So I'm working on an idea for a Free Spirit Possession based PC who's main goal is to wheel and deal for bits of soul (karma). This seems rather the obvious route and I just enjoy the idea of playing Mephistopheles to Dr. Faustus.

Social skills obviously, as well as a decent charisma. A few pacts for the deal making.

Does anybody have any tips, tricks or advice that isn't utterly game breaking (such as contact groups + random spirit pact = roflcopter Karma).

Take regeneration, take healing pact. Take power pact. Offer to maintain bodies in exchange for your bits of souls

a couple of health boxes for 2 karma at any given time is a freaking lifesaver to a shadowrunnner group in the middle of combat, and in many cases FAR cheaper than the overblown cost to increase edge.

On top of the above, I would go for high Edge. It helps in so many ways, and unlike other characters, there is no upper limit for a Free Spirit other than the spirit's Force. I've played three Free Spirit PCs now, and an Edge of 6 or 8 or more can make a thundering difference when that time comes when success is critical.

Take a spell or two to increase appropriate Attributes (like Charisma). Remember that the augmented maximum is 1.5 times the maximum set by Force. As long as the usable net hits outnumber the -2 for sustaining, you can gain a fair bit.

Aura Masking and Realistic Form help the possessed vessel pass for normal.

House rule it, so a free spirit gets as much karma as the rest.

The first FSPC I played had the Friendship Pact. I changed away from that because I realized during play that an essentially immortal being would not particularly like to tie its existence to mortal lifespans. The latest one I play has the Power Pact. It earns karma with the rest of the crew, but that karma goes into a reserve from which usable karma is drawn when it makes deals with PCs or NPCs for karma. So, the total is exactly the same as the other PCs, but the available karma depends on role playing, developing contacts, etc. Works for me.

Speaking of the Friendship Pact, and oh how I hate that thing, I was curious.

What exactly is stopping a free spirit from finding F# free spirits and making them all his designated "friends". They wont die, just get sent back to their particular plane in the astral. It seems to me like every free spirit with the friendship pact would have a network of free spirit buddies just for this purpose. Those mortals are just so damned unreliably mortal after all.

-edit-

Ahh, apparently it specifies "sentient people native to the physical plane."

Yeah, I thought of looking for immortal elves, but that didn't seem too likely.

Now I'm thinking of a scenario for a GM to use. A Free spirit befriends a member of the team and then promptly abducts him. Placing him in a wonderfully elegant and fully stocked prison with all of the luxuries in order to keep him safe. Since he really wants to protect his friends.

Hmmmm... gives the spirit something to do with the money he otherwise has little on which to spend. Oh! Leonization!

Might have a nice pic for you to use for said spirit...

Player in my group: "I DON'T WANT ALICE COOPER TO EAT MY SOUL!!!"

Oh, yeah!

So my GM seems very keen on forcing Friendship Pact on me, which is painful. Now I'm trying to find ways to mitigate the absolute suck that Friendship Pact represents.

Q: Magic Pact states that I can spend the Magician's edge as if it were my own and at any time. Would this allow me to burn their edge for Friendship Pact in order to keep a *friend* alive?

But Friendship Is Magic!

...

Damned ShadowBronies are getting to me.

I think "spend" and "burn" are different.

Ooh, that sucks. Is a forced friendship even friendship anymore? Anyway, will your Free Spirit be allowed to see electronic stuff? According to RC, they can't see displays and holos right?

Point out that per the optional rules for learning metamagics outside of initiation, you can learn them from spirits, and that the karma is paid explicitly towards a spirit.
Ask your GM if you can mentor people for karma outside of runs, since you don't sleep.

Take a group contact with loyalty 6, lots of members, superior magical resources, and label it 'my karma cake'. Ask if this is better than dumb friendship pact rules.

free spirits have ways to gain karma that vastly surpasses doing runs - its way simpler to assume they just get karma from other sources that happens to be about as much as the other players get.


My friend came up with a way around this. The borrow sense spell lets them use someone elses senses to see stuff. Get a cat or something.

Darn you and darn google twice.
Now I am thinking about a free spirit with multible and realistic form turning in different ponys...

@Udoshi
The point is, that there should be a drawback for free spirits. They are close to immortal. This means the chance of dying is quite "low".

On the other hand you do not really want to give them the right to use pacts freely. (Not that you can't rig a friendship pact to work. Just take a buddist free spirit and well, let him have is pact with some monks in tibet. They are quite safe and sound. But since free spirits can simply jump to places they have been before...)

@Marwynn
A rule I never really got. And I do not mean did not get why it is that way I mean I do not get it, how it is supposed to work.

Eh. Its like any other mage. You need magic to counter their magic. Permanently removing a free spirit from the picture means lots of astral quests.

Also, while they ARE effectively immortal, other races don't have their weaknesses. They can't be punched out of the game for a month, or punched so hard they lose essence and suffer permanent loss of powers and stats.

To be fair, a punch like that last one would kill a mortal.

Believe me, the immortality is balanced very handily (for PCs anyway) by the initial cost of the character. Something... attributes, skills, spells... something has to give.

To be fair, Ram, he's giving us 100 extra BP and has a fair point about the handing out of advantages.