Hey all,
before I start, I'm aware of the critiques of 6th edition Spirits and how they are over powered. I agree. However, before I house rule and nerf hardened armour and other changes - me and my players are attempting to play spirits Rules as Written.
I believe (but don't know for certain), that overpowered spirits are mitigated (somewhat) by the following:
1) the total # of services looks like, on average, to be between 1-4, with 2-3 being the norm
2) the action economy, especially when the conjurer acts in relation to spirits (so far, the conjurer seems to go AFTER the spirits in turn order), means there is always a delay between when the spirits want the command and when the conjurer orders the spirit - this creates a situation where the battlefield changes, sometimes drastically, between command and action often times invalidating the initial order - thus wasting the service.
the above assumes the following:
as the GM, my bias towards "acceptable" commands will lean towards the specific. thus "kill the bad guys" will not be acceptable. "attack mook A" would. This also implies that as a "thinking" spirit, if the command is "attack", then the spirit would use the powers available to it, in the context if they're in the Astral or Material realms - so "attack mook A" when the spirit is in the Astral, may involve using Confusion or Accident powers, as that would be true to the order, while "kill Mook b", would entail materialization before attacking, thus taking at least 2 turns. in 2 turns a LOT can happen
So, with that out of the way. While *I* don't have a hot clue how to necessarily combat spirits once a fight begins, I have to imagine that thugs, HTR squads and runners would have developed strategies in combating spirits knowing how over powered they are.
I've come up with the following tactics that I think *might* work to a certain extent. my assumptions here are that a) services are limited, and b) more actions to get a service completed is good because combats typically only last 4 or 5 rounds.
1) you have to see or know what the target is that you are commanding the spirit to attack: Thus, anything a target can do to obscure themselves from the Conjurer makes explicit orders more difficult. "kill anything inside that smoke cloud" is not a precise enough order. "find the troll inside that cloud", then "kill that troll you just found" would be good, and hopefully (for the troll), having to "spend" multiple service commands may cause the spirit to return to its home realm.
2) you have to be able to give orders: Thus, riffing off of the recognizing magic section (pg. 128), if you know spirits are in play, then the foes should do everything within their power to first find, then eliminate the conjurer. once the conjurer is down (or trying to stay alive), then the spirits will go idle once their current service order is complete. Sure, bad for the person under attack, but everyone else could remain safe.
3) have sacrificial mooks. assuming you survive your first round with the spirit, or you have time to prepare, then go full defense and use whatever gear etc. you have at your disposal to "anchor" the spirit to you. While the service is active, it will not do anything else and assuming the conjurer isn't going to change the orders (for fear of using up the available services), dodge, hitting the dirt, Taking cover, blocking etc. are all potential tactics that can keep the spirit nailed to a spot.
4) if the bad guys know they are going up against PC's that have a conjurer, purchase enchantments from the local talismonger or wage-mage, with mana barrier or confusion or mask or other spells to disrupt the spirit(s). the drawback here is the time limits on these enchantments and being able to setup the ambush.
5) figure out how to disrupt service commands. Change the state, so that the command is invalid or otherwise unfulfillable. I don't personally know how to do this - but I can theoretically see this being possible. *if* you can make the order invalid, then that service is expended, and the conjurer needs to issue another command - hopefully, this becomes a war of attrition between the conjurer's commands and the enemies ability to disrupt.
what else could PC's and bad-guys do to "combat" spirits? any idea how, mechanically, one could go about invalidating orders? Any other strategies 6th worlders would have come up with to stop or limit the nigh unstoppable spirits?
my motivation here is 2-fold:
- really tough spirits to kill is, IMO, a good thing, because I can throw those against my PC's from time to time and let them sweat. Anything that I'll do to nerf spirits for bad guys (who are typically less powerful than runners), would mean the PC's would have a much easier time combating them.
- having to come up with reasonable tactics for very difficult situations (But not uncommon ones), feels to me like something that would be taken seriously "in real life". I'm less interested in balance and more interested in creative problem solving. if that makes sense. having a kick ass spirit means the use of tactics and hard choices, rather than simply having a wall of HP's where you statically trade hits until one side or the other drops.
Cheers,
J.
