Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Leith on <10-17-19/0040:56>
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That's it really. Just need someone to explain why the immune to normal weapons thing actually making spirits immune to normal weapons upsets people so much.
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"I win" buttons upset some people. Not all people, but some people.
Someone's got it in their sig, but if you haven't seen the video, watch this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw). If you're BMX bandit, yeah you're sore about Spirits being invincible. Maybe not so much if you're Angel Summoner.
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That's it really. Just need someone to explain why the immune to normal weapons thing actually making spirits immune to normal weapons upsets people so much.
To be fair, as mortal you're supposed to still have at least a chance, because otherwise the game balance is a big problem. A Street Sam and an Adept can take each other on, but if a Spirit can only be taken out by magic, unless you score at least 4 net hits, well there goes the neighbourhood. Given how damage codes are significant down, Immunity granting Force in autohits is incredibly overpowered in comparison. Of course, going 'Rating/2 instead' in advance while expecting errata to rule the same, isn't a big step to take. There's more to it, I think, since people are still insisting Spirits are OP despite that, but I don't know exactly why.
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Well, characters without access to paranormal weapons do not want to be absolutely at the mercy of spirits. It would seem, that with the changes the system went through becoming SR6, "hardened armor" (which is how the immunity protects spirits against normal weapons) did not transition well. Weapons damage ratings and the common damage resistance are lower now, while spirits hardened armor vs normal weapons is not - in fact it has even gotten an upgrade. A level 5 or 6 spirit will be hard to come by that way, while being able to do a lot of damage in a lot of different ways.
This being said, spirits are essentially summoned pets / sidekicks and it stands to question if their power is justified.
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That's it really. Just need someone to explain why the immune to normal weapons thing actually making spirits immune to normal weapons upsets people so much.
Because casters being able to summon pets that are better at combat than dedicated combat characters, then still also sling spells that target the combat characters weaknesses is really bad design.
A well played summoning-focused mage effectively eliminates the need for anyone else on the team except maybe a decker, because anything combat related others can do spirits can do better while being both more durable -and- disposable, and they can likely just refuse any run that would need decking.
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Eh. People used to say this kind of thing about the fighter in 5e D&D vs paladin. To which my reaction was, "Do you enjoy playing the fighter? Do you get to interact with the narrative in a meaningful way?" I mean, we're talking about an RPG not a wargame.
I dunno, angel summoner might out shine bmx bandit when fighting the baddies but he's not gonna be super useful while infiltrating the x-games. Nor when he has to fight demon summoner.
I guess the reason I'm not seeing the problem with spirits is that the magic system in general is unfair and OP, and has been for multiple editions. Spirits are a small part of that but it is ultimately incumbent upon the GM to make sure angel summoner has a challenge and bmx bandit is useful.
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Well largely, what makes Magic OP is Spirits. Flamethrower vs Assault Rifle blast? they're fairly comparable. Fireball vs Rocket Launcher? Still fairly comparable, yet of course balance is strongly tipped to Fireball since that's infinitely more concealable than a Rocket Launcher...
Spirit vs Drone? Not at all. Speaking of Riggers, why do you need one at all when you have Spirits? Movement power beats any driver ever, assuming you don't want to just send the spirit inside the other car to just invincibly kill the opposing driver even before there is any chase.
Why bother with a Covert Ops character, when you have spirits? Concealment is free. Investing in Sneaking is expensive.
Etc. Spirits render basically everything else obsolete. It's well beyond Immunity to Normal Weapons.
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Yeah, none of that is new. And it doesn't explain why the immunity is such a sore point. Spellcasting and spirit powers go hand in hand for trixie bs. Concealment is free, and being able to cast invisibility and control thoughts and mind probe at 20 dice is just as easy as summoning with 20 dice.
Nevertheless SR is a game with a referee curating the experience. Which is to say there is a player at the table whose job it is to make sure the other players are challenged and have interesting things to do. The mage is going to have a rough time making himself invisible and infiltrating places when there's another mage all up in his business. One could argue that the job of the mage on the SR team is to deal with the security mage, and vice versa.
My point is that while I think spirits, and magic in general, are OP and unbalancing, I'm would not describe that as a problem. If anything the problem is that it is too easy to be a mage.
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Eh. People used to say this kind of thing about the fighter in 5e D&D vs paladin. To which my reaction was, "Do you enjoy playing the fighter? Do you get to interact with the narrative in a meaningful way?" I mean, we're talking about an RPG not a wargame.
I dunno, angel summoner might out shine bmx bandit when fighting the baddies but he's not gonna be super useful while infiltrating the x-games. Nor when he has to fight demon summoner.
I guess the reason I'm not seeing the problem with spirits is that the magic system in general is unfair and OP, and has been for multiple editions. Spirits are a small part of that but it is ultimately incumbent upon the GM to make sure angel summoner has a challenge and bmx bandit is useful.
Are you very new to RPGs?
To break it down in mechanical terms for SR, spirits are better at the things you want a combat character to do (damage, movement, stealth, damage ablation).
That is broken, but not game breaking until you add the next part. Spirits have their own initiative tracks. They don't act on the caster's turn, they are intelligent and will act on their own (generally mechanically under the player's control to ease GM complexity). They are better than the combat character an, get more actions per round, come in multiples, and are utterly disposable. A caster can have up to their Charisma in bound spirits at a given time in SR5, with a number of services from each equal to net hits on the summoning test. In SR6 that increases to any number of spirits with a total Force of less than 3x Magic.
'Fight this combat for me' costs a single service. Assuming they use relatively low-power (Force 3) spirits, a starting mage can have 6 of them, each with its own turn, out of creation in SR6.
Immunity to Normal Weapons means that unless the opposition has their own magical support, those 6 spirits can shrug off vastly more firepower than six professional rating 3 goons.
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Movement against vehicles is tough, Movement on people still doesn't beat the speed of a car due to movement rates nerfed, you can't run through town or over highways, you're less squishy in a car, you draw less attention to yourself in a car.
Spirits cannot sneak, so they make sounds even when Concealed (aka Improved Invisibility). They are clearly visible in the Astral, whereas Drones are not. No sneaking means no decent pool to hide from astral perception, whereas a Covert Ops character can try. A spirit observing a building draws attention from security spirits. A drone covertly observing a building, is far less noticable. A metahuman being subtle, idem.
Magic-detection security exists, so good luck sneaking a spirit into a building that's GloMoss-wired. At least the Covert Ops can try to bypass mundane security.
Spirits are NPCs, and with limited knowledge of this world. They may be very intelligent, but not when it comes to many areas that count. Speaking of: Spirits cannot interact with technology. You want a matrix screen read, or buttons pushed? Yeah, good luck doing that through magic means.
I'm not saying there's no balance problems, especially not when it comes to their combat Powers, but Spirits are no replacement of actual PCs. They're just a tool. And some of their problematic powers in SR5 are well-adjusted in SR6, which already helps. Plus the new Summoning rules means no more 'I call upon my 8 Bound Spirits and 1 Summoned Spirit to butcher all my enemies'. So yes, there's room for improvement, but I do not believe the 'Spirits break the entire game and make entire archetypes obsolete'
My only problem with Immunity is simply that it's imbalanced due to not being adjusted to the new damage codes. A Force 6 Spirit can soak damage better than a Roadmaster. Spirits should not ACTUALLY be immune, but they need to be more solid. F/2 autohits suffices at that.
If we compare: SR5, vs AP -5, Force 6 Spirit has say 5 Body, 12-5 = 7 Hardened Armor = 12 soak dice + 4 autohits = 8 soak. So an Ares Predator with APDS would on average soak rolls basically apply its net-hits as damage. Regular rounds would face 11.7 soak, so at 4 net hits you would do only 0.5 damage or so on average.
In SR6, Force 6 Spirit has say 5 Body, 6 autohits = 7.7 soak. The Ares Predator is down to 3P, let's add Explosive rounds. So that means at 4 net hits, you do like 0.5 damage average or something. (Not going to math that out now.) In other words, the specialised ammo in SR6 is comparable to using weak ammo in SR5. The specialised ammo in SR5 actually made a difference and a fair fight.
If we're looking at the higher-end weapons, they used to be up to 15P, so you actually could gain significant damage on that same spirit. Now, the increase is just +2. That means specialised ammo in SR6 on a tough weapon, has the same result as a Predator with APDS in SR5.
That's not scaled well. If, however, Hardened Armor is properly scaled down to Rating/2 autohits, you still do like 0.5 damage less than in SR5, but at least it's only 0.5, not 3.5. That's far more balanced.
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F6 has B5, takes ares pred w/SA and explosives 5p + net hits. Assume 2 net hits. 7p-6, avg 1 hit resist 0 dmg.
F6 has B5, takes ares pred w 3rnd burst and explosives 9p -2 ap + net hits. Assume 2 net hits. 11p-5, avg 5 hits resist 1 dmg.
F10 has B9, takes ares alpha w/ BF and explosives 7p + net hits. Assume 6 net hits. 13p-10, avg 3 hits 0 dmg.
F10 has B9, takes ares alpha w/ long burst and explosives 12p -3ap + net hits. Assume 6 net hits. 18p-9, avg 8 hits 1 dmg.
Well, I guess they broke spirits. I shall ban them any future games.
Seriously though, I don't think I care about this specific issue with spirits.
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@Leith
The Spirits get a Reaction+Intuition Defense test like everybody else. 6 net hits vs a Force 10 spirit seems a bit much ^^
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adding to the topic:
I think spirits can - obviously - be broken in the current state of the game. A force 8 Beast Spirit - you can still beat that down together with a Physical Adept using "Killing Hands". Other Spirits with "Energy Aura" are so tough you need a real mage ... and when you somehow cheese out a Force 18 spirit thats almost a god ^^18 base DV on Ranged around 36 Attack Dice ... Energy Aura with 18P Melee Retaliation. Depending on Spirit around 30 DV with Melee Attacks ...
I wont change anything but they are the strongest NPC in the book ^^
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Higher force spirits doesnt scale in the same way as higher "force" fireballs
You want your fireball to give more dmg? Amp it up 2 drain for 1 dmg. That puts a natural limit on how much dmg you are willing to deal.
Want your spirit to be tougher? 1 force only* cost you on average 0,67 more drain.
* not completely fair though, as a higher force spirit will be tougher to summon, and often end up with fewer services. + the drain is somewhat swingy compared to the fireball.
Drainwise a force 9 spirit causes on average 6 drain, the same as a non-amped fireball
Most starting characters will have great problems succeeding on summoning that though.
Spirits got another buff compared to 5th though. Now you can use any spirit for anything. They are no longer limited to combat, healing, or whatever roles.
Spirits are nice force multipliers though. While as MC said they might not be good at infiltrating stuff themselves, BUT they could use concealment on other characters etc.
I agree that F/2 would be more fitting for their hardened armour.
Although I dont get why they didnt get rid of their force completely, like spells. Say they start as if they had a powerlevel comparable to force 3, then let the summoners amp up their spirits with 2 drain for +1 on everything
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@ cigarsmoker
Its a byproduct of the gun i chose. It can't penetrate 20 points of hardened armor w/o 6+ net hits. Then i just added more to the 6e math to make things seem balanced. They're not. That's kinda the point of the topic.
The intersting thing about spirits, and magic in general, is that the designers clearly knew it was unbalanced. And didn't fix it. Deliberately.
I wonder why? Serious speculation only.
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Sorry, Im a bit confused.
Leith do you think they are too strong, or do you think they work as intended?
My speculations regarding spirit power in 6 th. : I think its mostly due to miscommunications between the line developer and the various freelancers.
Like maybe the freelancer had to write the spirits section without knowing how immunity to normal weapons would look like- because another freelancer had that job
Or it got changed in the last minute.
There are some oddities with spirits/sprites compared to the other sections of magic/matrix in general
1. They still use force/ratings
2. Sprites use the same drain logic as spells (except its cha+willpower always), while spirit summoning uses a different logic ( number of hits of spirit is higher than your magic rating BEFORE resisting? Then its physical)
3. Sprites uses the old logic of 1 unregistered sprite and then several registered (resonance rating this time)
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SR5: F10 B9, 14P/-10: 5 autohits, 19 soak dice = ~11.3 soaked. 1 net hit = 3.7 damage.
SR6: F10 B9, 6P (same gun, explosive ammo instead of APDS): 10 autohits, 9 soak dice = ~13 soaked. 7 net hits = 0 damage.
The intersting thing about spirits, and magic in general, is that the designers clearly knew it was unbalanced. And didn't fix it. Deliberately.
I wonder why? Serious speculation only.
OR they forgot to adjust Hardened Armor when the damage codes were toned down.
If you're fine with spirits being 99% invincible to anyone non-magical, then it's fine at your table. To me, it's a problem, but properly adjusting Hardened Armor to be halved already suffices for me.
However, given your undeserved agressive sarcasm, it's clear any kind of different opinion is not welcome here so I will take my leave.
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F6 has B5, takes ares pred w/SA and explosives 5p + net hits. Assume 2 net hits. 7p-6, avg 1 hit resist 0 dmg.
F6 has B5, takes ares pred w 3rnd burst and explosives 9p -2 ap + net hits. Assume 2 net hits. 11p-5, avg 5 hits resist 1 dmg.
F10 has B9, takes ares alpha w/ BF and explosives 7p + net hits. Assume 6 net hits. 13p-10, avg 3 hits 0 dmg.
F10 has B9, takes ares alpha w/ long burst and explosives 12p -3ap + net hits. Assume 6 net hits. 18p-9, avg 8 hits 1 dmg.
Well, I guess they broke spirits. I shall ban them any future games.
Seriously though, I don't think I care about this specific issue with spirits.
So I'm curious, given your every reply here has been flat dismissals of how much you 'care' for the arguments presented, what was the point of the OP in the first place?
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back in the earlier editions, Spirits Immunity only applied to weapons. However, you could do a melee attack - called an "Attack of Will" on a spirit to completely bypass their immunity to weapons...
Basically, it substituted your CHA stat for STR, and the spirit resisted the damage with only body...Of course the damage pools, dice pools and target numbers are much changed now...
But food for thought..
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Fire, Air and Water Spirits all get access to Energy Aura so an "attack of will"wouldnt do much good. Low force you better shoot down, high force will burn, freeze or zap you for that minor damage you did.
In game that would mean beast and earth spirits would be kind of "baddies" atm starting at force 6 beast spirits are nice and earth starts to shine in the 10s
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Spirits cannot sneak, so they make sounds even when Concealed (aka Improved Invisibility).
Sure they can. Default Agility -1. Our tables routinely ask their spirits to do this when enemies with astral perception are likely to be encountered.
The intersting thing about spirits, and magic in general, is that the designers clearly knew it was unbalanced. And didn't fix it. Deliberately.
I wonder why? Serious speculation only.
I'm not convinced that all of them do realize this. Shadowrun has never been a well balanced game.
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Higher force spirits doesnt scale in the same way as higher "force" fireballs
You want your fireball to give more dmg? Amp it up 2 drain for 1 dmg. That puts a natural limit on how much dmg you are willing to deal.
Want your spirit to be tougher? 1 force only* cost you on average 0,67 more drain.
* not completely fair though, as a higher force spirit will be tougher to summon, and often end up with fewer services. + the drain is somewhat swingy compared to the fireball.
Drainwise a force 9 spirit causes on average 6 drain, the same as a non-amped fireball
Most starting characters will have great problems succeeding on summoning that though.
Easier than you think. Magic 6, Summoning 6, specialization Conjuring 14 Dice. Up to 15 with Expertise after the first run. Another + 4 from a Foci in a few more runs.
Use 2 Edge to force the Spirit to re-roll hits. Regain Edge with Spirit Affinity, analytical Mind, or Reagents (Pick any 2).
14 dice v. 18 Dice with 18 Dice re-rolling 2 hits is about a 50/50 shot at char gen. Using whatever qualities/reagents to make the Edge spend a wash. You do risk a good dice roll by the GM clobbering you with Drain, but a Force 9 out of the gate is certainly a possibility. Once you get Expertise and Summoning Foci a Force 9 becomes routine.
Super cheese mode, Spirit Affinity, Analytical Mind, spend all your starting Edge forcing the Force 9 Spirit to re-roll all hits. Then Summon Force 3s to rebuild your Edge. A Force 9 and 3 Force 3s, no Edge, probably no Drain (depending on the whims of the GMs dice). Use the Force 3s as your disposable mooks, bust out the Force 9 "I Win" button. And it's not like this is a one time shot, it's easily repeatable as necessary.
Summoning, best PC ability in the game by a mile. 2nd place goes to spell-casting which Spirits can have.
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Yep, when I called spirits an "I Win Button" upthread, what Hobbes just said is the kind of stuff I'm talking about.
With regards to ItNW, why does it matter that you need Magic to neutralize a Spirit? It doesn't much, if you look at it from the perspective that there's never been a team of runners that doesn't have at least one Magician, and if your table is the first one ever to be all-mundanes then the GM can just not use spirits on them, right?
Wrong.
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.
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Fire, Air and Water Spirits all get access to Energy Aura so an "attack of will"wouldnt do much good. Low force you better shoot down, high force will burn, freeze or zap you for that minor damage you did.
In game that would mean beast and earth spirits would be kind of "baddies" atm starting at force 6 beast spirits are nice and earth starts to shine in the 10s
Didn't say it wasn't risky. But in the earlier editions, that was an option. And the only option mundanes had, as "more firepower" wouldn't work back then because you could never over match their armor back then..
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Fire, Air and Water Spirits all get access to Energy Aura so an "attack of will"wouldnt do much good. Low force you better shoot down, high force will burn, freeze or zap you for that minor damage you did.
In game that would mean beast and earth spirits would be kind of "baddies" atm starting at force 6 beast spirits are nice and earth starts to shine in the 10s
Didn't say it wasn't risky. But in the earlier editions, that was an option. And the only option mundanes had, as "more firepower" wouldn't work back then because you could never over match their armor back then..
Even a heavy pistol could still be effective against a Force 4 or lower. And an orc or troll with a melee weapon could be effective against even higher. Grenades were also effective, especially IPE grenades.
I know the mechanics of spirits are really unbalanced, but I think a lot of people overlook that spirits are supposed to be nearly invincible to mundanes. It's not an "oops", it's intentional. I never thought in the old editions it was really that terrible from a game-balance perspective, since nature spirits were less suited for combat (and limited by domain) and elementals had to be prepared ahead of time, but things have changed I suppose.
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Although I dont get why they didnt get rid of their force completely, like spells. Say they start as if they had a powerlevel comparable to force 3, then let the summoners amp up their spirits with 2 drain for +1 on everything
Couldn't agree more, in fact I thought I'd posted just such a house rule, but can't find it now. I also like the idea, mentioned by Finstersang, that magicians spend character creation magic resources on getting access to summoning different spirit types, as they do with spells. In 6E apparently every tradition can summon every spirit type, so it would help to have some progression in there.
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Fire, Air and Water Spirits all get access to Energy Aura so an "attack of will"wouldnt do much good. Low force you better shoot down, high force will burn, freeze or zap you for that minor damage you did.
In game that would mean beast and earth spirits would be kind of "baddies" atm starting at force 6 beast spirits are nice and earth starts to shine in the 10s
Didn't say it wasn't risky. But in the earlier editions, that was an option. And the only option mundanes had, as "more firepower" wouldn't work back then because you could never over match their armor back then..
Even a heavy pistol could still be effective against a Force 4 or lower. And an orc or troll with a melee weapon could be effective against even higher. Grenades were also effective, especially IPE grenades.
I know the mechanics of spirits are really unbalanced, but I think a lot of people overlook that spirits are supposed to be nearly invincible to mundanes. It's not an "oops", it's intentional. I never thought in the old editions it was really that terrible from a game-balance perspective, since nature spirits were less suited for combat (and limited by domain) and elementals had to be prepared ahead of time, but things have changed I suppose.
Are you remembering the editions correctly? The last time "attack of Will" was available; A heavy Pistol did 9m damage.. and that didn't matter as IMNW reduced the power of all mundane attacks to 0... so you could Thor shot a force 1 spirit.. and it wouldn't notice...
Again. I didn't say Attack of Will was a perfect option, but it was an option to address this issue back when spirits were arguably more powerful then now...
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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.
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Are you remembering the editions correctly? The last time "attack of Will" was available; A heavy Pistol did 9m damage.. and that didn't matter as IMNW reduced the power of all mundane attacks to 0... so you could Thor shot a force 1 spirit.. and it wouldn't notice...
Again. I didn't say Attack of Will was a perfect option, but it was an option to address this issue back when spirits were arguably more powerful then now...
I'm not aware of any edition where INW worked that way...
In SR1, Immunity to Normal Weapons provided extra successes on the damage resistance test equal to Essence x2 (p. 176 CRB). That doesn't really directly translate to the other editions, though, because of staging numbers. (Note: I'm not all that familiar with SR1, but I don't immediately see that spirits have INW in first edition).
In SR2, Immunity to Normal Weapons provided an armor rating equal to Essence (force) x2 (p. 218 CRB).
In SR3, Immunity to Normal Weapons gave the spirit twice it's Essence (force) in armor, and it completely ignored the attack if the power didn't exceed that number (p. 264 CRB). Same in SR4 (p. 288 CRB Fanpro).
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GuardDuty is correct about how Immunity to Normal Weapons was calculated in prior editions.
An attack of will used Willpower for the dice pool and (Charisma)M as the damage code.
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Sorry, Im a bit confused.
Leith do you think they are too strong, or do you think they work as intended?
Yes.
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.
OR they forgot to adjust Hardened Armor when the damage codes were toned down.
snip
However, given your undeserved agressive sarcasm, it's clear any kind of different opinion is not welcome here so I will take my leave.
My bad. I was just making jokes to amuse myself, not insult people. But they did change the way hardened armor works. They had the opportunity to fix the imbalance and didn't. Assuming it wasn't just a mistake, you've got to wonder why. That's the speculation I'm actually interested in. Saying that the design team are a bunch of screw ups is, while true, a bit dismissive. Maybe they had a reason. I mean it is somewhat thematic that spirits are nigh invulnerable, but it is also way to easy to make Angel Summoner, the best super hero ever.
And for the record: no, I don't have a problem with that.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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@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
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@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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I still don't know if binding foci at chargen is intended to be allowed or not.
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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.
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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.
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I still don't know if binding foci at chargen is intended to be allowed or not.
True but it’s like 8 karma to bind a force 4 spirit focus. Buy it at char gen bind it after the 2nd run.
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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.
For me there is no difference, but note: i have posted already 2 chars that can cheese out force 18 spirits from char gen.
I think the mage needs to have a mental image of the "Aura" of the person, so he needs have assened the person in the past for the "Search" service. But i am not sure what the intention of the CRB there.
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.
In 6th edition any "Awakened" can roll Charisma+ Magic to "astral sneak" trough wards.(p.162) But i think Sprits can do the same if you use a service - "Awakened only" would more or less exlude living beings like Dragons. So spirits wont do it automatically, but they have all the stats necessary. And they can certainly just destroy the ward or push trough raising "alarm".
edit: made the post a bit more reader friendly ^^
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Although I dont get why they didnt get rid of their force completely, like spells. Say they start as if they had a powerlevel comparable to force 3, then let the summoners amp up their spirits with 2 drain for +1 on everything
Couldn't agree more, in fact I thought I'd posted just such a house rule, but can't find it now. I also like the idea, mentioned by Finstersang, that magicians spend character creation magic resources on getting access to summoning different spirit types, as they do with spells. In 6E apparently every tradition can summon every spirit type, so it would help to have some progression in there.
Uuuh, you should definetely try to find and post your houserule. Ive also read Finstersangs idea of spending some kind of resource on getting access to the specific spirits. Ive been toying with some tweaks there myself-a less costly way would be that if you spent some karma you would gain access to the spirits optional powers. If not then your force 3 spirit wouldnt have any.
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All dragons are
capable and powerful magicians, practitioners
of a magical tradition that predates metahumanity.
To be born Awakened means having
the ability to manipulate mana.
So unless we argue that "characters" means only PCs are capable of astral sneaking, anything with Magic can astrally sneak, which includes Dragons and Spirits.
-- not participating in the debate, just posting rule quotes --
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The section "Spirit Etiquette" page 149 seems to be neglected here.
"Since spirits have been known to share their thoughts openly, this reputation can spread. Any time a conjurer deliberately uses a service to cause a spirit they conjured significant discomfort or disruption, decrease the character’s Reputation by 1."
Yes, this is very subjective. GM's rule will play a strong role here.
In addition a section "Spirit Range", page 148
"Spirits try to stay close to their conjurer. If they get more than (conjurer’s Magic rating x 100) meters from their conjurer, they will try to return within that range unless they have specifically been directed not to."
Could spirits view a conjurer who summons them but sends them away as a conjurer who is a coward and doesn't enjoy the presence of the spirit ? They could, it's very subjective.
My reading on this is that if a conjurer demands from spirits to be personal murderers, or excessively uses spirits for direct combat only, that will have an effect on conjurers reputation. With that in mind, Reputation goes both ways, so "good" spirits would be less keen to aid the conjurer, while "bad" spirits would be super happy to go into material plane and murder bunch of meta-humans. Could continuous summoning of "I win button" spiral the conjurer down the rabbit hole ?
For example loosing spirit affinity, or mentor spirit qualities, "good" spirits could get additional dice pools for resisting.
If a player wants to go that way, sure! Dark arts can be very tempting and there are plenty of toxic and twisted mages who can summon nasty horrors. Will that have further consequences, like exclusion out of magical societies and bounties, and at the same time inclusion into cults and magical terrorism jobs ? Absolutely, it can be an interesting path of role-play exploration.
Yet we can not forget the group and the context in which such a player (character) behaviour occurs! If the whole group is fine to explore the other side of the barricade, that's awesome! Burnouts, toxic adepts, cyberzombie Streetsams or addicted riggers, as far as everyone has fun.
If the group does not want to go that way, there will be a problem between players (and characters) and that has to be solved outside of rules. If people break the game law, there are legal consequences designed by the norms of the society in which such a behaviour occurs. In a role playing game, such norms and consequences for disregarding them should stem from us, the role-playing society, players as well as characters.
I don't want to argue against or pro mechanical design of spirit powers, but it seems that it is more about, how to handle a cheesy player who aims to build a character upon constantly exploiting the same tactic. ( Big dice pools of dedicated Conjurers who can than boost attributes to neglect drains thus having super spirits). Rules are allowing it, but the cheese player is not playing alone. There is the GM and there is the group.
I don't propose a solution for everyone, home tables will be easier to handle than convention tables I guess.
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I don't want to argue against or pro mechanical design of spirit powers, but it seems that it is more about, how to handle a cheesy player who aims to build a character upon constantly exploiting the same tactic. ( Big dice pools of dedicated Conjurers who can than boost attributes to neglect drains thus having super spirits). Rules are allowing it, but the cheese player is not playing alone. There is the GM and there is the group.
There is nothing wrong with a player building a character to do something exceptionally well, or wielding the mechanics the game provides efficiently. There is no right or wrong way to build characters or play the game.
If a player has disruptive behavior then that is another matter entirely.
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I don't say clever build has to be banned form the group!
It depends on the context, in this case the group and its GM as well as role play and character background.
If a Conjurer "spams" force XY spirits and safeguards himself to drain via increase attribute as a response to all obstacles the group has to overcome, I see it as potentially disruptive. Than I would ask the player what leads his character to act in such way in the first place. Does the character have justifiable background or is the story narrating itself the way that using high powered spirits seems as the best and only option do deal with every encounter ?
If I can spot that the character doesn't have justifiable reason to act in such way, I would talk to the player and find out his reasoning behind such decision for a character choice, thus I would be able to get into deeper understanding of the player as well as the character and possibly adjust my campaign building.
I also should ask other players in the group, to find out if the conjurers recurring tactic is fine with them, because this might lead to problems among the players and pose a threat toward the integrity of the group. If everyone is fine, sure, back to adjusting the campaign, if someone has a problem, for example one player is being overshadowed, some compromise should happen between players and my role as a GM is to facilitate such dialogue.
If a Conjurer does swap tactics in response to changing nature of obstacles, uses the high powered spirit in a creative way, sometimes for its critter powers, sometimes to attack, sometimes to watch the groups back and at the same time the conjurer uses buff spells on other party members, again, in response to different situations, I have no problem with a clever build.
Still I don't argue pro or against mechanical design of spirits in general, just providing food for thought on how I would try to operate in a situation.
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Being good at summoning is a pretty normal goal for a age. Knowing the improved attribute spell is pretty normal. It’s only rational you’d cast it on yourself to reduce drain. I don’t expect my players to intentionally act dumb.
You can set up some ground rules on spirits in how they react to being summoned. Like any spirit with a force higher than your magic resents it. Having a combat spirit like fire spirits be against being sent to fight seems a stretch though. But yeah go for it if you think it’s needed. Just set it up before game start. Great for home games but Problem is how does that work in missions.
The ideal though is the GM isn’t needed for this. Spirit summoning is balanced without it. No game will catch everything but I think there is a different feel for putting breaks on hidden loopholes people find as opposed to obvious tactics from the core rules.
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Being good at summoning is a pretty normal goal for a age. Knowing the improved attribute spell is pretty normal. It’s only rational you’d cast it on yourself to reduce drain. I don’t expect my players to intentionally act dumb.
I’d go further. The rules of the game are also, to the characters, the rules of physics. The characters have an understanding of optimal strategies. In-game, spirits are powerful; so in-game, everyone who can is going to want spirits around.
The ideal though is the GM isn’t needed for this. Spirit summoning is balanced without it. No game will catch everything but I think there is a different feel for putting breaks on hidden loopholes people find as opposed to obvious tactics from the core rules.
Strongly agree. Moderation of PC abilities via GM fiat is always going to exist; no RPG ruleset can cover every bizarre situation the players will get themselves into. But if you’re relying on it constantly as the only way to deal with a common situation, it’s a sign the rules are missing something to cover this more formally.
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Although I dont get why they didnt get rid of their force completely, like spells. Say they start as if they had a powerlevel comparable to force 3, then let the summoners amp up their spirits with 2 drain for +1 on everything
Couldn't agree more, in fact I thought I'd posted just such a house rule, but can't find it now. I also like the idea, mentioned by Finstersang, that magicians spend character creation magic resources on getting access to summoning different spirit types, as they do with spells. In 6E apparently every tradition can summon every spirit type, so it would help to have some progression in there.
Uuuh, you should definetely try to find and post your houserule. Ive also read Finstersangs idea of spending some kind of resource on getting access to the specific spirits. Ive been toying with some tweaks there myself-a less costly way would be that if you spent some karma you would gain access to the spirits optional powers. If not then your force 3 spirit wouldnt have any.
Found my post - sadly, it wasn't a fleshed out ruleset, just essentially agreeing with you in concept:
Personally, and we're just talking home rules here, I wish they had "eliminated" force for spirits like they did for spells. Take the stats for a Force X spirit, and let that be what you always get when you summon that type of spirit. Then add an Amp system to buff your spirit with optional powers and stats.
If I was going to flesh this out, I'd start with the idea of Minor, Major, and Greater spirits, so we have variety in functional power level. Major spirits are what you summon for most gameplay purposes, while Minor spirits are like Watcher-level or force 1 power (and could even just be Watchers). Greater spirits would be major battlefield threat level, akin to a tank or large monster or something. Off-limits to PCs without special story considerations from the GM.
Next I'd decide on what Force is balanced for the type of role Major Spirits play, erring on the side of a little weak to leave room for Amps. Let's say 4.
Then I'd want to tweak individual powers and stats at this level, especially ITNW.
Next, what do Amps do - +1 Drain per Amp is consistent with spellcasting, so what are appropriate bonuses for +1 Drain?
+1 optional power, + a skill, +1 to stats? This would be the toughest part.
Lastly, decide on the Spirit Limit. I like the idea that you have a number of spirit "slots" equal to your Magic. Minor spirits take 1 slot, Major take 2-3 slots, and Greater take all your slots.
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I kind of like the spirits to be strong
However it would make sense either to re-introduce the « willpower fight » as in 2th édition or to make the spirit more difficult to be summoned at higher level
For what I am concerned I have house ruled that the summoning test is resisted with (Force)x3 rather than (Force)x2
The spirits remain very powerful entities but we see them at lower levels in the game