[df_0]

I'm going to be running the finale of our campaign and it will inevitably end with the players against the BBEG. One of the players has expressed interest in summoning a force 12 spirit. I've told the summoners that if they attempted to summon a spirit over 3/4 of their magic rating (so for MAG of 6, this would be 9+), the spirits would resist being summoned by using edge (houserule from somewhere, spirits are OP enough the way they are).

Anyways, since they know this they just want to burn edge via smackdown (auto-succeeds an action with 4 net hits (SR5, pg 57)) and then with their Spirit Affinity quality, have 5 services of a F12 spirit.

I really don't want the summoner to do this because spirits are pretty OP and it will overshadow basically all the group members. They are also burning edge because it is the last game of this campaign, so they really don't care about repercussions. They are burning a point of edge, so I guess that is a pretty big cost to their character, but I feel they really don't care about the cost since it is the finale or the other players.

Any advice? Have the spirit counter-burn edge? Let it happen and just add a counter to attempt to take it out by the BBEG?

[Herr Brackhaus]

Huh, I've never considered what happens if a character uses Smackdown in an opposed test. A success test is straightforward enough, but if the test is opposed wouldn't that just mean that they'd have to roll and compare hits like normal?

[Fizzygoo]

My thoughts (YMMV):

1. "[Player] expressed interest in summon a force 12 spirit": cool.
2.a "I've told the [players] that if they attempted to summon a spirit over 3/4 their magic rating...the spirits would resist being summoned by using edge": House rule that the players are aware of so...cool.
2.b. (nitpicking): "over 3/4 magic rating" means over 75% of their magic rating, so rating 6 magic, 75% equals 4.5. But even in the way you seem to intend, as in (3/4 magic)+magic, that would be 10.5. Where Magic rating plus 1/2 Magic rating, or Magic * 1.5, would give you the 9 you use in the example.
3. Burn edge with smackdown...okay...but Spirit still gets its roll. Even if you go super-nice GM and just assume that smackdown gives auto 4 successes and ignores opposed test rolls (which I wouldn't suggest), the spirit still gets to roll it's 12 dice (so you can multiply the hits it gets by 2 in order to return the smackdown favor in the form of physical drain on the summoner). So - cool.
4. No GM wants the players to do these things that kill the BBEG. But they do. Learn to love them for it (as long as they're playing by the rules).
5. Yeah, if you've got them burning edge then you have them scared which, as a GM, is what you should be doing. If they sweat and burn edge and gnash their teeth and pull their hair during the final battle then you've done good.
6. The final advice: Play in the rules. If the players go out of their way, burn edge, and summon a force 12 spirit and they survive the summoning attempt...don't crush that unfairly. Don't arbitrarily add in magical abilities/resources for the BBEG after the PCs have done their legwork (and therefor should have had a chance to discover those abilities/resources). If you design a BBEG that underestimates the players' force 12 capabilities...then the next BBEG probably won't, but this BBEG will have to get clever and devious and nasty in order to survive. -kind of stuff-like adivces.

[Bewilderbeast]

Let it happen and just add a counter to attempt to take it out by the BBEG?

This is what I'd do, personally. Not saying I advocate that course of action, necessarily, just saying this is where my instincts take me.

Your player is definitely gaming the system a little bit, and I could get how you're annoyed. From their perspective, though, they're probably looking at it like pulling out all the stops and giving their character a nice finale.  The fact that this is the last session of a campaign kind of changes things. You're going to be retiring the campaign, but your players are also going to be hanging up their characters. It's only natural to want to go out with out a bang, maybe have a cool story you can tell people later. Your player had the good sense to not try this trick earlier... he or she has been aware of it but was holding back in order to not to completely throw off the power level of the game. Now that it's time for the grand finale, your summoner is naturally going to want to go for a big finish. What's the harm in letting them do that, really?

If I were you, I'd probably tell the player, "Yeah, sure. And you can even keep your Edge." Then I'd work with the other players and each give them some special bonus for this, their last run. Maybe the street samurai gets a special pass to a delta lab and gets a piece of high-Availability cyberware for free. The decker gets a new and improved deck, the adept gets a crazy weapon Focus, and so on.

Naturally, you'll want to scale up the last run and make it more challenging to account for all this new firepower. But it's your finale, man! Why not let your players break out all the best toys before you put them back in the box forever?

[Bewilderbeast]

3. Burn edge with smackdown...okay...but Spirit still gets its roll. Even if you go super-nice GM and just assume that smackdown gives auto 4 successes and ignores opposed test rolls (which I wouldn't suggest), the spirit still gets to roll it's 12 dice (so you can multiply the hits it gets by 2 in order to return the smackdown favor in the form of physical drain on the summoner). So - cool.

Um... Smackdown is pretty clear in that the character automatically succeeds with 4 net hits. Not 4 hits, 4 "net" hits. As in 4 more than the target. So no, RAW, the spirit wouldn't get to make its opposed roll. Or, more accurately for purposes of this particular example... let the spirit roll to determine the drain inflicted, but the Shaman would still net 5 services regardless of the result. Unless of course the result is a dead Shaman.

Letting your player burn Edge, and then turning around and flat-out ignoring the benefit of burning said Edge is a pretty lousy thing to do.

But you do have a point... while Smackdown lets you get the fancy Force 12 spirit and the services, the poor bastard is still going to have survive all that Drain.

[Fizzygoo]

Um... Smackdown is pretty clear in that the character automatically succeeds with 4 net hits. Not 4 hits, 4 "net" hits. As in 4 more than the target. So no, RAW, the spirit wouldn't get to make its opposed roll. Or, more accurately for purposes of this particular example... let the spirit roll to determine the drain inflicted, but the Shaman would still net 5 services regardless of the result. Unless of course the result is a dead Shaman.

Letting your player burn Edge, and then turning around and flat-out ignoring the benefit of burning said Edge is a pretty lousy thing to do.

But you do have a point... while Smackdown lets you get the fancy Force 12 spirit and the services, the poor bastard is still going to have survive all that Drain.

I was too quick to re-read Smackdown and was wrong in that quoted statement, specifically "which I wouldn't suggest." I agree with the RAW and I would roll the opposed dice to determine drain.

[Bewilderbeast]

Yeah, sorry I was snippy. I completely forgot about the Drain consequences of this Shaman's choice, so I can understand being fuzzy on the rules. They're a beast.

By the way, I'm pretty sure you can't use Smackdown for Drain. Drain isn't an "action," chummer. So there's going to be some risk involved, either way. A lot actually.

Really, Fizzygoo and I are in agreement that you should just let the player do it. If you roll it out on the table, there's a non-negligible chance that his summoner will blow his brains out with Physical Drain, which would just be hilarious, so that plus permanently burning a point of Edge? I say let them have it. If it works, they kind of earned it.

You can remove the risk and just hand them a F12 spirit, as well as some goodies to the other players, too. That would be the "nice guy" GM option. Again, it's the end of the campaign and I don't see the harm in letting them dye their mohawks pink, but YMMV.

[Fizzygoo]

If you roll it out on the table, there's a non-negligible chance that his summoner will blow his brains out with Physical Drain, which would just be hilarious, so that plus permanently burning a point of Edge?

Hehe, exactly. Somewhere between 2-24 Physical Drain and if the summoner falls unconscious or dies...the summoning still succeeded so GM has the option for a force 12 free spirit that decides to attack the dead/dying summoner, the summoner's team, the BBEG, everyone, no one, etc.

[Reaver]

You could always rule that the spirit also burns a point of edge.....

that ends up with a tie.... and not an outright success for the mage.


(Note: This is a dick move IMO, but valid for when some players try to do such "game breaking"* actions)


*Game Breaking depends on your table. At mine, a Force 12 spirit, while nothing to laugh at, is not actually that out of place.....

[Blue Rose]

If your BBEG isn't a threat at a level where they have something to throw against Godzilla, they're probably not enough of a threat.  The big, huge, final, ultimate battle of ultimate destiny is the time to pull out all the stops.  And that means crazy stuff like this.  Smackdowns are for the big stuff.

However, do keep in mind the limitations.  There are either two or four rolls involved, here.

First, the summoning roll.  Player burns edge to smackdown, sure.  However, the spirit still throws dice to determine drain, as stated above.  12 dice, +6 for edge, with exploding 6's.  Average of 6 off the initial roll, and another 1 and change off the explosions.  Probably looking at something in the 6-8 range for successes.  That's 12-16P drain.

Second, the player has to resist that drain.  They probably won't die.  If they're smart, they're going to have a sustained Increase Attribute spell on them from some source or another to give them +8 dice to drain.  However, that is a serious wound.  Going in like that is suicide, and that damage can only be healed by resting.  However, come sunrise or sunset (read: not enough time to heal ANY of that drain), that spirit is gone.  They can armchair it, send the spirit in with the team to do their cut of the work.  They can go with the team despite the severe internal hemorrhaging and then die in short order leaving the spirit masterless.  Or...

Third!  They roll binding to actually have that spirit at their disposal for any appreciable amount of time.  Spend three hundred drams, light enough incense to choke an elephant, and the spirit rolls double their force.  In this case, the math makes more sense for the spirit to post-edge, so on average, we're looking at 24 dice, average of 8 successes, with 16 failures.  Reroll.  Average of 5-6 successes.  Total of 13-15 ish.  Which means...

Fourth!  If we're talking 15 successes, we're talking about resisting 30P drain.  That will kill your player on any natural roll, unless they are incredibly lucky and get many explosions spending edge.  Not might.  Will.  And even if they somehow survive, they have a long, vulnerable recovery time ahead of them while waiting to besiege the BBEG.  Which means the BBEG has time to make a move.

Realistically?  If they're burning edge to summon this spirit, the most practical option is to burn edge on the drain so they're fresh for the fight, leaving them vulnerable to the dawn, should the BBEG have a good stall tactic handy.

Also, force 12?  If this is the final game of the campaign... hasn't the mage initiated and boosted magic?  I would expect 14 or 16.

[farothel]

If you go with the rule that burning edge means net hits and therefore the spirit gets a roll and therefore a lot of potential drain, inform your player up front about this (even if it's just by rereading the rule and placing emphasis on the net in net hits).  That way the player is aware of the consequences.  Of course just handwaiving it and giving some goodies to the other characters might also help to keep the balance.  A last fight can be epic so there's no problem giving them some extras and then upping the bad guys.

Our gm always gave us just about anything we asked and could explain, but he would make note and then use it against us.

[Blue Rose]

As I recall, in the Arcology podcast's actual play, an enemy blood mage really hated the runner team after they ruined his life, and this NPC burned edge to summon a force 12 great form blood spirit before gathering all the resources he had left to raid the PCs' safehouse.

[bangbangtequila]

If he is burning edge, I can't understand the problem. He's using up a get out of death card for 5 tasks. I would happily trade a f12 spirit to not die, and with up to 24 drain, he may have to burn another point in order to survive his first burned edge. Seems like magic has the built in equalizer of drain.

[Raiderjoseph]

Also please keep us posted on how this final battle goes df.

[Tarislar]

While this is kind of ruining your big fight that you put work into.....

He is burning a lot to do this.

At a "Minimum" he's flat out loosing 10 to 40 Karma depending on his current Karma level.

He's also probably spending a 2nd point of edge just to help resist the drain.
 Assuming a "near Max" Elf Cha Summoner with 5 Will, 8 Cha, 2 Attr boosts = 21 Dice = 7 Hits
 Burn Edge to Reroll 14 = 5 ish more hits.
 So he can still go on the run with 0-4 physical damage on average.

I think I'd drop down to maybe a F8 Spirit & just spend the 2 points of edge, get 2-3 services & go into the fight with a powerful spirit v/s a godly one.
Saves you that 10-40 Karma & the Physical Damage.
And doesn't upset the well made final battle.