[All4BigGuns]

This is what you call the "perfect storm" setup. While it's good theory-craft, the likelihood of actually getting that to work right is slim.

Hell, under "perfect storm" the Star Wars Saga character I recently built can deal a maximum of 177 points of damage on a single hit (if rolling out all the dice instead of just multiplying it would come to 8d12 + 81 damage on a Powerful Charge-Rapid Strike-Power Attack 4-Critical with Triple Crit). Like your theory-craft for the spirit, the chances of getting it are nil.

[Reaver]

lets see....


Force 7 spirit: (25 * 7) = 175 reagents to bind (pg 300 SR5)
Resists binding with 14 dice, Drain is hits (not NET hits) x2. (pg 301 SR5) so, roughly 8 drain.....
ON top of summoning drain of (hits, not NET hits) summon resistance x2. So roughly 4 drain...
AND it takes 7 hours. Better not of started that binding close to sunrise/sundown.
Since the max limit of services is net hits [Magic] you are going to get between 2 and 4 services...


So you better be VERY careful how you word your command to your spirit.... "Go kill those guys there" is not a good command... Where is there? What guys? you need to provide more info for the spirit to work with, it is not a mind reader

"Go Kill the guards at the entrance to the Renraku facility on Hastings Street" is a valid command. (who, what, where are provided, giving the spirit a valid destination, target and action) But, unless you bound the spirit, or are within your 700 meters radius, uses up ALL your services (pg 302 SR5)


All in all, a VERY expensive use of a bound spirit, OR a very drain intensive use of an unbound single service spirit....

Repeat that a few times, and your rep in the spirit world will be going to crap very quickly.... So you better not hope on initiating anytime soon with a metaplanar quest option... that's like wearing a white hood in the middle of Harlem....


Remember, Spirits are NPCs... and they have a collective memory. A slight against one spirit is a slight against ALL spirits... And they really don't like being hurt or disrupted just to suit your mad dreams and desires

[Beaumis]

Yeah this has gotten quite tangled... .

Lets recapture a bit.
1. The premise of the OP's claim was summoned spirits. Not bound ones. He expressly based his claim in this limitation due to his inability to deal with the added drain of binding.

2. Some claims in this threat are based on suppositions about the reappearnce of metamagics in their 4th edition form. We do not know what possession will look like, nor do we know whether or not it will exists at all, so we can dismiss this.

3. Using Force 1 sustaining foci to sustain pushed limit spells via edge or reagents are at the very least a grey area of the rules. I do not want to delve into the technicallicities, but it seems like a reasonable assumption that this was not intended to be the norm. Hence, using a sketchy mechanic to support the claim of another mechanic being broken when the two are used in conjunction is a questionable approach.

4. An argument of whether or not spirits are overpowered should be based in spirit at the baseline while all other factors are applied equaly. So if you want to compare, for example, a buffed spirit, those buffs need to be applied to both sides. Otherwise, you are not discussing spirits, but spirits + mage vs x. The exception to this are effects cast and sustained by the spirit himself. This is baseline science.

5. Note that spirits are subject to drain and since they have only one condition monitor, they are basically burning their life force to cast the spell. It stands to reason that spirits won't use spells unless they can offset the drain in its entirety (which limits the force), they absolutely need to in oder to survive, or ordered. Given that spirits are sentient, understand magic very well and the majority of their powers is more efficient than the majority of spells, it seems reasonable to assume that most spirits won't use spells on their own volition.

Trid Phantasm can create any scene you want - and it affects all senses/sensors. So a spirit could cast it and create the exact same vision - just without the spirit in it. As long as the spirit is in the area of effect of the spell you can't see it - even with ultrasound and other common ways of non-awakened perceiving invisibility. Another option is to create an illusion of dozens of spirits that look exactly the same. Another would be to put up a two way mirror between the spirit and the street sam. All sorts of stuff can be done with that spell.

Trid Phanatsm is a powerful spell, but it has its limitations. In the hands of a spirit, the spell is about as useless as tits on a bull:

These area spells create convincing illusions of any object, creature, or scene the magician desires. They can create an illusion of anything the magician has seen before, from a flower or a credstick to a dragon breathing fire, as long as the illusion is no larger than the spell’s area of effect.
(P. 291 Core)

When materialized, the spirit uses astral perception (its only perception) to perceive the physical world.
(P. 301 Core)

Spirits can create beautiful Trid Phantasms of what the physical world looks like through astral perception but nothing in our world will be fooled by it by because it is an alien image created by a mind that works entirely different from ours.

Furthermore, Illusions are anchored to a specific point. The rules are unclear in how far you can actually adjust the illusion of the fly. So while you can create the image of an empty corridor (Its not really a scene, but sort of an object, albeit it seems a little weird) you are faced with a multitude of problems. First, anyone who enters the area of effect gets to resist the illusion. Second, there is the noticing magic rolls, which apply for both the spell and the spirit's presence. Finally, moving the Illusion's area of effect takes a complex action.

Area effect spells that are sustained can be moved as a Complex Action, provided that the spell area is in the magician’s line of sight. Characters that drop out of the affected area are no longer affected by the spell, while characters that are enveloped by the new affected area must defend against the spell accordingly.
(P. 282 Core)

So unless you are willing to confine your makeshift invisibility to a very limited radius or spend continual complex actions to move it, you are better of using invisibility. This does not touch the subject wether or not the spirit can actually move within the illusion of an empty corridor without breaking it. This is an interesting topic for another threat.

So summarize: Trid Phantasm could be employed by the spirit and it would be useless or it could be employed by a mage for the spirit in which case it needs to be compared to an enemy who has magical backup as well. It is therefore justified to remove this part from the equation.

I will leave the rest for later as I'm late for my lunch date. Have fun people.

[ZeConster]

Suppressive fire is base damage. That Force 7 spirit needs to be buffed with a total of 4 armor to be immune - which is highly likely with a decent summoner.

Incorrect. It's logical to assume that regular Armor does not stack with Hardened Armor for the purpose of nullifying damage completely. A 10P/-7 attack versus a Force 7 spirit with 4 Armor from the Armor spell will still deal damage: its Hardened Armor is reduced to 7, giving a Force 7 Spirit of Man 8+7+4 dice (at which point the Armor kicks in to boost its total Armor to 11, making it 10S) and (7/2, rounded up = 4) free hits: that's 6S versus 19 dice: on average that's only 0.65S damage, but the spirit is not immune to it..
Against a Force 7 spirit, the RPK HMG is a better choice for Suppressive Fire: 12P/-8 means the spirit has Hardened Armor 6, Armor 4 and Body 8, which means it's 12P versus 18 dice and 3 auto-hits, for an average of 3.06P damage.
Of course, another question is whether (Weapon Skill)+Agility [Accuracy] is enough to hit, since the spirit either uses the summoner's Edge attribute for its dice pool, or its own Edge (Force/2): in the second case, that's 13 dodge dice not counting any buffs it may have, and since it has a threshold to reach, it effectively wins ties.

And hey, if we're going to use ambushes, here's one: while the spirit slaughters two guard grunts the summoner doesn't realize aren't the street sams he wanted dead because he's several miles away, one of the real street sams figures out its exact location based on where its actual attack comes from (in which case, even using Trid Phantasm to create a bunch of shadow clones won't help). Then, the second street sam fires an Anti-vehicle missile (18F: have your face obtain it for you) at within 1m of that location (threshold 3 to hit): 24P/-4 means Hardened Armor 10 remains, effectively giving 19P versus 8+4+10 dice, for an average of 11.67P damage (6.78P if the summoner uses Edge for Second Chance on the damage soak).

Another ambush: between the cameras and radar sensors, at least one picks up the spirit's location while the spirit slaughters the guard grunts, allowing two snipers to (at the very least) Blind Fire from 500m away even if the illusion itself fools them. Since the spirit is unaware of the attack, it gets no defense roll, which means the Blind Fire and other modifiers don't really harm the snipers (since it's a Success Test). Using a Ranger Arms SM-5 with APDS, and with a dice pool of 6+6+2+2 - 6 - 3 (6 skill, 6 attribute, specialization, smartgun + 'ware smartlink, Blind Fire, environmental modifier of -3) = 7, and spending a point of Edge with Edge 4, the snipers score 4.28 hits on average. Assuming 4, they each deal 18P/-9, reducing the spirit's Hardened Armor to 5: 3 free hits means 15P versus 8+5+4 soak dice gives an average of 9.33P damage (5.56P if the summoner uses Edge on Second Chance for both soak dice). Two snipers means 18.66P damage on average (or 11.12P), and if the snipers only attack after the grunts are dead, it counts as a seperate combat challenge to attack them.

Actually, it has used 1 service.

Prove it.  What was it told to do, go into this room and materialize?  Scout the room?  Doesn't involve combat.  Attack people it doesn't know are there?

If we are talking about just killing a couple street sams: "go kill those men" is 1 service for a bound spirit. The bound spirit must do its utmost to fulfill the command.

"Go kill those men that I can't see because I'm 5 miles away"? No. The best you can hope at with a single service under those circumstances is "Go to that room, and if there are people there, kill them" - and that uses up a service even if there's nobody there, and requires you to have done some scouting or sleuthing beforehand, or use a different service to tell the spirit to scout the room, after which it will return to you - you'll then have to send it back with a "kill them" command for another service.

5. Note that spirits are subject to drain and since they have only one condition monitor, they are basically burning their life force to cast the spell.

Not exactly: the rulebook says "If all of the boxes on a spirit’s Condition Monitor (either of them) are filled, the spirit is painfully disrupted and is forced back to its home metaplane", which means spirits have both a Stun and a Physical Monitor.

[Moonshine Fox]

Suppressive fire is base damage. That Force 7 spirit needs to be buffed with a total of 4 armor to be immune - which is highly likely with a decent summoner.
Go ahead and shoot at it, it will have about 30 dice to dodge.

And what is this spirit out of sight thing anyways.  Why would it be out of sight.  Is that its orders?  If so, and it can't get out of sight, it can't comply.  So...it never materializes.  Or has to ask for new orders, which involves a new service.  As I already mentioned, the spirit is not actually good at staying out of sight.

Not sure what you are having problems with here. A Force 7 spirit is literally as intelligent as the greatest geniuses on the planet. If it was tasked to kill something do you think it would behoove it to materialize in LOS? Any intelligent being would materialize out of LOS and do whatever it needs to do before attacking.

And there is the crux of it. A spirit is not a drone with a good pilot rating controlled by the mage, it's a living sapient being. It has it's own hopes and dreams and desires, all of which but the most basic are alien to metahumanity. These beings are litterely from another plane of existence. They will not use combat tactics in the same way as a human would, they just don't think that way. They also don't have to do their utmost to fill an order. They only have to do the letter and one that smart could easily twist it on you if it doesn't like you, which is likely to happen if you just pull out spirits as pocket nukes and sent them into combat. Word travels on the spirit plane. The main reason the rules for spirits are so loose is that THEY ARE NPCS!!!!! They are an extra character summoned by you that the GM is in compeate control of. You can issue an order, how the spirit discharges it's service and to what letter if fills the intention of the service, as opposed to the letter of the service, is 100% up to your GM.

[ZeConster]

They also don't have to do their utmost to fill an order. They only have to do the letter and one that smart could easily twist it on you if it doesn't like you, which is likely to happen if you just pull out spirits as pocket nukes and sent them into combat.

Actually, the "Bad feelings with bound spirits" sidebar says "bound spirits are compelled by the magical bond to do their utmost on the magician’s behalf, even if it means sacrificing their Force and disrupting themselves for a time". While you may interpret this to simply be a fluff description of the "more services possible", it definitely sounds as if bound spirits don't have as much wiggle room to deliberately misinterpret orders (although they very well may have different opinions on how best to tackle an encounter: that Force 7 Spirit of Man may decide the best way to get rid of two guards is to use Influence to make one of them get angry and attack the other, then slip by while they're brawling).

[Moonshine Fox]

They also don't have to do their utmost to fill an order. They only have to do the letter and one that smart could easily twist it on you if it doesn't like you, which is likely to happen if you just pull out spirits as pocket nukes and sent them into combat.

Actually, the "Bad feelings with bound spirits" sidebar says "bound spirits are compelled by the magical bond to do their utmost on the magician’s behalf, even if it means sacrificing their Force and disrupting themselves for a time". While you may interpret this to simply be a fluff description of the "more services possible", it definitely sounds as if bound spirits don't have as much wiggle room to deliberately misinterpret orders (although they very well may have different opinions on how best to tackle an encounter: that Force 7 Spirit of Man may decide the best way to get rid of two guards is to use Influence to make one of them get angry and attack the other, then slip by while they're brawling).

Good point, I tend to view that as doing the service quickly as good as it can, but it's up to the GM if the spirit just does the letter of the order to the best of it's ability, or if it goes after the intent behind the order. Kinda like genies from old stories, where if they don't like you they'll do the letter of the wish rather then the intent and may activly try to twist it against you if they hate you.

[sn0mm1s]

Lets recapture a bit.
1. The premise of the OP's claim was summoned spirits. Not bound ones. He expressly based his claim in this limitation due to his inability to deal with the added drain of binding.

2. Some claims in this threat are based on suppositions about the reappearnce of metamagics in their 4th edition form. We do not know what possession will look like, nor do we know whether or not it will exists at all, so we can dismiss this.

3. Using Force 1 sustaining foci to sustain pushed limit spells via edge or reagents are at the very least a grey area of the rules. I do not want to delve into the technicallicities, but it seems like a reasonable assumption that this was not intended to be the norm. Hence, using a sketchy mechanic to support the claim of another mechanic being broken when the two are used in conjunction is a questionable approach.

Sketchy or not there are 2 different ways by RAW for this to happen.

4. An argument of whether or not spirits are overpowered should be based in spirit at the baseline while all other factors are applied equaly. So if you want to compare, for example, a buffed spirit, those buffs need to be applied to both sides. Otherwise, you are not discussing spirits, but spirits + mage vs x. The exception to this are effects cast and sustained by the spirit himself. This is baseline science.

When discussing the power of summoned spirits it seems logical to incorporate the abilities of the summoner since the limitations of the summoner come into play as well.

5. Note that spirits are subject to drain and since they have only one condition monitor, they are basically burning their life force to cast the spell. It stands to reason that spirits won't use spells unless they can offset the drain in its entirety (which limits the force), they absolutely need to in oder to survive, or ordered. Given that spirits are sentient, understand magic very well and the majority of their powers is more efficient than the majority of spells, it seems reasonable to assume that most spirits won't use spells on their own volition.

Trid Phantasm doesn't work

"Nothing" should look the same whether astral or physical - so for an empty hallway the illusion doesn't have to incorporate in anything else.

As for adding a specific item - a spirit or a two way mirror:
RAW conflicts on this a bit. The spirit summoner link supposedly can't send and receive visual images - but the Search power specifically requires/allows this (otherwise how can you show a spirit what to search for). Also, it seems sort of weird that some spirits have Enhanced Visual senses if they are always astrally perceiving (like Low Light and Thermo). Regardless, the illusion of empty space - when only affecting empty space should work.

Furthermore, Illusions are anchored to a specific point. The rules are unclear in how far you can actually adjust the illusion of the fly. So while you can create the image of an empty corridor (Its not really a scene, but sort of an object, albeit it seems a little weird) you are faced with a multitude of problems. First, anyone who enters the area of effect gets to resist the illusion. Second, there is the noticing magic rolls, which apply for both the spell and the spirit's presence. Finally, moving the Illusion's area of effect takes a complex action.

Area effect spells that are sustained can be moved as a Complex Action, provided that the spell area is in the magician’s line of sight. Characters that drop out of the affected area are no longer affected by the spell, while characters that are enveloped by the new affected area must defend against the spell accordingly.
(P. 282 Core)

So unless you are willing to confine your makeshift invisibility to a very limited radius or spend continual complex actions to move it, you are better of using invisibility. This does not touch the subject wether or not the spirit can actually move within the illusion of an empty corridor without breaking it. This is an interesting topic for another threat.

Yes, I don't want to argue this here. Illusions are anchored - but does that prevent from anchoring on oneself?

[sn0mm1s]

Incorrect. It's logical to assume that regular Armor does not stack with Hardened Armor for the purpose of nullifying damage completely. A 10P/-7 attack versus a Force 7 spirit with 4 Armor from the Armor spell will still deal damage: its Hardened Armor is reduced to 7, giving a Force 7 Spirit of Man 8+7+4 dice (at which point the Armor kicks in to boost its total Armor to 11, making it 10S) and (7/2, rounded up = 4) free hits: that's 6S versus 19 dice: on average that's only 0.65S damage, but the spirit is not immune to it..
Against a Force 7 spirit, the RPK HMG is a better choice for Suppressive Fire: 12P/-8 means the spirit has Hardened Armor 6, Armor 4 and Body 8, which means it's 12P versus 18 dice and 3 auto-hits, for an average of 3.06P damage.
Of course, another question is whether (Weapon Skill)+Agility [Accuracy] is enough to hit, since the spirit either uses the summoner's Edge attribute for its dice pool, or its own Edge (Force/2): in the second case, that's 13 dodge dice not counting any buffs it may have, and since it has a threshold to reach, it effectively wins ties.

If we are assuming 4e errata I will concede that is how it works. Armor stacking will probably have another set of errata this edition. In any case, the spirit can still drop prone as a free action to avoid getting hit (I don't think a reaction + Edge roll is very high odds to avoid a street sam suppressive fire).

And hey, if we're going to use ambushes, here's one: while the spirit slaughters two guard grunts the summoner doesn't realize aren't the street sams he wanted dead because he's several miles away, one of the real street sams figures out its exact location based on where its actual attack comes from (in which case, even using Trid Phantasm to create a bunch of shadow clones won't help). Then, the second street sam fires an Anti-vehicle missile (18F: have your face obtain it for you) at within 1m of that location (threshold 3 to hit): 24P/-4 means Hardened Armor 10 remains, effectively giving 19P versus 8+4+10 dice, for an average of 11.67P damage (6.78P if the summoner uses Edge for Second Chance on the damage soak).

Contrived example. The spirit is much more flexible.

Another ambush: between the cameras and radar sensors, at least one picks up the spirit's location while the spirit slaughters the guard grunts, allowing two snipers to (at the very least) Blind Fire from 500m away even if the illusion itself fools them. Since the spirit is unaware of the attack, it gets no defense roll, which means the Blind Fire and other modifiers don't really harm the snipers (since it's a Success Test). Using a Ranger Arms SM-5 with APDS, and with a dice pool of 6+6+2+2 - 6 - 3 (6 skill, 6 attribute, specialization, smartgun + 'ware smartlink, Blind Fire, environmental modifier of -3) = 7, and spending a point of Edge with Edge 4, the snipers score 4.28 hits on average. Assuming 4, they each deal 18P/-9, reducing the spirit's Hardened Armor to 5: 3 free hits means 15P versus 8+5+4 soak dice gives an average of 9.33P damage (5.56P if the summoner uses Edge on Second Chance for both soak dice). Two snipers means 18.66P damage on average (or 11.12P), and if the snipers only attack after the grunts are dead, it counts as a seperate combat challenge to attack them.

Same as above - and the spirit isn't unaware of the attack since he is in combat with the grunts. IIRC the sniper just as superior position or some nonsense (when I made my adept sniper I didn't really like this rule). The likelihood of cameras piercing Imp Invis or an illusion is pretty slim. Object resistance of 9 vs. 16 dice for the summoner. I am tempted to just do 50 rolls of dice at Invisible Castle for each buff and post what a buffed Spirit of Man would look like instead of all the handwaving.

[ZeConster]

Contrived example. The spirit is much more flexible.

My scenarios are no more contrived than your "the Magician controls a Force 7 spirit from a safe distance for only a single service, and without anyone noticing the link from the magician sustaining the buff spells they've cast on the spirit; oh, and the magician knows precisely what command to give the spirit despite being so far away from where things actually happen" scenario: in practice, that magician would have to burn through the owed services faster than a snake zoo burns through mice.

Also: if the snipers wait until the spirit's done fighting the grunts, he's no longer in combat (of course, considering it's a remote "kill them" service, it might just leave before they get a chance to shoot in that case).

[sn0mm1s]

Contrived example. The spirit is much more flexible.

My scenarios are no more contrived than your "the Magician controls a Force 7 spirit from a safe distance for only a single service, and without anyone noticing the link from the magician sustaining the buff spells they've cast on the spirit; oh, and the magician knows precisely what command to give the spirit despite being so far away from where things actually happen" scenario: in practice, that magician would have to burn through the owed services faster than a snake zoo burns through mice.

Not really, but we can agree to disagree here. I would hope a super genius buffed spirit could figure out what to do on its own. Mage could discuss tactics beforehand (or even during with the link). None of that costs services. Does a spirit need a common sense skill or something to not act like an idiot when tasked to do something? Apparently people think a Logic 7 spirit would just appear in LOS and get shot at. Also, I thought astral tracking takes at least 1 hour.

[All4BigGuns]

Edit: You know what? Comment withdrawn. No point in further engaging in this exercise in futility. Probably high time the thread got locked up.

[Moonshine Fox]

Edit: You know what? Comment withdrawn. No point in further engaging in this exercise in futility. Probably high time the thread got locked up.

Probably right. Only way to defeat a super-munchkin if that magnitude is to deny it the fight.

[Raizer13]

Back to the original comments about changing the opposed test.  If you want to go that route I recommend using force × 2 for both summoning and binding.  I find its really the summoning test ease that has people summoning high force spirits.