I was reading the rules on Ally spirits. It seems that when making the Ally spirit formula, the character chooses the Materialization or Inhabitation power for the spirit. But looking at Inhabitation for an Ally spirit, it seems like Inhabitation is a really bad choice in almost all ways (shorthanding now for Inhabitation and Materialization 'cuz I got tired of typing them )

1) When conjuring / binding the Ally spirit, In. needs to have a prepared vessel ready. Ma. doesn't need anything extra.
2) After conjuring / binding, the In. merge takes days. Ma. is ready to go from day one.
3) There are 3 forms available for In. spirits: flesh form, hybrid form, true form. These forms aren't choosable, but decided by some opposed rolls.

flesh form: retains all of the host's skills (not likely to have any for an Ally spirit prepared vessel?), gets ItNW, Realistic Form, Aura Masking (slightly useful, I guess)
hybrid form: retains natural abilities, no skills (same as above), gets ItNW, can't go Astral, vessel is obviously warped and "strange"
true form: vessel is destroyed, In. spirit gains Ma. and Astral Form, so it's now a Ma. Ally spirit

4) None of these forms above seem anywhere as useful as just Ma., since the In. Ally spirit is "stuck" in just one vessel.
5) So it seems that In. has lots of downsides, and almost NO upsides, aside from MAYBE a physical presence that has slightly higher physical stats than a materialized spirit would.

Does this seem correct?

*Edit* just read the errata, oops. Now the character can choose Inhabitation, Materialization, or Possession. Still seems like Inhabitation would only be taken for NPCs like bug spirits.

It has upsides, too. Be glad that there are also downsides, for once. Yes, a spirit that can't go Astral is missing a big chunk of functionality, but it depends on what you need it to do in the first place.

A 'True Form' result is basically a Materialization spirit, but with more prep work. Both the hybrid and flesh forms, however, grant some powerful advantages that neither Materialization nor Possession spirits have. Flesh form is, in my opinion, probably the best result. You get to keep all of the skills, powers and cyberware that the vessel had, but with all of the added perks the spirit brings. Unlike every other type of spirit in the game, a flesh/hybrid form inhabitation spirit can make use of cyberware and AR. Plus, with the right vessel, you could also add a ton of pre-existing skills and powers to the table that the spirit might otherwise lack or have to pay karma for. Also: Aura Masking is huge. It gives you the benefit of two metamagic abilities. It gives your ally spirit the ability to appear to be completely non-magical, which is otherwise impossible. Imagine, say, having an ally spirit inhabiting a ring or necklace, and being able to completely mask its aura. You can walk around with a powerful magical ally and no one save extremely powerful magicians would be the wiser. Don't get me wrong- being limited to just the one vessel is a major downside to inhabitation as opposed to say, Possession, but it can be extremely powerful given the right set up.



Of course, if you're just going to have it inhabit something boring like, say, a sword- then yeah; it's not a great pick (mechanically) compared to your other options. Still, it does open up cool roleplaying opportunities- an ally spirit inhabiting a sword is a way to, in Shadowrun, duplicate your 'intelligent magic weapon' fantasy trope. Inhabiting a cat, raven or the like allows for your classic magician's familiar. Sure, mechanically you'd be better off going with one of the other types, but they might not have the flavor you want for your ally spirit. Plus, ally spirits aren't just for players- the GM can have his NPCs have ally spirits using the Inhabitation power in the ways I've described to add flavor and memorable scenes to the game.

the usefulness of inhabitation is directly proportional to the number of heavily cybered, highly skilled operatives your GM has the megacorporations send to kill you

if you win (and can KO instead of kill), then you just got yourself a *very* powerful ally spirit...

This assumes that you did not already conjure an ally as part of the initiation in which you gained Ally Conjuration, that you have a large (50+) pool of Karma saved up (because, really, if you're going to conjure a unique ally spirit, why wouldn't you want it to be Force 4 or better?), that you can capture a heavily cybered, highly skilled operative and hold him through the days-long inhabitation process. Honestly, a golem or homunculus is less trouble.

pretty sure while in the process of being inhabited, they are incapacitated, no?

They'll need to be.

Inhabitation requires a prepared vessel, and the preparation requires a living vessel to be restrained, by drugs, physical means or magic. It doesn't specify what has to be done during the days it takes for the merge to happen, but you have to think that an unrestrained vessel wouldn't just lie there waiting. Even if moving during the process causes death to both.(p. 101, Street Magic).

There's also the near-certainty that, while you're waiting 4+ days for your ally to finish inhabiting the vessel, the vessel's buddies are actively looking for him, and deploying some heavy-duty measures toward that end. High-cyber, high-skill operatives aren't exactly cheap to acquire or maintain, so it makes quite a bit of sense for his employer to lay out substantial amount of nuyen for his recovery. Like, the kind of nuyen that will make even your Loyalty 6 buddy-for-life sell your ass up the river.

As far as PCs go, I can't see what they would need an Ally spirit to do, that couldn't be done with a Ma. Ally spirit. The Ma. spirit gets to choose one form during the ritual, so that form could be what is "needed". Not trying to be difficult, but all I really see are downsides *edit* downsides for PCs using In. Ally spirits, that is. I def. see opportunities for NPCs here.


Couldn't the Ma. Ally spirit form be a sword, or necklace, or whatever, in the same way? I guess your point on Aura Masking is a really good one. But is that the ONLY upside? Oh, and using the cyberware of the vessel, but that starts to lead into the territory below, I think.


This is how I'm thinking - In. Ally spirits using kidnapped / killed bodies seems the work of evil NPCs, not our heroic PCs Tables may vary, of course. But if so, why restrict PCs from being insect shamans or the like?

As I said, if you're inhabiting something like a sword or necklace, you don't gain a lot mechanically. The only major difference there is that a flesh form sword would look like a mundane sword, both on the physical and on the astral, due to the Aura Masking power. A materialized spirit with a Realistic Form of 'Sword' would look like a sword on the physical, but would show up as obviously a spirit when viewed from the astral. Like I said, inhabiting really simple objects doesn't gain you much over materialization. Of course, with inhabitation, you could inhabit something technological, like a commlink, and still retain all of its functionality (and, arguably, more- the spirit would have total control over its technological functions. Give the spirit hacking skills and you have yourself a portable magic pseudo-AI). Materialization explicitly forbids complex mechanical objects. Likewise, a spirit could inhabit a gun, whereas with materialization, right out.

My point is: if you are going to compare inhabitation to materialization, you need to look at what one affords versus the other. In the case of simple inanimate objects or mundane critters, you don't get much: materialization or possession is the better way to go. The only thing you get with inhabitation is Aura Masking (of course, Aura Masking is friggin' awesome, so that shouldn't be downplayed). If, however, you think creatively about how you can use inhabitation to access technology/critter powers/etc, it becomes a much more appealing option. Keep in mind: you could have your spirit inhabit a paranormal critter, like a hellhound or thunderbird, and retain access to all of the critter's physical attributes and powers. Your ally spirit could actually breathe fire/control weather/what have you, without the need to pay karma for those powers. Does that make up for the lack of flexibility? I dunno; I'm sure it depends entirely on the player, the character, and the game.



Certainly kidnapping/drugging a sapient creature to use its body as a vessel for your ally spirit is somewhat less than moral, even for Shadowrunners. Of course, nothing says you need to do it that way. Heck, you don't even need to use a metahuman to capitalize on some of the flesh form powers: Inhabiting a regular critter still gives your ally spirits all of the skills that critter might have had, which in some cases are quite respectable, and there are rules for giving critters cyberware. You could get yourself a nice, non-sapient cyberbear to inhabit. Or, if you *do* want to use a metahuman but don't want to force people against their will, there's still possibilities. Grow yourself a nice clone, for instance. Still harder to do for nice respectable PCs, but not impossible.

Cool - thanks for the insights. I just don't have enough mad-scientist PC ambition

As for NPCs though... [twirls mustache with an evil laugh]

I'm not so sure about the last part. Cyberware in a flesh form works because there is the meat to give orders to the electronic, but I don't think the spirit will be able to use the functionnalities of the comlink beyond switching it on/off and auto-pushing the buttons (it still will work as a comlink, it will be really hard to break and it will be able to use it's other powers but that's about it).

Actually, I doubt that by RAW cyberware in flesh form actually works. It's specifically mentioned in Hybrid Form, but flesh form only says "abilities of the host" (or something to that effect). I know it's probably intended to work, but the RAW remains unclear.

Well, YMMV of course. I think it's pretty obvious that they mention it specifically for the Hybrid form to make it clear that cyberware works despite the fact that spirit has 'fused' with the vessel rather than just inhabited it. Otherwise, given what the rules say about spirits and cyber/AR, one would think that such a hybrid would not be able to access it. The description for Flesh Form says that:



I think that the 'abilities' line which you referred to is meant to encompass cyberware, it's just not explicitly enumerated. (It also makes no mention of spellcasting or critter powers, but I think we can agree that such are included, yes?) I would be hard pressed to defend why a "near perfect flesh form" which possesses all of the abilities of the host would be unable to use its cyberware, when a hybrid form, which "physically warps the vessel with visible telltales of the spirit’s own nature" is able to. Of course, you're free to play it however you like.

No, that's my point. The "abilities" line is so vague you can interpret it to mean a great number of things, not the least of which is for a magician's ability to bind foci.

As for the rest of the postings - have you guys read my Summoned Weapons and Fun With Free/Ally Spirits threads? It sounds a lot like you're summarizing them here.

Link(s)?

Summoned Weapons

Fun with Free/Ally Spirits

thank you sir!

ALLY SPIRIT-INHABITED BIODRONES.

Even better if they're paranimal biodrones. Can you do that?

Yes. Actually it's cheaper to make a fire-spirit inhabited dog and bind it than it is to train a hellhound for combat.

From my archives...:

Combat Hellhound
Hellhound [15R, 10,000]
Against Instincts Training [-, x10]
2 Willpower [-, x2]
Av: 15F
Cost: 200,000

As opposed to:

Fire Dog
Dog [-, 100]
Bone Lacing, Titanium [1.5, 16F, 40,000]
R3 Dermal Sheath [1.6, 16, 40,000]
Prepared Vessel [8, 200]
F4 Inhabitation Free Fire Spirit Calling Materials [8, 1,600]
Av: 16F
Cost: 81,900

And on that one I'll leave you to find the powers, body, ect, instead of reformatting them to work here. Note you can drop off the 80k of cyber to drop the price on it to 1,900 and availability down to 8. That particular model was used in a Shadowrun as the opposition. Or at least, eight of them with one being Radiation instead of Fire.

EDIT: And I'm absolutely flattered that pbangarth has my materials so close at hand. Thank you, really.

EDITEDIT: The above process (using the same rules for Bloodmourne, but on a living vessel) is easily seen as the first step towards Cybermancy, so people should beware using that process freely.

I just searched, that's all.

I don't always agree with your creations and suppositions, but I appreciate the creativity and out of the box thinking. The fact that SR allows such thinking is one of its most endearing features for me.

This might be useful:



So that seems much more useful than Inhabitation.

The only real benefit I see with Inhabitation over Possession is that if there is a flesh-form merge, you can get Realistic Form and Aura Masking. Pretty big benefits as Seidaku said, but possibly the only ones. Oh and the ability to use DNI / cyberware, but less useful unless it's a technocritter or kidnapped person. Also there's the whole fluff angle of magic swords and items. But in terms of rules...

Now I have another idea - if a critter with Hardened Armor is possessed / inhabited, do the Hardened Armor and ItNW stack? Assuming you allow armor stacking at all, do the two "hardened" armors combine to mean if there's hardened armor 3 and force 3, then the damage needs to be greater than 12 to affect the critter? Or a damage greater than 6 gets through both?

I'd give them the 6 for the combined hardened armour.

That's kind of how I think it would work too, just wasn't sure if it was because it could benefit me

So I have a question that is sort of in this same vein.

If we look at the Invoke metamagic we can see that certain types of spirits can gain the "Endowment" power. It gives the magician one of the spirit's powers.

Inhabitation, Materialization and Possession are all powers and so they all seem to be valid targets for the Endowment Power.

How exactly would that work? Would a Magician with Inhabitation essentially be doing a permanent body swap?

A spirit endowing Materialization has rather large benefits too.

Good question on the Inhabitation thing...

I would think, endowing Possession / Materialization / Inhabitation would require the mage to astrally project first? Then the mage is subject to the "astrally projecting" time limit? Then after the time is up the astral form dies...or gets played as a free spirit or something. But of course we're far, far into GM-fiat territory here, so pretty much anything goes, it seems.

The much-reviled FAQ tells us that a spirit with Endowment can Endow any power it has, and uses Materialization as an example. Inhabitation is legitimate as well, therefore, but there is a small technical problem.

The merge takes days, and involves the continuous presence of the merging 'spirit form', in this case the astrally projecting, Inhabitation-Endowed magician. 'Days' is usually longer than '(Magic) hours' and the mage would die while waiting for the merge to conclude.

You might be able to wangle a deke around this problem by having two Invoked spirits, one giving you Astral Form and the other giving you Inhabitation, but at some point your GM will start throwing things at you. Or have someone come in and move the vessel, killing vessel and spirit-form (your mage) both.

That does sort of throw a wrench in the works doesn't it, and Endowment specifically says you cant gain "more than one power from a spirit in this way at a time."

Which, due to it's wording is sort of ambiguous anyway. I could see somebody arguing that having two powers from two spirits gets around that.

Another thing is when using endowment who's force ability do you use? You dont have a force rating as a magician and AFAIK there isn't a way to get one (is there?). If you use your force ability (0) the duration of the Inhabitation check is actually 0 days.

The check itself is Forcex2 Versus the targets Willpower + Intuition. However you get a +6 modifier if the vessel was prepared, and there are ways we can debuff the target (drug it up and run a sustained orgasm spell I think would work).

If you can pull this off (while keeping your GM from book throwing or turning into a spirit, since going from magician to spirit is likely to suck, loosing conjuring skills and the use of foci) you could permanently gain the "Astral Form" and "Materialization" powers.

This all sounds like the kind of plan the evil crazed mastermind would do.

It might also be ruled that such an action would suspend the time limit like going to the Metaplanes does. The reason behind this being that the Binding ritual allows you to suspend spirit time should the ritual take longer than the spirit can normally stay while unbound.

Though there is less substantiation for this angle even with this viewpoint. My guess it'd be a GM call as to how much the spirit rules affect the projecting mage who has Inhanbitation & Astral Form spirit powers.