[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

The power imbalance goes both ways.  When you need magic to neutralize a Spirit, then the PC who can Summon them automatically wins vs any NPC or group of NPCs unless they TOO have mages among them. In order to keep Spirits from being "I Win Buttons" for the Player, then the NPCs have to have heavy magic backup every time they're supposed to be a challenge.  And if every challenging fight has big bad Spirits to keep Angel Summoner from trivializing the encounter for everyone, now everyone who's NOT Angel Summoner, on both sides, are peripherally relevant.  Both NPC AND PC.  While it's ok for mook NPCs to play second fiddle to the Spirits and the Summoners who control them, it's not OK for players to all be 2nd fiddle to the Summoner just because they're not also playing Summoners.

True... but magic isn't the only way to deal with magic. Just the best way. You can always kill the mage. The main problem with that is that if you do have an angel summoner every game turns into an escort mission. There are also solutions to that, but the simplest one is that the rest of the team, as you say, doesn't want to play 2nd fiddle and probably wont take responsibility for guarding angel summoner.

The NPCs can't geek the mage if the mage is not even present.  Angel Summoner sends the spirits ahead, or into the pursuing vehicle, or whatever, and if those NPCs don't have magic themselves, they automatically lose vs the Spirits.

Not good game balance.*

*EDIT: The game balance seems to be predicated on PCs summoning spirits that are only in the Force range of 3-4 or so.  And Leith maybe that's your assumption as well: Putting a Force 3 spirit on a patrol isn't going to auto-win.  But higher Force spirits will autowin vs mundane opposition.  And I've seen far too many characters optimized for summoning and can summon Force 9 for no drain, or Force 12 for negligible drain, to think the rules were sufficiently planned out for Force scaling.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I quite liked Blight Toxin as a 5e solution to the problem of Spirits.

Any NPC can have a spare clip of DMSO+Spirt-B-GON.

I’m not a fan of it. I prefer fixing a core issue instead of a weird setting questionable piece of gear you have to stock to ham fist a balance.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

I quite liked Blight Toxin as a 5e solution to the problem of Spirits.

Any NPC can have a spare clip of DMSO+Spirt-B-GON.

I’m not a fan of it. I prefer fixing a core issue instead of a weird setting questionable piece of gear you have to stock to ham fist a balance.

I don't disagree.  Because here we are in a new edition where Blight is not available, if it ever will be.  We don't even have Background Counts to tamp down on MagicRun in general.

[Shinobi Killfist]

The power imbalance goes both ways.  When you need magic to neutralize a Spirit, then the PC who can Summon them automatically wins vs any NPC or group of NPCs unless they TOO have mages among them. In order to keep Spirits from being "I Win Buttons" for the Player, then the NPCs have to have heavy magic backup every time they're supposed to be a challenge.  And if every challenging fight has big bad Spirits to keep Angel Summoner from trivializing the encounter for everyone, now everyone who's NOT Angel Summoner, on both sides, are peripherally relevant.  Both NPC AND PC.  While it's ok for mook NPCs to play second fiddle to the Spirits and the Summoners who control them, it's not OK for players to all be 2nd fiddle to the Summoner just because they're not also playing Summoners.

True... but magic isn't the only way to deal with magic. Just the best way. You can always kill the mage. The main problem with that is that if you do have an angel summoner every game turns into an escort mission. There are also solutions to that, but the simplest one is that the rest of the team, as you say, doesn't want to play 2nd fiddle and probably wont take responsibility for guarding angel summoner.

The NPCs can't geek the mage if the mage is not even present.  Angel Summoner sends the spirits ahead, or into the pursuing vehicle, or whatever, and if those NPCs don't have magic themselves, they automatically lose vs the Spirits.

Not good game balance.*

*EDIT: The game balance seems to be predicated on PCs summoning spirits that are only in the Force range of 3-4 or so.  And Leith maybe that's your assumption as well: Putting a Force 3 spirit on a patrol isn't going to auto-win.  But higher Force spirits will autowin vs mundane opposition.  And I've seen far too many characters optimized for summoning and can summon Force 9 for no drain, or Force 12 for negligible drain, to think the rules were sufficiently planned out for Force scaling.

Your edit is why I wish they had got rid of spirit force. Just make spirits a known power level in a range that is balanced. Amps would be used to add utility but not make them more powerful.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I quite liked Blight Toxin as a 5e solution to the problem of Spirits.

Any NPC can have a spare clip of DMSO+Spirt-B-GON.

I’m not a fan of it. I prefer fixing a core issue instead of a weird setting questionable piece of gear you have to stock to ham fist a balance.

I don't disagree.  Because here we are in a new edition where Blight is not available, if it ever will be.  We don't even have Background Counts to tamp down on MagicRun in general.

I always felt back ground count like noise should be used as a setting piece to highlight the effected character overcoming a obstacle. Instead yeah it gets used as a cudgel to cram magic-run into a semblance of balance.  It will be interesting to see how this looks post errata and core supplements. The first magic book frequently changes magic and how it interacts with the game significantly.

[Leith]

The power imbalance goes both ways.  When you need magic to neutralize a Spirit, then the PC who can Summon them automatically wins vs any NPC or group of NPCs unless they TOO have mages among them. In order to keep Spirits from being "I Win Buttons" for the Player, then the NPCs have to have heavy magic backup every time they're supposed to be a challenge.  And if every challenging fight has big bad Spirits to keep Angel Summoner from trivializing the encounter for everyone, now everyone who's NOT Angel Summoner, on both sides, are peripherally relevant.  Both NPC AND PC.  While it's ok for mook NPCs to play second fiddle to the Spirits and the Summoners who control them, it's not OK for players to all be 2nd fiddle to the Summoner just because they're not also playing Summoners.

True... but magic isn't the only way to deal with magic. Just the best way. You can always kill the mage. The main problem with that is that if you do have an angel summoner every game turns into an escort mission. There are also solutions to that, but the simplest one is that the rest of the team, as you say, doesn't want to play 2nd fiddle and probably wont take responsibility for guarding angel summoner.

The NPCs can't geek the mage if the mage is not even present.  Angel Summoner sends the spirits ahead, or into the pursuing vehicle, or whatever, and if those NPCs don't have magic themselves, they automatically lose vs the Spirits.

Not good game balance.*

*EDIT: The game balance seems to be predicated on PCs summoning spirits that are only in the Force range of 3-4 or so.  And Leith maybe that's your assumption as well: Putting a Force 3 spirit on a patrol isn't going to auto-win.  But higher Force spirits will autowin vs mundane opposition.  And I've seen far too many characters optimized for summoning and can summon Force 9 for no drain, or Force 12 for negligible drain, to think the rules were sufficiently planned out for Force scaling.

I can think of 3 ways to force the mage to expose himself off the top of my head.

I'm aware of the math, I've done the math. It's super easy to summon super high force spirits. This, I think is the problem. I mean, it's not going to ruin the game for me, but it is annoying.

The fact that spirits are super tough seems to be intentional. I agree the assumption seems to be a summoning dice pool of 10-14 and drain resist 9-11, which puts a F6 or F7 spirit on the high end and I don't know why that is the assumption the game makes when it lets you get up to 20 dice for drain or summoning or casting pretty easy. It was true in 5e too, so, again, probably intentional.

[Leith]

Your edit is why I wish they had got rid of spirit force. Just make spirits a known power level in a range that is balanced. Amps would be used to add utility but not make them more powerful.

Yeah... that would have made more sense. And it would have been in line with their goal to streamline the system.

[CigarSmoker]

@Leith

i cant think of 1 way to force the mage to expose himself. Sarcasm again ?

example:
Force 18 spirit:
1. service use "Search" Power and find Runner X

2nd service when you found Runner X obliterate him

[Leith]

@Leith

i cant think of 1 way to force the mage to expose himself. Sarcasm again ?

example:
Force 18 spirit:
1. service use "Search" Power and find Runner X

2nd service when you found Runner X obliterate him

Are we talking PC vs spirit or NPC vs spirit. If the former, warn the PCs they're pissing someone off who can do the thing and let them decide.
If the latter, yes, you can force the PC mage to expose himself.
1) if the task is mindane and complex the mage will at the very least need to astral project to supervise spirits exposing them to astral attack,. Even a low force patrol spirit (3-4) should create some tension.
2) wards. Spirit can't cross without raising the alarm but the mage can. The mage must physically go to the place before unleashing hell.
3) astral/ matrix tracking. Pretty much what you said but without the spirit. If the bad guys show up at your door or ambush you on the street, you're exposed.

Btw, I'm not saying that a mage can't deal with this stuff, just that it is possible to challenge angel summoner without demon summoner. Or at least a demon summoner of comparable skill.

Also, also, this doesn't really address the issue of the street sam playing babysitter until the mage can summon his army.

[Lormyr]

And I've seen far too many characters optimized for summoning and can summon Force 9 for no drain, or Force 12 for negligible drain, to think the rules were sufficiently planned out for Force scaling.

In SR5 that was very easy to do, even out of chargen. It will be significantly harder to successfully obtain services from spirits of that Force out of chargen in SR6. In my playtest the mage and mystic adept were struggling to get more than 1 or 2 services out of Force 6 spirits.

Drain is still rather negligible, though.

I also feel that Blight is terrible. All or nothing solutions are neither fun nor balanced. The better bet would have been to just, you know, made magic more balanced with the new system.

[Shinobi Killfist]

And I've seen far too many characters optimized for summoning and can summon Force 9 for no drain, or Force 12 for negligible drain, to think the rules were sufficiently planned out for Force scaling.

In SR5 that was very easy to do, even out of chargen. It will be significantly harder to successfully obtain services from spirits of that Force out of chargen in SR6. In my playtest the mage and mystic adept were struggling to get more than 1 or 2 services out of Force 6 spirits.

Drain is still rather negligible, though.

I also feel that Blight is terrible. All or nothing solutions are neither fun nor balanced. The better bet would have been to just, you know, made magic more balanced with the new system.

If you really want to gimmick it in 6e you can start with a stupid level spirit focus as I do not see any limits on that. That being said I assume there will be errata for that.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

And I've seen far too many characters optimized for summoning and can summon Force 9 for no drain, or Force 12 for negligible drain, to think the rules were sufficiently planned out for Force scaling.

In SR5 that was very easy to do, even out of chargen. It will be significantly harder to successfully obtain services from spirits of that Force out of chargen in SR6. In my playtest the mage and mystic adept were struggling to get more than 1 or 2 services out of Force 6 spirits.

Drain is still rather negligible, though.

I also feel that Blight is terrible. All or nothing solutions are neither fun nor balanced. The better bet would have been to just, you know, made magic more balanced with the new system.

If you really want to gimmick it in 6e you can start with a stupid level spirit focus as I do not see any limits on that. That being said I assume there will be errata for that.

6we does extend the concept of "augmented maximums" to skill tests. +4 dice from all sources, to include gear.  Tamps down a good bit on what powerful Foci can do.

[Lormyr]

I still don't know if binding foci at chargen is intended to be allowed or not.

[Michael Chandra]

6we does extend the concept of "augmented maximums" to skill tests. +4 dice from all sources, to include gear.  Tamps down a good bit on what powerful Foci can do.

Not until the errata actually replace the current RAW. I understand what you're saying is the apparent intention, but until Hardy signs off on it, there still is no official support for it due to the current phrasing of the RAW that explicitly goes another way. Case in point: You say Specializations and Expertises are skill-rank modifiers, but right now the rules explicitly call them dicepool modifiers.

[Shinobi Killfist]

And I've seen far too many characters optimized for summoning and can summon Force 9 for no drain, or Force 12 for negligible drain, to think the rules were sufficiently planned out for Force scaling.

In SR5 that was very easy to do, even out of chargen. It will be significantly harder to successfully obtain services from spirits of that Force out of chargen in SR6. In my playtest the mage and mystic adept were struggling to get more than 1 or 2 services out of Force 6 spirits.

Drain is still rather negligible, though.

I also feel that Blight is terrible. All or nothing solutions are neither fun nor balanced. The better bet would have been to just, you know, made magic more balanced with the new system.

If you really want to gimmick it in 6e you can start with a stupid level spirit focus as I do not see any limits on that. That being said I assume there will be errata for that.

6we does extend the concept of "augmented maximums" to skill tests. +4 dice from all sources, to include gear.  Tamps down a good bit on what powerful Foci can do.

I had forgotten that though for previous editions in our games 4 was about the limit anyways due to availability and cost.

Still you can start with 18 dice and 2 points of edge then without too much of a hassle. Specialization, mentor spirit, reagents, spirit focus. Force 9 might be a hassle but force 7-8 fairly routinely. And at 7 you are talking offensive output near a street sam with more durability.