[Kiirnodel]

adzling, there is an entire sidebar in the Core Rulebook titled "Bad Feelings with Bound Spirits" (page 301), how is that not an indication that binding is potentially a problem?

It talks about how the process of binding forces spirits to do things that they might not otherwise do (one of the reasons bound spirits have more options for service types), and not all spirits appreciate that.

[adzling]

I reread that before I posted kiir . If you do that carefully you’ll see my comments up thread still stand.

[Marcus]

In my understand spirit index was intended to keep mages from assembling a spirit strike team. The wording is vague enough to let GMs be more aggressive with it, if they want too. The Edge vs summoning being the sort of classic hinge example. So long as a caster does the expect run thing there shouldn't really be a problem, and should one develop the wording is also such that getting out from isn't actually hard, it just takes time and a some minimal effort.

On a side note I'm very surprised we have never seen a piece of shadowrun fiction that had single mage be a whole team via the use of spirits.

But that's not really important, spirits can be strong no question, and a smart player can get a lot out of one. However I still wouldn't call it game breaking issue. Really from GM perspective spirits are lot better for the NPC side then the player Side. Players who push to far, spirits are the perfect tool for checking that sort of issue. Their powers scales very easily and predictably, some of them really subtle and some are really not.

Just in closing to the OP, this really should be obvious, but clearly you missed that day in school, never suggest a magic or any other a rules change with a justification that includes "Fuck Subject of the Rules Change". No one will ever take you seriously, it utterly destroy any credibility your argument may have had.

[adzling]

That’s not the point Marcus. The point is per raw spirits are cray cray op, especially the spirit army. This is their intended use and spirit index does nothing to reign that in. Yu need a houserule to do that. We use (magic+initiate grade)x2 for total force of spirits in use at any one time at our table.

[Nephilim]

The literal last sentence of "Bad Feelings with Bound spirits" is (Emphasis mine)

This modifier should only be applied if the summoner is either cruel toward the spirits he controls or if he repeatedly puts them at risk (occasional combat is fine, but being routinely disrupted gets old). This magical power drain is the compelling reason why most magicians keep their bound spirits at rest. While the spirit is resting in astral space, the bond between magician and spirit has no effect on the magician.  It should only be used when roleplaying calls for itor to keep a player from abusing spirits in gameplay

Making it both RAW and RAI. And the rest of that sidebar makes numerous (admittedly non-raw) indications that summoning and binding aren't looked on terribly favorably by spirits.

[Plastic-Man]

I would actually ask that of the others who think that GM's are often going out of there way to dick people over who summon them.

Players aren't idiots, they will summon a powerful spirit with edge, resist drain with edge (points well spent when you sometime spend multiple edge just avoiding death in one combat turn) be nice to it then get it to mop the floor with the enemies. They wont act like a cartoon villain with his henchmen.

I'm a D&D player, first and foremost. I ALWAYS assume that any summoned entity with a will of its own is going to be pissy if you mistreat it, and act accordingly. I also never assume that someone won't be an idiot. You ALWAYS assume that there are idiots and they have access to alcohol or hallucinogens as easily as if they have air. Doing otherwise invokes Murphy.

Also, I most certainly HAVE seen players act like cartoon villains with their henchmen using spirits for suicide missions and other things.

Also, what kind of build are we talking about for this hypothetical summoner? How much Edge are we talking about him having? Given the way Priority works, any mage worth talking about is going to have an A on Magic, with B and C going to Attributes and Skills (either order), so absolute max without spending your starting Karma would be a human Mage with 5 Edge who put Resources as E. So you have 5 Edge to spend throughout a run, and you spend 1-2 of it on each spirit you summon during the run. That's cool if there's only one fight the whole run, but by the third or fourth run? How many services are they getting? Are there other mages out there who are trying to banish them?

You've got Resources on E, so that isn't much for weapons, armor, and other gear that a runner needs. You're probably not going to have more than an R1 Fake SIN, which isn't going to pass more than the briefest of scans, and your commlink might as well be an open book for all the good it will do against anyone trying to hack you. Worse yet, you're forgetting the key weakness of spirits: they go poof when you ice the summoner. That's right, you just took "Geek the Mage first" and dialed it up to 11. Those corpsec you set a F12 spirit on? They don't have to beat your spirit. They just have to get enough grenades in your area to make you chunky salsa.

Seriously, what is with you people? It is like the only way you know to fight a big hulking troll with milspec armor is to try and outslug him! You may as well try and punch out Lofwyr.

Anyone that tells you spirits are balanced is, frankly, nuts. A mage can easily have 6-8 force 6 bound spirits very soon out of charged. With a summon that up to 9 spirits at force 6. That means a good mage (not even a dedicated summoner) can solo any mission almost straight out of charge if they do it carefully.

You're forgetting that spirits hate hate HATE being bound. 6-8 Force 6 bound spirits? If your GM isn't actively fucking with the player to make them have each service be worded like a gorram lawyer wrote it, then they need to turn in their GM screen. Malicious Compliance is the order of the day for characters like this. This is what the whole 'Astral Reputation' and associated qualities (Spirit Pariah comes to mind) were written for!

Are you just looking at the summoning rules in a vacuum, and not looking at all the other stuff around it?

1. For villains treating spirits poorly. An ability is not balanced if it's dependent on people making bad decisions.
2. You say your from a D&D background then you should be aware that Shadowrun is not D&D where 4 encounters are set up and you go through, you realistically only have 1 fight and sometimes not even that.
3. Yes, 5 edge, a very strong solid amount and resources E stretching resources thin is something you only worry about for a few runs as a mage and you don't even need to spend it, that was just an example. 6 ranks, specialization, 6 magic, a quality and even if there's not another mage in the party there is likely to be a Face who is probably even better at assisting with leadership.
4. How many mages exist with the banishing skill? If they keep doing that just bind the spirit and you've also taken out a mage, if the GM ups the power of the mages, you've got bigger issues and it means the GM has needed to escalate things to tackle summoning.
5. The geek the mage defense as justification for their power, the idea that a character is strong so they need to be targeted first is somehow seen as a balance argument. In this case the opponents aren't magically aware of where the mage is as he is not directly casting spells at them.

[adzling]

Please qoute the rest of the paragraph sentence so people don’t think your deceptively editing. Stuff

The literal last sentence of "Bad Feelings with Bound spirits" is (Emphasis mine)

It should only be used when roleplaying calls for it, or to keep a player from abusing spirits in gameplay

Making it both RAW and RAI. And the rest of that sidebar makes numerous (admittedly non-raw) indications that summoning and binding aren't looked on terribly favorably by spirits.

[Nephilim]

Added it to the original post. Although I suspect I see what you're getting at, in another example of bad editing, considering the paragraph contains two conflicting statements of absolutes. Edited, reread the paragraph. See below.

[adzling]

Yeah my point still stands.

There are no effective controls on spirit power, only on insane abuse of spirit power.

You can follow those guidelines (and the ones in sg) and still have a hyper effective combat and utility force 6 spirit army of 6-8 spirits.

Another way to look at this is to ask the question: “what does having a spirit army at your beck and call (on top of all your other powerful mage powers) add to the game?”

Answer: nothing.

Therefore why not change the rules to reflect better gameplay?

Imagine if street Sam had a widget that was invisible to all security and let them summon at will up to 8 mercenaries who are armed to the teeth, can fly and immune to normal weapons🤔. Would that be cool?

[Nephilim]

Actually I'd say it doesn't stand (your point that is.) It's just poor phrasing. Cruelty/risk to the spirit is the indicated RP reason, with the "or" indicating it may also be used to reign in a player if necessary.

[Marcus]

That’s not the point Marcus. The point is per raw spirits are cray cray op, especially the spirit army. This is their intended use and spirit index does nothing to reign that in. Yu need a houserule to do that. We use (magic+initiate grade)x2 for total force of spirits in use at any one time at our table.

If you run into  a problem situation with player, then sure by all means solve it.  But I think that situation is fairly rare. Quickening is far and away the most commonly abused magic issue in my experiences. 

I'm not arguing that determined crunch artist can't break the game with spirits, I'm sure they can.  I just saying check the problem when the problem arises and try using tools provided first before going to house rule if you can. Spirit index and Background counts are the tool supplied to solve this. Use them, and I don't care how good the summoner build is, it's shut that sort of problem down.

A BCG of 8, on all his spirits, and that build will be shut down long term in hour, never mind immediate penalties.

[adzling]

Imagine if street Sam had a widget that was invisible to all security and let them summon at will up to 8 mercenaries who are armed to the teeth, can fly and immune to normal weapons🤔. Would that be cool?

Answer: no that’s stupid. The characters should the focus not a mini game of spirit armies fighting other spirit armies.

I don’t agree with your assessment of that sentence, it’s arbitrary and your interpretation. If the mage and bind 8 spirits then why not? That’s what the rules say you can do. Nothing says you can’t or shouldn’t.

[Kiirnodel]

If spending a minimum of 18,000¥ to maintain an army of 6 Force 6 spirits every mission is a viable method for completing missions then power to you. But that's a mighty expensive "I win" button with a lot of ways for it to fail. As a GM, there are a lot of ways to level the playing field on spirits. Foremost in my experience is the fact that making all of those binding tests is no picnic.

[adzling]

That’s incorrect kiir. You get more than one service per bound spirit, typically many more.

Compare that spirit army to the cost of a riggers drones; they are far more expensive, far more fragile, have no special powers, can’t be smuggled past any checkpoint. Take the drones away from the rigger and he terribly gimped. Take the spirits away from the mage and he’s still very powerful.

So agin, I’d respectfully ask, what does the spirit army add to the game?

Answer: nothing.

[Nephilim]

Imagine if street Sam had a widget that was invisible to all security and let them summon at will up to 8 mercenaries who are armed to the teeth, can fly and immune to normal weapons🤔. Would that be cool?

Answer: no that’s stupid. The characters should the focus not a mini game of spirit armies fighting other spirit armies.

I don’t agree with your assessment of that sentence, it’s arbitrary and your interpretation. If the mage and bind 8 spirits then why not? That’s what the rules say you can do. Nothing says you can’t or shouldn’t.

The statement is in the paragraph, poor phrasing or not. Its explicitly stated it can be used to reign in out of control players. Its true that the other sentence may conflict with it depending on your interpretation, but that doesn't give either sentence primacy, leaving up to the GM at worst. So saying it's not RAW is pretty disingenuous.