it's pretty clear that without GM fiat the rules for binding, as written, are broken/ open to abuse/ not balanced (take your pick).
This depends on your definition of "broken/open to abuse/not balanced" means.
What is "broken"? That you can bind spirits in a ritual that takes hours to complete? That it costs $500/force of the spirit(s)? That it gets harder/more expensive the higher the force of the spirit you wish to bind?
What does "Open to Abuse" mean? Pretty much everything is open to abuse. A Rigger can get a fairly nice, big, sturdy truck right out of chargen. And then decide to drive that truck right down the sidewalk of the Seattle downtown district, and there is nothing but GM fiat to stop him too. A Sammy can buy as many grenades as his resources will allow right out of Chargen. And he can walk past a kindergarden school tossing said grenades at the kiddies all he likes, and only GM fiat can stop him.
What does "Balanced" mean?? Balanced to what? By what measure? By WHOSE measure? "Balance" is a nebulous term when dealing with concepts or ethereal objectives. You can't measure, weight, examine, hold or observe the ethereal; You can only judge it - which is flawed by human perception, opinion and bias.
You have a choice. You can have "balance" or you can have "options". You can't have both. If you want balance, Fine. This is how you do it:
1: remove Edge totally.
2: All stats can be no lower, and no higher after ALL options(enhancements/karma/magic/etc) than 3.
3: all Limits are set to 3 and can never be changed.
4: all damage, no matter the source is 3s or 3p. Modified as normal. (So a spell/gun/missile/punch/axe ALL have a damage code of 3.)
5: all armor is caped at no less than and no more then 3. No hardened armor.
There you go! Now everyone has the same dice pool, the same resistance pool, the same damage potential, the health potential. Everything is balanced!
OR
You can have some options. Your choice in what type of game you want to play.... But understand that by the simple act of allowing options, you are allowing imbalance into the game. And when you as many options as Shadowrun has, you will NEVER, EVER have balance. Ever. Mostly because like I said above, the very idea of "Balance" is nebulous..
Lets drop Magic from the equation for a moment, and just look at the mundanes and the Priority system as it stands in the CRB. Before 2 difference people crack open the book, they are totally "balanced". They each have a Priorities A, B, C, D, E to spend. They both build and complete their characters.
Character A is a Cyber troll Sammy.
Character B is a Human Face, with 0 combat skills, 0 cyber.
Are these characters Balanced in a Gun Fight? What about a Fist Fight? What about a running race? How about the bench press? What about is dealing damage? What about in taking damage?!?
Clearly, the end results are not balanced, the whole system must be flawed!
Or, my perception of "balance" might be flawed... And if you look really close at the list of things I picked to compare, I picked things that a Troll would dominate in, while totally ignoring the areas that the Face character was built for, namely info gathering, smooth talking, and social encounters.
They Both started with the same resources, they faced the same character design choices, and they both built their characters to their liking. They are by every measure of the rules, "Balanced" as they both expended they same resources to reach the final goal of completing a Character. But they will never perform the same in any task they attempt.
And THAT's the problem with options.
so far no one has offered a rational for why you should be able to bind 4-8 force 5-6 spirits out of chargen.
therefore there is no reason to include this capability.
It gives a mage
Options. That is all.
You may not like the option, but it is there. Just like a Techno can have a swarm of agents (even if Techno are FUBAR ATM), or just like a Rigger can have a swarm of Drones, A Mage can have a Host of Spirits.
now lets look at that claim, while reviewing page 301 CRB.
Page 301 CRB
Binding is used to compel long-term services from a
spirit that you’ve already summoned. This takes one
hour per Force of the spirit and requires (Force x 25)
drams of reagents to be used up in the binding. The test
is an Opposed Binding + Magic [Force] v. spirit’s Force
x 2, and it inflicts Drain equal to twice the hits (not net
hits) on the spirit’s defense test, minimum 2. Additional
net hits beyond the first add to the number of services
the spirit owes.
Once the spirit is bound, then the spirit and its services
do not expire at the next sunrise or sunset. A spirit’s
service ends when it has no more services owed
to the magician. The bound spirit can be called or dismissed
with a Simple Action as they appear next to the
magician from the metaplane, awaiting further instructions
on the astral. A magician can bind up to his Charisma
attribute in spirits.
Lets be an ass and look at the high end of your claim at 8 force 6 spirits. The first part is that he can only summon a single spirit at a time, and only bind one spirit at a time. (Big deal, we know this, and this is not in dispute).
The BASIC cost per spirit just for the binding is $3000. That is a $24,000 investment for 8 spirits. At most he is only have 6 services per spirit. For a total of 48 services.
Which works out to $500 per service.
So he gets to pull this stun 48 times, at a cost of 500/service before he has to go about summoning and binding six more spirits.
That's also $24,000 worth of options he
doesn't have. Options like armor, a commlink, a SIN, a lifestyle, or any one of a number of things that could potentially stop said mage and his Army of Spirits from every even getting to the lobby of a Corp!
Hypothetical Question for you:
If every time you answered the door, I hit you in the face with a shovel, how long would it be before you stopped answering the door when I knocked?
Spirits are Sapient, they think, feel, want, and desire for themselves. BUT, they also have a "hive mind" collective knowledge, so Johnny Spirit knows that you got Freddy Spirit disrupted those 6 times through the services Freddy owed you, So why in the heck would Johnny answer the "door" to your summons when you just got through hitting Freddy in the face with a shovel?!?! 6 times no less!
And YES, The Spirit index is a VERY good tool at stopping the very behavoir that this thread talks about as I have actually had to deal with a player and his "Spirit Army of Doom" (His Words, not mine). And after 36 times of asking "Are you SURE?" and "Do you think that is best?" clues from me and other players, he was really pissed and sore that not only would spirits not answer a Summons, Free Spirits were actively hostile to him!
You may not like Binding, and that is fine. You may not like how some players use it, and that is also fine.
But it does what it is supposed to do, which is to provide an
option, its up to the players on what they do with that option, if they even wish to use it.
Can it be disrupting? Sure. But every option comes with a level of disruption to it.
OH And to your "Invisible Army of Death" wish comment.
Its the same as the technological army that a Techno can bring to bare. It is the same as the army a Rigger has access to once he jacks into the building.
Neither one needs to bring a magical hand grenade, or a drone with them. They may not burn people, or blow them over, but a bunch of Agents can activate halon systems and suffocate an entire floor, Disable elevators, sending them crashing to their doom. Lock all the doors and windows while creating a feedback short circuit starting a fire to burn the entire building down with everyone in it.
A Rigger can take control of the Spider nest, turning the entire building into a happy murder house of fun!
And, naturally a great Dragon could turn up and decide to to cause everyone in the city to all die at once too. Fun times!