Mentor spirits are available for adepts to chose, but it seems that the vast majority of the spirits provide no mechanical advantage to the player... is there any way to work around this, RAW?

You could houserule your own in, of course. Otherwise, no.
Most Mentor spirits will only provide half of their benefits to pure Adepts, since the other half is spellcasting.
Still, +2 on a whole lot of skils to choose from isn't that bad of a deal for 5 BP if you ask me.

indeed, there are a few good ones for social adepts. the other useful ones are cat and rat, owl and dark king.
try to ask your GM into changing the spellcasting into something useful. something like
+2 Health spells -> +1 healing tests
+2 detection spells -> +1 perception
+2 combat spells -> +1dodge or +1 initiative
+2 manipulation -> +1 to some technical skill
+2 water spirit -> +2 swimming tests
+2 air spirit -> +2 fatigue tests
and so on, just some quick thoughts...

I really like this houserule idea

+1 upvote

Like it too. But even if your GM wants to stay RAW, there are some really good mentors left. Bear gives +2 to damage resistance tests, owl (if i remember correctly) gives +2 on assensing and perception etc. More than enough benefits left. Unfortunately there is no horse mentor anymore. I think it was SR3 where it provided the movement power some times a day. ^^

the horse mentor is in SM. and as far as I recall, in sr3 horse magicians could initiate to learn the movement power...

Also, you might consider that any Mentor that gives a bonus to invoke certain kind of spirit, the Adept gains a bonus when fighting them.

I like the idea of switching the bonuses on Mentors that do not already give a benefit to a skill.

I am away from books, but the example can be understood:

Mentor a) Gives +2 dice to negotiations and +2 dice to combat spells. Adept gains +2 negotiations, but no +1 to initiative.
Mentor b) Gives +2 dice to combat and detection spells. Adept gains +2 perception and +1 to initiative.

Caveat: GM must approve before this works. I see adepts accumulating (even more) tons of dice this way.
I think its balanced by the restrictions mentors impose. Then again, GM must see if it suits the cost/benefit.

I really like this idea. What about weird ones like counterspelling and banishing tests (Adversary)? Should we convert the ones which adepts could technically use but probably wouldn't want to, like Enchanting boni?

What about the flip side? If you are going to convert bonuses to awakened skills into other bonuses, then you should do the same for the penalties. For example, the owl mentor spirit, whose disadvantage is a -1 to combat spells. Which doesn't really matter for an adept.

Personally I like the idea of making mentor spirits more useful to adepts, and I think that these rules are a good place to start.

For mentor spirits that would be appropriate to physical adepts, how about creating your own that follow martial arts archetypes, like monkey, crane, tiger, etc.?

I believe that Kerenshara had a useable set of guidelines for just such a project.

on the topic of mentor spirits for adepts:
I believe adepts with a mentor can access its metaplane, but I can't find it...
anybody can set me right or point me to it?

Agreed. I don't think it's an accident that the majority of RAW Mentors that give advantages to non-magical skills also have penalties that apply to things other than spell casting-- Owl and Moon Maiden, as far as I remember, are the only exceptions. For example, Dragonslayer packs a +2 bonus to a social skill but a -1 across the board in the event of oathbreaking. So yeah, oftentimes the quality does less than it would do for a Magician, but in the big scheme of things many of them are still a pretty decent 5 pointer if your GM bothers to foreshadow things or otherwise give you cryptic warnings from time to time.

Very simple
If they don't give a Crunch Bonus,than they don't cost any BP
If they give only a Malus than its a Disadvantage

HougH!
Medicineman

I wouldn't go so far as to make them just a disadvantage given that quality gives the GM an easy excuse to grant visions and the occasional "Dog doesn't trust this guy" hint.

Here's what I came up with a while back. What's nice is it allows you to duplicate EVERY existing mentor in the game. I'm big on consistency.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=829789

Hope that's some use to you!

-Kerenshara

Lots of Negative Qualities have positive aspects. It's about the weight thereof. In this case it would be a tangible, rules-based negative versus a "well, the GM can do it if he wants to (and could even if you didn't bother with this quality since its pure GM fiat anyway)" trait. I'd say that would definitely make it a Negative Quality.

I think there should also be Adept-Centric Mentor Spirits as well...

Perhaps based on action heroes. Chow-Yun Fat and Bruce Willis and Chuck Norris and the like...

You mean the Accumulation of dead Spirits from Bruce Lee,Tony Jaa,Jacky Chan,Sammo Hung,Yuen Biao and/or Chow Yun Fat and Bruce Willis for a physical Adepts (I wouldn't add Chuck Norris,remember that Bruce kicked his Butt for Good in Rome )
and James Dean,Samuel L Jackson,Greta Garbo,Marlene Dietrich,Steve McQueen for a Pornomancer ?

Good Idea ImO

with a cool Dance
Medicineman

Mentor spirits are broader archetypes than that. "Action Hero," "Gunslinger," and "Playboy" would be better descriptors, I imagine. Gunslinger might give the advantages of "+1 with Pistols or Longarms (choose one), and reduces the ranged combat 'attacker in melee combat' modifier by 2." The disadvantage could be something vendetta oriented, like "you must make a Willpower + Charisma (3) Test to resist retaliating against a disgrace to your honor." That sort of thing.

Individual adepts could then tailor the description a specific idol if they so chose, in exactly the same fashion as various traditions do with their totems. Such as renaming Sky Father to Zeus for a more Roman-style magician.

I think we have a good start for something. I'll see how my brain functions today and go through Street Magic to see if I can do something with this...