[RHat]

...  Well, this is a first.  "Summoning's overpowered, but casting is fine!" isn't something that's often said.  Spellcasting is often considered to be overpowered.

Also, a roughly 10% chance of going from perfect condition to dead is not a reasonable success rate.

[CarrionCrow]

If your mages regularly hurt themselves to get easy wins, they should really get their heads looked at. It is pretty much common sense for any living being to avoid taking dmg as often as possible, which ties in to that whole roleplaying idea... And even if they do an emergency summon and do take dmg, it will limit the mages effectiveness for the rest of the game basically with wound penalties and if they are unlucky it will outright kill them or knock em out resulting in a spirit that could potentially do whatever it wants or nothing at all.

And given how useless combat magic is, at least conjuring is a viable option, one which I never was much of a fan of for my mages. Since a decently roleplayed mage that is still somewhat sane will not be prepared to take 5 dmg, stun or otherwise, for the express purpose of doing what a gun can do with no risk to ones own hide. Remember that any drain dmg taken can only be healed with rest, no magicking it away or similiar, and if your team is operating under time constraints such rest might very well be impossible.

And any enemy mages considering throwing out a Force 12 spirit would probably be better served by running away to fight another day...

[orcmeat]

Fluff wise, spirits over the casters magic are supposed to be hard to control. They try to find ways around the tasks you give them, struggle against their bonds etc. Large spirits can not be thought of as slaves doing w/e the caster wants.

[Nal0n]

and remember you can only have 1 unbound spirit at a time.

Where does it say that?

[Michael Chandra]

Page 300 says only 1 spirit summoned at a time, sticking around until it's done or time has expired. Not sure if Binding lets you have multiple out at the same time, can't find it right now and it's rather hard reading with one eye so I'll have to do that another time.

[Nal0n]

Page 300 says only 1 spirit summoned at a time, sticking around until it's done or time has expired. Not sure if Binding lets you have multiple out at the same time, can't find it right now and it's rather hard reading with one eye so I'll have to do that another time.

Bare with me here please, not a native speaker.
But it says "You can only summon one spirit at a time" ... Summuning is the act of calling the spirit and bend it to your will, right?
I cannot find anywhere anything that says how many spirits you can control at any given time though.

[ZeConster]

Can only have a number of bound spirits equal to Charisma

A magician can bind up to his Charisma attribute in spirits.

[MacAnu]

...  Well, this is a first.  "Summoning's overpowered, but casting is fine!" isn't something that's often said.  Spellcasting is often considered to be overpowered.

This is off topic, but I'm curious .  Is spellcasting really strong in SR5 outside of a few cases (Control Thoughts and co. )?  It definitely has a lot of utility, but very few spells strike me as being outright overpowered.

Also, a roughly 10% chance of going from perfect condition to dead is not a reasonable success rate.

Depends on the situation.  I'm sure the party will eventually run into a situation where there's a better than 10% chance of them dying even though bullets haven't started flying yet (or at least none have hit the mage just yet).  10% chance of dying is downright low for a BBEG whose compound got invaded .  Also remember this is for a Force 12 spirit -- a Force 10 spirit will give you better odds and is about as strong.  Force 6-8 Spirits can match or exceed the combat archetypes in combat and are fairly low risk.

I think you said earlier you think summoning could be nerfed a bit, but thought my proposed nerf went too far.  How do you think summoning should be adjusted?

If your mages regularly hurt themselves to get easy wins, they should really get their heads looked at. It is pretty much common sense for any living being to avoid taking dmg as often as possible, which ties in to that whole roleplaying idea... And even if they do an emergency summon and do take dmg, it will limit the mages effectiveness for the rest of the game basically with wound penalties and if they are unlucky it will outright kill them or knock em out resulting in a spirit that could potentially do whatever it wants or nothing at all.

Mages regularly hurt themselves to cast stuff .  Once in a while, taking 5 damage to cast a big spell can prevent even more damage from getting shot up.  What's irrational about taking 5 damage to avoid 10 damage?

[Nal0n]

Can only have a number of bound spirits equal to Charisma

A magician can bind up to his Charisma attribute in spirits.

That is bound spirits.
But how many unbound spirits can I control?

[Sendaz]

Can only have a number of bound spirits equal to Charisma

A magician can bind up to his Charisma attribute in spirits.

That is bound spirits.
But how many unbound spirits can I control?

You can only control 1 spirit at a time not counting your bound ones, hence the use of binding for multiple spirits on tap.

[Shade]

an Ares Alpha with APDS loaded will hurt anything up to Force 18 on a single net hit.  Even just a Predator with APDS will be able to tag any spirit Force 12 or lower.

This is not correct. The force doubled is the hardened armor, so 24. An Ares Alpha with APDS has -6 AP and 11P damage. That means that he needs 8+ net hits to harm the spirit, since the modified damage must exceed the hardened armor. Additionally, the spirit will still automatically get 12 hits to resist damage(half the immunity rating). I'm guess you thought the AP applied before the doubling. It does not, not anymore. But then, to deal with a force 12 spirit I'd bring a panther cannon or missile launcher since a force 12 spirit is at least as dangerous as a t-bird!

Edit: I was using a force 12 spirit in my example.

[RHat]

Actually, I hadn't been able to find the line on doubling the Force for HA at the time - still, high force spirits are pretty easy to damage now, in comparison.

[Shade]

I wouldn't call needing a panther cannon or other heavy artillery easy, per se, but it's a force 12 fragging spirit. It SHOULD require heavy artillery.

[RHat]

I did say "in comparison".

[All4BigGuns]

I wouldn't call needing a panther cannon or other heavy artillery easy, per se, but it's a force 12 fragging spirit. It SHOULD require heavy artillery.

Always wanted a mage that could have the stuff on hand to, if the drek really hit the fan and death was a foregone conclusion, suicide-summon some massive world-threatening Force 30+ spirit.

But that'd take more sessions than any game in our group lasts to advance that far...