Often people mention that they consider certain spirits unbalanced, particularly Task and Guardian get named often. Voodoo is often called a munchkin tradition because it's got so many powerful spirits, and Possession too. I rather like the idea of making a mage with only the "humanoid" spirits (Guidance, Guardian, Task, Man and I guess Beast), but that seems to be rather on the OP side according to some.

1) So what is a good baseline spirit, and which spirits are too powerful (or weak), and why?

2) How could this be fixed, so that spirits are more equal to each other in power?

It would be a mess to balance the spirits with out making them to much all the same.

Guidance has some powers no other spirit has. Task has exploitation of its cool skills power. Guardian spirit is probably the best combat spirit. Spirit of man has Innate Spell, which is also nice. With Voodoo the only powers you don't have access to is Venom, and that power really is not that cool.

It would be nice if the other possession traditions were equally optimal. A compromise might be to let new traditions or variations of traditions to use whatever spirit load out people want. Better to have people play what they want than to need to compromise, between a character they would like to play and what they think is the most powerful, because to many people would chose the uninteresting powerful character. You can barely come up with a more powerful tradition than voodoo anyway.

The only downside to voodoo I can think of is that I imagine it is more common than some of the traditions. Easy to find people to team up with but also back ground count aspected to your domain has a lot of people who it buffs instead of hinders.

Guardian are strong, because they can use Automatic weapons and get beyond human attributes while being hard to kill.
Task spirits are like skillwires, as you can give them stuff like Running, Lockpicking, Parachuting, whenever you need it, and than let the spirit possess you.
SofM are strong because they can cast your spells, so you don't suffer sustaining penalties, however, their dice pool is usually smaller than yours, so I think their fine.
Some think Guidance Diving power is strong, but the dice pool is limited...

The first two mostly cause balancing problems with possession traditions. A solution would be, to let them only get skills, that are conform with the Tradition. GM and player should make a list at chargen, what is acceptable. A voodoo task spirit with Automotive Mechanic fells somewhat wrong to me as they totally lack the technological knowledge.

Another balancing house rule would be to cap attributes of the combined dual entity at the vessel's augmented max. So far rules don't talk about this, only the FAQ does and says otherwise.

Well, what is a Task spirit to a Voodoo practitioner but a type of Loa? Some Loa used to be people so why not one who knows how to fix cars.

Given the amount of caveats and leeway for the GM to be vague, I don't think that makes guidance spirits overpowered - you knew right when you selected that Divination exhorts the GM not to give more or less than he deems good for the story. In other words, it's very useful when the GM is frustrated because you don't seem to get the clues he wanted you to find, but it's not a plot shortcut.

Guardian spirits are pretty powerful, I guess; (Force x 2)+2 dice to hit with firearms is good, but not stellar - capped at 2IPs, no smartlink, and only terribly powerful if you pump into high Force. But it's pretty powerful for a spirit, yeah. Maybe it makes sense to cap their skills at 6 just like for regular characters? It's not much, but it does slow them down a bit.

Task spirits - I'd consider the same skill max (6), but unless you're using Possession, they don't seem so terribly powerful...

So is Possession really the problem with certain spirits being more powerful than others, or is it those skills?

Some quick thoughts about this matter:
1.)Should spirits have counterspelling?
For my part I think all spirits should have counterspelling, in order to prevent the much too easy stunbolt approach.
2.)Should spirits have FORCE = Edge?
No, I do not hink this was a good idea. First of all spirits get quite resistant against oppressive fire (close to the point they can actually ignore it).
So half edge would be quite good.
3.) Should spirits spend Edge if summoned or bouned?
Yes, I think there should be a chance they do. To crunch it in a rule:
Role a W6.
Summoning: If smaller than Force-1 the spirit uses Edge
Binding: If smaller than Force the spirit uses Edge.
If the player abused spirits, the GM may change the figuers to appropriate value.
4) To banish a spirit you only need net hits= unused sevices and you only need to resist half the drain. Spirits never spend edge against beeing banished. Since everyone like to get home. (With free spirit it is not that easy)


If you use those three points, spirits stay quite balanced.

How often do you really see spirits bigger than Force 6?

I don't, but other people here seem to think those are eminently feasible for PCs to summon and bind. I've crunched the numbers on them once, I think I concluded that F>6 had a significant risk of killing you, if the spirit got a bit above-average while resisting the Binding.

All the time. Force 6 is nothing to a perfect caster.

I would say my problem is with:

1. Higher skills than usual metahumans. We are lead to believe 7 is the highest anyone could ever get. That should be true for spirits as well. Including Edge 7. Stop the madness with skill=force. Make is lower, maybe 2/3 Force and cap it. (Or UNCAP it for all other creatures in existance)

2. Magical Guard. Somehow all the later spirits got it, but none of the usual ones. I am for giving it to every spirit, or none. That ability is MASSIVE.

3. The damn future-seeing of Guidence spirits. While thematic and cool, it essentially doubles as a metamagic power, and is just too accessible. (My mage consultates them pretty much before DOING ANYTHING - and i am pretty much forced to say what would happen to her if the timestream keeps going. I can be vague and such, sure... but come on... it rolls the damn 5 successes, i have to spill it *g*)

Binding Force 6 and higher is mostly a very bad idea. First, it takes around 7 hours do do so.
Summoning Force 6 and higher is possible.
Summoning Force 6:
Drain 0-12. (Avarage 4)
Hits needed (avarage): 3.
Possible I say. Binding is not so easy.

Eh, depends. For a usual, common, average mage: Surely a problem: Physical drain, low dice pools hard enough to summon a force 6, BINDING? No way.

Problem is that the system and the world encouraged extreme specialization and hyper min-maxing. You WILL have a world-class mage somehow. (Well, unless dicouraged from the gm and when the team build a balanced team)

All you need is pretty much have more than double its force as a dicepool and/or high edge. (Also you may have to trust that your gm doesn't let the spirit take ITS ridiculous edge to resist binding ... but hey: Say you allways treated them nice and have plans in alignment with the spirit... why SHOULD it?)

Since all the equipment, spell and mentor boni are on the mage side of the contest, it really isn't that hard to summon something better than yourself (of bigger than your head).

I think it's a mistake to focus on the Average Case scenario when talking about Binding; it's better to look at the Moderately Bad and Worst Case scenarios. After all, it takes only one colossal failure to kill you, so it's important to know the likelihood of that happening.

Let's assume a healthy wizard with Magic 6, Body 5, Willpower 6. He's therefore got 11 health boxes in both Stun and Physical. He's got another Drain Attribute of 6 - this is a fairly potent wizard, but not obscenely so. (Attributes might be lower, he might have a focus or Initiation - it'll be around this much more or less).

Let's say that we consider the Moderately Bad Case Scenario (MBCS) to be when the spirit rolls 2/3rds hits on its Resist Binding roll (with Force x 2 dice). This strikes me as something that isn't too unlikely too happen, and will probably happen eventually if you try to Bind often enough.

Drain is twice the spirit's raw hits, so that's (2/3) * 2 * 2 * F = F * 2.66 Drain. Ouch! Now on a F6 spirit, that's 16 Stun Drain. Assume you resist one third (4), you'd still go unconscious, so you use Edge to reroll all failed dice, again getting one third wins (2.7), which means you stay conscious, barely. That's the MBCS.

WorstCaseScenario: 6 * 2 * 2 = 24 Stun, which is almost certainly going to render you unconscious, and unless you get at least 2 (doable!) hits on your Drain Resistance, you'll go into Overflow.

So far, F6 is rough, but not impossible to survive. Now let's take a look at F8 - overcasting just the teensiest bit!

Average Case: (1/3) * 2 * 2 * 8 = 10.66 Phyical damage pre-Resistance: leaves you quite sore, but not going to kill you. Worth it for the spirit as a trump card, maybe.
MBCS: 21.33 Physical damage - only survivable if you ace the Drain Resistance. Better have some Edge left!
WCS: 2 * 2 * 8 = 32 Physical damage. Time for the HoG...

Another point to consider is that you need to've summoned that F8 spirit the same day, and will have had to deal with its Drain on the summoning too. Not nearly as intense, since Summoning Drain is only F, not F*2, but still; the ritual to Bind takes so long that you can't spend many hours recuperating from it.

---

Conclusion: Binding F8 spirits is feasible for a strong wizard, but it's likely going to take several points of Edge (to get any services at all, and to deal with the Drain). This isn't something you do as standard practice, it's to have a spirit hidden away for Special Occasions.

Of course, a tricked out, multiple-initiation wizard might have a much easier time of it.

And of course, if the GM decides to let the spirit use Edge to resist the Binding, you're so dead...

@Summerstorm


The problem is, there is no way to tell avarage, when it comes to magic.
Meet Walter. He is a wage mage(mook) with a magic of 12.
@Ascalaphus

Probability:0.00137
And thats binding a force 6 spirit. I said this is not a thing you should do. (Well, I said not so easy. Should have but a smily emphasising the point)

The poin is summoning a force 6 sprit is 12 drain top.
MBCS:8
Avarage: 4
Still, getting 4 hits (MBCS) on 6 dices is not something you see often. Stil it is possible to stand up against.

On the other hand a force 8 spirit delivers a lot more punsh than a foce 4 sprit. (Not just twice as good)
So even summoning a force 8 spirit is mostly worth the risk. Because the possibility of getting 16 points of drain is low. Getting shot by the opposition is quite higher.

Yeah, the point of my calculations (not terribly clearly) is that it's doable to Bind spirits if you don't have to Overcast. The MBCS Drain of a F6 spirit is still almost certainly not fatal, and you might even stay conscious. Having a friend with SnS and a first aid kit there isn't a bad idea though.

On the other hand, if you have to overcast, you suddenly risk going into Overflow if you fall unconscious. There's a big leap in risk going from 6 (assumed to be a Magic 6 mage) to 7+, because you have only one condition monitor to put the Drain into instead of both a Stun and Physical track.

Let me just say that I am not a fan of giving all the spirits edge = force. I felt this was a ridiculous change in the current edition and was one more case of magic creep.

However since I do tend to have the add edge to the test to resist summoning and especially binding especially for spirits whose magic is greater then that of their summoner I don't see as many high bound spirits. I sometimes bypass this is people roleplay the ritual aspects of summoning and binding in keeping with their tradition.

Edit and Addendum: I also cap skills for sprites and spirits. I can't find a rule calling for it, but i can't find a rule making them a special case either.

Umm no it's not, it's 10(8 if you want to stay mundane) for almost all skills.
I doupt you see force 10+ spirits all that often and even if you do it's not really their skills that are the biggest danger at that point

I believe you are confusing dicepool bonuses with actual raising of skills, in any case unless you have something that specifically raises the ceiling six is the max for a characters.

there are a handful of qualities (like Natural Athlete), there's 'ware like Reflex Recorder or MbW and ofc the Improved Ability Adept Power.

No, skills have an augmented max of 1,5 times the natural rating and there are ways to get to that cap.

But summoned spirits do not have ways to raise their skills other than what they come with, and free spirits can basically just use qualities, gear, and spells to get a dice pool bonus.

Anyway free spirits PCs has a line that says they effectively have no limit on skills and attributes. But being that they can't use ware, or foci to boost skills it is not that shocking. They would need to have huge amounts of karma to match what a human mage can do with a high force focus. Buying the initiations, attribute, and skill to get all the way up to magic 12, spell casting 12, is nigh impossible even assuming you spend karma on nothing else.

Eh, free spirits are not the problem -especially player character free spirits. They are weakened (because... they live here now too... whatever).

The problem is that mages just call someone proficient in any skill or any form of combat out of thin air in ONE complex action to do their bidding. And yeah: i meant normal, natural skill, but even enhanced skills crash down before spirits, if those are strong enough.

Also: Yeah, like i said, in standard power the magic system TOTALLY works. For a Magic 4, sorcery/summoning 3 character with say a powerfocus 1, the available options and risks are totally in line. He can control minds of lesser man, but not always and not reliable. He can call in another competent combatant and he can, through spirits duplicate skills in okay-ish competence.

But a Magic 6, Summoning 6 (+2spec), +2 Mentor spirit, +4 Power focus wielding dude with Will 6, Cha 6, Edge 6 and a 4-point drain-pact and centering is the problem. And that isn't even beginning to go overboard (With enhanced attributes, drugs, support characters, special summoning circles and stuff)

So yeah... such people CAN and will bind impossibly high spirits. Is is expensive and potentiel dangerous? Sure. But those "Forces of Nature" are an instant "Resolve my immediate Problems"-card. And just feel unfair to other characters.

For example in my group i have my dreaded mage (I took over the group, so i wasn't in charge when the character was approved): A pixie mage, optimized (but not even to hell and back) for summoning air spirits.

She not only is EASILY dishing out most damage, and instant incapacitations (you ever tried to get out of an air-engulf?) but has also an insane amount of options through the spirits powers (Wheel magic, has guidance). Now if she would ALSO have task-spirits i can safely say that the rest of the team would have only have value as bodies on the battlefield (and they are really not bad, even very good).

Don't you escape all Engulfs equally (assuming you lost the initial melee attack, you then Opposed Strength + Body against Magic + Body)? Air spirits are F-2 Body, so they're perhaps the easiest to escape.

And yet, there are rules in place to handle such insanity... You just have to be willing to use them consistently. I can guarantee you that it is a serious matter if ANY character even thinks about summoning a Force 6+ Spirit at our table. This is becaus it can kill you outright. Binding one of such power is an almost guaranteed death. Why, you may ask? Because Spirits spend Edge to resist Summoning or Binding at a certain point. That point, for us, is at Force 4 (The point at which the Force of the spirit goes higher than the average Magic Attribute of the summoner in the game world). From Force 4-6, Spirits consider themselves the Summoner's Equal (and thus you are forced into a serious contest of wills as the summoner and the spirit vie for control). From Force 7+, they consider themselves superior to the summoner, in every way (And will take Any and All steps to sieze control from the summoner, including using the most advantageous, to them, interpretation of the commands that they are given).

If you are having issues with High Force Spirits in game, then you are not taking enough steps to control them in game.

Indeed... Air Spirits are not my Spirit of Choice for the use of Engulf. An Engulf attack from a Powerful Air Spirit (Force 6 is only rolling 10 Dice in the opposed test, after all) is almost useless against Dwarves, Orks or Trolls, and is about on par with average Shadowrunning Humans and Elves.

Sure, there's a cap for characters, but it sure isn't universal. Case in point, Great Dragons have Sorcery skill at 12 and Conjuring at 8 (sr4a p 304).

So... Are you saying that you want PC's to have access to Skill Levels equal to what Dragons and High Level Spirits can acquire? If so, Why?

Well, i would like it too.

Because:
Feels fair. Sure, nobody will ever GET to Sorcery 12 or Pistol 15. But having it open-ended always gives prospects, and can motivate people to try and become "THE BEST EVAAAR"
Also as a gm you can always say: That dude is better than you, if you really need it *g*.

As it stands now there are just too many people in the high-end range (Against the intent of the rules and the flavour of the world... just out of balancing issues). Clustered together, not differing so much from each other. Having the skills uncapped allows for example the "old master" back in: Lower physical stats, but life-long honed skills.

Back to spirits: Oh, yeah my notes were wrong on the engulf... i made that mistake for TWO YEARS now. Had them make a melee-roll to get out, not an attribute roll... crap. Ok, Air will LAND its engulf... but keeping people in is indeed not that good.

Im pretty sure he's just pointing out that while characters have a limit on skill(which isn't 6), it's not an universal limit.

Why should it be fair? Oh, and as a GM, I can say that NOW... The second that you uncap Skill Levels, you will see characters with close to max Levels. And then the bonuses that ensue make for even MORE Crazy DP's than you get now. No sir... Keep the Caps in place.

It would solve thew old problem of mundanes not having as many ways to expand. But on the other side people normally spend a lot on those extra few dice (karma, ware, and so on). Still, no one said uncapped skills needed to be cheap for humans.

Maybe something like ordeal and initiation for raising skills. Think montages from 80's kungfu movies. "walk though the rain with out touching a drop" "do what now?". Kung fu already has a some nifty areas of expansion. Anyways this is totally off topic, even off topic from the off topic, topic this has become.

Anyway for free spirits they can only choose powers that are available to their tradition. Voodoo lets them have access to every power but venom. And guidance spirit's engulf power is quite nice and very different. It is stun damage but ignores armor. Possession tradition has its downsides but if you are going free spirit of possession Voodoo is probably the best unless you think Hedge witch craft with intuition drain stat is better.

On the skills I have to agree with Summerstorm.
It would put an end to the stupid I am Master of the universe in Martial art, Firearms medicine etc but still I do suck.

Higher skills are self regulating.
The 6. point on your primary skill is always worth it, even on a secondary skill. But the 10. or the 11. isn't anymore.
22 Karma for one additional dice for firearms?
Link it to an attribute like: Max skill = natural attribute +1 and you are fine. The highest skill a human could get would be around 10.
But I guess there would not be a lot of players aiming for it. Most would stay with 6 to 8.



Why? It would not be efficient to do so. Every point cost more than the last. So yes, given unlimited Karma would lead to that. But Why would you raise pistols from 9 to 10 if you could raise athletics (4 skills) from 0 to 2?

And yet this is not born out through experience. I have seen many a SR3 Character with more than a single High-Teens Skill.



Because there is a group of people whgo are never happy with anything less than the Best you can get. They will spend those points to get there.

This is exactly why I ignore anyone who says that spirits don't need to be capped because sane characters can't summon insanely high spirits. If level 6 is the most anyone SHOULD be able to summon, then hard cap them at 6. Anyone who doesn't want that hard cap clearly sees the possibility of summoning a higher level spirit at some point.

But your argument is flawed. Spirit Force for summoning is not hard capped. Skills DO have a Hard Cap. Apples and Oranges.
Summoning a High Level Spirit IS possible... It should just not be possible for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to do so, however. There are already ways to keep this in control. Uncapping Skill levels is not the way to do so.

@suoq
The problem is that you might want to have spirits higher than force 6 at some point of a story.
Might they be free spirits or ally spirits of an ancient mage or what so ever.

If you would go with the "Hard cap at 6" you would need to do so with everything about magic.
Attribute, BC, spirits etc.

So, I might want skills higher than 6 as well. I can't think of a hard cap I would NEVER want to ignore for the purposes of telling a story. However, when I'm the GM, I DO get to ignore hard caps because I'm the GM. (People who don't like that can GM instead of me. ) This doesn't mean I ignore the caps. I better have a damn good reason for even thinking about it. But as GM, I have more freedom than the players. Again, if they don't like it, they can do the prep work and run the adventure. It's beliefs like that that have kept me from having to run a Shadowrun adventure for the past year. Yay!



Nothing but love for that. Nothing but love.

@suoq

Well, here the me GM is a bit different. But I guess everybody has his style.



Darn you. You won the argument.

Well, at my table, possession of any living vessel caps the attributes at the augmented maximum of the host vessel, and the skills at 6. Lifeless vessels are still uncapped. This is mostly to prevent mages from making themselves or teammates invulnerable.

As for the use of Edge, I'm in the camp of "Spirits don't Edge unless forced to do so." Meaning that spirits can and will spend edge, but only under two circumstances:
a) The summoners spends 1 pt of his own edge, allowing his spirit to use edge in any way a PC is able to. This gives the player some degree of control, without infinite resources.
b) The summoner attempts to bind or summon a spirit with a Force rating > his own magic rating. This caps spirits somewhat, without totally gimping them. Note that at our table, anything with F<6 cannot meaningfully contribute to serious encounters. Other tables may have other playstyles, but we play with fairly high optimization and genre savvy opposition.

Also, no spirits except for free spirits and ally spirits get Magical Guard.

I'd add a quick thought that maybe Spirit Affinity or similar would affect whether spirits spend Edge to resist a summoning / binding...not sure exactly HOW it would affect it though...maybe something like, in your b) example, someone with the particular spirit affinity has to summon a spirit with Force + 1 > magic rating...

So, because you consider your table highly optimized, you feel the need to sucker punch mages? Spirits of force less than 6 (the only spirits runners can safely summon until they complete the lengthy and cost-heavy process of initiation/buy up magic/initiation/buy up magic ad nauseum) cannot contribute, but any spirit over that range automatically uses edge to resist? Does the sam's gun start to recoil more if he loads it with SnS ammo? Do riggers get penalties for rigging drones larger than them? And what about sprites? Do you have the same restrictions on technomancers?

I may be overreacting because it's 4am and I'm exhausted, but there seems to be a ridiculous level of reactionary magic-hate popping up on the boards lately.


~R~

Well, I've always considered myself to be one of the more lenient DMs on this board in regard to magic. That said, you seem to misread my post; spirits only use edge if their force exceeds the summoners force. Therefore, if your mage has magic rating 8, any spirit of force up to 8 will not edge against your summoning/binding unless you have seriously offended said spirit type. Compare that ruling to, say, the one Tymeaus Jalynsfein uses at his table (no offense to you, Tymeaus), where every spirit of Force 4 or higher automatically edges, regardless whether you have magic 6 or magic 10.

Also, if I may quote myself:



Emphasis mine. Not every encounter is "serious", by which I mean "challenging". There are plenty of fights with mooks and other low-tech opposition which are not designed to be life-threatening.

And yes, sprites face the same restriction.

I'd like to bring the discussion back to the original point: balancing spirits WITH EACH OTHER.

The idea is to make them equal enough in power that you can freely create a custom tradition with any loadout of spirits without anyone crying Munchkin! because the spirits you've taken are all superior to the rest.

SO.

The following seem to be the troublemakers:

Guardian: a guardian spirit with a gun has (F*2)+2 dice to hit and 2IPs. That's quite a lot, but is there any elegant way to deal with that?

Even if you cap skill at 6, that doesn't change the fact that a F6 guardian spirit is basically another street sam, fresh from the aether. Binding them isn't terribly interesting, because that's expensive in binding material and takes a lot of time - any other character could just hire an NPC gunslinger, too. But just the one guardian you get from Summoning could have 14 dice to hit with. Not nearly as much as a dedicated gunbunny, but quite powerful still.

Task: I get the impression people don't really mind them as Materialization spirits, but think they're easy skillwires for Possession mages? In that case I think the problem might be more related to Possession and the unfortunate rules for Skillwires since SR4A...

Guidance: Divination is a bit of a troublesome power, but on the other hand the GM has several ways to deal with it:
- be vague
- be highly symbolic, in hopes that the players will misinterpret the divination
- "Future still unclear, try again later" if you don't know it yet, or don't want them to know yet. Fate just hasn't coalesced in a particular path yet.
- Outright telling the player that in any RPG, there's a problem with divination: if the player wants to know the future, then he's asking the GM to railroad the PCs into that particular future. Ask the player to exercise some restraint.
- Plan your runs with Divination in mind; "enemies will try to ambush them in nasty ways, but thanks to Divination, they'll be warned about the insta-death sniper and be able to take steps". This works best if you are more a planner than an improviser as GM

Or you could just cut the Divination power out, and instead give them the optional power of having a particular Knowledge in the same way as Task and Guardian spirits.

Magical Guard: It does strike me as a bit uneven that the older spirits lack this power. Maybe they all should have it, or none? Maybe all spirits should be able to counterspell spells cast at themselves (protecting against Stunbolt, but not Banishing), but only Guardian spells cast at others (in keeping with its role as protector)?

Just because it's reactionary doesn't mean it's undeserved. Further your assumption about Elfenlied's post seems inacurate especially given that i use a very similar setup.

I'd say this could be brought back in power without nerfing it completely by making the mage's tradition somehow limit the skills available (maybe apply this to Guardian spirit above also).


Maybe have every spirit able to counterspell, but limited to whatever spell-type the tradition attunes them to. If some feel this nerfs Guardian, don't apply this to that spirit.

*edit* looking back over my answers, it seems I'm very pro-tradition-limitations. Seems like it would be a good thing, giving traditions more "flavor" and maybe making the tradition choices more meaningful than what spirits it gets...or is that just shifting the problem to a different area...hmmmm

That's an interesting idea.. I was thinking it was odd that spirits (which are defined as having trouble comprehending even basic electronics) could have Hacking.

Of course, tying spirits to some medieval tech-level where brownies operate a smithy is a bit dubious for someone with a futuristic tradition (Jedi..) too, and I don't think it's entirely bad if guardian spirits use gun.. having a guardian spirit materialize as a cowboy and pick up a Ruger Super Warhawk has some class.

If you switch the Guidance spirit's Divination to a Knowledge power, limiting the skills becomes even more critical; you wouldn't want players to summon them with Knowledge: What The Enemy Is Really Up To.



I think making Tradition count more, making magic a little less generic (but in a mechanically clean way) is a worthy goal.

From what I can tell, the problems arise from the street magic possession tradition spirits...? ... Sounds like another reason not to allow PC possession mages. But otherwise I quite like the idea of restricting magical guardian to spell category and capping spirit skills according to the host body or 6. Also I like the idea of spirits having edge = half force and only using it when life or death (ie cannot be directed to do so).

Another option is if spirits use Edge on the Binding/Summoning resistance tests if (and only if?):
* The magician has treated these spirits poorly in the past (used them as cannon fodder..)
* The magician is using Edge on the Binding/Summoning test (tit for tat)

I'd say that spirits can't be compelled to use Edge on behalf of their master, but if the situation fits the spirit type, they might (a fire spirit would use Edge to dodge a water-based assault for example, or to attack a foe inimical to its tradition).

from this forum, somewhere
When Summoning a spirit:

That is a very interesting idea! It makes spirits much less like emotionless drones, and not quite so predictable for the caster.

No Offense Taken Elfenlied... There is a mechanic in place at our table (backed by a Skill) that will allow a character to mitigate the Edge Expenditure for Spirits higher than Force 3. It takes a roll, and some roleplaying to fucntion correctly. But in the end, it is not that big of a deal. By Fluff, High Force Spirits are extremely rare. If you can just casually summon a Spirit of Force 8+ (as some on this board espouse), then that fluff goes out the door. The rule we use forces High Force Spirits into that Rare Category. It has worked out wonderfully for us.

I know that it is not for everyone.