So a friend of mine that wants to try SR out wants to basicly be a summoner. where he summons spirits mostly and rushes into combat with them with mostly enhancing, support, and utility magic, would this work? and if so, how should I go about helping him build? its 430BP build. Mystic adept mabye? if so, and he puts his magic to 5 but splits it 3/2 will he only be allowed to summon force 3 spirits? or could he still summon force 5 ones without overcasting?

If you are playing anniversary edition(you should) the rules regarding mystic adepts have changed since 4th edition.
Specifically, mystic adepts use their Full Magic attribute for most calculations based on magic instead of that wierd half and half split before.
As a heads up, ignore the FAQ on this - the ruling is six years out of date and was never updated with the change in core book rules!

Basically if he's a mystic adept with a magic of 6, and has 2 points in adept power, he can overcast at force 6. but will only roll magic 4+summoning/spellcasting whatever to do stuff.

Summoning CAN be effective, but be warned that he really needs Binding(which is expensive) since it is the only way to get more than one spirit at a time.
On the other hand, possession traditions can be kinda broken.
If he wants to buff a lot, the Heightened Concentration power from Digital Grimoire goes a long ways towards getting rid of sustaining penalties without using foci

alright that helps some, so, he can overcast to summon force 6 spirits, but otherwise without overcasting he can only summon spirits with a force of 4?

Well, if you want to focus on summoning, I'd suggest being a full magician. Astral Projection is really important for a goods summoner.

Anyways, I find the difference between a magician and a summoner is edge. To summon and bind high force spirits reliably and with lots of services, you need a good edge. Also put your skilla t 6 in binding and not summoning.

As for magical attacks, a magician can cast plenty of buff spells, and use weapon foci(though guns would be better), so they can't support and fight along side their spirits just fine. If you pick a possession tradition you can even get the channeling metamagic and allow a high force spirit to possess you turning you into an engine of destruction.

OK, Ill talk to him about it, the reason I would have suggested to him to play a mystic adept was due to the fact he saw his char going in toe to toe with his spirit haha, fighting side by side ya know, Ill get with him and read up on the possession tradition and see what he thinks, and atm, he had spellcasting 5, summon 5, binding 4, so he should swap summon and binding points? thanks for the input btw

There are very few situations where a mystic adept is better than either an adept or a magician. Shadowrun generally encourages high numbers, so being able to do more things with lower dice pools isn't the way to go typically. As I mentioned, through buff spells and possession spirits you can get pretty tough as a magician(or just play a troll). In any case, the best way to take out a spirit is stunbolt.

Anyways, as for skill points, I'd go spellcasting 4, summoning 4, binding 6, for two reasons, First, binding rolls are much harder than other magical rolls, and need a higher dice pool, second, it is more efficient with BP to purchase 1 skill at 6 than 2 skills at 5.

Actually that was wrong even 6 years ago. The section has not changed from SR4 to SR4A.

No. With MAG 6 and a 4/2 split, you can normally cast up to force 6 and can overcast on Force 7-12. You would however only get 2 PP of adept powers (up to Rating 6 for each Power) and a dice pool of 4+skill for casting/summoning etc.

This pretty much depends whether you deem the penalty from several spells as a single distraction or if each spell is a different distraction.

I'd actually go the other way around, summoning 6, binding 4 exactly because binding is more difficult. Services from the summoning are kept if you bind that spirit. It matters not if you accrue the services through summoning or binding. The former is easier though. So get as many as you can there.

Don't forget to buy and bind a power focus on CharGen. This will nicely increase your dice pools. You won't get one cheaper later.

awesome thanks Dakka.

No, a 4/2 mystic adept Overcasts at force 7 and above.
For ALL purposes. That includes spells and spirits


Its 29 points for a force 4 power focus, including restricted gear quality and binding costs. It can make mystic adepts really, really good.

Personally, for that sort of thing I'd prefer a dwarf and would take a Mentor spirit that gives bonuses to the combat spirit of choice. Dwarves make excellent magicians to begin with, but if the character is going to wade into a fight then they're going to need a significant Body score and the strength probably won't hurt, especially if he ends up with a weapon focus. Troll isn't bad, but it is pricey.

Ork is also not bad if you don't take a logic based tradition.

he went for the shamanic ork, spiritual leader whatnot, convinced him to give him a weapon foci stave and a mentor spirit (wolf) so far

Either way, if you summon and bind a spirit, the two point, be they in summoning or binding, will give you 2/3 a service on average, however you are far more likely to fail the binding roll outright, which means you may want to increase the chance of success in the first place. Even with 4 ranks in summoning, you'll summon fine, but a starting character binding a high force spirit will always be a risk.

I agree. Binding will really kick your ass, and with the price tag of 500 per rating for binding materials, it can really get costly to fail. My Edge pool often gets used on a Binding roll. I keep bound spirits for their unique abilities and as a standby, and then summon (often overcast) a spirit on top of that for the fight. Bottom line, regardless of how many dice you roll for your binding, more dice is never ever a bad thing.

Also, for the comparison to the Mystic Adept they were talking about, I currently run a Mystic Adept with a manipulation focus, and got my ass handed to me in a direct fight with a summoner type who was astrally projecting. His buddies managed to join the fight quicker than I'd like too. I survived by pulling a disappearing act, but magicians, in my opinion, really have the advantage for spirits. And as was mentioned, there is no reason a mage can't use some spellings on a sustaining focus to join in.

However, I would like to point out that a mage who is good at binding, meaning foci, high magic, high drain resist, will almost certainly be able to be a half decent combat mage. Assuming you can soak the drain, there is little a h2h mage or gun-mage with his points slated to casting can do better than cast manabolt/powerbolt. There may be ways to do it of course, but at a certain point offensive combat spells are going to be an easy segue from the binding.

A magician good at binding can be a good combat magician without being in combat: "Follow Freddy here, and do what he says." can be your contribution to the Shadowrun.