No problems there, except that the rules are not clear, as evidenced by the ammount of debate that occurs on how they work.



You seem to be making an assumption on the timing of when the minimums apply. That assumption (which may or may not be correct) is the point of contention. All other character types do not have to concern themselves with a minimum value in a stat only applying during the first steps of character creation. Without being explicitly stated the norm would be to follow all the standard generic rules. This would allow a character to buy up their Force stat, creating new, higher minimums.


The only things that are obvious is that the rule is written in an unclear fashion, there are 2 very different ways to interpret it, one method gives what appears to be an overpowered PC, one gives an underpowered PC.

I have no stake in which method is correct, our table doesn't allow them at all

@TommyTwoToes

On the first thought, this seems correct. But it is actually not.
The amount of discussion about a topic is quite independent of "how clear the rules are".
There are a lot of things which are not "clear" by the book. Still there is no discussion about it. Simply because all but one of the options would cripple the game or something like that.
As a matter of fact: Discussion occure if a certain aspect of the rules could be read (with a lot of stretch) to justify an enormous increase in power for certain concepts.

For example: The hole physical and mana spell stuff is not clear. Some pyhsical spells have to affect the astral and some physical powers have even to be used there. But discussion one occur only to certain distinct points.


Well, you have to follow through. My assumption is not contradicted by the rest of the text. The other "assumption" is. So I guess it is obvious, which one is incorrect.
And since there remains just one possibly correct assumption (the one I made), this one would have to be considered the correct one.

While I am of the side of the debate that favors your interpretation, I would still like you to point out where the assumption of "increasing force increases remaining attributes automatically" is contradicted in the text.

It was Aaron per multiple sources. The guy who wrote the computer section of the main rules.

That explains a lot right there...

Well there are several point all over the text.
First of all, the force beeing used as minimum is only stated in the beginning, right next to the starting Force. Later on (when the text is about the starting attributes again) it states, that your minimum is 2

An other point is, that for possession spirits the attributes are added to the attributes of the vessel. Why not add the force, if they are equal?

If you take the hole context of the rules: It would have been stated specificly, because it would have been contradicting the rules for any other character. This is one of the rules which would have been stated multible times.

Then again the text later on only talks about using the (increased) force as maximum. The word minimum is never mentioned in paragraph again.

Yes, but it is never refuted.

You see, if you need to raise your Force in order to raise your other attributes, and your Force determines your natural minimums, then there is no contention. You raise your Force and your attributes raise automatically. The mention of Maximums was put in there to determine Augmented Maximums.

Also, the part about adding your Attributes and not adding your Force was a forethought for allowing Exceptional Attribute to be used on one physical attribute - in this case, that particular attribute would not neccessarily be equal to the Free Spirit's Force.

Becouse their not always equal, minimum is the force, but augmented maximum is force*1,5 so some attributes might not be equal to force when the spirit is possesing a vessel.
Also as Exceptional Attribute is an allowed quality for free spirits PC, they might have that meaning one of their atributes is at force+1(could actually be +2 as surge isn't in the list of dissallowed qualitie, so could also get metagenetic improvment.)

Heh, a changeling Free Spirit - hadn't thought of that one. Since I guess they technically are a Non-Metahuman Sapient, it would work with the GM's approval. Three cheers for vague wording^^

@Mäx
Well, as a matter of facts, spirits have no possibility to augment their attributes if astral.

Second the Exeptional attribute would be a waste of points.
You raise Force by one and all attributes are on the same level again. (I know you want to dispute that, but please read the text before you do so.)

I just read the text three times and I'm not seeing what you apparently do. Please quote and underline the pertinent sections.

He decided that the text is perfectly clear and that no debate is needed. Anyone who disagrees is wrong.

Our group has a Free Spirit character. Lots of fun. We went with the option presented in the SR4CG DK, the weaker option (which follows RAW according to the Free Spirit Character creation guidelines).

He is playing a possession spirit. His stats are terrible... 2's on all physical attributes, and 3's on mental. But its sorta irrelevant, since he possesses tough people, and then boosts their stats with his own attributes. In fact, our group houseruled that possession spirits only raise their host's stats by 1/2 the spirits stat, since possession spirits are so high powered anyway.

It does require some care by the player. When he leaves a body (or is forced out of it) he is VERY vunerable on the astral. A force 4 or 5 conjured spirit could easily beat him in astral combat. He has to rely on astral spells like manabolt, and running away. He often hires other players or NPC mages to summon spirits to follow and aid him, just in case he ends up in the astral.

Instead of raising his physical attributes, he has been raising his Force/Edge and buying spirit powers. He just is always sure to either avoid combat, or enter it while possessing a powerful character or vehicle.

If we used the crazy powerful spirit rules, he would have started with 5 in all attributes, and probably focused on raising his force. He would quickly become much too powerful. A manifestation spirit with stats of 6 or higher is bad enough... but a possession spirit with high attributes... just ugly.

From our experience, the benefits of being a free spirit make it worth having weak starting attributes.

If you want to make them more powerful, follow the weak rules, but allow the free spirit to raise his attributes for just 3 karma x new level, rather than 5. The spirit will catch up fast enough, trust me.

@TommyTwoToes
Sometimes I get tired form repeating the obvious, I know it is strange.

@Neraph
Well, I said many diffrent things. Which of them do you not see?
Well of course they do not write "increasing the force does not increase your attibutes". There is also nowhere said, that trolls can't fly.
This discussion reminds me of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_hlMK7tCks.
"He wrote minimum!!"

For the sake of peace I will explain it in detail.


Well I guess, this common ground. The Force starts with two.
So to speak Force(t)=2. For t=0.

Well, I guess a lot of people got a huge problem with the word determines.
This does not mean equals! It just means that the attributes are somehow a function of the force.
This could, for example, be:
Attributes(Force)= ln(Force)

Well, so the spirit uses his force attribute as the magic attribute.

I guess, thats common ground again.

Well and here comes the function for the maximums.
But the minimums could still be close to everything.

So the function for the minimus, finally.
They are all 2. The function is: Minimum(Force)= Force(0) = 2.


Other stuff.

So Irion believes that Free Spirit PC's should follow rules vastly different from any other spirit any book lists, in clear opposition to the Rules as presented in the books, especially the book in question. Gotcha.

And @ DamienKnight: How is a single possession spirit any more powerful than a possession tradition mage capable of summoning 6 possession spirits? And in fact, those possession spirits summoned have a lot more Powers than a Free Spirit PC, even following the "More Powerful" option.

This doesn't make any sense what so ever.
Exceptional atributes raises the atributes maximum by 1, for free spirits that maximum(as is minimum) is their force, so with exceptional attribute(Charisma) his maximum for chararisma is force+1 and allways will be unless he gets metagenetic improvment(charisma) in witch case its force+2. Raising his force has absolutely no effect on what exeptional attribute does.

There is a 3rd option no one is talking about because its really unthinkable to have to build a character like that.

You raise your force to 3. You now have to spend BP or Karma raising every individual attribute to 3. You raise your force to 4. You now have to spend BP or Karma to raise every individual attribute to 4. No attribute can be left lower than Force, because Force is the "natural minimums and maximums" for free spirit attributes.

This is actually RAW. The other two options are not. Have fun with that.

In the desription of Free Spirit PCs on page 91 of Runner's Companion, it tells us that Does this mean that, unlike NPC Free Spirits, the PC Free Spirit has forgotten the Skills and Powers it had moments before it went Free? Because if it has not forgotten them, then the characterization of the Free Spirit PC as being underpowered (in interpretation B above) is not so compelling.

In fact, simply allowing the Free Spirit PC to keep the Skills and Powers it had, as a bound Fire Spirit, Guidance Spirit, whatever, would go a long way towards making that 250 BP initial cost seem sensible.

EDIT: The interpretation B I am talking about is the one Laodicea describes immediately above.

EDIT 2: Although the Fixated Quality would seem to suggest that the past pwers and skills do not carry through.

Huh, thats definedly not RAW, unless your saying that trolls have to pay 80 build points extra for their minimum 5 body and strenght.
Or even more relevantly that someone taking metagenetic improvment have to pay 10 build points for their new minimum atribute.
Minimum is the slowest value the attribute can be and is free.

@Mäx
If you would use the option favored by Neraph, then every time you increase your force every attribute would be increased up to force.
Example:
Spirit with megamagic improvement Charisma (one point spent) and Force 4:
S B A R C I L W
4 4 4 4 5 4 4 4
Spirit is increasing its force to five:
S B A R C I L W
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

Actually I think Laodicea is right. The point is, there would be three different values:
1) Starting value of any attribut. (2 for spirits and 5 in case of body for trolls)
2) Minimum value for any attribute. (Force for spirits and for example 5 in case of body for trolls)
3) Maximum value: (Spirit Force, Body(Troll): 10)

@Laodicea
Neraph would have to agree with you (I do not, because I read the sentence in question in a different way). But he wont. Because it is not really about the text. (As I said, the text is actually quite easy to understand)
It is about making spirits better, because by some holy rule something exotic has to be extremely strong. I never understood this and I suppose I never will. It just seems to be in the head of a bunch of people.

@pbangarth

Yes. The point is to keep the creation simple and to prevent introducing a "class" system for one type of character, which would be overkill.
That is why PCFS use a quite different set of rules then any other spirit.

These 2 are essentially the same think, all your attributes start att their minimum value and are never lower then that, also stats at their minimum value never ever cost anythink.

And i dont see what point your trying to make with that attribute listing,becouse that doesn't exactly have anythink to do with what exceptional attribute does.
Exceptional attribute raises the attribute max,which also raises that stats augmented maximum, meaning you can boost that stat higher.
But i do admit that actually rasing that stat isn't smart use of ones karma, for that metagenetic improvment is a better shoice, as it actually raises the attributes minimum value too

So what happens when you compare you're "awesome" free spirit PC in your game to a possession mage that can not only have an unbound spirit possess the tame tough Guy your PC would but then can cast spells himself or involve other, bound spirits? The difference is too freaking huge to say the weal option is playable at all. The strong option is barely making it to the comparison with the mage. THAT is the real crux of our arguments here.

I mean, anything is playable with a generous and judicious GM, but not all Gmail are fair, nor possibly experienced enough to deal with the.particulars. free spirits should be at LEAST on par with a spirit that any Joe mage can summon.

Sorry for text blocking. Posting from my phone. Proper formatting and.grammar is difficult at best.

@Starmage21
Lets start with the simple things.
Beeing able to travel close to the speed of light.
Beeing close to immortal.
No need for food.
No need for shelter.
(And may be no need for sleep, I dont know)


May be the crux is, that this spirits are just too strong?

Sorry, but just build such a spirit for the sake of the argument.
Lets just keep it simple:
Force 6->attributes 6->edge 6.
For the rest of the Points we are getting some Connections, skills and 10 spells.
We do not take fancy stuff, just concealment, guard etc.
Concealment alone is close to game breaking. The spirit is not risking up 12 boxes of damage for the ability to conceal about 2-3 Person. He is able to hide up to 6 Persons (if I am not mistaken) just by announcing.

Mages are just able to get some of the spirits powers. The spirit has his own powers available at any time. This is a huge differance.

Just regarding that last line: are you serious? LOL

In truth it maybe because I'm used to a more gamist perspective , but I've not seriously seen a 4th edition mage yet who doesn't have every spirit power he needs or wants at any given time thanks to unbound spirits. This is especially true of posession mages. Hell thereve been a few who'd bind several spirits to get different powers like movement and concealment and guard.

Moreover, there are a couple spirits who will have all 3 of the big powers at force 6. Well within the abilities of a 400 bp starter mage to conjure nearly willy nilly

Actually, I would have to agree with him if he ever quoted and emphasised anything that was pertinent. He is intentionally twisting "minimums" into some wierd ruling that is not found in any book anywhere, and as such, has invalidated his own statement.

@Starmage21
And any force 6 spirit you call has a chance of rolling up to 12 dices (and rerolling the 6s) for two boxes of damage per hit.
Lets do the math, thats about 8-9 boxes of damage.


Well, because binding spirits is such an easy thing to do. here you go with force*2 dices to begin with. Adding another force dices on top of that.
Even if you just stick with an force 5 spirit you would still need to pay the binding materials. And even if you get about 14 dices to bind, there is a good chance, that you will fail the test. So you take damage and money loss for nothing.

And there are still other, sirious limitations.
Like wards. Spirits are able to stay astral for as long as they like. So there is no reason for them not to "press" through the soil to bypass wards. As a matter of fact, they could just fly through the ward, hide inside a Wall, the soil or anywhere, untill the security is back to normal. If they got the Aura masking, the multible Form, Concealment and the realistic Form power they could go on with their mission as some small insect. (With ITNW)

a spirit using edge to resist being summoned or bound is GM's call. So on what grounds would you say that a spirit in your game would use edge to resist a summoning/binding? For me, there'd have to be something akin to spirit bane, or being called into a heavy background count, or similar grievous situation. To me, the precedent is that spirits either dont mind being summoned all that much, or theyre just used to it, since just about every mage that appears in missions has a bound spirit or two, and an unbound as well.

Also, you can't go through the dirt, Gaia is a dual-natured being. But I DO get the jist of what youre saying. If there's a ward, just go under/over it. I'm pretty sure when you ward areas, it doesnt just form a wall, but protects the area. It sound's really cheesey to be able to just "go under it" like it's a wall. If this is NOT the case, than any self-respecting wage-mage should ward the floors and ceilings of an area thats designated for such protections as a matter of practicality.

Mage's themselves have mutable forms too. There's the physical mask spell, and shapechange; both of which are unnoticable without assensing or a ward in the way.

Lastly, binding materials are cheap. You can afford them easily even with the crappy payouts that come from the Shadowrun Missions that've been officially published. Mages dont have many other uses for money anyway.

There should be an Astral Notoriety rating for Summoners.
Based on how they treat the spirits based on their tradition.
A Coyote Shaman who summons spirits and treats them like slaves, mistreats them, doesn't go with the niceties will start getting Notoriety. Maybe you roll the notoriety, if you get a hit, then the spirit uses edge resisting the summoning roll.
Hermetics in my mind, should always be summoning spirits that roll edge. They don't treat most spirits as sentient beings, but instead treat them as workhorses. And, that puts some flavor back into the differences between traditions.
Maybe a Voodoo Spirit rolls edge if you didn't make the right offerings, or if you're summoning it into an unprepared vessel.

Traditions should mean more than, which uber spirits did I get, and did I point optimize my Drain Stat properly.

Yes you can, albeit slowly. I think Street Magic likens it to walking through molasses, or something like that.

Well, the only payment the spirit recieves is the drain of the mage, as far as I know. As a matter of fact, a PC would use edge on this roll. Why shouldn't a NPC not

Got a page for this? I really didnt know this. I wonder if it was incorporated into SR4a, because my corebook states that "gaia is a dual-natured being" spiel and you cant pass through her to get where youre going.

I always think of wards as not a wall, but a volume protection.

Everything 'inside' the ward is protected, no matter how you get 'to' the ward.

There really isnt a rebuttal for this, as it's fairly correct. If your PC regularly blows edge on spirit binding, by all means blow spirit edge to resist. Hell, why not just have the spirit burn an edge point in a big "fuck you!" to the player? Cause that's really all this sounds like.

Summoning and/or binding a spirit does not necessarily constitute abuse, even if a PC spends edge on it. Hell, depending on tradition, you could argue that the spent edge and accompanying extra services represents the willingness to serve on part of the spirit thanks to the sacrifice of a bit of luck on part of the player's character.

in addition: regardless of how the spirits arrive, the original argument remains unchanged. Summoned spirits, bound or unbound, can do everything a free spirit PC can, and more, including the pseudo-teleport mentioned above as a major strength of a free-spirit PC. Thus making free-spirit PCs broken on the gimped side.

Street Magic, pages 114-5.

The counter to this argument also remains unchanged. The Free Spirit PC has unlimited usages of its Powers, without having to Summon/Bind a spirit with the attendant Drain and financial costs.

Following along this thread, my opinion has vascillated regarding the usefulness of this PC archetype. It is beginning to settle somewhere in the middle between the extremes presented here. Yes, the Free Spirit PC starts with relatively low Attributes, and perhaps few Skills. Yet, for half a Power point, the Free Spirit PC and his teammates never glitch. For another half Power point, the Free Spirit's opponents have to continually deal with Accident. For one Power point, the Free Spirit PC and his team are forever fast. For (an admittedly hefty) two Power Points, the Free Spirit and his team are forever Concealed. These continual effects are not trivial.

But you dont need any of those effects active all the time and when you do need them summoned spirits provide them just fine.
The fact is that it always better to just build a summoner instead of a free spirit, if playing by Irions rules.

In regards to the discussion about the Effect of Force on the Attributes of a Free Spirit PC, it is instructive to look at this section of the Friendship Pact sidebar on page 93 of Runner's Companion:
The implication here is that the Attributes do not automatically rise with Force.

Not to mention how hard it is going to be for the face to get some action if he's forever fighting a -6 concealment

Well, the Concealment only works against a Perception Test to locate the subject. If no Perception Test is required, it isn't a problem. And Concealment can be turned of and on again.

An interesting Quality that isn't, but perhaps should be, denied in the banned list of Qualities for Free Spirit PCs is Gremlins. With the 0.5 point Power Guard, Gremlins is a free 20 BP.

Well, no. First of all: Burning edge for other things then survival should be outlawed in the first place.


Well, I guess wanting as much payment as possible is also not unreasonable.


You still have to bind them. You still have to call them. And teleportation is quite useless, if the one who is in command can't follow.
Spirits do not need cloth or any equipment as long as they have the multible form power.
Shapechange might also be a good idea.

@Mäx
I guess the what rules are offical thing is over. There is just no basis for your assumption.
And I guess you know that.


An other point of view I do not share.
I would announce, that I am able to build a free spirit, (400BP + 200 Karma) which is able to stand against a mage.

I think many here (I don't necessarily count myself among their number) would argue that it is a stretch to say the Free Spirit PC would survive long enough to get 200 Karma.

Though... with the right Spirit Pact(s)....

A 200 Karma mage? How much money did he get extra with that 200 Karma.

If you look at Mission Rewards, to get 200 Karma which is roughly 45 missions. You would easily have received 5k per mission. That's 200,000 nuyen pretty easily. Even if I say 1/2 of it was spent on 'lifestyle and other costs.' That's still another 100K.

A 400bp mage, with 200 karma and 100,000 for foci, enchanted items and bound spirits? He's going to be able to Summon a Spirit as good as your 400bp+200 Karma free spirit.

What team function does he perform better than a standard mage?

Infiltration. It's hard for a mage to get materialization.

I guess Face would work best.

As opposed to a mage going astral and having spirits who can materialize for him?

@Mooncrow
Like this he will be burning through services like nothing.

"Ok, so fire spirit, I want you to materialize in the vault and search through the file cabinet for the report on project Golf Ravine."
"What's a report?"

/shrug My mage never has fewer than 5 spirits bound, averaging 5-6 services each. And for most infiltration tasks, a force 1 spirit summoned on the fly works just fine.

Hmm, I wonder how they would do as a silent guard killer, though. I'll have to stat that out.

Good thing you can call up another type of spirit with Search instead^^

edit: I do agree that some type of infiltration/assassin type of role is going to be a free spirit's best shot at relevance on a team - I just don't know if the glaring weaknesses are enough to make up for the handful of tricks they can do.