Alright, long story short, one of my players is subbing out a character, and wants to play a free spirit, ideally a wild spirit. I haven't ruled this out, or accepted it, I'm just looking to see what I should watch out for, and gather opinions. A question that I do have, though, is whether or not a free spirits attributes automatically increase at char gen, or if they need to be bought up on their own.

Attributes do not automatically increase and must be raised sperately - which is one of the main reasons why free spirits als player characters are very weak.

We had one for a very long time in our group. Even starting with 100 bonus Karma (and going to 350 Karma ingame) free spirits as PCs are incredible weak, even if they have some nifty possibilities (materialissation + aura masking + realistic form at will gives a runner team some very funny possibilities). The usual mage with usual spells (and spirits and foki, which cannot be used by a free spirit) is/could be a far bigger problem, when it comes to "raw power". I would say that you need around 500 Karma before a free spirit "comes together", and even then I would bet my ¥ on the mage with an ally spirit, his spirit army and his foki.

So, in short: allow it, a creative player can do some nifty things with the spirit powers, but in terms of raw power the spirit is far behind the normal mage and his possibilities.

Dont forget that a free spirit can only earn Karma like a player character if he has a friendship pact active (which costs valuable points).

SYL

Its poorly written, but since Force serves as a minimum and a maximum for all attributes, all their stats DO increase as they increase it.

Its just misleading because you CAN raise your other attributes independently(so can NPC free spirits), but there's no reason to do that since the costs are the same(unlike NPC spirits).


A little bit of CGL history: Free spirits were supposed to cost around 90 points; and be raised independantly, but last-minute editing with a very poor job on the clarity, changed them to be more expensive, but work like NPC spirits do with force being used for everything - essentially, the 250point up front cost factors in not caring about other attributes.

In terms of fixing spirits, the biggest one is how massively they're overcharged for powers, and get no freebies like vision types - change everything more expensive than 1 power point to 1, and you're a lot closer to the '1 power per force + access to everything i had before going free' that NPC spirits enjoy.

I'd also recommend letting them use NPC spirit karma costs, with one exception - change the Force karma to rating x 8 (instead of 10), and make them use their actual initiate grade, instead of replacing grade with edge. Slight reduction in cost (it works out very nearly the same in cost) to make shit not broken when metamagic gets involved.

Apart from rules which are somewhat open to interpretation, I think the major issue with PC spirits is that they have a personal teleporter with very little restrictions. That lets them ride roughshod over a lot of careful GM plans

Hm, can you quote that please from the rule book? In my Runner Compendium it only serves as the natural minimum and natural maximun of all other attributes.



Magic is the only attribute which directly is linked to force, but not the other physical and mental attributes. Raising the force does not raise the attributes, it only raises the natural maximum. And yes, the layout and product quality of the Runner Compendium was horrible.



Nothing a clever mage with spirit summoning (or an ally spirit) cant do in some way too (usually, there are of course some exceptions). But 3D Movement with Materialisation is restricted the same way as atral projection and summoning. One thing that is indeed almost impossible is the catch a free spirit PC, and with some preparation he has enough seen from the world to have enough "entry points" all over the world to appear anywhere 3 seconds later. So, yes, customs is usually not a problem, as is overflow damage - due to the friendship pact the spirits comes back some days later. However the spirit is very dependant on the friendship pact (without it cannot get any Karma) so if dead runners and NPCs occur in your game you can literally unmake the spirit by killing his spirit pact people.

TLDR: give it a try, you will see that a free spirit PC is no worse than a mage with foci, spells and spirits played by a creative player.

SYL

Well... If Force is a Natural MINIMUM... then it stands that NO STAT may be below the Minimum (which is Force); and if Force is a Natural MAXIMUM, then it also stands that no Stat may be ABOVE the Maximum (which is also Force). Ergo, Your stats are equal to your Force Value. Pretty simple Logic, based upon what you quoted.

Hm, was that ever officially confirmed that this is the way to go?

So you mean:

Character creation: Force 2, all mental/physical/edge/magic attribute = 2, raise force to 5 (30 BP), so all all mental/physical/edge/magic attributes are now 5?
During the game: raise force from 5 to 6 (30 Karma), raise everything else from 5 to 6 (like edge, magic, mental, physical attributes?



But you cannot raise your attributes indepentently, because they are the same as the force and the force is the minimum and maximum at the same time. And if you would raise the force you would raise every mental and physical attribute as well (beacuse of the natural minimum).

Where is my error?

SYL

Not to my knowledge...

We have had this argument before in some detail, maybe a year or two ago. Tymeaus, it should be noted that the text uses the word "determines." "Determines" is not the same as "is equal to." The starting value for Force can indeed set the minimum value for all other attributes, yes. In that way it is determining the natural minimums, at the start of character creation. However, it does not follow that the natural minimums are always equal to the current Force. Does that make sense?

Moreover, everyone seems to forget this, but Aaron (the freelancer who drafted the Free Spirit PC section in the first place) did say that the intent was for Force just to serve as the natural maximum, not the minimum. He suspected that the addition of the "and minimums" part was either an editing error or was made by someone who wanted FSPCs to resemble FSNPCs. I have quoted him below for ease of reference.

I've played several FSPCs in different campaigns, all with the Force providing the maximum for stats and with the player having to pay karma/BP to raise other attributes to that maximum.

There is a balance of power and weakness which gives the player and GM a great deal of pleasure playing this PC in the GMs world. I recommend it highly both to the player and the GM, as long as they both value and provide creative play.

The combination of Materialization, Realistic Form and Mutable Form creates a near infinite number of possibilities for the PC to do espionage and reconnaissance. Yes, the PC is weak in many aspects, but a reasonably high Force makes him/her/it resistant to a lot of damage.

Throw in a high Edge, which itself is limited only by Force, and at the right time this PC can make a spectacular effect on the scene.

The problem is that the intent of the Writer was changed by the intent of the final Published product, as admitted by Aaron, even. Lacking Errata, it is highly ambiguous. To be fair, when I worked up the one Free Spirit PC that I actually created (but never played), I used starting attributes of two and bought them individually. It does make for a weaker character, but FSPC's are highly customizable, to be sure.

well, in that case the recommendation splits.

If you use the rule interpretation of "force = attributes" and you can easily start with force 6, then yes, the free spirit becomes an extremely powerful spirit with a high chance of overshadowing everything except a specialized summoner mage and the hacker. Because, well, with the first 100 karma points he can boost everything to 8 and later to 10+. ... image 12 edge.

If you use the rule interpretation with "Force start at 2, and all attributes are raised independently, then you can accept the free spirit without and hesitation, because only 500 karma points later the spirit will be barely on the level of a competent mage.

SYL

I think if you split the difference you come out better.
Use the friendly interpretation during Char gen, and after generation, he has to raise his force to have the ability to raise his stats. But then the stats must be upgraded individually, like any other character.

Yes, for the low-low cost of 315BP you can have all 6's in your attributes, leaving you virtually nothing for skills, spells, and qualities.


This is one of the most sane interpretations. This is also the one I use at my table.

One of the PC's I'm GMing for is a Free spirit.

We use herolab and as such it agrees that force does NOT = attributes. They start at 2 and you have to increase them seperately.

He has Materialisation/Realistic Form/Mutable Form and is a great addition to the group. It is especially useful because he cannot necessarily attend every session - as such its quite easy to give a reason why he's not around - he just isnt A few players haven't figured out he's a spirit though so I hope they dont read this (they don't really use dumpshock so I'm not that bothered).

I allowed him small BP boost on character generation as I didn't want him to be completely weak (but his stats are still lower than the group average).

As others have mentioned above... let your players give running a free spirit a go - friendship pact is essential as they can't gain karma easily any other way (unless you houserule that they can take some sort of karma drain power which is a bit OTT).

There is a wonderful Pact for healing. Character pays 2 karma to the FSPC and then heals a box of damage through the spirit pact. That is also a great way to gain Karma (as a secondary method to Friendship pact it is awesome).

The last FSPC I played didn't have the Friendship Pact. I decided a for all intents and purposes immortal being would not want to tie its life Force to mortals.

I gave him the Power Pact, and the GM and I worked out a system in which my PC could not gain more karma in this way than the GM had awarded. Not only did this keep the PC from gaining unlimited karma, and thereby overpowering the rest of the PCs, it allowed for some really interesting role playing and contact building.

My guy was developing a relationship with the L.A. Mafia, offering them the occasionally nearly invulnerable operative with ItNW 12 in return for karma and other considerations, like hooking up with a local small gang that served them and hiring them to keep the PC's home base secure.

Genius.

I prefer starting with Power Pact and a Group Contact of mages, then spiraling out of control on the 20+ karma per week upkeep costs myself... (<--- sarcasm)

there is also a pact that allows the spirit to control you while sleeping, is there not? and iirc, during that time, the spirit is able to earn karma?

Yes, but presumably that is available to Possession tradition spirits only. And one would have to do all his work when the Pact partner is asleep.

Which could lead to some interesting situations.

"But I'm not sleepy!"

*stunbolt* *stunbolt* *stunbolt* "How about now?"

well, the alternate solution is to have more than one pact with people who are on different sleep schedules

Medically-induced coma.

The last game I ran, the two mages were members of the same group. They got lots of cool stuff, for no money, but they had to feed the groups spirit guide.
So every month, they either paid 1 karma, or he got to borrow their body for the night.
The group had 18 members, so their spirit was pretty happy

Where is the Power Pact?

Street Magic, bottom of page 108.

I guess the only viable option is to take the formula pact and add to it that, if it is used exclusively, you can gain Karma normally. Ending all the sillyness.
Friendshippact has a nice touch, but it turns out to be quite an efford in bookkeeping if you ever go over force 6.
In addition it opens up the problematik, that you will lose Karma due to some events probably necessary for the story. And if you use other PCs it begs the question with how many Karma they can rejoin the group... Sure you can back it up with power pacts or similar stuff, but the second you do that, you start gaining probably more Karma than the rest of the group in total.

I looked into this recently. Conclusion: The only sane option is to let spirit PCs earn karma in line with the rest of the party. Fluff it as wheeling and dealing, trading influence for powers, or mooching off the life experiences of the earth here and there - but if you put your mind to it, you can get ahead of the game.

First things first.
Spirits can learn ANY metamagic available to human practicioners - this includes shit like adept centering.
Teaching a metamagic outside of initiation lets a spirit claim the karma cost as payment - 15 flat income.
Pacts. Power pacts are desirable and a spirit has lots of leverage with it. Who WOULDNT want ItnW, regeneration, or the ability to throw lighting around for a mere karma day?

And perhaps the biggest one:
Karma transfer ritual - free spirits can spend an hour per karma to transfer it to themselves. This ritual does NOT require a willing subject. (Note: 4A 203 has an 'unconscious counts as voluntary clause, rendering willingness moot regardless)


This stacks with Friendship Pact. That pact gives them regular income in addition to all the above. (furthermore, if you select a friendship pact as your last point, you can cancel out the downsides at will by stepping into a Background Count - you lose access to the power by reducing your force below when you gained it. Pick the mana static spell for on-demand use of it. The flux metamagic can voluntarily break the bond too - so the downside doesn't apply if you don't want it to either. )

So as it turns out, going all fae and kidnapping mortals to play with and steal their souls is pretty possible, and the equivalent of playing the 'car theft to make more money than shadowrunning' minigame.

Assuming a spirit covers their asses well - picks targets carefully, uses laes, memory editing, disguises, and never from the same area twice(worldwide access through shortcutting around the globe!), plus not having to sleep ever - getting a point of karma every few days is pretty reasonable. once per day is 30 per rent cycle, every other is 15, every 3 is 10, and all of that is very comparable to the income gained from weeks of planning, legwork, and shadowruns. You don't even need Essence Drain. All that does is make the above process FAST.


In short; fuck the rules, keep the party progressed the same amount.

This.

@Udoshi
I agree with all of the above, but I guess I wanted to go a step further.
The point is, if you force at least a formular pact, it means that the spirit has at least one (none special snowflake because I as a GM wants it) weekness.
If you put in on one of his (or hers ) fellow runners (espacially on one player who might be new to the game) you add a nice roleplaying aspect and a metagaming aspect in that you force a "better" player to kind of take care of the weaker one.
(You might add a telepathic link so now the more experianced player may even give "lorefriendly" tips to the new one. )

It is meant to kind of bridge the divide in survivability a free spirit has compared to mere "mortals"...

Couple things. Also what do you mean by 'forumular pact?'. I think you mean a thing, but it's not a thing itself.

A Spirit Formula isn't a specific weakness enough?! Its literally a 'shit, i'm a slave or permadead' weakness.

Telepathy: Just let a free spirit buy the Mind Link spirit power, like NPC spirits can. that's what its for, makes sense, and an amazing reason to include a spirit in the party - its WAY less obvious(or has the potential to be) than a spell, with extra functionality.

Bridging the gap in survivability is pretty easy: Free spirits are basically glass cannons. You take away or mitigate ItnW (magic weapons, spells, flamethrowers or other ap half weapons) and they are hilariously fragile. Their survivability comes from their mobility: the power to just leave, or to fly where they can't be caught, or other things.

The solution is to give them a body. Make Inhabitation available to PC free spirits, since its an option for Ally Spirits already - with a twist. Instead of getting freebie powers or stats, they're just tied to a physical form which they can manipulate via powers, but can't leave - basically the Golem option.

@Udoshi

Which means they get dissrupted and are back in the game in a few days. Depending on the overflow damage.


I would need to check what this basically means. The point of the matter would be, that Inhabitation is quite restrictive in that you can't take a metahuman form without beeing "evil"....
And it would open up the entire debate about what it means to be made of steel.

Yes, as Udoshi suggests, the Free Spirit PC has enough weaknesses to counter its strengths as it is. Mobility, deception, and striking at the right moment are key parts of a surviving FSPC's behaviour. If, as GM, you are looking for something that might catch you by surprise, here is an example from my experience playing a FSPC.

Given that raising Attributes to any decent level is out of the case at chargen, I opted to keep them ranging from 2 to 4, mostly at 3. What I did do is raise the Edge to match the Force. So, at chargen my Force 6 Free Spirit had Edge 6. ( I also played another, higher karma game in which my Force 8 spirit had Edge . It also had the Aura Masking, Realistic Form and Multiple Forms powers. So, for most of the game it performed as an exceptional scout and information gatherer, with all kinds of fun role playing just about any kind of thing, living or non-. In terms of general combat, the FSPC was mediocre compared to a regular mage.

If a serious crunch came, however, for example a 'boss fight' near the end of a run, the FSPC could pump several points of Edge into one hell of a good blast of magic. Here is an example.

I had my FSPC distract some Hell Hounds by cavorting outside their fence as a female in heat. They came over to investigate, leaving the perimeter undefended, allowing my teammates to enter, achieve the objective, and make their way out. On the way out the team made some noise and alerted the Hounds, who took off after them. At this point, my FSPC let loose with three high Force Stunbolts (didn't have Stunball, and they were separated too much anyway), each boosted with Edge to give six extra dice and exploding sixes. This took out all three, saving the team from some nasty trouble. Then I used Edge to survive the Drain, and simple dematerialized to get away.

This kind of PC gave me and the GM lots of fun to role play, and we both enjoyed the character. The GM came to understand that for -one- encounter per run, this PC would be overwhelming. I came to understand that I had to husband this power carefully, and keep at least one Edge in reserve for the inevitable son-of-a-bitch who would try to Banish me.

My point is mostly about integrating the free spirit in a group. If you have close to no moratality anyhow, it is not really an important issue (or if you can come back with a new character with nearly as much Karma as the rest of the group).

The second you have a significant chance of ending up dead and can't just get back in with an equally strong character it gets a bit complex, for a free spirt is able to escape many situations, even those of a "wipeout" level, with little effort.

Udoshi is right that this can be countered by using inhabitation.

Yes, it is difficult to kill a Free Spirit, though there are some unique attacks to which they are susceptible and other PC types are not.

All forms of material healing don't work on them, so successive combats can wear them down.

Filling a Stun track disrupts them and sends them away for days, whereas a metahuman can be healed a number of ways.

FSPCs are always present in both the material and astral plane, and are vulnerable to attack from either or both at all times.

ItNW only works against normal weapons, and even a willful opponent can damage them.

Mana barriers are real to them, and some of those do damage.

Banishing works, and cannot be Counterspelled.

####

A FSPC, in my experience, does not live a charmed existence in comparison to other PCs.

Magic is frightening to those who do not understand it. This is why I'm not really intimidated by Force 6 spirits. I can go up to F8 spirits as opposition before I start getting too wary of their abilities, and at that point it's mostly because of their AoE abilities and Fx2 Opposed Tests. F6 and less, though? Easy-peasy.

It depends on how the armor spell works. The last time we fought a dragon it wasn't defined whether it adds to their ItNW, and the GM decided it did. You know, 16 points of hardened armor really, really sucks when the idea that it could have anything like that never even crossed your mind...

Its not that hard to get over though.

If you're character has 10+ dice to hit with, take out dice to increase the base damage.

One of my PC's was taking out 10 dice (had 9 left as he's min-maxed a bit) to put his base damage of his Ares Alpha to 16P. He was firing APDS rounds into my spirits and annihilating them... with the exception of the one that had 18 dodge (Force 7 Abomination with mutagen power to transfer charisma & intelligence to agility and body).

Completely owned them but could only taken them down one at a time (had 4 other force 5 abominations with only body pumped up going at them as well).

Spirits still dealt some heavy damage to other team mates and I *could* have killed a player with the force 7 as it has 21 dice in melee with natural weapon power... but i split the pool to attack two players at a time which made it a bit better (but still nearly killed one of them).

Toxic spirits are nasty!

So yes I agree, its not that hard to overcome ItNW.

you can only take up to -4 dice for +4 DV. which still helps, but your -10 dice for +10 DV is definitely a house rule, and does not reflect the typical player's experience.

While I agree that it is not hard to overcome ITNW (just use SnS, Laser or a Flamethrower, after all ), what you describe is definitely not within the RAW, as Jaid indicated.

Oh, didn't realise there was a limit.. Excellent. Shall impose that

Thanks for pointing it out.


Can you call shot to ignore ItNW? Or can you not ignore hardened armour? (It would be effectively like shooting the spirit in its sweet spot).

Sure it would be -12 dice when shooting a Force 6... but still...

Can you do two called shots in an action? (i.e. both the above for -16 dice ignoring armour AND increasing base damage by 4)?

ItNW is not a physical object worn to cover the subject, but rather an intrinsic characteristic of the entity, so you cannot circumvent it through a Called Shot.

I -think- you can only use one Called Shot at a time.

Correct.