address me and I think if you make a comment like "to everyone else..." and then just repeat all the points I was contesting as if to say "ignore all that, this is how it is", well it's pretty clear for all to see that this is what you're saying. And that's what you've gone on to do - ignore comments that disagree with you. I made a lot of points demonstrating the problems with what you were saying and you've refused to either address any of them or admit that you're giving out wrong information to people. That's not good and it wont win people over.

K.

Not unless the steel box was the magician that summoned it.

The issue is the word "find". A spirit can use a metaplanar shortcut to get somewhere (inside a barrier or out), but it can't use them to know where to go. If you put a ward up around a place, there's nothing to stop it appearing within that space. But unless someone tells it that's where it should go, there's no reason it suddenly knows what's inside that space. Of course a magician can summon it to herself from insude there.

You're argument about mental stats is flawed. The troll doesn't suddenly become smarter when being possessed by a force 9 spirit, the spirit gains control of the troll's body and it uses its own mental stats. The original mind of the troll, however, remains intact and its attributes unchanged as an impotent witness inside the possessed body. Would you argue that a knowledge check, made by a conjuring magician who happened to be a troll who had possessed himself, should use the spirit's mental attributes to make the check?

You're going to have to come up with something a bit more substantial than examples from modules and a discredited, out of date FAQ to satisfy me about this topic. I might accept a link to a forum topic in which a developer specifically stated that he supported you're interpretation of the Possession rules. Until then, there is absolutely no argument you can make that will make me accept that a pixie possessed with a force 5 spirit can suddenly have a body of 7. Such an interpretation is entirely unbalancing.

Would a Pixie who had a body of 2 and who cast Shapechange on herself to take the form of a Baboon or Wolverine (p. 94, 96 Running Wild) with say 5 hits on a spellcasting test have a body of 9? Because that's what the rules say she would have. How is this different from becoming a completely new being via possession?

IT'S MAGIC!!!!

There you go. Convinced now on the error of your ways?

I don't care about whether or not it's magic, it's not conducive to game balance and as far as I can tell from the possession rules in Street Magic is not what the developers intended.

At least with shapechange the pixie takes on a new form, and while I might argue that hits on a shapechange spellcasting test should be subject to augmented maximum limitations just like any other attribute boost, I don't know what that would number would be for a wolverine and therefore would state the shapechange power may be excluded from the natural augmented maximum rule simply because animals in shadowrun do not effectively have natural augmented maximums. The shapechange spell has other inherent disadvantages that make its attribute effects balanced with the rest of the game, unlike unrestricted possession attribute bonuses, which are likely to be significantly higher than the bonuses gained from a Shapechange spellcasting test and maintain the advantage of the user retaining his own body and hands.

Well game balance is a separate discussion (which I'm happy to have), but as to what the developers intended that's easy. they intended augmented maximums of the vessel to have no bearing on the new entity. We know that because they wrote the FAQ which couldn't be more explicit on the subject and have also said that this is what they intended here on the forums.

As regards my example of Logic going higher than the augmented maximums being flawed, that doesn't work because as far as the rules are concerned there's no difference. The only difference is a fluff one because you say the spirit has overwritten the vessels mind so it's okay to apply a different standard. But you can just as easily apply a fluff reason to exceeding the augmented maximums of the vessel. In fact, why shouldn't you? In your case, only because you don't want the mechanical consequences. That's fine, but the rules still say what they say, the developers still say the rules mean what they meant them to mean and the published examples still conform to these rules, not your interpretation. Really, I'm absolutely fine with you playing it however you like, it's your game. But I'm very sure that the rules as written are that you replace the stats with the new entities.

For what it's worth, your rebuttal using knowledge checks as an example is flawed. Once a magician has channeling, his skills become available to the new entity, but the mental stats are still the spirit's.



Well I don't have a link saved and I'm not going to spend hours trawling through old threads, so you're just going to have to take my word for it. Or you could think that I'm lying I suppose. But I don't know why you'd doubt it because the FAQ is incredibly clear (if you haven't read it, go do so) and that was written by the developers. You can hardly suppose that it's unreasonable for a developer to have said these things on the forum, when you've got them written out on the website publicly. You can repeat that the FAQ is discredited, but I don't know why and you can repeat that the FAQ is old, but that's hardly pertinent because Street Magic is older still. Ghost Cartels isn't at all old, btw and even if you wish to dismiss examples that don't fit your interpretation, there's no good reason why anyone else will.

As to game balance, I'm not overly concerned by a pixie with Body 7. At any rate, at that point it's no longer a pixie, exactly. It's Linda Blair with butterfly wings.

Peace,

Khadim.

As much as I hate to say it, after looking over the FAQ I must admit that your interpretation does seem to be correct. I am forced to admit that by RAW possession traditions are broken and unplayable in the interests of game balance. A possession spirit is always superior to a materialization spirit and a summoner mage can easily get all of his physical attributes up to 10 or higher no matter what his race is, and a min/maxed troll mage can get a strength above 20 with little trouble. Possessed beings are nigh unkillable monsters that can tear cars in half and wear them as gloves.

I was reasonably certain the spirit could go anywhere its 'seen', and since the cameras and on the Steel Lynx would have seen past it, and the spirit possessing something is a dual natured creature, and can see a video monitor, they should be able to see on the other side as well, and go there.

Unless of course, you use Direct magic, Banishing, Mana Static, gas/elemental attacks, target any allergies they may have or use weapon foci, in which case they are a fancy materialized spirit with boosted stats. Basically, how overpowered possession spirits are is directly contingent on how thoroughly you have nerfed things a lot of the other stuff people worry about as being overpowered. Irony kills.

All the more fun to kill them. Bring your friends and heavy weapons!

Yes, exactly, they are fancy materialized spirits with boosted stats, superior in every way to materialized spirits. Direct Magic will be less effective on a possessed target than a normal one because possessed targets will always have more body, and therefore more condition boxes, than a normal spirit of the same force. Banishing might work, but is again no more effective against a possession spirit than a materialized spirit and is rarely used because this is pretty much the one case where its useful. Mana static has reduced effectiveness against possession spirits because unless you manage to get it high enough to disrupt them, they still have decent attributes from their host body, possession spirits are way more effective in background counts than materialization spirits. Allergies only apply to 2 types of spirits, neither of which are combat spirits for possession traditions. Gas is a rare case where because possession spirits have bodies, they get affected by toxins, but elemental attacks are weaker against possession spirits than materialization spirits because they will have higher stats and will likely be wearing armor, something a materialization spirit never does. A weapon focus is usually a good equalizer against a spirit, but not so against possession spirits. They have body and reaction at several steps higher than their materialized counterparts and can wear armor in addition to their ITNW, so a weapon focus attack still gets blocked by armor.

Sure, its possible to kill possession spirits, but it's significantly harder than killing materialization spirits. That's what makes it unbalanced, unless you have an answer to possession, they will roll over you, more so than any other type of magic except maybe mind control, and even if you do have an answer, it will be the same answer that you would use against a materialization spirit, and it will be less effective at fighting a possession spirit than its materialized counterpart. Possession spirits by RAW are broken and because of that it is always better to be a mage of a possession tradition than one of a materialization tradition.

Except that materialization spirits get to skip many difficulties that possession spirits have to deal with. Maybe it's just the way I structure things, but "I can't die to these guys" rarely solves much in my campaigns, particularly once you factor in maintaining enough services. In any case, it takes more work than I think you're willing to admit to have a vessel that outperforms a Materialized high force spirit appreciably enough to justify the extra effort, particularly since those boosted physical attributes have little utility outside of combat.

Unless you are attempting to get utility out of them by say, getting them to do stuff on the physical when there isn't a motile object around to possess. They're good but have enough draw backs as to keep them from being "superior in every way to materialized spirits"