[Senko]

I was looking at them again today and realized in adition to not being any use for a physical task e.g. cleaning your house since they have no body their skills are actually really limited assensing, astral combat, perception which means you can't summon a high force one to even act as an agent "Hello I'm here to negotiate for the services of Alfredo the magnificant." All they are useful for is acting as lookouts and even there you have its skills only being equal to half the force used rounded up while all its mental stats are force -2. So I'm wondering is there any actual point to using them in the first place? They can't do physical tasks, they can't do verbal/mental tasks in general and the few things they can do they're not that good at?

[DragginSPADE]

I can't really speak for 5th edition since I've yet to play it, but in 1st - 3rd edition Watchers were VERY useful for astral security, a bit of backup when astrally scouting and the classic; using them to annoy a mundane you don't like.   Also tracking someone down whom you had a mental picture of but no material link.

It helped that you had the option of summoning them with a duration measured in days rather than just hours through the use of some materials or karma.

[Senko]

Now they have no physical stat's, all mental ones are force -2 and assessing, Astral combat and perception at force/2 so a force 6 watcher would be 7 rice on assensing/perception, how does that compare to earlier editions?

[DragginSPADE]

They changed a bit even between the first three editions.  If memory serves, during first and second edition they could never be higher than force 1.  But they had special mechanics for tracking people down with nothing more than a mental image from their summoner which made them pretty good astral bloodhounds.  And even though they couldn't materialize they could still manifest, ie make themselves visible and audible to mundanes, just no physical body.  So they made great messengers, or annoyances for someone who'd pissed you off.

In third edition you  could summon them with a maximum force equal to half your magic rating, rounded up.  They had relevant skills equal to their force.  But no matter how higher their force was, drain was never greater than light so summoning a small pack of force 3 watchers and having them swarm one normal spirit was a viable tactic.

[Mirikon]

In 4th edition, they are great for astral security, scouting, or even just passing messages between party members in two different locations when normal comms might be detected or jammed. Since you summoned them as any other spirit, there wasn't a problem. There were even spells and initiations that improved them, I believe.

In 5th edition, they're much worse, have to be done as a ritual instead of summoning like any other spirit, and in general just aren't worth the time and effort for the trouble. Just another thing 5E messed up.

[Senko]

Hmmm I might adopt some of the elements from earlier editions or let them have physical stats/skills . . .maybe all stats at force - 2 or mental is force -2 and physical is force -4 minimum 1 with all skills listed in the side bar + 1 extra skill per force value at force/2. So a force 6 watcher would have physical stats of 2, mental stats of 4 speak all languages the ritual users speak and have assensing, astral comabt, perception and 6 other skills at 3 ranking + it can presumably manifest still. I shall think on this.

[Jack_Spade]

Watchers have several advantages: They are cheap and easy to conjure, you can create quite a lot of them in short time and they are absolutely loyal.
Assensing works best if you use them in teamwork tests. Also there is the Powerful Ritual metamagic that supercharges their force rating, turning them into very capable astral entities.

[Quatar]

Do watchers count against your summoned/bound spirit limit?
Do they go away at dusk/dawn?

If not to both, then they're pretty useful for longer-term astral security stuff. If they basically count as spirits though, then you're likely better of using an actual spirit.

[DragginSPADE]

Watchers have their own limit, separate from the magician's normal spirit types.  For example, a hermetic mage with a charisma of 5 could have a maximum of 5 elementals and 5 watchers bound at the same time.

Watchers don't go away at dawn or dusk.  They have a set time limit, measured in hours that is determined by the successes rolled when summoning them.  In third edition you could summon them with the same mechanics but with the duration measured in days rather than hours by using materials to summon them (same costs as elementals) or spending karma equal to their force.

[Senko]

Hmm odd if they lasted force * net hits days rather than hours I'd have found them a lot more usable as you could summon some to watch over a location for a few days. Right now with them only lasting such a short time unless you summon them at high force or get a lot of hits it's part of why I didn't feel they were much use. I may use this modification instead much less risk of them bring broken if rather than having other skills/physical stat's they just last a longer period of time when summoned since you still have a limit on numbers.

Of course a lot of the rituals could use a boost in my opinion e.g. warding a room is easy, warding a 5 story building is massively costly.

[Jack_Spade]

Actually it can be quite a lot of hours:  A watcher lasts for a number of hours equal to its Force times the net hits on the sealing test.
Considering that a F6 watcher only needs 4 hits for a full day. Greater Ritual adds the Magic rating of the ritual leader to the force. So with two assistants you can easily get to 72 hours and more.

[Senko]

But then you have to pay the assistants wages and watcher seems like more of all personal ritual spell as opposed to say circle of healing.

Of course everyone has different tastes me I like strong magic but others I know hate it. Still I feel that for watchers at least it makes more sense to have a single mage able to summon one lasting a few day's and a team of an initiated mage + 2 assistants to someone one lasting months before it needs to be renewed rather than an indivdual mage being able to summon one for a few hours and a team to manage a few day's. At 72 hours you'd be renweing the watchers several times a week and spending 6 hours doing it each time. Not worth arguing about though I have my answer that yes they can be useful in certain situations and personally I'll just adjust their time limit for  my games.

[Jack_Spade]

How are you getting 6 hours? It's force minutes to create a watcher.

[Senko]

How are you getting 6 hours? It's force minutes to create a watcher.

Middle of the ground time frame really. A ritual spell must be performed in a lodge appropraiate to the ritual leaders tradition (core book p.g.296) and a temporary lodge takes 1 hour per force point to set up. Now there will be times when you can summon watchers in your nice cosy lodge set up at home/work but there will also be ones where you can't. So middle of the ground temporary lodge timeframe.