Ok, those of you who're reading my 'Diary' thread are probably pretty much up to date already. I just need a tip from a more experienced GM about something.

The Vory have astral overwatch in the form of a force 6 spirit, which is going to manifest at the very beginning of the next session (should make things interesting...)
Now I'm not sure what kind of spirit to use. We're at the waterfront, so a water spirit wouldn't be completely out of the question. Earth spirits are tough, and should be able to keep Shadow tied up for a few rounds (his adrenaline pump runs out in 9 rounds), a beast spirit in the shape of a giant bear would thematically fit the Vorys' Russian origins and be pretty badass, and a fire spirit would be impressively devastating and is the traditional combat spirit for a hermetic mage.

What would you guys recommend?

Why did the Vory summon the spirit? Is it to tangle with potential intruders, or just to keep an eye on the astral? What tradition does the summoner belong to? Black Magic is the obvious choice for a Mafiya wizard, but there are other options. The magician's tradition will both constrain and inform his choice of spirit.

Spirit is on a remote service to protect the compound's astral space AND intervene in the material if the Vory ground forces are outmatched. Tradition hasn't been decided yet, but isn't tainted, blood or insect based.

Pick the tradition first. The choice of spirit follows from that. If the spirit is on remote service, where is the summoner? Will the spirit call him in the event it decides to intervene? What criteria will it use to decide that?

They have an F6 just patrolling away? Eeesh.

Since it seems like your world is meant to be a "player appropriate challenge" world (otherwise your F6 summoning mage is about 1/40000 people just to exist...let alone take up with the vory when his services will earn him a high lifestyle wherever he chooses or is extracted to, let alone waste his bound spirits guarding warehouses) than a "canonically real world", you don't need to muck too much with staying in character.

There's plenty of reason's for a particular mage to have a tradition or summon a certain spirirt in that kind of world, so pick the spirit to provide a combat challenge then work backwards. You can always make it seem bad-ass Russian with thematic accents from Slavic folklore OR the good ol USSR.

Minimum magic to summon a force 6 spirit is 3. As it's a remote service the caster could literally be anywhere in the world. I can't really say that it's that impossible (If the summoner was also there, I'd have to agree with you).

I think I'm going to go with a bear shaman/beast spirit combo. Thanks for the feedback guys.

So the spirit did not use its Edge to resist the summoning?

5th edition, not getting drawn into that debate.

This one falls under "the GM has decided it happened" - no dice are involved. And if it did, it would get about 9 dice to resist which is reasonably easy to beat, especially if not respecting chargen skill caps (Magic 3, Power/Spirit Focus 3, Summoning 8(+2 Spirit Type) offers 16 dice, which will probably win out).

So, lets say he's Magic 3, summoning 4 with a soak pool of 8. A Competent summoner who is within on standard deviation of magical ability for the awakened.

An F6 is an overcast. So, every time he pulls this trick, its P damage, not S.

If the spirit is just being summoned, and does not edge, the summoner can expect to fail his summon about 40% of the time, and will end up with 2P on average, which will take a day of rest to heal off. Plus it probably hurts like hell.

If you go with conventional wisdom that over-magic spirits will edge (a point of debate), then the summoner will fail 2/3 of the time, and end up with 7-8P of damage to boot. On a bad day, he's heading in to overflow. Helluva gamble right there just to patrol the docks until dawn. (and if you go with the old Sr4 "serious injury" optional rules for 7+ damage, we're talking about this guy crippling himself in as well)

And if he tries to bind it..well...he's probably just dead.

From what I know of the Vory, mind you it's from 4e sourcebooks but it's only been a few years...

The Vory are not big on the magic. They don't like mages, they don't trust them. They use them - of course they do, it's the Sixth World, if you ignore (or shun) Magic, you get your ass brutally gulag-raped by those who do not.

Mages who work for the Vory are either (a) contractors for the short-term, 'Runners in other words, who are kept on a strictly need-to-know basis, or (b) not treated well, not assisted in their thaumaturgical growth, and usually killed when they start to get so powerful the higher-ups fear they can may a magical bid for power.

If this is a patrolling spirit, I wouldn't say it's more than Magic 5 at best, probably 4 or even three. The Vory aren't terribly big on hoodoo mysticism, ooga booga gods and spirits and stuff. You're probably looking at a Hermetic, Black Mage, or Chaos Mage, possibly a Hedge Wizard or a Christian Theurge (Russian Orthodox, of course.) They aren't going to want someone who thinks like there's some other power center in his life (like Fox, or Ghost, or whatever,) besides the Vory (though again, they'd permit a Christian Theurge of the Russian Orthodoxy because they're all Russia, Fuck Yeah.)

What they're more likely to use is drones. I'd suggest having a hostile rotodrone show up, or maybe a hostile rotodrone and a lower-Force spirit.

Anyway, here's what I'd suggest for the spirits from the traditions I listed, assuming it's a Vory spellslinger and not a contractor:
Black Mage: Spirit of Fire in the form of some kind of traditional-looking fire demon - think the Balrog writ small.
Chaos Mage: Spirit of Fire in the form of an animate shower of burning symbols - think The Matrix rain, with Russian symbolism (especially the hammer and sickle, of course,) and various other forms of hermetic symbolism mixed in with the more technological-looking symbols.
Christian Theurge: Spirit of Fire in the form of an angel, clad in medieval armor and garbed in the raiments of an Eastern Orthodox Patriarch, with sword in one hand and staff in the other, flying on wings of fire.
Hedge Witch/Traditional Folk Magician: With a distinctly Russian flavor, the Hedge Witch is basically the antithesis of a Christian Theurge, twisting the trappings of the christian theurgy to indicate that they have turned their back on God and truck with devils and demons. This witch would summon a Spirit of Earth in the form of a corpse of deathly pallor, one who died a bad death and could not be accepted yet was thrust into the ground anyway - a corpse coated in mud with rocks and sticks sticking to it.
Hermetic Magician: Spirit of Fire, of course. How many iterations of Fire as the spirit of combat can you go through? Guh.


But seriously, don't throw a Force 6 spirit at them, throw a Force 3-4 and a rotordrone at them, because the Vory are more into military hardware than mojo.

Fair enough. Rating 4 works fine, and I like several of your suggestions. Hedge Witch works great, and should scare the bejesus out of my players. I already have several drones flanking and ready to open fire, adding another one might be overkill.

force 12, baba yaga, no survivors, go. alternatively, a force 12 spectral stalin could dance them to death as he did to the martians who threatened the motherland. you want to kill your players with good old uncle joe, right?

why force 12? because you can do it now that mages have been totally balanced with other classes and are no longer weaklings that no one in their right mind would play. spectral tanks were the perfect solution to that totally-extant problem that so many people complained about in earlier editions. those pussy spirits in 4th ed just don't measure up.

i kid. second that a force 4 is probably more appropriate for the situation as given. i wouldn't throw a force 6 and drones simultaneously at a group. unless i was really aiming to murder every character in the group.

I don't want to kill them, I want to challenge them. Then, when they feel badass I can have the plebs mow them down with SMG fire.

I always prefer to make the less powerful beings the bigger threat in the encounter. After all, a force 6 spirit vs strength 8 and a combat axe isn't going to last long, particularly if you throw in a ninja adept to help bring the pain. It will keep them in place long enough for some long bursts, though.

From the Wikipedia article on hedge witchcraft,



Hedge Wizards as of Street Magic summon:
Combat: Earth
Detection: Water
Health: Plant
Illusion: Air
Manipulation: Task
They use Willpower + INT as their Drain stats (dunno how to map that to SR5,) and, importantly, they are a possession tradition.

You could ignore that for these purposes, of course, but if you don't, well... That Corpse that died a "bad death" might have been a person who died a "bad death" specifically for the purpose of being bound to a Hedge Wizard's will. I'd also think the Vory would like possession tradition magicians, since getting appropriate vessels might be something the magician might need to rely on the Vory as a whole for.

Also, I can't help but imagine some Vory hedge witch summoning/binding task spirits as courtesans, for himself and/or the higher-ups, heh.

sorry, meant that as a joke given the new summoning rules, mainly. a force 6 actually seems like overkill to some extent. keep in mind even versus a 12P AP -4 combat axe it's still getting 8 armor and 6 body plus four automatic hits, so there's a good chance it can survive and retaliate with 12P AP -6 attacks of its own. an adept with killing hands is the far bigger threat and might justify a force 6 opponent.

It's a bit odd that two people that have recently started threads about how easy it is to to summon spirits and how overpowered they are, have argued that this is an unlikely scenario. Players can be throwing around force 8+ spirits regularly and security doesn't have anyway of dealing with them. But now that a GM wants to use a Force 6 spirit, it simply can't happen?

A force 6 spirit supporting a team of 10 orc grunts, 5 dogs, 4 drones, and a troll doesn't seem unreasonable. And they did decide to charge.

I personally vote the beast spirit, that looks like a bear.

If the players in question can throw around Force 8+ spirits, they have means of dealing with a Force 6 spirit. If they can't, they're screwed.

If the players are screwed, that's it, game over, roll a new character.

And you bet your ass if the GM throws a TPK because of a spirit and none of the players could kill it, the next group he GMs for will be straight-up MagicRun, with the only "Tech" character being a Technomancer.




Sounds like a fucking TPK to me.

Spirit of Man seems appropriate. And it looks like a KGB officer.

So... something like this this?

Yeah, it does. It should probably be a TPK whether or not the spirits there with what's been described, but they were aware of the non-magical opposition and still chose to charge into a room of people with guns trying to shoot them with melee weapons, without magical support. If they've got a chance to survive against everything else, the spirit won't actually make much difference.

Use the one of him riding a bear.

Honestly, these two are so heavily built for combat that they haven't even been touched yet. One is throwing more dice to dodge than the enemy have attack dice (though bursts are hurting that) and more importantly has a horse-shoe up his ass when it comes to rolling (Legit. he does all his rolls in the open, with clean dice. he's just uncanny). The other guy has full SWAT armour and some other things that give him a serious soak pool, along with dodge 12-13.

I may be over-compensating, but the force 6 spirit was in the plan from the get go (I had been expecting our mystic adept along too, which would have evened the score a bit more.)

An F6 Spirit without the MysticAd to Killing Hands it is just going to smack your players of sour grapes. Downgrade the spirit to something the sammy can actually kill with his axe, then, since they like being combat monsters, throw some drones at them.

And of course, if they're good, they'll "salvage" the enemy drones.

If he's got good dice pools, a street sam can absolutely take out a Force 6 spirit. The right protection on his armour wouldn't hurt, either.

Yeah, but they'll still have to be real lucky to survive this fight. There's 2 against what, 16? (6 orc grunts left?, 4 drones, 5 dogs, 1 troll?) Even if they both have dodge pools of 12 and the oppositions is only rolling 6 to hit them (probably a bit low for the grunts and drones) and if the opposition doesn't focus its fire on either of them, they're looking at 8 attacks each and are in bad shape, especially because they're melee and can't really take cover.

Chance of each attack hitting (without bursts or other modifiers, just losing 1 dodge for each attack):
1st: 10.3%
2nd: 13.1%
3rd: 16.5%
4th: 20.6%
5th: 25.5%
6th: 31.3%
7th: 37.9%
8th: 45.6%
Cumulative chance that they get hit in the pass of combat: 91%, Odds at least one of them gets hit, 99.2%

So they're probably taking damage, even if it's only two or three after soak, and with melee they're probably only taking out 1 or 2 targets max per pass. So they're likely going to take another two volleys at at least half strength and likely have to soak damage again. And once they've taken some damage, the death spiral starts with wound modifiers. They'll take a big chunk out of the opposition sure and go down in a blaze of glory, but one spirit's not making a lot of difference, at force 4 or 6. Let's say we throw it in at the start. Force 6 increases the chance which ever one it targets gets hit in the volley to 97%, with the odds of one of them getting hit going up to, 99.8%. Force 4 increases the chance that the one it targets gets hit to 96% and the chance that at least one of them gets hit to 99.7%. They're going to take damage this fight (barring some really amazing rolls) and another two or three mundane combatants would be just as devastating as the spirit.

And yes, I know that damage, initiative, and lots of other factors play a roll. I was just trying to demonstrate how screwed these guys are, if Fueldrop plays the opposition intelligently. The player's best hope is that they can somehow divide the group (maybe deal with the dogs first?) to avoid all of the penalties for multiple attacks at a time. I will be interested to see how it ends up. Had a similar situation a few years back where a character went ahead of the group and ran into an ambush meant for the whole party (he managed to take out about half the ambush and then blew himself up finish off the rest, being badly outnumbered can be epic). Hopefully, your players will take it as well and enjoy pushing their characters to the extreme.

And that is also assuming that whoever is running the drones just doesn't drop a grenade or two or something else explodey at point blank on everyone to clear the room if the wonder twins somehow are mowing through the main opposition with little sign of being slowed down.

massed suppressive fire can also be magical. i'm not clear if it necessarily inflicts its dice penalty to defense rolls, but just making it harder to do anything at all in the suppressed zone can really tip the advantage. also, i wouldn't be above inflicting composure checks to, you know, RUN INTO A HAIL OF BULLETS. brave is one thing, but that's a whole other beast.

also, the suppressive fire penalty would certainly apply to notice checks for people flanking your melee gods. can't dodge what you don't see. if they're not careful, they may not see the orcs pop up next to them and open fire on the next turn. you can screw 'em real bad if they're dumb. being dumb is one of the few times i approve of screwing players, for what it's worth.

Honestly, I reckon I'm going to get 1, maybe 2 passes of shooting before the majority of the hostiles are dead and gone. The spirit is just going to slow them down long enough to get everything in position, rather than actually do much damage.

Decided on a force 5 beast spirit. That should be a threat without being overwhelming, and the next IP's firepower should be enough to shatter their illusions of invulnerability without being fatal.

After that all their enemies will be maxed out on recoil and within arms reach...

ah, but suppressive fire ignores recoil. you also have to avoid being hit with reaction + edge rather than reaction + intuition, which may increase their chances of taking a bullet unless they hit the ground. that should slow their advance considerably.

Too many friendlies in melee at this point. They'd do more damage to themselves than the PCs.

Yeah, but do They Have Reserves? They can afford to do that.

They're down to 3 guys, 3 drones, 3 dogs and the rigger from 10 guys, 5 dogs, 6 drones and the rigger.
(Not including 1 nearly dead guy and a drone on the verge of falling apart). Even adding the spirit I doubt you could call that 'reserves'.

Also, unmarked tvtropes link. Warning next time please.

Double post.

How? The two of them took out all of those guys without getting a scratch, by charging them? Did the opposition form up into a line or something to get mowed down?

Our rigger took down 3 guys, a dog and a drone with sniper fire. One guy and his dog were ambushed before they even realized they were under attack. Another drone got taken out with ranged attacks, while the rest were caught up in a melee in confined quarters and simply haven't had time to flee. The enemy force is spread across the compound and has only had a few seconds to get their bearings, not helped by their communications being jammed.

Also, one has uncanny luck and the other is out of edge.