[voydangel]

The main reason we're trying that out is because with the other nerfs we were a little afraid of the spirit summoning rules/spirits being "over-nerfed". and with the drain being x3, we didn't want to kill all of the mages. Also, the hits x3 drain code seems to discourage over-summoning fairly well without it needing to be physical.

Incidentally, which all non-house rule methods are you referring to? Physically attacking a spirit is generally uselss, and even banishing often hurts the banisher more than the summoner/spirit, and even if successful, they just resummon a spirit next round.

[ZeConster]

Incidentally, which all non-house rule methods are you referring to? Physically attacking a spirit is generally uselss, and even banishing often hurts the banisher more than the summoner/spirit, and even if successful, they just resummon a spirit next round.

Well, there's way too many several topics about whether spirits are overpowered, but just off the top of my head:

• A single net hit with an Ares Alpha with APDS will deal ~3.69 damage on average to a Force 6 Earth Spirit, and ~5.67 to a Force 6 Air Spirit; the APDS will take out 6 of its 12 Hardened Armor, leaving only Body+6 dice and 3 bonus hits for the damage soak - and burst fire will boost hit chances.
• Use the 4th edition optional rule where oversummoned spirits (Force > summoner's Magic) typically use a point of Edge on Push the Limit to resist the summoning, which is allowed as they're not officially summoned until the summoning succeeds.
• Summoning a new Force 6 spirit mid-combat uses up your turn (Complex Action) and gives about 1-2 Drain on average even with 11 Drain Resist dice; and you won't be able to give the spirit a command until your next turn (Simple Action), which gives the enemy 1 bonus turn to geek you (and since you summoned a spirit, it's quite obvious who to geek.
• Anyone who can banish a spirit can typically throw a combat spell at it too, against which its Immunity to Normal Weapons does nothing.
• "Geek the mage first" is a standard shadowrunner and corporate security policy.

[voydangel]

Yea, so, that's all fine and good for a force 6 spirit, which we don't really have problems with, but when a character can summon a force 9 spirit and only take 2 or 3 drain, and is smart enough to not stand out in the middle of the firefight to get himself geeked, most of that goes out the window.

18 defense dice + 18 hardened armor (with 27 soak dice) + an attack that has 19 dice to hit with and deals 18+ dmg per hit and a rather decent initiative score for minimal to no risk is the kind of broken that's really really hard to counter, both in game, and argument wise.

In my humble opinion, this needs mechanical fixes. But, hey, maybe it's just me.

[RHat]

Yea, so, that's all fine and good for a force 6 spirit, which we don't really have problems with, but when a character can summon a force 9 spirit and only take 2 or 3 drain, and is smart enough to not stand out in the middle of the firefight to get himself geeked, most of that goes out the window.

Again, Edge on oversummoning - 14 exploding dice has a reasonably strong chance of killing the summoner outright.

[ZeConster]

Yea, so, that's all fine and good for a force 6 spirit, which we don't really have problems with, but when a character can summon a force 9 spirit and only take 2 or 3 drain, and is smart enough to not stand out in the middle of the firefight to get himself geeked, most of that goes out the window.

Which is exactly why I mentioned the Edge-on-oversummoning bit: round Edge up for spirits, and that Force 9 spirit will roll 14 exploding dice, which has 2 very important effects:

• Against 14 exploding dice, you'll pretty much have to spend a point of Edge to get any services from the spirit.
• If we assume 11 Second-Chance Drain Resist dice, the summoner will take 5.40 Drain on average, with 18.30% chance of getting at least 10 Physical damage (enough to knock out the typical Body-3 magician), and 5.52% chance of getting at least 14 Physical damage (enough to kill the typical Body-3 magician). Last I checked, "there's a 1 in 19 chance that this will kill you" tends to be a good discouragement - and sure, getting Centering and Attribute-boosting spells will reduce this, but even with 16 Second-Chance dice and Body 5 the odds are 6.92% of a KO and 0.99% of instant death, and 1% is still too risky in my opinion.

Because of this, and because frequently throwing around Force-9 spirits will result in heightened anti-magic defenses sooner or later, you don't really need to balance things around Force-9 spirits, just Force-6 or Force-7. And like I said, assault rifles with APDS will do plenty to even the odds against those. And even against high-Force spirits, all you really need is astral scanners to detect those dual-natured spirits.

Like I said, there's been a lot of topics about whether summoning is overpowered, and the answer is "only if the GM doesn't understand and use its weaknesses".

[incrdbil]

Would it be reasonable to change the Magician benefits of Mentor Spirits for Conjuror adepts to +2 dice to an appropriate Spirit?  Hardly any of them have a Magician benefit usable by a Conjuror Adept.

[voydangel]

Ok, sounds like a fair suggestion, I will mention it to my GM (I'm actually a player for once!!!) and see what he thinks about just using edge for his summoning resistance rolls

Quick clarification: Can any spirit being summoned use edge to resist, or only spirits with a force above the summoners magic rating?

[Lucean]

Ok, sounds like a fair suggestion, I will mention it to my GM (I'm actually a player for once!!!) and see what he thinks about just using edge for his summoning resistance rolls
Quick clarification: Can any spirit being summoned use edge to resist, or only spirits with a force above the summoners magic rating?

They can, but should not. They might depending on Spirit Index, though.

[RHat]

Quick clarification: Can any spirit being summoned use edge to resist, or only spirits with a force above the summoners magic rating?

Sure, but it would be highly unwise to have all spirits do so.

[Top Dog]

From what I understand, Spirits don't particularly mind being summoned. It's how they get... spirit stuff? So most spirits wouldn't spend Edge trying to resist it. But they could; at that point they're an NPC under GM control.

The GM should probably reserve that for special situations though. Like oversummoning, or Spirit Bane, or high spirit index. It's a GM call.

[RHat]

Sorry, this spirit index - is it a new thing in Street Grimoire?  I don't think I've heard about it before.

[Lucean]

Yes, something like Notoriety.
You get it by disrupting spirits and rebinding. It accumulates faster if you let it resist your drain, use long-term binding or fettering or spell binding. Even exposition to toxicity/corruption gives you an increase.
It finally gives you a dicepool penalty for interaction with spirits, so social skills and of the whole Summoning skill group (yes, even Banishing).

You can reduce it by atonement, taking a geas and may prevent it from accumulating by spending reagents.

[RHat]

That is...  A pretty good start to something I've wanted to see for a while, actually.

[Ryo]

Yeah, the spirit index stuff is the one solid Pro in Street Grimoire. Most of the rest of the book just feels like a copy+paste job from Street Magic, except Street Magic was better formatted, had more stuff and less errors. But the Spirit Index is something I've always wanted, since reputation is so important to keep summoners in line.

It's not as robust as it could be, but I'm not complaining that they tried.

[ZeConster]

So does the "disrupting" point also apply if you, for example, shoot an enemy spirit in the face, or only if a spirit you summoned get disrupted?