[adzling]

but you're not a dick Kincaid.

and the spirit army has a simple fix. as previously noted.

​(Magic + Initiate Grade)x2 is the maximum total force worth of spirits you can have in use at any one time (material AND astral plane).​

+

Magic + Initiate Grade is the maximum force spirit you can summon

the only reason NOT to implement such a rule would be because you actually WANT people to be able to make spirit armies and summon very high force spirits.

if that's what missions wants, fine.

but imho it's rather contrary to all of the other reasonable "house rules" missions has adopted.

[mbisber]

@SSD: For me, the issue of cheating/making drek up is pretty straight forward - are you doing it to make the Mission/fight/game experience better, or to punish a player for making an efficient character? The first is ok, the second is not.

I try to make efficient characters. I resent GMs who imagine when and where to 'help' out- unless they have audited all of the characters ahead of time and can ad-lib, on the fly, what needs to be changed and when in that Mission. A big problem with this is that many GMs haven't had the time to read the Missions before they come to the table, and could not audit characters anyway.

Lots of advanced players/characters sandbag, quietly try to assist newbies, or just wait until they may be needed (if at all). Very few, in my experience with Missions (70+), have been blatant upfront.

I have seen overpowered character types of all kinds at Missions tables, not just Mages. Whereas my own Mage is overpowered, it's with Spellcasting rather than Summoning. I don't believe I had Summoned a Spirit higher than F6 until in one of the PMs.

I like the idea of a Spirit Index. If a GM might ignore it, he might also ignore Notoriety and Public Awareness. Goodness knows, my character has used a disguise for some time, and bought off mucho Notoriety.

If I were a 'Dick', I could have come to the table with double digit Notoriety... for years. If Missions mechanics need to be changed, it's to look at players coming to the table with Notoriety that they could easily have bought off much earlier.

​(Magic + Initiate Grade)x2 is the maximum total force worth of spirits you can have in use at any one time (material AND astral plane).​
+
Magic + Initiate Grade is the maximum force spirit you can summon

Unless you are going to modify/limit all of the other classes, I oppose this... even if I can use my Power Focus in the equation too.

[adzling]

then why bother to have any houserules in missions at all (see prototype transhuman, edits to other qualities, etc, etc, etc)?

sorry but this argument seems weak.

[Michael Chandra]

Unless you are going to modify/limit all of the other classes, I oppose this... even if I can use my Power Focus in the equation too.

You can't. 

[Redwulfe]

-Snip-
@Redwulfe: Do combats often run long for people? Other than two combats in all of the Missions line (the finale of Dragon's Song 4 and A Holy Piece of Wetwork), we've never had a single combat make it past 2 initiative passes.

Combats in games I have played in usually only last 2 IP when we only have 1-2 antagonists with more they are roughly 2-3 turns. and no mater what they last about a half an hour to 1 1/2 hours. putting two of these combats in an SRM cuts the module too short.

This is probably because, out of all the games of SRM, which I started at the beginning of Denver, that I have played or GMed for over the years I have only ever came across two to four cheesy builds. This is not including the primes that I have ran for or with, as I assume they are going to be powerful. most characters are built averagely with some efficiency but would not be able to run in season 7-8 stuff because they are not powerful enough to handle the threat.

To me the current way that SRMs are built are out of balance, but that is just my opinion, and we should go back to table variance but I am not sure how that could be accomplished in this edition easily. It has been awhile but I think we moved away from it due to the skewing that happened when a higher Karma character sat with low karma characters. Maybe if we listed the games tier when listing the slot people could only sign up for the modules that are appropriately tiered to them. I don't know it would probably work but it would take a restructuring that wouldn't happen for this to come into effect. Maybe next black change.

[Marcus]

To be clear there is no serious lose if the GM ignore the Spirit index. If they do then we have the situation we have now. But giving them the option means GMs can send a definitive system based message. Slow your roll or, you might not like the consequences, and so long as a mechanic is in place for them reduce their index, like reducing notoriety. Real consequence can occur if the behavior doesn't change. Mr.Super Summoner will be really said when no spirits show up when he tries summon them.  At which point lesson learned super summoner can changes his ways and behavior moderated and problem is solved.

I totally agree that we don't wish to build a situation where GMs and players are hostile, but at the same time the notoriety system is intended to punish certain behaviors. That said Street Cred  is pretty easy to come by, so if notoriety gets out of hand there is fairly easy fix.  In my play and running experience Spirit index isn't overly likely to effect the majority of mages. SOP is usually summon up something in the 6ish force range just have them chill for when situation arise that they can assist with, and most of the time it's legwork stuff, or something goes wrong on mission phase.

[Redwulfe]

I looked up in the FAQ the ruling on Spirit Reputation and it seems that the reason is because exposing a spirit to a mana Void incurs a Background count per/hour raise in spirit Index. the SRM FAQ seems to take this as all Background count means that their is a void. Looking at mana void however it appears to be a place that has a significant void of magic which usually has a background count of -13 or higher.

Was the ruling on reputation put in on a misinterpretation of the rules or is the misinterpretation mine?

[Marcus]

That is certainly a very real issue, it seems like there is a tendency to get very trigger happy with background count mechanics.
Oh well just a thought.

[Kiirnodel]

The Dropbox is being phased out and moved to Google Drive

[Jayde Moon]

The link will be repaired soon.  Thanks for bringing it up.

[Lewis Greywolf]

​(Magic + Initiate Grade)x2 is the maximum total force worth of spirits you can have in use at any one time (material AND astral plane).​
Magic + Initiate Grade is the maximum force spirit you can summon

Sounds like a pretty reasonable missions rule to me, should solve the worst of the summoning abuse I've seen.