Yes, the Possession tradition is over powered-- but really the reason is more that spirits are overpowered. The possession itself does add an edge, and the lack of GM's and Player's understanding increase that. Possession traditions also seem to have gotten prime choices of spirits. Two things that are overlooked:

1. Noticing someone prossessed is really, really easy. This was overlooked in the GenCon 2009 SRM Scramble and left a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouth. Spotting the spirit is (6 - Force) target on a perception test (SM pg. 95).

2. Possession is (F * 2) vs. a living target's (Will + Int). Since most spirit's powers just go against Willpower, the Intuition part gets left out a lot.

3. It's a simple action to command a spirit, and a complex action to cast-- so if the mage commands his spirit, no casty for that action. This is overlooked a lot on other traditions too. The spirit needs a complex action to possess someone.


Lastly, for reference: most spirits have Fear... which is more OP'd than possession. Fear is spirits Force time two, vs. Willpower. There's very little you can get to improve this, as Spell Defense doesn't help. If you can get a Force 4 great form spirit, where they get fear as an AoE, you can pretty much own all the NPC's in the area.

In addition all spirits get their skill ratings equal to their force, so the Shaman that summons his daily force 9 spirit (common at our table), will own the 150 karma, melee specialized, weapon foci fighting adept. Let's be honest, the spirit will fear the adept anyway But he would get the same amount of dice as this adept to attack in melee.

Response to #2

your forgetting that its actually F*2+6 as the magician is considered to be a prepared vessel

but yes ... int + will vs. force x2 if the spirit is possessing someone other than the mage

possession isnt that bad to start .... it gets silly when you add Channeling into the mix .... Mage Retains all his own skills and abilities + adds the force to physical attributes as well as gains the immunity to natural weapons power and is no longer a passanger in his own body

I think SaintHax hits the main problem nail on the head when he points out that the limitations on Possession (and spirits in general) tend not to be applied. If they were, the 'overpowered' argument would largely go away.

Is it possible for magician, who has successfully placed a spirit into a vessel, to order it to let the vessel control it's own physical actions? Assuming the vessel can do so, of course, like a living vessel or a drone.



-k

By the description on page 102, SM, I don't think so. "Impotent" is the key word for me.

no its not ... if the vessel is alive .... the act of possession forces the conciousness from the forfront into passanger mode .... the target is aware of all actions being done ... but is completely unable to prevent / change / influence in any way

the only Way possession mages are able to circumvent this is through the channeling metamagic feat (I dont remember the page Number but its in street magic) Channeling creates a symbiosis (if you will) between the conciousness of the spirit and magician allowing them to share both body / mind / skills ect

now if the possessed is awakened and can project ... there is nothing stopping the mage from projecting and engaging the spirit in astral combat in a fight over the body

Okay, thanks.

I suppose a drone (or a living vessel with commlink access) could still perform non-physical software based actions.





-k

One thing that has occured to me, after reading channeling again I'm not sure it's doing what people think it's doing. It's not putting the mage back in the drivers seat (even though the fluff kind of suggests this) it's giving the spirit access to the mages skills. I'm going to brain someone with this bit of rules trivia next time I have a channeling possesion mage at my table.

That's not how I read, "The Channeling magician can use her own skills and has fine motor control over her body while enjoying the enhancing benefits of the Possession power." Could you explain your reasoning, please?

Still I would rather have my gaurdian possession spirt posses something else and chuck it the gun I have for it. Then it can unleash hell while I spam spells. The real issue is getting a vessal in to combat. I kind of like the possessing milspec armor with quick relases and at least FABB under that. hop out of the armour then it fights for you the real issue is now you are wearing less armour and geek the mage still holds.

You just possess one of your opponents. A F6 can be summoned fairly easy by a straight mage right out of the door. That's 12 dice against the NPC. At a TR 1-3 table, we are talking about a combined Will+Int of about 8 or 9 for most NPC opposition. Now... the GM could have the bad guys use Edge (whole 'nother issue, if a GM should do this ever), but then I'd have to ask that GM why the other bad guys didn't use Edge to dodge the Street Sam's bullets.

So, you control the bad guy, use his weapon on his team. Unpossess the bad guy, and incapacitate him.

Personally I do periodicly have my bad guys use edge to dodge the street sams bullets. How much edge bad guys have is something that should be tweaked for SR04.

I was mistaken/misremembered but actually the point that I've found is they cannot speak by the raw. Further, and somewhat more shaky, while they can exercise fine motor control and use their skills I see it as something that the spirit has to allow or request. A petty distinction I realize but possesion mages, especially the ones who start the mission by summoning a spirit and having it posses them as free skills/ITNW/stat boosts and armor boosts put me in a petty mood.

I stand by my case that while spirits are powerful the summoning mage PC is still squishy and vulnerable. The possesion tradition gives the summoning better stats and armor then a fully tank armored cybersam on top of all their other abilities. That I have quite a bit of annoyance with.

If they are summoning spirits over F3, then they will be spotted very easily. I'd use that with your petty mood.

Yeah its normally better done on an openent so you take soem one out of the fight and you can still do what you do.

Exactly. Where could you go and do your job unnoticed with your eyes smoking and your skin crawling with serpents? The flip side is you may not care in the middle of a run what you look like, because you will shoot anyone who sees you. That's fine, and a guy with beefed stats is no more scary to the GM and his minions than a guy with a flaming tower beside him.