I'm curious what spirits (if any) people are fond of summoning.

I more interested in the use of spirits in non-possession based traditions (as I'm aware of the use of Guardian and Task in that respect).


Do you have any particular preferences? Why (mechanical benefits or flavor wise)?

I enjoy Fire spirits, mainly for their Elemental Aura (Fire) and Elemental Attack (Fire). My current Black Magician Necromancer has an average-attribute troll zombie with a Force 6 Fire Spirit posessing it. Nothing as intimidating as a troll wreathed in flames. Good times.

I absolutely adore Electricity damage, but it's a shame that Elemental Aura (Electricity) converts all damage to Stun...

Also, I really like Guidance Spirits (mainly for flavour reasons). Get an Inhabitation-based Force 6-8 Free Guidance Spirit to inhabit a skull and you've got yourself Bob from The Dresden Files.

And lastly, my supremely favorite spirits to summon are Ally Spirits. For more, see the link in my signature.

Mechanically-speaking, Fire Spirits are amazingly good because they have a high agility, can fly [them and Air are alone in flight], set off secondary explosions, and if you kung fu them you burn for it. Plant are also darned good... spirit-based Silence [that cant be counterspelled] combined with spirit's using Counterspelling that you can lend to teammates for remote services is pretty awesome.

My favorite however are watcher spirits. Whether using them to VERY loudly 'annoy' stealthing opponents or to set off verbal alarms, they are plentiful, cheap, and the most awesome target for a Detect <Individual> spell or target of the Imbuement power of an invoked Guardian spirit. Sure they may not hit but since an invoked spirit using Imbuement has it as an AOE imbuement a high CHA mage can imbue 8-12 ball lightning flinging watchers.

all manifested spirits can fly. fire and air spirits simply have a skill which allows them to fly faster than their less fortunate counterparts (the flying skill is basically the equivalent of the running skill, except it's for flying instead of running, of course)

I prefer the elemental spirits, as a rule. Fluff reason only though. I've honestly never used anything but them or watchers on any character I've ever created.

Spirits of Man. So many good ways you can call them up!

Spirit of Man, followed by Fire.

Guidance are also cool, but I never actually use them.

I try to go for what is thematically appropriate to the situation.

Recently I made a tradition that sued guardian spirits, and I got to say those rocked. I kept losing assault rifles though as I would hand them to the spirit and run while the spirit held off the enemy.

Guardian Spirits. Exotic Ranged Weapon as a generalised skill. They can fire an Ares MP Laser 3 with a DP of Fx2 + 2.

Where is your god now?

That's a good point. You can also pick an elemental attack of choice as one of the optional powers, so you can tailor the element to the situation.

If I am the gm....Radiation Spirts
However if i am a player, then i would have to say Man followed by Air. Casting spells on my behalf and movement power respectively

Out of curiosity, is there any reason you prefer Air for movement?

I only ask, as water, beast & guardian sprits have movement standard, and a few others have it as an optional power.

They can fly would be the main reason i think, although i've never really thought about it much. They just seem to be the ones most connected to the power in my mind (as long as they arent moving a boat)

Forgot to add this. It's a spirit with an Ares MP Laser 3, and it's flying towards you at the speed of sound.

This. It's nightmare fuel.


CC,
All spirits can fly, Air can use the Flight skill like Running to increase their speed.

You know that Exotic Ranged Weapon was intended for Elemental Attack? And you need to take Exotic Ranged Weapon multiple times for multiple Exotic Weapons?

If your GM allowed you to do that he was not upholding the spirit (no pun intended) of the rules (although RAW it's possibly legal).

You've got a point, but I can bypass your objection. You spend one of your optional powers on Exotic Weapon (Lasers), and use your second optional power (you summoned at F6, right?) for Concealment.

It's a stealthy laser-armed spirit flying at Mach 1. Your god has nothing on this!

That's what I implied.

On a different note, I highly doubt a force 6 spirit can fly at 340.29 meters/second (at sea level), which is the speed of sound. That's roughly 980 meters per Combat Turn. Unless you're talking about on the Astral, in which case he can't hold a laser gun.

Neraph,
Hyperbole on the Mach 1 bit. I use it regularly, perhaps too much so, in my everyday speech. I intended the repeated references to memes and trope names to indicate that I wasn't being entirely serious.

You make a good point.

Although a GM allowing it might not be breaking the spirit of the rules that much, as Guardian's don't actually have Elemental Attack standard - whereas they always have Exotic Ranged.

There's also a precedent for choosing what skills you want them to have when you choose a Combat Skill in place of an optional power.


Then again, I'm not sure if the original intent was for summoned spirits to be firing a laser, but when you choose a Combat Skill as an optional power, there is no restriction against laser weapons.



Personally, if I want them to shoot lasers (since they are resisted by half impact armor), I'd just choose Elemental Attack: Light (Street Magic, pg. 164 sidebar). It costs you nothing (unlike the price of laser weapons), requires no power supply/ammo, can never be lost if you need to sacrifice the Spirit (or use it to get away) and lastly the Guardian can go astral, come back and still be equipped with a laser.

The only real loss is that the DV is restricted to the Spirit's force, but I couldn't see myself ponying up 30,000 nuyen to equip a spirit with an Ares Heavy MP Laser anyway.

Cheapskate.

The movement rate of Fire and air spirits has (flight) beside the flight speed so I think perhaps you're thinking of past editions.

when spirits of man were still divided up, prior to metahumanities better understanding of them, Hearth spirits, for game flavor they could tell you necessarily what happened in a house when they were not manifest but could give you a feel for the building better than nature spirits or field spirits seems to, after all they were closely tied to the activity of the hearth, even in a warehouse, so had a closer tie to humanity (at leats that was how we played them.)

perhaps you are thinking of a future edition

That's not flight that is walking on air

Technically, yes, as the only difference is speed, anyway.
All the spirits without a specifically given flyspeed and the fly skill simply aren't any faster in the air than on the ground.
They can still "fly", though.