First off, IŽll admit: Im a sucker for henchmen/companions etc. for player characters. Not only in shadowrun, but also in D&D and Chronicles of darkness etc.
The Drone rigger fills that role pretty decently in Shadowrun (We have slightly modified the repairing rules for drones, so he not THAT expensive).
This post is about the awakened characters and their methods of acquiring allies and non meta-human henchmen.
First off the Spirit ally.
In our meta the spirit ally has 2 roles in the party
Role 1: be a source of frustration for the awakened as its far too expensive to acquire at Force 6+ in one go. This means that the awakened usually spends many many game nights NOT using his karma, instead saving it up to make a crazy splurge of 50-60+ karma in one go on a spirit ally. (this will instantly bring the spirit ally to its second role below). Alternatively he will give up and use his karma on something else.
Role 2: Super powerful entity that makes a lot of the other players feel cheated. This is because the ally spirit is almost always bought at some crazy force level like 6+. and thus will have a multitude of powers and abilities, and on top of that will have a karma-starved magician as a henchman.
Both of those roles are pretty unsatisfactory for us. In the current rules the system punishes the player for buying an ally spirit at low force level- with the intent to level it later when the campaign progresses. (karma costs are doubled for force increases after creating the spirit). At the same time the karma cost is a flat 8/16 per force level- which again reinforces the idea that its better to start off with as much force as possible. Organic growth of the ally is thus less rewarding.
My proposed rule would be this:
Cost of creating ally spirit is changed to the following:
Step 1: Choose force: The base cost of the force is 5 karma for each new level of force. (like upgrading attributes on a character).
Step 2-5: as normal on page 201 in Street grimoire.
Enhancing an ally:
The ritual enhance ally is potentially deleted the awakened always has the ability to pay for advancements-given Karma and time. Enhance abilites etc as a normal character. (enhancing the spirits force from 3 to 4 would cost 4*5 karma = 20 karma).
This rule would mean that the spirit is much more obtainable costing "only" the ritual(s) and then 30 karma for a nice Force 3 spirit ally with some cool stuff. (and yes the crazy force 6 ally would cost a crazy amount of karma).
The old rule wouldnt advice a F3 spirit, instead going for the gamechanger F6ish. Costing 53-58 karma.
PS: Does the spirit require 2 different rituals to make ? Ally conjuration (page 122) and Create ally (page 126)? I would reduce that to only a single ritual (which aspected conjurers may use without ritual spellcasting).
Does the community see any pitfalls or suggestions with this new rule? (Other than the standard response of working as intended because its shadowrun)
Second New karma cost: the Attune Animal Ritual:
The original cost structure goes like this:
5 karma for the ritual
Animal handling+charisma (12,1 week) to befriend it
Bonding: force = willpower of animal, F hours
Karma expendure equal to Essence of animal. (this means augmented animals are easier to create as companions)
Very limited: the ritual should be named Attune [animal type] as only crows, lynx, etc can be attuned with each ritual.
Material link to the adept.
May only have (initiation grade) of attuned animals at a time. (this means that even though an adept could choose the ritual without having initiated he cant use it for anything.)
Gain: sense link and possibility of further enhancing the animal through the empower animal ritual
My suggestion would be this:
5 karma for the ritual
Animal +charisma (18- animals essence, 1 week) Makes the befriending process slightly longer for augmented animals.
Material link to adept.
May only have initiation grade +1 of attuned animals at a time.
Gain: sense link and possibility of further enhancing the animal through the empower animal ritual
As the only real gain at this point is sense link, I feel that the limit on low number of animals and the time it would take to acquire a new one and befriend should be costs enough. The adept would also be able to have some ravens, a horse and wolfdogs at the same time without needing 3 separate rituals. (but would still need to be a crazy initiate).
In that regard does the community see any pitfalls here or other suggestions?Empower: (page 128 street grimoire)
The original had this on the animal itself. Im contemplating on making it slightly different.
Temporary transfer:The adept spends karma equal to 4 times the power point cost of the power. Once the ritual has been compleed he has the ability to transfer that power to any of his attuned animals- loosing acces to the power whilst it is lent out.
Qi marked: maybe use as is?
Naturally for both the spirit ally and the arruned animals are that the GM has the final say to disallow imbued tortoises sitting safely at home while sustaining spells on the adept all day. Or having the spirit ally create alchemical potions for the party 24 hours a day etc.
And lastly Attune item and Imbue items need s an overhaul too. I mean look at attuning a bike as the book uses as an example. After the adept has familiarized himself with the bike he needs to make a FORCE 15 RITUAL! and then pay 9 or 10 extra karma to bond it... he then gains a +1 limit on using the bike. If he then wants to attune it he needs to have another ritual and make another force 15 ritual and pay 9 or 10 karma. He can then choose amongst the list of 7 different imbue traits. one of which is purely negative and 2 others are meant for foci, not attuned items. This leaves him with 4 choices, one of those is meant for weapons. So that leaves him with Loyalty (penalty to others using his bike), Perceptive (he can find his bike when within 10 * magic meters, even if its hidden by magic) and Respect (lowers social penalties when on his bike) all of these naturally also requires him being initated..
