You're a hermetic mage. Your Magic, Will, Logic and Summoning are all 5. You've got a spirit mentor that grants you +2 on summoning fire spirits, and you've got a force 3 summoning focus for Fire spirits.

How big of a fire spirit to you feel safe summoning?

6 to 8, depending on how much edge I got, magical backup I can call on to put the spirit down if I screw up, etc. I wouldn't go higher than that, because it stops being a good - or even relatively even - gamble, at that point.

Ok - anything 5 and under, no big deal, for multiple reasons.

6+, you're looking at physical drain, so the only thing that will really matter is how many successes the spirit can get vs. your drain pool.

So, assuming force 9. That's on average 3 hits, or 6P drain. You have 10 dice in your drain pool. So on average, you're taking 3P per summoning. And it could be much worse if the spirit rolls a little better, and you roll a little worse. Def. not safe feeling. Edge cases here can mess you up.

Force 6 spirit, avg 2 successes. So 4P drain, vs your 10 dice. That's a little better, still might be taking some damage but it's not as scary. On the extreme, the spirit could get a 12P drain on you. Kinda scary, but I think the odds of this are very low, vs. your being able to use Edge to resist too.

So as a final answer, I think Force 5 is as safe as you feel, possibly dipping your toe into the Force 6 spirit area just for that extra spirit power it gets.

Very small numbers being mentioned here.

And yet, somehow, whenever possession mages come up, they seem to be able to throw around force 20 spirits without batting an eye.


EDIT: For the record, the highest I've ever seen summoned was force 9. We were fighting a squad of Red Samurai and the magician panicked. I'm fairly sure that the drain did more damage to him than any of the sams.

~R~

The OP provided the parameters. If he were more munchkinned, the numbers would obviously be higher.

Well, usually the Force 20 spirit is mentioned by someone afraid of the Possession tradition, and is used as the reason why it should be feared. Repeated attempts to argue that Summoning a Force 20 spirit is suicide don't usually work.

Phlapjack's example is reasonable, but I would like to emphasize that while the 'average' dice rolls are survivable, a career spent summoning spirits above your stun/physical limit will sooner or later kill you.

::Shrug:: I know. It was really a throwaway comment not made to be taken seriously. I'm just a bit touchy when it comes to possession mages, and I'll be damned if I let something like logic or proper arguing technique keep me from getting in my cheap digs on magical hypocrites.


~R~

Yeah, I agree - In the case above, I think Force 6 is only a good idea if you REALLY need an extra spirit power. And summoning Force 6+ all the time would def. be a bad idea.

Anything bigger than your head.

By weight or by volume? Now figure out how to calculate those for a spirit...

So, my gut reaction - that unless your magic is pretty low, oversummoning is generally not a good general course of action. Are there mitigating factors? Would you be more inclined to go a point or two of force higher if you were at home, with the mana lodge and a friend with a Medkit 6 hanging around?

I think one huge factor is the oversummoning/physical drain thing. But it seems the biggest factor is just that high-force spirits have the possibility of causing you massive drain. Napalm wave or whatever, at Force 9, would be a "measly" 9 drain. By comparison, a Force 9 spirit could cause 18 drain. You'd better have a really big drain pool to deal with that. And your drain pool is one of the harder things to get really big.

So the friend with a medkit is good, but I don't think it would make a mage any more inclined to "go a point or two higher". Extreme situations, to my mind, is what makes a mage more inclined.

To me, my feeling is that between force 6 and force 8, there's not THAT much difference in terms of spirit effectiveness. Lots of downsides to try to summon a Force 8 vs. Force 6, not as many upsides. Now, Force 9 gets you another spirit power...in extreme cases, maybe then you make that horrible decision.

Well, lets see:

Magic+Summoning+Boni = 15, 15/3=5 Average hits.
Drain Dice = 10, 10/3 = 3.33 Average hits.

Force 5 Spirit
Resisting Summoning = 5/3 = 1.66 Average Hits, 3.32 Average Drain.

So a force 5 spirit is pretty safe.

Lets see what happens when we go higher.

Force 6 Spirit
Resist Summoning = 6/3 = 2 Average Hits, 4 Average Drain.

Force 7 Spirit
Resist Summoning = 7/3 = 2.33 Average Hits, 4.66 Average Drain.

Force 8 Spirit
Resist Summoning = 8/3 = 2.66 Average Hits, 5.32 Average Drain.

Force 9 Spirit
Resist Summoning = 9/3 = 3 Average Hits, 6 Average Drain.

No magician may summon a spirit
whose Force is greater than twice her Magic attribute.

SR 20 Anniversary pg 188

In the case of my force 20 spirits, I summoned them as force 10 spirits and slowly build up their power over time via drain force..

You don't summon spirits in the middle of combat..

You summon spirits before you get into trouble and prepare all the dirty tricks of magichood.. hehhehe...

10. Go for the stars!

Haven't we told you multiple times that your input is not wanted on topics discussing shadowrun and not your "i just make shit up" game that's loosely based on shadowrun.

Well, most of what he said is true, if you can get a spirit with drain force... which is unlikely.

The problem with his post is that Drain Force has a limit of Starting Force x 1.5. A force 10 spirit with drain force couldn't drain itself higher than 15. This, of course, is more reasonable with a lower Force spirit, a force 6 spirit with drain force could get up to 9.

The problem with such a spirit is that they are usually malignant and hateful and as soon as its services are up it is more likely to turn on you than not.

This spirit goes up to 11, though

That is why I used Ally Spirits.

Ally Spirits are reborn with every ritual of change. Thus their initial force rating for draining force purposes increase with every ritual of change.

Enhancing an Ally
At a later time, an initiate may choose to modify an ally
spirit’s formula to grant the ally spirit additional forms, skills,
powers, or spells. The character may also raise the ally’s Force in
this manner. Modifying the spirit formula requires a new Logic
+ Arcana (desired Force x 5, 1 day) Extended Test or another
metaplanar quest.
After designing or acquiring the modified spirit formula,
investing the spirit with new abilities requires a new binding
ritual—sometimes called a Ritual of Change—in a magical
lodge with a rating equal to or greater than the Force of the ally.

So you summon up a force 10 ally spirit. He drains force to force 15. You do the ritual of change for the force 15 ally spirit to be reborn as as force 15 spirit.

The force 15 spirit can now drain force up to 22.5 (round down to force 22 for simplicity's sake). He can now drain force to force 33. Do the ritual of change. Repeat the process.

It is by no means an easy process especially at the higher stages where the extended Logic + Arcana test gets really hard. Also, you have to spend money per force point for conjuring materials.

A force 10 Ally Spirit would cost 80 Karma, and Drain Force isn't a power available to Ally Spirits. There are ways to get it, but they require trickery and things your GM wont likely stand for, but there is no legal means by which an ally spirit may start off with drain force, or even have Drain Force as one of its own powers.

All the methods by which you can get an ally spirit to have Drain Force involve either Endowment or a Power Pact, and rely on free spirits which is a GM decision territory and because of that isn't really pertinent to the conversation.

-edit-

Unless maybe your GM lets you use the Twisted Paths, but those require GM permission too as they aren't really player legal options either, and again wouldn't really be pertinent to the discussion. Just because your GM lets you do it doesn't mean anybody else's will.

Keep it civil, please. His game may have a lot of houserules and don't follow RAI or RAW very much, but that doesn't mean his participation on any discussion is unwanted. As long as everyone stays polite and discusses rather then yelling out his opinion, all is fine.

important safety tip: don't summon anything bigger than your head

dear ramaloke, i have never suggested that everyone must follow our interpretations of the rules.. that would be infringing on other people's games and their right to play the game as they wished..

Im not saying you did, but I do find it less than useful when somebody posts advice in a thread using their own houserules/game as a basis. For example:

Bob asks Forum which is better Dagger or Sword.

Jimmy says "Dagger is better because it does more damage."

Jack says "What are you talking about daggers do less damage than swords, look at the table of book x."

Jimmy says "Oh, our group allows daggers to be like lightsabers and they can cut through anything."

Jack says "Umm what?"

All I'm saying is that when you post in threads you should try to keep houserules and special circumstances only applicable to your games out of the equations, because Bob isn't asking what would be best in your (good, enjoyable and fun, but likely modified) game, hes asking for advice based on the RAW Legal rules without modifications.

And that is what I am offering. A lightsaber is indeed better than a sword but I am not forcing the OP to take my advice, am I?

Don't turn down anyone who wants to share his houserules. As long as it is made clear that the poster is talking about a houserule (and is able to withstand the enemy fire ) all is fine. On a board that has seen page-long threads over RAW that contradcit Common Sense how can we come down on someone who presents his houserules?

You can't conclude anything about what is safe or not by looking at the average outcome. You need to look at the risk of an unacceptable outcome.

Thats not necessarily true, I'm pretty sure statistics play a rather large role in risk assessments across the world. Your point is good, but chance and average will always be an important part of such things.



Thats fine, the problem arises when you dont state it at the beginning instead and instead do so a few posts down. Things work much cleaner if you say something like "Swords are better but my group uses rules that allow daggers to function like lightsabers, for X reasons. We feel that such is balanced for Y reasons, you might consider using Z houserules."

When you just state something thats houseruled without saying its houseruled you give a false impression of the rules, which isn't ok.


Agreed, my point was mainly that one should clearly state "We use these houserules" and not work on the assumption that everybody uses it and so the use of such rules isn't worth mentioning.

Yup.

The higher dice pools become though, the more likely an average outcome. Plus I'm someone who thinks 50/50 shots are worth taking.
Way I see it, average outcomes are the thing to go by when doing risk assesment in a tight spot. Of course, when this starts to become habit, you're likely to kill yourself fast. Then again. With given parameters you could wipe on a F5. 5 hits on its side, none for you is painful indeed.

It also "requires a new binding ritual". Good luck. Although there's no limit on Force for binding (only for summoning), the spirit does roll Force x 2 to resist binding, and base drain is twice its hits (physical if Force is higher than your Magic; SR4A, pp 188-89). So that Force 15 spirit rolls 30 dice to resist the new binding ritual (average 10 hits), and you're soaking an average of 20P base drain (unless your Magic is 8+).

But we don't use houserules.. we only interpret the RAW differently than some of the forummers here..

When your position differs significantly from the default state everyone else is operating from, it is beholden on YOU to specify as such.

Most... no, that's not right... ALL of the rest of us understand and operate from the position that the later selection of Spirit Powers for an Ally is STILL bound by the earlier restriction that it MUST come from the list of powers available to your other non-ally summoned spirits.

Moreover, all of your examples so far have all required SO much Karma invested that most players will NEVER get to achieve that state, as most Shadowrun campaigns will have ended long before that happens. So not only is it questionable in rules legality, it's not even a PRACTICAL idea.

There's already SO MANY ways to already make a completely broken character that doesn't rely on questionable rulings or grey areas.

An additional issue to consider - your position is controversial enough and causes such a reaction by now that every time you bring it up, it tends to derail any thread you mention it in.



-k

*shrug* There are two sides to every problem.
Can we just drop the subject of attaining high F spirits through other means than summoning, and their viability/validity as not pertaining to the OP's question and move on?

Probably not. Precedent shows we'll get up around 5-7 pages without actually going anywhere, then it'll start over in another thread.

Yes, statistics play a large role in risk assessment, but when someone asks you what is safe and you respond with the average, that's not really an answer, is it?

The right way of doing it would be saying that with 10 drain resist dice, your risk of suffering 10+ drain is

Force 6: 0.07%
Force 7: 0.29%
Force 8: 0.84%
Force 9: 1.87%
Force 10: 3.55%

If Edge and friends with First Aid or healing means you're only really worried about 12+ drain, you end up with

Force 6: 0.002%
Force 7: 0.02%
Force 8: 0.11%
Force 9: 0.35%
Force 10: 0.86%

If you're wounded or expecting to get wounded, or just not in a life and death situation and don't want to get really badly hurt, and worrying at 7+ drain:

Force 6: 1.9%
Force 7: 4%
Force 8: 7%
Force 9: 12%
Force 10: 17%

That is useful info for assessing risk - how likely are the really bad outcomes? The average tells you almost you nothing.

The right question to ask is "at what spirit Force does an extra Force point improve my chances of surviving the situation less than the increase in risk of dying from drain?" I appreciate that in most situations you can't really compute your chances of surviving the situation as a function of Spirit Force, but you can know the risk of dying from Drain. Just always going with 50/50 gives you a life expectancy of 2 hairy situations, which is rather short and there is no reason to take such unnecessary risks.

I'd contend that the second options wouldn't be as avaialble, since that spirit's going to go bananas if we overflow on the stun track.

However, there is also more variance in outcomes. While a force 5 spirit isn't likely to get 5 hits, a force 10 is more likely to do so. But that is kind of stating the obvious.


Also, be wary of GM's like myself that have all spirit with a force higher than the magician's magic burning edge to resist summoning.

Keep in mind that a spirit gets an optional power for every 3 points of Force, but you also get less services on average if the spirit is higher Force. Also, binding higher-level spirits is far harder than just summoning them.

As for risk - I like to look at normal cases, bad luck cases and worst cases.

Let's define bad luck as you getting only 1/6th of your Drain Resistance as hits instead of 2/6ths, while the spirit gets 4/6ths successes on it's Force roll to resist summoning.

F5(Normal) = Spirit gets 1.66 hits -> 3.33 Drain, you resist it all
F5(Bad Luck) = Spirit gets 3.33 hits -> 6.66 Drain, you resist 1.66 -> 5S damage
F5(Worst Case) = Spirit gets 5 hits -> 10 Drain, you resist 0 -> 10S damage, you'll still be conscious because of your Willpower 5.

F6(Normal) = Spirit gets 2 hits -> 4 Drain, you resist 3.33 -> 0.66P damage
F6(Bad Luck) = Spirit gets 4 hits -> 8 Drain, you resist 1.66 -> 6.33P damage
F6(Worst Case) = Spirit gets 5 hits -> 12 Drain, you resist 0 -> 12P damage, you're probably bleeding to death and unconscious

F9(Normal) = Spirit gets 3 hits -> 6 Drain, you resist 3.33 -> 2.66P damage
F9(Bad Luck) = Spirit gets 6 hits -> 12 Drain, you resist 1.66 -> 10.33 damage, you're probably down on the floor
F9(Worst Case) = Spirit gets 9 hits -> 18 Drain, you resist 0 -> 18P damage, possibly instant death

Worst cases are very unusual, and you can probably discount them happening, especially at the high-Force spectrum (they're more unlikely). On the other hand, Drain is really dependent on the spirit, not so much on you (because its hits get doubled), so Edge isn't all that extremely helpful either.

---

Given these figures, I suggest some conclusions:

F3-5 Spirits are useful for ordinary tasks; they'll have a lot of services and the drain is very manageable. They have one Optional Power, which is often enough. Especially F3 spirits tend to cause so little Drain that you can just summon a new one if you need a different Optional Power. They're also easy to Bind for that purpose.

F6 Spirits are mean bastards in combat and require special weaponry (SnS at least) to stop. Two optional powers can make them really powerful if there's synergy between the two powers.
Summoning them is risky however, and best attempted in a safe shelter where you can take First Aid afterwards. They're too risky to summon in the middle of a battle.

F9 Spirits are overkill with regards to Optional Powers. They're monsters in combat, but summoning will only go right in the average case, not if the spirit gets lucky, which means summoning them is very high-risk. They're probably not worth it.

---

As a general rule, I'd say that
IF [ ((F * 1.33) - (Your Drain Resistance / 6)) < 6 ] THEN it's safe for combat summoning
IF [ ((F * 1.33) - (Your Drain Resistance / 6)) < 11 ] THEN it's safe for summoning in a safe area/time
ELSE it's not safe to summon

My observation on summoning spirits is:

• The spirit you want is dependant on the situation, so while its nice to have one around, often you want one to deal with a specific situation
• The drain rules are extremely volatile. Even summoning a drain 4 spirit can screw you up: 8 drain is no fun when you are in a fire fight
• The higher the level of the spirit the fewer services you get.
• First aid rules for drain are all very well, but you don't want to doing damage to yourself in fire fight: its very easy to die in shadowrun, and doing damage to yourself just makes it easier.
• You need to actually get at least one more success than the spirit when summoning it, and the higher force it is the harder that is

All of the above summaries to:

• In a fire fight when I want a new combatant a force 4 is reliable
• A force 5 is easily enough if I am not in a fire fight.
• When I have a task that I can prepare for, I might go for a force 6 spirit: but again this could easily cause me 3..4 points of physical drain and thats going to hurt
• A force 7 spirit is crazy hard, but if I was desperate and had the time to prepare, and edge to burn I might take it
• Summoning a force 8 spirit is on a par with base jumping. If you are a suicidal adrenaline junky (and you might be) you can go for it, but I won't be

Using edge changes the above a bit, but I find that I need the edge to stay alive!

Another point to consider, hinted at earlier, is that the higher the spirit's Force, the better off you are summoning/binding it outside of a run. In a safe environment, you can take yourself to 9P damage and heal it up before you go to work.

In my play, I have tended to work three categories of spirit:

1) Spirits bound outside of a run. Often at the upper limit of stun Drain, possibly because that's what you can get a chargen for no risk. So say for a Magic 5 magician, I would have one or more spirits bound at Force 5. Then there may be one that is higher Force from which my PC took Drain damage but healed safely at home. These are powerful resources to use for Aid Sorcery and other powers. (Do not overlook Aid Sorcery for Counterspelling!) Throw them into a fight only if necessary, because you don't want to lose them. As time and resources permit, rebind these at home where it is safe to convalesce.

2) Low Force spirits summoned during a run. Often Force 3 to get that one particular optional power you need at the moment. Relatively safe, with a low risk of Drain. Expendable and replaceable in a fight, they nevertheless are good force multipliers and provide the right tool for the job.

3) High Force spirit summoned during a run. Very rare, only in dire circumstances, such as a deadly enemy that will chew through smaller spirits. Risk the Drain only when the shit has hit the fan and you need to 'hold off the juggernaut for a few seconds' while you get the hell out. If the spirit is occupying your enemy, you may be able to afford damage modifiers due to Drain as you run away. Or, if you are of a Possession tradition, an ItNW of 16 or so goes a long way towards keeping you alive, even if you can't do much because of Drain.

I'd like to add to that list:

Force 3 Bound spirits - the limit to how many spirits you can have bound is Charisma; that's fairly generous, especially for Elf Charisma Tradition mages. So consider binding a few F3 spirits with interesting optional powers; the drain is quite manageable, and it's not too prohibitive in

Why? Because if you've summoned a F5+ fire spirit and you could really use some Guidance spirit power, you don't have to dismiss your powerful spirit just to switch "providers".

Thanks for the input and the math, guys. It does become quite clear where the benefits become outweighed by the dangers.

I guess the ability to overcast to twice your magic is really mostly there so you can play out the final battle scenes from 2XS...

I have a magic 4 burned out mage...its nice being still able to summon force 5 or 6 spirits

My first game of SR1, back in the day, I nearly killed my burned out mage... Can't remember what I did, but it didn't end well.

I guess, if you've only got a magic of 2, then going all the way to a force 4 spirit isn't exactly that big a deal...

Oversummoning is pretty dangerous think to do, but depending on the spell overcasting to twice your magic isn't necessarily that dangerous(well 2 * magic - 1 is the smart casters limit, the last point of force is almost never worth the 1 point of extra drain)

And heaven help you if the spirit decides to spend Edge to resist the Binding...