[19%Wrong]

Bit confused at to exactly how many bound spirits a mage can have actually active for him at once, and was hoping someone could provide a quick answer.

The rules as written would seem to support the Mage being able to bind up-to his Charisma in number of spirits (p.301, 2nd para) however it's not clear on if this means that he can have that many active and doing services for him at once.

Currently my interpretation would be that a Mage can have all his bound spirits acting for him all at once, but I'm very happy to be pointed to any bit of the rules which makes that incorrect as it effectively makes the Mage in my group a one man army! :-)

[acolyte99]

As far as I know, there is no explicit mention of a limit of active bound spirits in SR5.

I do remember, that there was an optional rule in SR4 (don't remember if it was in the core book or in Street Magic) that gave the summoner -2 per active spirit (similar to sustaining spells). The existance of this optional rule very strongly implies, that there was no limit in SR4.
This might be a good houserule, if you are worried about the mage being a one man army. I use a slight modification of this rule: the mage can have his unbound spirit and his first bound spirit for free, and every bound spirit after that cost the -2. But YMMV.

[Top Dog]

A while back, on a completely different topic, I was reading the rules on commanding spirits; it mentions that

Issuing a command to a single spirit or group of spirits under a summoner’s control is a Simple Action.

(p165)
Since as far as I'm aware there's no explicit ruling on the topic of multiple active spirits, the fact that there's rules for commanding multiple spirits at once seems to imply you can have multiple active (although, of course, this might just be an oversight).

[Alchemyst]

There are no rules as of yet that limit how many spirits you have bound # of bound equal to charisma (pg 301). However there is a little tidbit on page 301 about keeping players from abusing spirits. If a player has his mage have many spirits under his control doing crap jobs eventually he's going to have to try and calm them down or have quite the negative to his/her pools. Obviously not going to come up often but adds a nice flavor to the roleplaying of spirits.

[Reaver]

all it really says is that you can have up to (charisma)spirits bound at a single time. And that they stick around until all of their owed services are used up (opposed to  sun set/rise)


there is no mention that I could find quickly that limits how many you have active and doing services for you at a given time.



Just keep in mind that Spirit attitudes still come into play with bound spirits.

[Inconnu]

A Elf can have up to 8 spirits. Force5s can be bound with almost no risk.

Do the math.

[19%Wrong]

A while back, on a completely different topic, I was reading the rules on commanding spirits; it mentions that

Issuing a command to a single spirit or group of spirits under a summoner’s control is a Simple Action.

(p165)
Since as far as I'm aware there's no explicit ruling on the topic of multiple active spirits, the fact that there's rules for commanding multiple spirits at once seems to imply you can have multiple active (although, of course, this might just be an oversight).

Thanks for pointing this out, didn't spot it. Yes indeed, the specific wording on the "command spirit" simple action would seem to indicate the possibility that a Mage could have multiple spirits that they're giving orders to all at once, which would support the idea that they can have multiple active bound spirits.

Oh well!   

On the bright side, if my players mage can do it, so can the Corp. Mage! 

[Michael Chandra]

And it's been submitted for clarification so we should get an official answer eventually.

[Unahim]

A Elf can have up to 8 spirits. Force5s can be bound with almost no risk.

Do the math.

That's 16k nuyen and 40 hours of work if I'm not mistaken. Plenty of balancing factors in that alone.

[Michael Chandra]

If we assume 2x15 dice, we're talking 5 net hits total average, of which 1 is lost on the binding. So that's 4 services at 2000 nuyen, meaning 500 per service. Sending out all 8 for just a single fight would be 4k nuyen, which is the same cost as 2 Rockets.

[Michael Chandra]

Aaaaand the post is gone. Still, this post still stands.

You're assuming a Dragon does not have means of defense that help protect against such moves. Furthermore, while yes you can command a Spirit to use a specific Power, there's nothing stating the player gets to determine the force of the attack. Furthermore, it'd take 1 service per use of Fireball if you want it to use multiple at the same time.

As for disliking a Summoner, that's already partially explained: Bound Spirits start kicking a fuss. You can also grab the Street Magic rule where they start using Edge ALWAYS against Summoning. Note that this was an extended rule in SR4 as well.

Also, a GM isn't tied by the books. Part of Magic balance is the GM's ability to counteract dirty tricks. The afore-mentioned Edge use is only one trick that helps balance things out.

[sn0mm1s]

A Elf can have up to 8 spirits. Force5s can be bound with almost no risk.

Do the math.

That's 16k nuyen and 40 hours of work if I'm not mistaken. Plenty of balancing factors in that alone.

Let's use Force 6 to make the math easier (previous calculations were a mistake - forgot spirits couldn't overcast)
8 Spirits of Man, casting Force 6 fireballs at the same time do 27P -10AP - every IP for an entire combat.

[sn0mm1s]

Aaaaand the post is gone. Still, this post still stands.

You're assuming a Dragon does not have means of defense that help protect against such moves. Furthermore, while yes you can command a Spirit to use a specific Power, there's nothing stating the player gets to determine the force of the attack. Furthermore, it'd take 1 service per use of Fireball if you want it to use multiple at the same time.

As for disliking a Summoner, that's already partially explained: Bound Spirits start kicking a fuss. You can also grab the Street Magic rule where they start using Edge ALWAYS against Summoning. Note that this was an extended rule in SR4 as well.

Also, a GM isn't tied by the books. Part of Magic balance is the GM's ability to counteract dirty tricks. The afore-mentioned Edge use is only one trick that helps balance things out.

I had initially done the calculations with a summoner risking summoning a Force 12 spirit (and forgot overcasting wasn't possible).

What means - by RAW - does the dragon have? Also, by RAW, the use of a power in combat, commanded by a player, is not counted as another service.

Sure, a GM can overrule that - they can overrule anything. The writers just did a piss poor job thinking about summoning and, more importantly, the AoE explosion rules.

[Michael Chandra]

First of, Fireballs may use AoE grenade rules for how targetting works, but that doesn't mean they use overlapping explosion rules. All the spells use is a threshold test, like grenades, to prevent scatter.

Second, you are mistaken on one bit. The player can command a Spirit to perform battle, yes. The Spirit then uses any powers it desires for performing that task without extra services. However, the player has no say whatsoever in what powers the Spirit uses! If they do command the Spirit to use a specific Power, that is called a Power Service and costs 1 Service. So the player cannot go "use power X on this guy, then Y on that guy, then kill them all" for a single service.

As for the Dragon: It has wards, Spell Defense, Spirits of its own, probably has Detection spells active, and so on. A Dragon should never go down unless the players actually deserved it. They got decent spellcasting, ranged attacks, they got really good senses, Hardened Armor, Hardened Mystic Armor, they're pretty damn smart, it won't be easy taking them down.

Yes, a player that goes unchecked can wreck havoc. But there are plenty of tools for the GM to stop it, so it's not a piss poor job from the writers' side if the GM doesn't do it. Now if the GM doesn't know what tools to use, they can ask for advice, but that doesn't automatically mean the game screwed up.

[sn0mm1s]

First of, Fireballs may use AoE grenade rules for how targetting works, but that doesn't mean they use overlapping explosion rules. All the spells use is a threshold test, like grenades, to prevent scatter.

Second, you are mistaken on one bit. The player can command a Spirit to perform battle, yes. The Spirit then uses any powers it desires for performing that task without extra services. However, the player has no say whatsoever in what powers the Spirit uses! If they do command the Spirit to use a specific Power, that is called a Power Service and costs 1 Service. So the player cannot go "use power X on this guy, then Y on that guy, then kill them all" for a single service.

As for the Dragon: It has wards, Spell Defense, Spirits of its own, probably has Detection spells active, and so on. A Dragon should never go down unless the players actually deserved it. They got decent spellcasting, ranged attacks, they got really good senses, Hardened Armor, Hardened Mystic Armor, they're pretty damn smart, it won't be easy taking them down.

Yes, a player that goes unchecked can wreck havoc. But there are plenty of tools for the GM to stop it, so it's not a piss poor job from the writers' side if the GM doesn't do it. Now if the GM doesn't know what tools to use, they can ask for advice, but that doesn't automatically mean the game screwed up.

Power use: You can have a spirit use one of its powers
on a target or targets of your choosing. If the power
is sustained, it counts as one service no matter how long
it’s sustained. If the spirit uses a power as part of another
task (often in combat), then the power use doesn’t count
as a separate service.

Area indirect spells
travel from the magician to the point of detonation and
then go boom. The test is like that for grenades (p. 181):
a Spellcasting + Magic [Force] (3) Test with scatter of 2D6
meters.

From fireball:
These spells create an explosion of flames

So, they create an explosion of flames. They detonate and go boom - but they aren't explosions?