Hoi Chummers,

I'm certain that you can (With a LOT of money and time and maybe karma?) create a dedicated summoning circle for elemental conjuring.
Thing is, I can't find a reference to it in SR3 main or the Magic book, and I'm pretty sure it's not in the grimoire (Yeah, if I could find it, that is)

Basically, I remember that instead of buying [force] x 1000 nuyen worth of summoning mats, you could make a permanent circle for 10,000 x [force] or it might have been higher.
I'm also pretty sure that you couldn't make a circle bigger than your magic attribute and it took a LONG time.

Could someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

_Tir.

I remember that rule, too, but not the sorce. Did you check Awakenings? That would be my best bet, but it may be in London or Tir nan Og, in the description of stone circles as well. If it´s in none of those, try SOTA, otherwise, no idea...

Erm, Awakenings is SR4, isn't it? Haven't got it.
I'll try the SOTA's, but they're a pain in the ass to rummage through. I always get distracted by some of the other guff:)

-Tir
God, I don't even know where to find Tirnanog, Celtic Double Cross made my players swear "Never again" to the British Isles* so it's somehwere in storage.



*This after Imago, btw...

I don't recall there being a permanent summoning circle the way you describe it. In order to summon an elemental you need two things, materials and a hermetic circle. Hermetic circles come in two varieties, temporary and permanent, and you must have a different circle for each element.

Temporary circles are more or less free, take (rating) hours to draw and are (rating) meters in diameter. They are drawn in chalk or paint and are reusable as long as they remain intact.

Permanent circles cost (rating squared) x 100 nuyen and take (rating) days to create. They are also (rating) meters in diameter. They can be broken, but are immune to casual damage like being scuffed.

All from SR3 pg 167

Ta! I was after the Permament Circle, and I could have sworn I read through the entire magic chapter and didn't see that part:(

-Tir

You still need the materials that cost 1,000 x [Force] in order to summon elementals though. It's materials + circle for mages.

As NTWI posted, you still need to provide the materials for each summoning attempt. The circle is basically there to save time, so you don't have to draw out the circle each time you go down to the lab.

Your GM may allow you to imbue your summoning circle with materials, in a way similar to buying a permanent lifestyle. For 100x the base cost, you can purchase the lifestyle forever. So, for 100x the base cost of summoning a max force elemental for your circle--presuming a Force 6 circle, it'd be 600,000 , then you won't need to provide materials for any spirit you summon in that circle.

It's a houserule, but it would be supported by other rules in the system. I wouldn't personally do it, because each circle can only summon a specific type of spirit, but for a group of NPCs or a large Magic Group where they have imbued four circles for the four elements, it could be cool.

atm, we have 8 x F8-10 permament circles (2 x highend mages makes for elemental slaughterfest)

Yeah, that was expensive, but no redrawing the circles each time? Priceless

I believe that may be from SR2. Regardless, the rule stands. Circles can always be reused, but by default are made of cheaper materials. If you want one of better materials, pay whatever the cost of those materials is. The downside being, once you have a marble fire summoning circle, you can't ever use that area for any other sort of summoning circle.

Yep - hence the "multiple circles" of our little hideaway (and fire extinguishers near the F10 fire circle)

Shall run it past the group (As GM, I dislike houserules unless it's a majority decision) regarding the 100x cost for a permament permament circle.
And Karma x grade of circle.

-Tempted to also rule it that only one who has contributed karma to the circle's construction would be able to use it. Makes sense, as a circle is basically an aspected ([Element], conjuring) warded area.

-Tir

I wouldn't be huge on the karma cost. Mages are already short on karma, and I don't see any real benefit to a permanent circle except style. 100x cost is also pretty steep. Again, there's no actual benefit for this setup, so why the high cost? $600k for someone to lay down enough tile for a comfortable bathroom? Yeouch.

Nezumi--The houserule I provided, made it so that your mage does not need to provide the Force * 1,000 summoning materials every time. The benefit is that any time you are ready to summon an elemental from that ring, you go down and start working. No need to go down to the talismonger to buy stuff. In effect, you are prepaying for 100 spirits summoned.

I see. I have a difficult time imagining anyone conjuring a hundred of all one type of elemental except in the very longest campaign, and with no time savings, it seems like a losing propisition. I believe the SR2 rules specified that the circles were commonly made of another material, but the actual $1,000*X costs still had to be made, since it's sacrificial materials. The permanent circle was just a color thing.

Hoi there:)

-The need for multiple summonings is simply business, we summon elementals without having, yet again, to drive out to Seattle and comb through the various talismongers to find enough ritual materials without;

1: Making LoneStar interested in our activities (F3 is legal. A minimum of 2 x F10 Great form is our preferred burglar alarm/watchdog. On the Dodge Scoot.)
2: Same for organized crime. Actually...they're the same thing, come to think of it.
3: We make a killing providing astral security to certain well-heeled establishments. They also don't talk about where their security comes from as enough chunks of the last triad wugen that tried to manifest a spirit of flame were eventually passed back to the local chapter with apologies.
4: The team LOVES having astral support on tap. Not even going into the fun of Air/Water Elemental Movement ability. "Fire Elementals! Go hug any insect spirit you can find!" is an awesome way to spend your complex action.
5: Security. Although F10 wards are a pain, having the Orichalum depot buried under the F10 Permament circle is just common sense.
6: Community spirit (Ha) Yes, it's sort of 'Hooding, but lining up a decent protection system for the local good works pays off nicely for local contacts and alibis.

And yes, at 100 x F10 summonings it's potential profit. (8 million is a BIG ask though) but the fact that the mages have that access is worth organising.

And no one's wanted to roll up a shaman after last time, when they patterned it after the Hispanic kid from Captain Planet, grown up and sort of verging on toxic.

"Spirit of Man, I choose YOU!"
Manifested Spirit: "I can't do this...(Gets the glare from the kid) But...maybe...."
(The Table, in unison, very creepy) "Captaaaaain...Plaaaannnet.....Caaaaaannn..."
-Silence-
GM (me) OK, this stops, now.

-Tir

"Arrgh, I've got glass in my face!"
"And my FOOT in your BALLS!"

Ah, okay. Yes ... In that situation, it makes a lot more sense.

I disagree; the Friends in Melee bonus is sufficiently big (and time is, I think, generally presented as sufficiently available) that getting access to a free elemental would, IMO, result in toting around a near-max number of that kind of elemental at all times, and using them more akin to nature spirits (that is, early and often). I mean, admittedly you need at least a mid-length campaign—assuming you use 4 elementals at a time and get an average of 1.5 services per elemental you'd need to deploy elementals 38 times before you're seeing returns on investment, and while I can't find the rules for how much time a character can effectively work during a day without penalty, a generous estimate of 16 hours means that at Force 5 you're looking at a little over 31 days solid spent conjuring, but given that if you do make it to that point it's basically a well of free power from then on I could definitely see someone making that investment.

~J

If memory serves, a bound elemental is available for one year. Most runner groups will have 12 runs in that year, and let's assume they'll get their max - 1 (so they can have one elemental of another type). Let's also assume that most runner groups will not have the time to conjure a new elemental DURING a run. And for the sake of argument, let's assume they successfully manage to burn through all 5 elementals every run.

That means they'll be looking at 60 elementals per year. And for this, they are paying for 100 elementals.

Yes, if a group manages to run through 20 missions, and burns through elementals at a truly prodigious rate, they'll break even in cash (not in karma). I would consider 20-40 missions to be a pretty long campaign, though.

You do bring up a good point that this will encourage a new tactics. If you have 5 'free' fire elementals for each mission, you're encouraged to really use those fire elementals. That could turn ... destructive.

Nezumi - Was working out some of the characters we've been playing: Around ~1800 Karma purchased/earnt.
I'd suggest this goes a little beyond medium-term:)

For ease of play, we've ignored the rule of bought karma also goes into the K_pool because it was going to get weird.
(We don't do Karma pool unless it's earned Karma (Very stingy with it, reasonable for materials goods & Cash) and, weirdly, everyone selected Bad Karma at Chargen)

-Tir

And we rarely get to max out Elementals because we've never enough time to do so:(

I thought this as well, but I just checked and it's not actually true. The year-and-a-day limit we were remembering only applies to "permanently" bound elemental guards. That said, this would dramatically encourage rapid elemental turnover, so I don't think the possibility of elementals going stale would affect anything.


I don't think these two assumptions are compatible. In my experience, barring deliberate hiatus (like recovery from injury) groups I've seen are typically at a meet for the next job within a week of finishing the previous one, meaning that if the run is short enough to not admit during-run conjuring it's most likely not the only run that month, and additionally that if a run is long enough to be the only one in a month it's probably a multipart run that admits additional conjuring. I'd need to dig up the working time guidelines to be sure, but I'd say it wouldn't be too aggressive to assume that a character who has invested in this would be summoning 2*(CHR-1) of the free elemental type a month.


Aside from the fact that it may well be more than 5 elementals—a setup like this might provide enough incentive to take an Elf for 6 or 7—I think they pretty clearly will. Consider that summoned elementals can double as Sustaining Foci that cost 15,000¥/point of Force (before SI 2) and cost Force karma to bind on top of that, or as an Expendable Spell Foci that cost 1,500¥/point Force. Plus, again, serious combat would probably mean using a service from three or more elementals at once—and the enhanced potential for devastating elemental ambushes means that there's incentive to engage in more serious combat.

Actually, I think the doubling-as-a-focus thing is key as well—it's the kind of thing that, if you need to pay for the elemental every single time, you're better off just buying the sustaining focus (though since elementals aren't restricted by Force in what they can sustain, you can sustain a spell for a full day for 1k¥ of materials anyway—I'll have to think about that one). With access to free elementals, you can save the 90k¥ for a F6 sustaining focus (180k¥ with SI).


It's a gamble that the game will be short, and one that usually pays off from what I hear—IIRC DS polls consistently show most games failing to reach even 50 earned karma. In one sense it really didn't pay off for your group this time, but since everyone took it the effects aren't obvious the way they would be with some characters having 181 karma pool and others only 91 (or even 46 for the poor metahumans).

~J

Hmm - we've always ruled (in the infrequent times we've taken advantage of elementals sustaining for 1 service) that they'd have to be "big" (elemental force equal or greather than spell sustained) enough to do the job.

Otherwise there would be about 5000 x F1 elementals running about Seattle with every enhanced reactions/improved invis/stat boost spell/etc tied to any run team that could afford 20k and a mage to spend a couple of days summoning and casting before a run. Or is that me as the GM to power-hungry players?

In discussion with players atm regarding "permanent" circles - the cost is going to be big (knowing my bunch of screwups, they'd rather upgrade the hovercraft so it could fly...or transform into a wise-cracking robot with a heart of gold) and time-consuming, but profitable, in the long run.

After all, we tend to enjoy long runs:)

-Tir

Do bear in mind that some services (such as sustaining spells) are written as being painful or harmful to the elementals. While this has no mechanical effects, it should have role-playing effects. Having a permanent force-8 fire elemental circle, but earning Spirit Bane: Fire Elemental sort of sucks.

In the absence of free elementals, there are plenty of reasons not to go this route. First off, it requires you to have a Hermetic Mage unless you want to be jacking up the price massively, and hermetics get so roundly shafted under the current rules that I can't remember the last time I saw one played. Second, it's less flexible than a Sustaining Focus—if you drop the spell for any reason, it costs you an additional Service to get it back. Also, for spells of any sustained duration you give up all remaining services from the elemental—the version that doesn't cost you the rest of the services only lasts Force combat turns.

Third, although I suppose you do get to keep the karma savings, keep in mind that this only saves you money if the game is short or the spell infrequently used—once you pay for and bond a Sustaining Focus you have it forever barring equipment loss, while each time you sustain a spell with an elemental it costs you at least 1k¥ (in principle you can reduce it by getting multiple services and spending all but one of them on other things before you have them sustain the spell, but basically everything else that elementals do is highly Force-dependent so the value is negligible). This, again, is assuming that someone took one for the team and made a Hermetic—hiring outside is going to cost more.


Sounds like they're not so power-hungry after all


Harmful, yes; the long-duration sustaining "[…]irrevocably depletes the elemental's Force". I can't find anything saying that it's painful or otherwise disliked, though—I think that's an SR4 thing.


Even setting the above point aside, earning Spirit Bane would be a mechanical effect, not a role-playing effect.

~J