So, here's my question. Under the description of Banishing, it says that a Spirit whose Services are reduced to 0 will attempt to depart to its home metaplane on its next action.

It then states "The banishing magician (or any magician within line of sight, for that matter,) can make a Summoning Test against the spirit before it departs, bringing the spirit into her own service instead. A spirit banished and then summoned this way can later be bound as well."

So, say you have a Tradition which doesn't summon Spirits of Air, but the Magician in question really, really wants a Spirit with the Movement power. Can she and a friend lurk in the Astral until a Spirit of Air comes by, have the friend nail it with a Banishment to drop its services to Zero, and then she nails it with a Summoning check to grab it?


That would seem unlikely, since the description of Summoning states (literally as the first line,) "A magician may only summon the chosen spirits of her tradition", but it seems that there might be some wiggle room between "call from the Astral Plane" and "grab something already here on Earth." If not by default (which I suspect to be the case,) could some Metamagic technique allow for pulling this stunt?

Or, failing those, can you mentally dominate a loose spirit to similar effect, commanding it to remain on this plane and use its powers as you please?

It works because you don´t summon it, you just bind it to you. Binding seems to be tradition-free.^^

Not true. Note the text "... can later be bound as well", so it's not the same.

Given that "Summoning Test" is given in the proper noun form I would say that the RAW answer is no.
However, given that banishing is such an unappealing option as is I would probably allow it. I certainly wouldn't expect a player to waste anything as valuable as a metamagic technique on it.

Some have postulated that a metamagic equivalent to the echo that grants a TM ability to compile a new kind of sprite would not be game-breaking, so maybe that would be a satisfactory solution.

By RAW you should be able to bind it to you with a summoning test, yes.

Just because you're rolling a summoning TEST doesn't make that a complete summoning ACTION.

It seems to work, but it also seems to be a little moot.

The idea I had was that a Twisted magician (her Tradition is all about summoning a variety of Shadow spirits,) would have her Ally spirit nuke another, more common spirit (such as an Air Spirit) with Banishing to reduce its Services to 0, and then she would hit it with a Summoning test to grab it. Basically spiritjacking another Magician's Spirits. Grand Theft Spirit.


But Ally spirits are forbidden from learning any skills in the Conjuring group, which includes Banishing. So it's kind of a flop. It could still work, but you'd need another magician.

That's how the Poke-mage works.
Gotta catch them all!

It seems like an extremely low-utility action anyway. Your tradition should already have all the spirits you need (or you chose poorly). There are some X-treem Cheez suggestions I've seen, but they're more amusing thought experiments than real tactics.

I got a GM house rule on that, but that ain't RAW.

We've just treated it as a standard thing. Have to reduce the initial services to 0 then Rebind it IIRC.

- J.

In a list of Wraith, Muse, Nightingale, Shade and Succubus, I don't really see a home for the Movement power. (Well, the Succubus moves a lot, but I mean as in motive force, not bouncy force. )

WOW... Heh.

*shrug* Movement seems a cinch for basically any spirit.

I agree with that one. I love movement.

I've had that metamagical ability in my games since before SR4 - no player has ever taken it, or ever considered it. It can be used for some neat NPCs, but i can hardly say it's game breaking in any way...

Only problem would be if you allow spirits that aren't otherwise summonable.

In that case we're well beyond RAW here. It's my understanding that summoning shadow spirits (like normal ones, not like free ones) is not just player-prohibited but actually game-world impossible, so we're not even talking house rules - it really just comes down to what your players will think is a cool twist and what they will think is GM fiat gone mad.

Blame Dunkhelzahn. I can't throw a Blood Mage or a Toxic Mage at them without their eyes lighting up like _ and them forgetting all about the run. And giving them cranial bombs linked to biomonitors which trigger if they get knocked unconscious or drugged into helplessness is just kind of cruel.

So I needed to come up with a Threat magician (because I know there's no way in hell I'm going to beat an experienced MagicRun player with a regular magician) that wasn't worth as much nuyen as fifty regular runs if they bring him in alive.

Try a nosferatu, or something like a master shedim. Those are just a couple magical threats that don't fit Big D's cashbox, there are others.

Yeah, but it needs to be a Threat Magician. The guys they've been pushing around twigged too fast to the fact that they're going for flash-and-bang wizardry and are calling in magical backup of their own.

Nosferatu and Master Shedim don't generally sell out for cash and favors, nor are they likely to have familial ties that can be tugged on to pull them in.


[e]I was actually going to just make her a Black Mage, but then I was reading through Threats from Street Magic and fell in love with the Shadow type as being likely to resonate with this magician.

Just make her a Nosferatu Black Magican or so.

Or, you know, give the Shadow mage a Metamagic that turns regular spirits into Shadow spirits - just like the one Toxics use.

If you want to house-rule a new way of magician in, do what you will...
If you would favor an in-RAW way to do something adequate, though, I have a few suggestions.
Most of them are found on page 138, "Street Magic". Those are threat magicians that are neither toxic nor blood magic related, so no cash reward. They are mostly "normal" summoners with a very serious streak of villainy.
Faustian mages for example are very prone to spirit pacts. They don't normally summon shadow spirits as in original summoning, but a lot of them will sure get into a spirit pact or try to aquire a spirit formula of a free spirit.
"Running Wild" also introduces rules for bargaining with wild spirits. It doesn't work like standard summoning, either, but the spirits grant one or more services nontheless. Some summoner high on Charisma and Negotiation could easily pull that off on a regular basis. Doesn't suffer drain by that, anyway, and the maximum number of bound spirits doesn't apply, too. He could even use his own spirits as a kind of offering for Energy Drain creatures. Not a nice summoners move, but being evil anyway makes short work of those concerns. It's not so much possible to pull off any of these tricks in the middle of combat, though, but prepared people like that sure pack quite a punch
Just calculate the odds of running against a summoner with a totally unchecked number of various nasty spirits, possibly on his own turf... I'd try to avoid that fight
There have also been rumors of some very bad voodoo slingers dealing with shedim... I particularly like those. I began constructing one pretty insane guy who specialised in draining karma from other people. For PCs, that's pretty much impossible, but a GM can find a way... Have to finish that monstrosity sometime.
Those above are not really "evil" paths per se, but rather very twisted versions of normal traditions...

Insect shamans have no bounties.

- J.

I'm playing one in a game right now. Sick level = off the charts.

It's been done. Several times. Searching the forum for Banishing anf pokemon reveals enough about this topic. Including author's comments.
And I'm still considering building one.