There's no "true" or "not true" here. Just GM fiat and table house rules. You even say it yourself.

I was taking issue with his 'ONLY' in his post...

There was no "ONLY" in my post, Falconer ...

Although I do understand your issue with high force spirits, the BBB does strongly imply that summoned and bound spirits tend to follow the summoner's intention to the best of their abilities (unless as stated by phlapjack77 and myself they are spirit abusers, there is a spirit bane etc).

I have adopted the (seemingly common on these forums) house rule that spirits at higher force than the summoner's Magic automatically use edge to resist summoning and binding. This potentially makes the drain quite lethal and has successfully limited the use of high force spirits at my table. If a PC were to successfully summon one, I would not want to compound their misery by making it unnecessarily hostile to them, although I might be very strict on what constitutes a service for such a powerful being.

That's one way to look at it, certainly. Obviously though, this is the sort of thing that's going to depend very much on the GM's point of view on Spirits. Also, the summoner's pattern of past behavior towards spirits in general should have some impact. A summoner who regularly releases spirits from service sooner than he technically has to; who takes pains not to expose those spirits to undue risk; who supports, assists, and defends spirits in his service (i.e., using Counterspelling dice on the spirit's behalf), who treats the act of summoning and binding to be a "negotiation" rather than slave-taking, and who generally interacts with spirits in a respectful manner? Yeah, even that F8 spirit is likely to be a little bit less inclined to dick around with the summoner - if only because it's smart enough to know "dick around with the not-quite-an-asshole, and maybe he turns into a FULL-BORE asshole".

No, it won't fall all over itself to do the summoner's bidding like an eager puppy. But it's not going to be trying to weasel-word it's way into causing grief for the summoner either.


I think that's a bit strong of a term. Maybe it's two orders, maybe it's one order. That's the wiggle room the GM has, based on the summoner's past history with spirits.


First off, unless I've completely misread the rules Possessions spirits don't HAVE to take a prepared vessel. It's just easier for them.

Second off, even if the scenario does result in the spirit counting this as two services, order of operations. I believe the command was "Possess that guard (a), then kill the other guard (b)". So possessing a specific guard, is the first thing it must do. THEN, after doing so, it must kill the second guard.

Of course, if the summoner is ESPECIALLY nasty towards spirits, this is where the weasel-wording could get very bad for him: it could elect to STOP possessing the first guard, in order to kill the second (by possessing him and jumping off the side of the bridge / building / etc, for example).


If it were a non-possession Fire Spirit, and yu said "Kill those guards there!" .... that's one service, "join in combat against my enemies". Even though the spirit has to Manifest. Even though it has to kill more than one guard.

So ... why's it not the same with a Possession spirit?


It's optional, but there is a rule that lets possession victims continue to resist, as an extended test.

Oh, and if the guard DOES resist, he's immune to possession by that same spirit for 24 hours, IIRC.

Finally, the grounding out? No, it didn't restrict itself to astrally-active characters. Having an astrally-active mage in the middle of an otherwise mundane group of guards (or shadowrunners) put ALL the mundanes at risk: an astral spellcaster could ground out a Fireball through the astrally active mage's aura ... and scorch everyone in it's normal AoE.


Flipside, the spirit cannot fail to materialize.






That seems to be Falconer's blind spot, though: once he reads the rules a certain way, once he reaches his understanding ... the others all become wrong. Not just wrong for him (which would be fine and dandy), but "objectively" wrong.

In the game I GM, I've ruled that when a magician first summons a spirit, he can have it use the materialize or possess powers without a cost in services. If the summoner chooses to keep it astral, and then later asks for it to materialize or possess a vessel, then that will cost a service. I've found that this is arrangement is something the players appreciate and I don't consider it game breaking. I've always ruled that specific uses of powers (Possess this monkey, Fear that hamburglar, Levitate those orks, Guard these nuts) is a service, so players adding clauses to their service requests doesn't necessarily work.

Other than that, I take into consideration how the magician treats the spirit. If he's ordering the spirit to attack a Troll Adept and is constantly having to use his edge dice to avoid dispersion, the spirit could see it as the summoner isn't adequately protecting him and get irritated.

I don't think it's viable to make such assertions. Is there any RAW indication that spirit's of any degree of Force want to be in servitude? Or that they don't? The compulsion to serve that spirit's experience is left largely unexplored.

I can't find such an indication in the rules either. the only time when a high force spirit is likely to be nastier to the summoner than a lower one is when it goes free due to the summoner passing out.

It's in there... there's a lot of published material of spirits getting non-cooperative. Read through street magic.
"Even while bound and COMPELLED to obey, ..." (I got news look up the connotation of compel/compulsion... it's not neutral)."
SR4a "Spirits also dislike being bound, as it forces them into a level of servitude they find distasteful, and so they sometimes fruitlessly struggle against the bond."
"Most spirits resent attempts to bind them, as it turns the relationship between magician and spirit from a short-term contract between equals (or near equals) to a forced servitude for an extended period of time"

Those seem like great reasons for a spirit to ALWAYS do exactly as it's master wishes and NEVER try to force a master to use more services to accomplish the same thing!! (disengage sarcasm)


It's not so much that any spirit is more likely to resist than another. It's that a force 9 spirit is going to have the tools to resist or shorten it's stint of slavery that a force 3 won't. To put this in other terms... your JOB as the GM is to *PLAY* the spirit NPC.

In the case of a force 3... it's basically another human with a radically different knowledge base. It'll be about as good as a human at negotiating and thinking things through. A force 9 on the other hand you're bargaining with a devil. It's got enough intelligence and ability to see 'openings' in commands a lesser spirit would miss. That's simply the GM "ROLEPLAYING" a very smart NPC. Similarly... a force 3 is far more likely to be the sniveling sort because it knows you can make it do rather nasty things for an unpleasant period of time and it can't effectively do anything to resist you. A force 9 on the other hand...

Again I repeat the above... it's the GM's ROLE to play the spirits as NPC's. A face doesn't 'play' his hired help, neither should a mage.



BTW: Dakka... I'm amused normally when I'm arguing there is a broad reading AVAILABLE and it's for the GM's to have fun with you tend to like to take the other side of the issue. Now when I'm pointing out the broad range of discretion available to a GM having trouble with spirits... you take the opposite side yet again. You're the one arguing that a GM should let his players walk all over them with their spirits effectively... I'm the one trying to tell GM's do as you see fit.. but these are things you CAN do. (note I said CAN... not necessarily should... )

If a players not being a problem and everyone's having fun.. then it's all good. But few things ruin the fun for more players I find than when the game degenerates into Magicrun... the fastest way to do this is to allow high force spirits to get out of hand... because all it takes is one solid mage of any stripe and they have an army of them on beck and call).

@_Pax._

Well, because one needs a roll and is an attack.

General:
There should be a list of services a spirit could offer and this list should be exclusive.

For example fight X: The spirit is able to engage X(probably Force) targets for X (Probably Force*2 or a fix number) of combat turns.
Physical help, Healing, casting a specific spell etc. pp.

@Falconer
The same stuff which is horrible for a force 3 spirit is horrible for a force 9 spirit. (Namly spell binding!)
As a matter of fact, as it stands, it is the best way to destroy a free spirt, too.
(Make it regenerate the lost force at a rate of 1 per week or month and you are set)
As a matter of fact, spirits should always spend edge, if the have a chance to resist the summoning, binding.
For them it is like a johnson paying them more for not even doing the job.

I think a very important point you have mentioned is the fact, that possession, as a matter of fact, goes against the separation of planes.
Thus making it extreamly nasty. There is no question, that a strong possession mage (Magic 7 or can take out an entire team of runners.
Simple use one high force summoned spirit and several low force bound spirits. (High force 8, low 5)

The only way you can counter possession is by spending edge. And even with this trick, it really depends on your edge and your attributes. A mage/technomancer with mental attributes at 5 or 6 and an edge of 5 or 6 would be quite safe. A Sam with mental attributes at 3 or lower and an edge of 3, is probably fucked. Having several spirits (even with the restriction to only try possessing one target every 24 hours) means that the team will burn their edge very, very fast.

I've tinkered with the idea of changing Hardened Armor (and vehicle armor) go after Damage Resistance and be a direct reduction of damage taken. In the case of spirits it would be ItNW = F (not 2F). So what you'd have is:
Spirit hit.
Spirit rolls Body to reduce damage.
Spirit then reduces damage by Force and applies what is left.

It would work the same way with all Hardened Armor, which would require tweaks of the stats of different critters (dragons, namely). For Drakes it would make their Hardened Armor actually worth something.

So, in effect, the ItNW would act like F X 3 Body or regular armour to reduce damage, right?

... Vaguely-kinda? It'd be a flat reduction of damage as opposed to a Test for Damage Resistance.

Um, this is a fairly high paced discussion. Regardless of interpretations, though...

Couple of things the GM can do about the spirits without manufacturing rules:
Corps do often contract out mage security. Even without one physically presence, he can have spirits of his own patrolling. The mage receives info from his spirit, and can direct it.
There are couple of weapon that work against spirits.
There are things like Biofiber that can create a mana barrier to keep out spirits. Creative use of this can hurt a spirits mobility badly, keeping down the whac-a-mole tactic, not to mention some other VERY creative uses I will leave to your local game.
On-site mages will nearly always banish as quickly as possible. It's one of the most effective ways of controlling spirits.
Shade forces astral projection, which can work against a spirit who has not materialized but is viewed a threat. This would be a desperate tactic, though.

Most common thing in our games is opposing spirits. Any corp that doesn't employ anti-spirit measures is simply asking for trouble, both from spirits and astrally projecting mages. Set up some spirits run by an off-site mage, and have mage security on-call for response if there are none on-site.

Also, keep in mind, weapons CAN damage a spirit, it just takes a lot of damage/armor mod. Any weapon with a high DV and LARGE armor modification (sniper with APDS, any large weapon that halves armor, etc) will stand a chance of hurting it.


As for hardened armor, we have never really had a problem with it in our group. As a matter of scale, it's not something you deal with much except for spirits. Even so, since hardened armors "ignore damage" is still affected by armor pen, then APDS, Anti-Vehicle, or /half armor tends to make it manageable, especially on a sniper rifle or battle rifle. Getting caught with your pants down is one thing, but given adequate resources for the threat, it's not impossible to overcome.

Please do tell. Also Biofiber might not be as cost effective as wards.

I fixed that for you.

1) How does a physical substance work on a spirit without a physical body?
2) What are you trying to achieve here?

On that final one, I think the idea was using Shade to go Astral in order to chase after the spirit - which would indeed be a desperate tactic.

Although I can't think of how a fully astral spirit can actually be a threat to anyone not astrally active themselves...

~Umi

Especially if you do not have assensing or astral combat. Neither of those skills can be defaulted on.

My thoughts exactly.

I'm guessing they did what my players did. Get a pipe. Cap the ends. Fill it with nutrient solution. Get a sliver of biofiber and put it in the pipe. Instant spirit whacking club. Or hell, if you have the throwing skill to chuck a two foot section of steel pipe, instant anti-spirit ranged weapon. It might even be effective on the astral, if you can astrally perceive. It's everything you would want from a mobile ward, without the unclear rules wording. Every time you hit you force them to roll as if they've passed through a ward. And when you're only using a 1 inch by 1 inch by 2 foot section, it's pretty cost effective.

How is this better than a normal club/thrown stick? Throwing it through an astral spirit might work, but against materialized/possessing/inhabiting spirits the biofiber does didly squat.

That really depends upon how you interpret a lot of the spirit rules (like everything with spirits). Does their immunity to normal weapons mean that a club that doesn't hurt them passes through them or just bounces off? It's not clear. How does a materialized spirit interact with a mana barrier when they are struck with it? Does it roll to resist as if trying to bass through a ward, or not? At the very least, the club is no longer a "normal" weapon because it's dual-natured (unless, it's the metal of the pipe making contact before the biofiber that's the problem). You have to house rule exactly what effect it has, but it's not the same as a stick.

Though yeah, as usual possession spirits are a pain in the ass.

There is nothing explicit on it, but their immunity works like hardened armor, so there is no penetration without damage.
It works just as when a spirit is forced through a mana barrier.
No, the biofiber is dual-natured, not the pipe housing the biofiber. Since there are no rules for actual penetration in melee combat the biofiber will not come in contact with the spirit.

I don't see any particular problem with possessing spirits in this case.

So your problem is with the pipe preventing the biofiber from directly contacting the spirit? That can be fixed with a different design, if necessary.

Sorry to interrupt, but I was searching the forums and found this post of Dakka Dakka, who seems to me to be a player who knows, what he is talking about. So please, someone tell me, how is that possible? A spirit on a remote service still counts towards the limit of summoned spirits, which is 1. Right? So you only may send one spirit on a remote service at a time. Sending another spirit to do a remote service would free up the previous spirit, because you can only have one unbound spirit at a time, right?

You can only have one summoned (i.e. unbound) spirit at a time. You can have CHA bound spirits at a time.

What I meant was that even if you received 10 services on your unbound spirit, if you send that spirit on a remote service, all remaining services will be forfeit. Unless you need more than one simultaneous service you can just summon a new spirit, once the old one has completed the assigned task.

Damn, your quick and thank you for the clarification.

Not exactly, you cannot summon another spirit until the previous spirit has completed its task.

Well, this is because the spirit then goes away, and you can again satisfy the single-summoned-spirit-only restriction.

You can summon another spirit. The remote spirit is immediately set free as soon as you summon another. I could have sworn I read that somewhere... though I can't recall if it was said in SR4a, street magic, or elsewhere.

In any case, it's only a simple action to dismiss a spirit (even a remote spirit through the telepathic link).

Spirits on remote service have no telepathic link. That's why it's a "remote service".

No you still have the link.

The mage would know instantly if the spirit is disrupted.

p186. Spirit Summoner Link
"A telepathic link exists between a spirit and it's summoner AT ALL TIMES. This allows the spirit to communicate with it's summoner from astral space without revealing itself. This link also allows communication over a distance..."

"Remote" only indicates how far away the spirit is. If the Spirit goes more than Force x 100 Meters (IIRC) away from the Summoner (and is not on his Metaplane) then he is on a Remote Service. Distance does not stop the Link from functioning.