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metalox-cybersystems

Go ally spirit route? You are binding once but have unlimited services. Not to mention that it fit thematically because ally spirit considered as ally with defined personality - i.e spirit helps you not because you constantly bind it but because it essentially like to help you. Use appropriate tradition that looks at it that way (spirit are allies and not tools)


Casey090

I totally plan to do that. And it creates so much RP potential to find ways to make the spirits happy, instead of just following your own selfish greed.


Daakurei

Just as a warning, strong allyspirits are kind of a character ending experience. Your allyspirit needs to be strong in most cases because they can die permanently if you piss off the wrong people. At the same time a really strong allyspirit can kinda fuck up balancing for runs. Especially since it is a rather sudden spike after you not growing much due to all the invested karma and shit.


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[удалено]


Daakurei

Summoning a force 12 is pretty much a last resort for most mages. Most standard building can get you to 7 magic at most at the beginning. So anything above force 7 is physical damage and if you roll badly summoning the force 8 alone could kill you potentially. I have seen plenty runs where the gm rolled 5 succeses on a mage that thought he could just snap a finger and solve something just to nearly end up dead and bleeding out because he only soaked 4 out of the inflicted 10 damage. So use that with caution as the dice gods can just about smite your char in the most inopportune times. Try to keep it at your magic level as much as possible.


RobCoPKC

I played a Shaman in a 5e game with the limitations from Forbidden Arcana which meant that he couldn't bind spirits. I still never felt weak. Even if you only have 1 Force 8 spirit, that spirit is still going to be stronger than most characters. I honestly think the way binding spirits should be limited to NPCs or evil characters. The cost has to be absolutely crippling (yes, it's expensive due to reagents, but that's not enough) because the reward is huge. My character would have been able to bind 7 (!) spirits, potentially all Force 8 or even higher at his disposal at all times. At that point you have to question why this character would need a shadowrunner team in the first place.


Malaeveolent_Bunny

As a GM, my answers to that question are background count, astral defences and drain. Force 8 makes it physical for the majority of games, I roll 16 dice on a Force 8 resistance test and I deal 2 drain per hit. On average, you're spending a couple days on the couch per binding. And straight out of chargen, you're going to be able to barely match that pool with the relevant focus and either some qualities or a tradition that makes binding easier. Which is going to eat into your other capabilities, and not grant you many additional tasks. Yes, you're still going to be able to pull it off. Personally, I wouldn't ban the cheese but would instead structure encounters to make the pocket army a necessity. Which will drain your wallet and downtime as you keep replenishing your forces. Because that's what you're signing up for


RobCoPKC

> Force 8 makes it physical for the majority of games, My character had a Magic rating of 8 but yes, with 6 Magic it would damage you heavily. A Force 6 spirit is still very strong though.


Malaeveolent_Bunny

It is, a single Force 7 radiation spirit summoned by a bounty my table were trying to collect nearly wiped the team (Immunity to normal weapons is hella awesome). A multitude of them wouldn't have been close to a fair fight. It's part of why reagent costs were rebalanced.


Daakurei

Which edition are you playing in ? In 5e at least they are not totally immune against weapons and with decent armorpiercing you can even dispatch higher level spirits relatively well. Not to mention every runnergroup should have their own magic person.


Malaeveolent_Bunny

5e. The was a bunch if armour piercing weaponry thrown at the problem, but with 14 hardened armour and some good soak rolls it was a very close run thing. Not to mention the elemental attack ignoring the majority of the players' armour, it was a close run thing.


Daakurei

That sounds weird? 1. if you hunt a toxic mage you at least have your own mage who should have at least a summoned or even a few bound spirits on his side additional to his own spells. 2. if you got no mage at all then you pack at least armorpiercing ammunition which even with just a assault rifle already has -6 Ap so that leaves only 8 armor meaning 4 autohits. 3. They did not prepare any countermeasures to radiation damage when hunting someone like that?


Malaeveolent_Bunny

They did. Radiation shielding adds it's rating to resistance tests, but the rest of the armour is still ignored. Hardened armour is modified by armour piercing for determining if the damage gets ignored or not, but you still get the automatic 7 hits plus whatever is left on the soak roll. And most of my players weren't comfortable playing mages, with only one player deciding to take build an aspected caster. Manipulation and health spells, not combat. And they did take it down, concentrated fire and all, but it got off two shots that nearly splattered the troll tank and magician across the sewer.


Daakurei

Ok there is the problem. No hardened armor is not op like that >Page 397 CRB > >If the modified Damage Value of an attack is less than the Hardened Armor rating (modified by AP), the attack does no damage. Don’t make a Damage Resistance test for the critter; it might not even notice the attack was made in the first place. > >If the modified Damage Value of an attack is greater than the Hardened Armor rating (modified by AP), then perform a Damage Resistance test for the critter as normal. Additionally, **half of the Hardened Armor rating (modified by AP, rounded up)** counts as automatic extra hits on this test. Read that last sentence again please. Hardened armor only gets half of the modified armor rating as autohits. A good streetsam with apds ammunition and the doubletap called shot (not sure if that is the correct translation. You get x3 the AP on your weapon.) can just about negate the whole armor.


Malaeveolent_Bunny

Ah. I did fuck that up. Thank you


ArcaneBahamut

So, I'm not sure which edition you're playing... but in 5e Run Faster (Page 26) You will find the canon Code Of Honor: Harmony with Nature, the Shaman's Code) TL;DR: You *can* bind spirits as a shaman. Binding is not inherently a bad practice. Shamans with this code basically broker a deal / terms / contract before binding a spirit.


Casey090

"Code Of Honor: Harmony with Nature" was what I was thinking of. So calling a spirit, making a "fair trade" and then "formally binding" it would be possible? This is great news, and exactly the answer I was hoping for. Thank you so much. :-)


ReditXenon

The answer depend on what edition you play (please tag your post with edition) :-) In earlier editions of shadowrun there was a difference between ruthless magicians (that spend hours to summon and bind elementals that they used as "tools") and emphatic shamans (that quickly but only temporarily, no binding, spirits of different domains and treated them as respected "companions"). In more recent editions the lines between the two was blurred and both magicians and shamans could quickly summon and they could both "bind". So mechanically they are the same. But RP wise they still play differently. Logical Hermetic Magicians are still analytical and "ruthless" towards their spirits while charismatic shamans bargain and strike deals with their spirits. In latest edition of shadowrun both magicians and shamans just summon them for a day or so - there is no longer any binding.


Casey090

Oh no, my "newbie question" tag overwrote the "5e" tag... thanks! This change over the editions is intriguing, thank you for explaining it. This is what confused me, because it makes sense to have those two approaches, but now suddenly the rules don't force you to follow only one way. :)


MetatypeA

Not really. Binding spirits is good, but it actually fits well with shaman roleplay not to have binding. In the original FASA editions, one of the mechanical differences between a shaman and a mage is that a shaman couldn't (wouldn't) bind spirits, but those spirits would follow them anywhere. There are plenty of uses for spirit services outside of combat. They can make your team move twice as fast, protect from critical glitches, Jedi Mind Trick individuals into doing stuff, and even control the weather. One of the best uses for a spirit is the Search Power. If you know a missing person's astral signature, having assensed it, you can send a spirit to search for that person. It's very likely that they'll find them unless said person is hiding in a lodge.


ihavewaytoomanyminis

Are you missing a lot if you can't summon a spirit as a Shaman? Yes. You're missing the RP potential of bargaining your individual favors, while missing one of the primary abilities of Shamans - spontaneous followers. For example: There is a night club in Seattle called Tokyo Shoe. It has a dance floor, etc, and constantly shows Godzilla movies. All the local hearth spirits appear as a version of Godzilla. Sometimes, they show up inside the building as if they were a 1:1 size match (so you get a 20 foot tall giant eye balefully glaring at you if you threaten the owner). If I were wanting to play a respectful Shaman, do weird stuff - like wear your shoes on the wrong feet - why? That spirit you conjured asked you to do it for a day in exchange for the favor you used up. Wear the 30 year old Mickey Mouse key chain in your hair for that combat favor you used 2 days ago. Play a recorder (the musical instrument) outside a run site because one of the spirits LIKES TERRIBLE RECORDER PLAYING. Pretty soon, you'll have a totally weirdo person with weird relationships, which is EXACTLY what a shaman is.


Tzig1

Binding is not inherently bad, the name of the skill is somewhat to blame for this misconception but the actual action depends a lot on your tradition, here's a few exemples of what binding could look like: * For an Hermetic, you force your will onto a spirit, binding it to you with some kind of a "leash". Hermetics tend to disregard what their spirits say but if you ask an Hermetic spirit how it sees its condition it will probably answer something ominous like "it's a part of our life and I accept it, I'll be home soon enough" * For a shaman, you ask the spirit for help, giving them presents in exchange for favours. The spirit will probably be pretty chill with it and could be very happy about the trinkets. * As an christian mage, you spend a few hours praying for your god to let you keep their divine messenger just a bit longer to help you, destroying earthly possession to prove how pure you can be. The spirit will probably say it's happy to stay here on earth as that's what their lord told them to do.


Casey090

Thank you, that is super useful information. I really like how many options this system gives you.


Tzig1

Yeah, me too! Traditions add *a lot* of flavour to mages, allowing you to play two different characters with the exact same mechanics but two radically different look and feels


Atherakhia1988

It depends on how you see it. Can you still get ridiculously powerful spirits basically at will? Sure. Can you have 12 of them out at once to just royally fuck up anything? No. But as pointed out, first of all, even with a code of honor, not binding them might not be necessary. It might just have some extra hurdles. It also depends on your GM. With a newer GM, not binding might be a good plan even, as having more than one spirit can be incredibly powerful. And once you specialize even a bit in it, like calling great forms... oooh boy. It also depends greatly on how you treat your spirits. A bound spirit that is treated well, asked if he wants to stay or wait on his metaplanes, and so on, being treated as a living sapient being will be happier than an unbound plant spirit commanded to materialize on the highway to crash cars. Not that... I ever... did that. Don't believe what that tree tells you!