[markelphoenix]

Was trying to think of an use. Is there anything that spirits can do that their force rating doesn't really matter that would make 18 F1 spirits useful?

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

remotely surveil 18 different places/things in astral space.

Can't really think of a plausible reason why you'd want EIGHTEEN of them.. not unless you're an NPC security mage collecting 18 different salaries...

But a few F1s? They're basically the magical analogue of Kanmushi drones.  Lots of uses.

[0B]

Maybe as decoys?

For more mundane uses, depending on the type and optional powers maybe you could have them act as AC or heating for a building. I can't imagine that being the most economic way to handle HVAC, but maybe it had a purpose during 30 Nights.

Perhaps you could toy with the definition of elemental attack and have earth spirits do some construction and water spirits do irrigation work

[Shinobi Killfist]

Force 1 might be stretching it even with the new standard of 2 being human normal.  1 would still be dim, so how well they can scout or observe would likely be limited.  9 force 2s, or 6 force 3s, would be very useful though. I guess since the watcher ritual like almost all the rituals is so laughably bad maybe summon a force 1 for your watcher.

[markelphoenix]

Force 1 might be stretching it even with the new standard of 2 being human normal.  1 would still be dim, so how well they can scout or observe would likely be limited.  9 force 2s, or 6 force 3s, would be very useful though. I guess since the watcher ritual like almost all the rituals is so laughably bad maybe summon a force 1 for your watcher.

What makes Watcher so bad?

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Spirits take 1 major action to summon, and last up to 24 hours.

Watchers take a hour to summon, comes with extra baggage linked to performing a ritual, and only last a small number of hours.

There's some upsides to watchers, but the above pretty well overshadows the minor upsides.

[Xenon]

In the two previous edition spirits were forced to stay within magic x 100 meters from you (either in astral space on the material plane). Unless you send it on a remote service in which case it would be released once done, even if it had services left to perform).

Unless you bound it, in which case it would end up on 'standby' after completing a remote task and you could also willingly dismiss it for awhile (which would also cause it to be on 'standby') and then call it back with a simple action (not costing a service) once you needed its attention.


But since you can't bind a spirit in this edition... does that mean that all your (potentially 18) summoned spirits will always be forced to stay within magic rating x 100 meters from you (unless perhaps remote service)?


I can see that becoming an issue if you are trying to infiltrate a facility that run some sort of astral observers or having large astral wards to protecting the area around the physical facility......



edit: Ah, they added a new line of text to Spirit Range for this edition:

SR6 p. 149 Spirit Range
...they will try to return within that range unless they have specifically been directed not to.

edit2: Second ah-ha experience; in this edition there also does not seem to be a specific 'remote service' (that will automatically release the spirit after it is done).

edit3: Table on SR6 p. 40 list 'Dismiss Spirit' as an action but the actual action on SR6 p. 41 is missing. There is also no 'Call Spirit' action in this edition. 'Command Spirit', however, mention that you can use it to 'dismiss' a spirit. I guess 'dismiss' in this edition means that "you fully release it even if it have services left" (rather than "go on 'standby' until i call you" as it meant in SR4).

[Hobbes]

Animal Control doesn't have any tests.  18 Force 1 Beast Spirits would work fine for Animal Wrangling or Pest Control.  You would have a lot of Net hits and at most need to handle 1 Drain from summoning.  The extra services are more applications of Animal Control... So if you really wanted to Pied Piper someplace, a horde of Force 1 Spirits would be the optimal way to go.  Or if for some reason you needed to quickly gather hundreds of pounds of Spiders. 

Or if by some coincidence you already had a few hundred Black Widows handy and needed to direct them.... 

[markelphoenix]

so no remote services that end their service? Can order spirits to survey a location a mile away then return in 2 hours, no problems?

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

so no remote services that end their service? Can order spirits to survey a location a mile away then return in 2 hours, no problems?

No.  That is, other than the obvious problems of having dice pools of 2 and therefore not being reliable at penetrating wards, finding non-obvious details, or surviving an attack.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Spirits take 1 major action to summon, and last up to 24 hours.

Watchers take a hour to summon, comes with extra baggage linked to performing a ritual, and only last a small number of hours.

There's some upsides to watchers, but the above pretty well overshadows the minor upsides.

Yeah watchers and wards they fixed the math on a bit in the errata so you don't have to be the greatest ritual caster of all time to get a few hits, but its still a lot of work for a really crappy short term astral only spirit. I guess for aspected sorcerers it might have some value.

[Reaver]

Not sure about 6e....

But in 5e watchers had their place, and considering just how over powered they were in 4e....

Also, Watchers kind of broke the 'spirit mold' of UMT.... they had to be put somewhere.....

With a perpared mage, Watchers made any job where a material link could be found fairly easy.... as once you had a material link, you could get a watcher spirit to track it back to the owner. (As long as the target was in range).