Just some things that came to my mind and do you have experienced something like this too?

- Concealment: great thing if you are hiding from something. Unfortunately i lack the skills shadowing and infiltration, have agility at 2 (better don´t roll) so nobody had to roll the dice to see me.

- Guard: what does it really do? I have never been attacked with the Accident power and only use it for the fluff to be protected by sunburn on a hot day.

- Detection spells: did you read the description of "detect life" in the core book? I would have never thought that the spell can do something like that. What can other spells possibly do we don´t know?

- Earth elementals: everybody is telling me "he can dig a hole", but for christs-sake how without a shovel? He has no corresponding power.

- Fire elementals: i often hear that they are great in combat, but in which one? An average spirit in our game is force 5, sometimes force 6 if you really roll good. This means 10-12 dice for elemental attack or close combat. Nothing a proper street sam can´t do better and in comparison with the sam, his both attacks are complex-actions...
As if things wouldn´t be already bad enough, he has a massive reduction in strenght...i don´t see a combat monster here.

if they have Perception 1 and Int 4 with no technical adds and you're concealed by F5, they have no dice to see you, because you're too blurry.


it prevents you from glitching. so you can indeed roll your Agi2-1 infiltration


depending on tradition he might take the form of a mole ^^


don't like Fire either. but elemental damage is always awesome. 5DV + net hits fire damage are great

The spirit would gladly HELP you conceal, you just need to put in some effort. It's not invisibility.


Guard prevents glitches.


Not sure of your question here.

It has a bunch of strength. It can attack barriers like any other entity. The ground is a barrier.


An F5 fire spirit is rolling 7+5=12 dice to hit with both Elemental Attack, which is ranged, or unarmed combat. It does 5 base DV with Elemental Attack, which equates it to the worth of a very skilled gunman with an SS pistol. It does (3/2)+5(due to Elemental Aura)=7 base DV in unarmed, which equates it to a normal unarmed attack of S 14. The fire spirit does fire damage, however, which means it's only resisted with half Impact armour, and can set things on fire. The spirit also has 10 points of hardened armour, making it immune to most mooks attacking it.
And you do know it can keep up to M number of subjects Engulfed as well? While just dematerialising after having Engulfed someone? Beinf pinned, forced to make opposed Str+Bod rolls against 11 dice, while likely taking damage every turn tends to be painful indeed.
Also note that attacking them in melee hurts.
And the spirit can always Confuse someone in 1 on 1, before doing anything else. Penalties hurt.

A fire spirit is a tough adversary. So is a "proper" street sam. They are both dangerous in combat.

There's a case to be made for both points of Concealment.

Keep in mind that the form a spirit takes has no bearing whatsoever on its capabilities. An F5 earth elemental can materialise as a turd and still have 9 Strength.

Spirits are a force multiplier (much like Drones and Agents can be) in combat. They add a rather dangerous antagonist into the mix, and if he is on your side, then you may have an advantage... WoUldn't you double your Street Sam Potential if you could? With Fire Spirits (or any spirit really) you can...

Concealment is very powerful, but not game stopping, even if paired with chameleon suits. Sometime a better way to handle perception for small groups of people is to take the highest perception roll, and add 1 for each additional person, which allows a roll to be even made.

Guard can also, protect you from drowing, normal fire, an avalanche, smoke inhalation, exposure from the cold, quicksand, high winds on a narrow ledge, slipping on ice, ect. Any naturally occurring hazard that is within the spirits purview can be protected against. Plus, guarding against glitches when making risking tests is always nice. Guard is pretty much a spirits generic ability to protect you.

Earth spirits are super strong, and their bodies would often take a form appropriate for digging. Getting something stronger then a troll to do things is nice.

Fire spirits start with elemental blast and engulf, both very very good combat powers. They are dangerous to use weapon foci/attacks of will on (energy aura), and have pretty good combat stats. In addition, they can learn other good combat powers too, such as fear and noxious breath. An added bonus, fire spirits are combat aligned in many traditions, which means they help with combat spells, and as a flavor thing they are more willing to fight well.

Well, Magic works as if it were Magic.

Does this surprise anyone else?

Good, thanks you for asking.


As a matter of fact, fire spirts do also get a reaction of Force+3, as far as I know.
This means a reaction of 8 for a Force 5 spirit.
It is really not easy to hurt a fire spirit. Most likely with a wide burst of armor piercing amunition. But this tends to be expensive.

[img]http://knowyourmeme.com/i/000/046/123/original/magnets.jpg?1270937748[/img]

Stick-n-Shock! Through a bizarre rules loophole, ammunition that is designed to stun metahumans is extra effective against beings with no central nervous system to stun! No seriously, -half armor is amazing.

But yes, fire spirits are amazing in combat, only beast and guardian spirits can contend well with them for title of "best", though do not underestimate air spirits, with their high agility their elemental attack optional power can be quite nasty(especially if your GM allows you to pick which energy type you want).

@TheOOB
Well, electricity is well fitting for Air.


Yes, but it is also expensiv.
But yes, the force 5 spirit goes down. Would need a force 7 spirit to shrug it off. (But since it is quite easy to summon one...)

Easy? Do you summon different than i do? We are talking about 12 to 7 dices here. Goes wrong every 3rd time i try it and not to mention the possible drain and we are talking about physical drain here.

Or Blast, perhaps. High-force spirits should be able to knock down pretty much anything.


An initiation or two, Centering, and an extra magic point should let you safely summon F7 spirits, especially if your totem gives you bonuses to that type.

@Machiavelli
Edge is the way to go.
And in any case it is 7 dices against 5+4+totem+foci.
So at least 7 against 9.
Well, tricky. But but edge of 4 to 6 in the pot and drive it home save.
A force 7 spirit is kicking serious ass. (If it is a guardian spirit you can cut out stunbolt too.)

Yeah, edge is definitely one way to go. Like with all the other attributes, it is a pity that i didn´t rose it at chargen to softmax...damn, but too late.

Never forget that the SPirit can also spend edge to resist Summonings and Bindings, at the GM's Discretion... Force 7+ Spirits should be rare in game in my opinion...

Since spirit Edge is equal to their Force, that just means that anything above F6 is basically unsummonable unless you get really lucky, and even trying is liable to knock you out and unleash a pissy godling.

I think there's enough hoops for summoners to jump through without all that. You don't have to worry about your damn overcast Powerballs trying to buck you during a fight.

They shouldn't unless given sufficient reason though.
Also, I generally wouldn't use Edge on summoning/binding, but rather on drain resistance. Getting services from the spirit I could care less about, if I don't get to live to enjoy it.

Why would they be unsummonable? It would just be suicidally dangerous... You can only spend one Edge to resist after all, not coninuous expenditures. But here is the Problem... at Force 7, they are now rolling 14 Dice (Exploding 6's), which gets deadly real quick.

In our games, Spirits at Force 4+ spend edge to resist Summoning and Binding. Tends to cut down on Uber-powered Spirits being summoned willy nilly all over the place. At that point, the summoning of a High Force spirit is something that is exceptional, rather than commonplace. (One of our Mages characters succeeded in summoning a Force 7 Spirit while running on a Zero Zone, it was an epic occurrence, and was appropriate). By the same token, Spirits that are commonly considered "Safe" have some element of danger added to them. Same Mage summoned a Force 5 Spirit that inflicted 20 DV of drain once... Also an epic event, as the Spirit essentially Kicked his can all over the place for the insult. Led to some pretty interesting role-playing and campaign development afterwards. And it is still talked about to this day.

Of course, not everyone agrees with this, but we like it a lot, as it tends to reinforce the rarity (in canon anyways) of high force spirits, as they have always been plot elements rather than common tools available to everyone. Your mileage may vary, of course...

A magician with 6 or 7 Magic can barely be described as "everyone".
That said, I like the rule. I'd probably implement it if F>M though. The spirit acknowledging an equal has some flavour to it.

...And he actually survived 20 DV of drain? Epic indeed. Did he burn Edge to do so?

Don't forget, a person with a Magic of 1 is considered a "Magician", and makes up the 1% or so of the population with magical ability.

1% of the population total. Mystic Adepts add a bit to that as well, for summoning-capable purposes.

No, he did not "Burn" the Edge, But he did Spend it... reduced the damage to only 11 Boxes, which kept him conscious at least (it was all Stun after all)...

We considered the Idea of F?M for the level at which the Spirit Spends Edge, but it still generated Spirits that are way to powerful, at least to our miunds. The way that the characters, in world, deal with that is to "Placate the Spirits." Through Skill Use (Knowledge Skill for such things), the Character can attempt to placate a Spirit to attempt to keep it from spending the Edge (not a requirement by any means, of course). Has A Threshold set by the GM dependant upon how powerful the spirit being summoned will be.

Has led to a lot of really cool roleplaying, though...

I'm pretty sure 1% of the population is awakened, and I'm sure a significant percentage of those are adepts. Spirits up to force 6 can be dealt with using conventional tactics, stick and shock, apds rounds, trollbows, ect. Once you start getting to force 7+, the need to have an awakened person to deal with the spirits grows...but is that a problem? A force 7 spirit is unusual, only an initiate with high magic can summon one safely, and even then they are looking at an average of 4.66 drain, with a max of 14!, and binding it is even more dangerous, spirits help you if you mistreat spirits and it decides to use edge to resist your summons.

Magicians that powerful just don't pop out of nowhere, their existence will be publically known, or at least discerned through a little legwork. And if your running team doesn't have an awakened member...don't run against places with that level of magical security...and if your team has a mage that good, you're likely to get jobs running agienst places with good magical security, meaning your spirits are likely to be countered. Even a magic 3 magician can reak havoc with a simple mana static spell.

The Problem is that, By the RAW, Spirits of 7+ are not all that rare unless the GM takes steps to make them so. A Properly configured Conjurer can summon Spirits of up to Force 10 with ease (though the Drain is sometimes a problem, but not on average). The Fuff and the Mechanics, at that point, do not match. Which is why there are so many opinions on how to limit spritis to something less than Uber-Powerful.

*shrug* that properly configured conjurer should be less than one in a million.
People with 6+ Magic should be rare indeed. People with two 5s in their drain attributes to boot exceedingly so.

That every runner who wants to play a conjurer end up like this after 4 sessions is a flaw of the players, not of RAW. And do keep in mind they're making a hefty investment to do so.
Even then, it hard to twink. A character to the point where they'll actually be able to summon F8s without a chance they won't survive. As has been said before, 5.2 drain on average from an F8 isn't that bad. The chance for 16 is fairly slim, but 10 isn't that far out.

I would venture that, among the population of awakened metahumans with 6+ Magic, there is a higher proportion of individuals with high drain attributes than amongst the general population; probably for the same reasons that few people with Pistols 6 also have Agility 3, or that you rarely see doctors with Medicine 6/Logic 1.

You realize summoning a force 10 spirit produces 6.66 physical drain on average, and getting 10+ is not unusual, and lethal results are very possible. How many NPC's are going to do something that dangerous....and that incredibly painful, for anything other than an emergency. Read in SR fiction some of the descriptions of overcasting, it's not pleasant, even if they resist the drain, magicians are trained to avoid it.

I totally agree here. It's really a player fail if they have their characters casually summoning something that can very easily kill them, or at least cause them as much damage as getting shot with a large-caliber weapon.

And a "properly configured" anything in SR is going to be a twink-fest and not really worth talking about in this context. A pornomancer is properly configured...the .01 essence, 50 armor-troll is properly configured.

Edge-cases.

Well, you would need a lot of "proper configuration". I would guess surge and Bio to start with or 4-5 initiations.

@phlapjack77
Well, but it is not the point, that you could get a force 10 spirit. The point is, that you can get a force 7 spirit easy enough. Yes, it is hard to get force 10 out of Chargen, but the armor 50 Troll is also not easy to get at this point.

Well, but I guess even if you look at the two extrem characters, the Force 10 spirit would still kick the troll.
As a matter of fact it is not that hard to pirce 50 points of armor (well, you would just do stun, but the hell). 20 Points of ITNW with reaction 10+ on the other hand....

My point is, this is an argument saying "My edge-case can beat up your edge-case". No one is casually summoning a F10 spirit, unless it's a really really powerful char / NPC, or a twink. F7 spirit is powerful, maybe more common, but hardly game-breaking. And this exists exactly as much as your GM wants it to. Just like everything else in the game.

So just because an aspect of the game can be abused (and pretty much all of it can), doesn't mean it's overpowered.

*edit* And just to be clear, I agree there might be areas of the game that ARE overpowered. I don't see this as one of them.

Indeed, I do realize that... but it is survivable, with just a little effort, assuming you have taken the proper precautions, which is why I think that there should be controls in place for preventing such occurrences. The expenditure of Edge does this nicely, in my opinion. Now, that Force 10 Spirit is rolling 20 Dice, and is rerolling 6's. See how many Magicians are willing to Summon it now.

I have routinely mentioned that Fluff is directly oppopsed to the Mechanics in this regard. MOst player characters, given the opportunity (or the perceived need) to summon such a beast of a Spirit do so without the slightest thought, because they have optimized their character to do so. Arguments that the Damage is Physical notwithstanding. Magicians in Canon are trained to avoid it (by the Fluff), PC Magicians thrive on it (by the Mechanics). Just look at all the topics here on Dumpshock that espouse that very ideal.

@Phlapjack77 - It is not an Edge Case - As I said, all you have to do is look at any Topic about conjuring here on Dumpshock and you will see that it is the commonly accepted level of Spirit Summoning for a Character. One, even, that has little experience. Drain Stats are easily raised to the Maximum Augmented Levels (Soft Max of 5's 2 Spells at Foprce 3 and 2 Sustaining Foci net you a base of 16 Dice for Drain), or at least very close to it. The Loss of a Single point of Essence will net you a reduction of 2 points of Drain reliably, and the presence of a Competent Medic to repair any damage sufferred in the summoning all leads to starting level characters who can routinely pull this off and suffer little to no real damage. The Edge case is where the Summoning actually kills the character, and is often so remote as to be realistically non-existant... Even with 5 Successes (10 Damage), a Starting character survives that with no Drain roll necessary (Which I have issues with, as you are effectively putting a .50 Caliber bullet through your brain pan and then wincing and asking for a medic... dumb, and dumber)). With 7 Successes you are sustaining 14 points of lethal drain, and with the above combination, that becomes 1 Stun and 12 Physical Drain, and an average of 5 soaked from the Drain stat of 16 Dice, so you are STILL alive for the medic to help you... Even with all 10 dice coming up successes, and average Body of 3 (10 Boxes of Damage), you will still likely survive with your removal/shifting of 2 points of Damage initially, and then your 5 points of Average Soak, resulting in 11 Dice available to reroll for the average 3 points of additional Soak you will get with an Edge Spend. So you take 10 points of Physical Damage (No Overflow though), the Healer Heals you and you get up with a slight headache after the fact, but you will have summoned a Force 10 Spirit who can be completely uber for a period of 12 hours, and you did not really have many issues with the Drain, because you are up and at 'em in a day. Really? And that is a Starting Character.

Yes, they pay for that ability, but on average, they will take no damage at all from that Force 10 Spirit... That is what I have a problem with, because it is way to easy to do... Given a little expereince, and an initiation or two, and the problems just get worse...

Sorry for the Rant...

No problems! I tend to rant too

I disagree completely with your assessment, though (warning, rant ahead) :
1) I don't see any forums saying any such thing. I see many people who seem to think summoning is overpowered, making the same assumptions as here. I see many of the actual creators of the rules and acknowledged "experts" arguing that summoning high-power spirits is actually really difficult. Don't make me invoke Trollman...
2) Mages "pay" for the ability, you yourself said this - so it's not "so easy to do". It takes a ton of min-maxing a character. 16 drain dice? 2 sustaining foci? 2 sustained F3 spells? This is "easy"? Sounds like the character / player has put an awful lot of resources into summoning, here. Might as well say it's easy for a pornomancer to get 50+ dice.
4) This "easy" summoning is only possible with the availability of a bad-ass medic with a bad-ass medkit around. Easy?
5) As I've said before, sounds like the rules for medkits and first-aid are broken, not magic.
6) You're having to spend Edge on the damage soak tests a large part of the time. Easy?

Look, I get that summoning a F10 spirit is really powerful. I just don't think it's as easy or possible as you make it out to be. Nobody would casually shoot themselves in the chest every day. If a player is routinely doing this, they are pretty much failing at RP'ing their character, and they are REALLY flirting with disaster.

Same argument as people who thread thread thread their complex forms. Abuse of the rules is possible in any area of the game.

Well, actuall it hast to be Force 5 of force 8 or 9. Depends on how you are reading the rules.

So I guess your summoner is out.

You are right, Should have been Force 5 Spells/Foci... What I get for ranting and not proofreading afterwards... My apologies...

@Phlapjack77...
1. Not sure where they are, But I have both read them and participated in them... Talk to Neraph, he can probably find them where I could not. he is much better at that Search Fu than I...
2. Mages do indeed pay for the ability, but I would say that it is not that highly specialized a build, since it is a build that most mages follow, at least here on the forums anyways.
3. Not sure where this one disappeared to... Oh Well...
4/5. Bad Ass Medic? 14 Dice is Bad Ass? 3 Stat, 3 Skill, Specialization, and Rating 6 Medkit (which is portable, and available at chargen)... Okay (Seen Character Builds in the 30's for First Aid, but Okay)... I do agree that First Aid is indeed broken, though, so for what that is worth, heheheh...
6. Only need to use Edge whern the Spirit gets 8+ Successes, which is mostly never statistically... so not all the time, nor most of the time... 7 or less hits on the resistance test means you only need 3 hits on 12-16 Dice to not stroke out and go unconscious from lethal drain (and only 2 Hits to go unconscious, and the medic needs only a few hits to stabilize you and bring you out of it)...

...

I never said that the Force 10 was not powerful, nor that RP wise, it should be a non-occurrence. But Mechanically, it is not an Edge Case for this to happen for Player Character Conjurers. From the comments here on Dumpshock, the average Force for a Conjurer seems to be around the Force 8-9 Mark consistently.

No worries though, we both agree that it should be a non-issue if role-played as it should be. I just like to enforce it with the spirit spending edge to Resist that summoning or Binding... That forces the issue immediately.

Why god why would you lack that? Did you not hear that the game is called SHADOW RUN. Anyway, even with a character incompetent at stealth with a Force 5 Concealment effect, your enemies need 6+ Intuition + Perception dice pool to perceive you.

Seems that we'll agree to disagree


Just imagine some devastatingly insightful argument that convinces everyone in a 50' radius


I would agree that oversummoning (and overcasting) could use some more limiters. Your idea of spending Edge to resist the summoning or binding seems good, partly because it's also "flavorful". Maybe a better ruling would be to say the spirit resists with Edge when oversummoned, instead of 4+. Spirit doesn't like being summoned by an "inferior" specimen etc...

Agreed...




Yep, what I was thinking too...



We finally settled on 4+, because it kept the upper end (4-6) still "somewhat" common, if a little risky, and the Upper Levels (7+) way out of the reach of typical situations... Besides, MetaHumanity, as a whole, is Inferior to any spirit of 4+ (and even Spirits of Force 3 are superior to the vast majority of MetaHumanity)... Those characters who want, have an in game avenue that they can pursue to mitigate the issues, but it costs them to do so, and it provides a bit of uncertainty to teh situation... Seems fair to me...

Doesn't that just mean you're forcing your magician players to spend Edge at an accelerated rate? Essentially draining them of valuable resources faster than a mundane character? Don't you already have house rules that punish magicians?

The best way (in my opinion) would be to let the spirit use always edge.
On the other hand a spirits edge should be set to force/2.
This way spirits would be able to spend edge more often without getting to extrem results.

@Cain
No, it would stop extrem spirits from apearing in game. I do agree that with edge=force it would be a bit to much.
But a force 6 spirit rolling 9 dices and rerolling all the 6s is not that bad.

You can never have too many house rules that 'punish' magicians.

Geas: BDSM?

So what benefit is there to being good to your spirits instead of abusing them. Sure I'd agree high force spirits are more likely to spend edge to resist summoning, but only if they have reason not to like the magician.

Not disagreeing with you, but I think there are other benefits to being good to your spirits. If you get knocked out, they more likely won't be vindictive. If you give a somewhat vague command, they won't intentionally misinterpret it. And then there's the fluf...wait, I've said too much...

Exactly! If you've been good to your spirits, roleplayed with them well, there's no reason for the spirit to spend Edge fighting you. OTOH, if you have Spirit Bane, or have been mistreating spirits in game, they should spend Edge freely (and in extreme cases, consider burning it). It should be a player-driven interaction.

You definitely have different summoning rules than we have in our book. Even if you focus completely on summoning, you cannot have a starting character capable of summoning spirits force 7 to 10 with surviving. You may be able to summon one, but not with very much net hits and definitely not without massive drain, most of the time physical damage. This is not "summons force 7-10 with ease", this is "summons sometimes force 7 to 10 and survives".

Not sure what you are referring to there, Cain, but we never force a character to spend Edge. The application of Edge is for the Spirit, not the Character. And no, we do not have houserules for magicians, other than a few of the optional rules in the book, which are not houserules...

Sure you can... Every single Conjurer posted on these boards that I have seen can do so with ease (After all, If you are not optimizing, you are artificially "gimping" your character). Just ask Cain, or Nerraph, or any number of others, for examples of the conjurers that they have designed with a base of 400 bp. Almost all of them can go to Force 8-9 with little issue, unless the Spirit resists with maximum hits (which is statistically unlikely). At 1/2 hits or less (1/2 still low on the probability scale), it is indeed "Easy" to survive it, often with little to no actual drain incurred.

Yes, you may only have a single service or two gained from such a summoning, but you still have a Force (Uber-Whatever) at your beck and call. However, There SHOULD be consequences to summoning a spirit that is of that power level, and there are none enforced in game, apparently, for many here on Dumpshock (the sheer outcry of "dickery" that is heard when it is even suggested is often very entertaining). MAges have the potential to cause major issues with the game, and yes, they do pay for it in opportunity costs more often than not. But there should STILL be things in place to reinforce the Fluff that has been presented over the last 20 years, and that is so often ignored within the mechanics.

Now, for a comparison... At the table I play at, besides the obvious obstacles for summoning any spirit of Force 4+, there is the character perception that doing so casually is like playing Russian Roulette. Eventually, you are going to draw the loaded chamber and you will suffer catastrophic drain. So why tempt fate. By the same token, it is RARE that any of the Magically awakened characters that I play will summon any Spirit above their Magic Rating (or even cast spells above their Magic Rating). Why? Because that is even MORE like playing Russian Roulette... It is an option that is only used when there is absolutely no choice in the matter. That is an apprantly uncommon perspective, though, especially here on Dumpshock.

The only way to safely counter a spirits use of Edge is to spend Edge yourself. So, you're essentially forcing magician players to sacrifice their characters or artificially spend Edge.

It sounds like your problem is that you don't know how to use the rules to limit spirits, and have resorted to house rules and gimps to nerf spirits. Those aren't necessary. Rather than resorting to your house rule, you should stick within the existing ones, and save the house rules for actual problem areas.

You cannot safetly counter a Spirits use of Edge... you will still suffer the results of such an expenditure...

I have never spent Edge to "Counter" a spirit's use of Edge in the entire time I have been playing Shadowrun 4th... Not once. So I would say that that nullifies your assumptions of what an Edge expenditure actually forces a mage to do.

The only thing the RULE (it is in the book, you know) for spending Edge does is to limit the amount of Crazy levels of Spirit Summoning that could exist. I do not believe that the intent of the summoning Rules, nor the Fluff, is to allow PC's to summon Force 9+ Spirits out of Chargen. The use of Edge completely prevents that... And I do not use House Rules to control Magic, just optional rules in the books, or applications of the rules in the books.

But we (you and I) have had this argument before, and it generally leads no where, so...