Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Senko on <03-19-15/0430:00>
-
I was looking at the blood spirit and how it gets added to the NPC's normal spirit summoning list (or maybe replaces it, I'm about to head to bed and am still looking into how it works). Anyway it got me thinking if that gets added in could other spirits be added in. So I'm considering trying to put together a metamagic that adds a spirit type to the mages selection (either one per initiation or one tradition per initiation then 5 karma per spirit type on that traditions list you normally can't summon). Anyway would this horribly unbalance things or would allowing say a hermetic mage to summon a beast spirit in addition to their elemental ones not make much difference?
-
As I see it blood spirit are as toxic as they come so unless we are already dealing with a blood mage then it would be a definite no.
As for adding more spirit to a mage's roster it would certainly break his tradition and therefore something he cannot comprehend. I do see it as something much like summoning a great form spirit, a ritual which would always cost reagents as the mage would be playing which force he cannot normally control.
-
Blood and toxic spirits as well as insect and shadow (amongst others) would be called out as not summonable with these techniques/technique just the base ones you get with the PC traditions. I'm not so convinced it would break with tradition look at Shintoism they can summon plant, animal, air, water and man spirits. However there are plenty of sacred sites which would work well with an earth spirit of that site, fire less so but there are some spirits that would work for that sacred flames, fire rituals and the like. As for the other ones in street grimoire guardian, guidance and task spirits really could be of any form e.g. you summon a man spirit as a "guardian" so its a guardian spirit not a man one or you summon the spirit of a sacred mountain and you get a guidance spirit that is essentially an overlayed earth spirit if you see what I mean. Its still a guardian, mentor or task spirit but it fits in fine with pretty much any tradition. Your guidance spirit is an angel, mine is a kami of the village shrine, his is a loa, hers is wolf and so on.
-
The choice of tradition is also meant as a restriction for the player. If you open a way to summon all kinds of spirits your tradition would only matter for drain, making LOG-traditions even weaker in comparison.
So no, I don't think it's worth pursuing.
-
You can call any type of spirit with the ritual on p. 126 in the Street Grimoire (even a mundane can do so). You'll need to carefully bargain with them for anything you want, though...
-
I would agree that adding such a metamagic would break the whole tradition systems. I personally like advantages and disadvantes together. You have to make a compromise. You can not get your favorit drain attribute, your favorit fluff, and your favorits spirits together (expect they match a given tradition).
As GM i would not even allow a player to use a "heal spirit" to assisst combat spells or to fight for the caster.
Btw: i really like the concept of blood magic. Maybe it's a bit too much power for pc's. But you can play a really nice blood mage. Who does good, and believes he is cleaning souls with his use of the blood. Of course most people would disagree, and you got a high bounty on your head, but every shadworunner is a outlow and the concept of "good" and "evil" is just a point of view.
-
Please explain to me how as I'm not seeing why opening up the potential to summon other spirit types makes logic based traditions weaker?
-
Blood, toxic and insect magics are pretty clearly spelled out as "twisted paths". It doesn't matter what your justifications or rationale, if you follow one of these paths, by SR you're a corrupted mage. (And thus, generally considered an NPC as the twisted paths are generally not for PC use)
-
Please explain to me how as I'm not seeing why opening up the potential to summon other spirit types makes logic based traditions weaker?
Because Logic is really not useful for a whole lot of skills. Most technical skills are better handled by Deckers or Riggers. Charisma based traditions are vastly superior, outside of spirits, because they are good at all social skills. That makes them excellent faces, on the side. Intuition based traditions at least get bonuses to Initiative, Perception, and Assensing.
In the end, Logic based traditions don't really make use of their Logic all that well.
-
Which I understand but i don't see how my initaiting and paying 13 karma so instead of air, water, plant, animal and man spirits I can now summon earth, air, water, plant, animal and man spirits makes them weaker. Aside from the fact they can do the same thing I'm not taking options like centering or masking so I can do this.
-
Which I understand but i don't see how my initaiting and paying 13 karma so instead of air, water, plant, animal and man spirits I can now summon earth, air, water, plant, animal and man spirits makes them weaker. Aside from the fact they can do the same thing I'm not taking options like centering or masking so I can do this.
*shrug*
Opening up options to other normal spirits for an Initiation sounds fine to me. Traditions are mostly fluff, IMO, anyway. Just was explaining why others were saying it.
-
IMO traditions have already gotten way too generic compared to the old days. I liked how elementals and spirits were different critters entirely. I'd hate to see traditions watered down even further but at your own table, knock yourself out.
-
Which I understand but i don't see how my initaiting and paying 13 karma so instead of air, water, plant, animal and man spirits I can now summon earth, air, water, plant, animal and man spirits makes them weaker. Aside from the fact they can do the same thing I'm not taking options like centering or masking so I can do this.
In addition to the reasons mentioned, it's pretty easy to play an elf with +2 charisma and get a bigger drain pool. That is a big advantage. I don't know if it is intend or not, but as compensation some logic traditions have really strong spirits. if i'm not mistaken, the only tradition with spirit of man as combat spirit is Zoroastrian, a logic tradition. Imho logic tradition got this advantage to make up for the weak drain stat (charisma can easy be 7-8 and you can play a good face, inuition gives initiative, defense pool, perception and some other nice stuff).
If you give every tradition every spirit (and 13 karma or myb 25 aren't that big of a deal), there is little reason left to choose a logic tradition (the only thing left is fluff and playing a kind of magic-decker hybrid).
-
Except that's a problem with Logic in general not just spirit summoning. You can play a hermetic or Zoroastrian aspected sorcerer and not be able to summon any spirits at all. Besides this is just adding types not roles, most traditions have spirits of man anyway in which case they couldn't take the option to summon spirit of man healing or spirit of man combat just add spirit of fire.
Besides if your that concerned with the mechanics I imagine you'd play a charisma or intuition tradition anyway, or make your own (pastifarian) and pick your own spirits.
Here you paying 13+ karma to summon an extra spirit type (or maybe just open up all the other normal types for an extra 5 karma each).
-
Imho is summoning spirits a really strong ability. But the kind of spirit does really matter. Spirit of man, who can materialise in every banshee/closed room/what ever and cast a manaball/fireball is pretty strong. And given that mages are the strongest class in sr5, i really like to set some boundarys for them. I really like the restriction, that spirit does only tasks in his assigned field. But that's a ruling for every GM on his own.
I think the restrictions for traditions balance them kinda ok.
-
*shudder*
-
On the other hand you have people who throw those out entirely because it leaves you with things like an air spirit with the healing role and no healing abilities.
-
Not sure if I mentioned it but I could see this sort of metapower being available to pure summoners who can do nothing else. Although they are handicapped I am sure that the scientists are looking into breaking the barriers to helped the "disabled" so should you be a conjuring adept then go ahead. Should you know sorcery then no.
...
Personally I would love a return to the divisions and personalities of spirits way back when. Hermetics had elementals only (took hours to summon but did not have a timer), shamans had all the nature/environmental spirits (could summon on a whim, was restricted to a domain and timer).
-
Hmmm I can see that on a form.
Do have any mental, physical or metaphysical situations that would interfere with your spellcasting.
I think I'll go ahead with making this even if it joins my artifact creation rules as not for PCs or npcs it appears to me
-
While I'm not certain about blood spirits, I know the capacity to summon toxic or insect spirits is essentially a change of the mage's tradition. Considering the essential (and rising) cost of initiation, I think I might allow the creation of a metamagic that enabled a mage to conjure an additional type of spirit; that is, after all, part of what the Sacrifice metamagic does. One might consider thinking up other uses for the metamagic as well, based off the spirit type ... which might slowly begin to make the blood spirit (and the Sacrifice metamagic) 'just another type of metamagic'. I would, however, probably only allow one such - that though another initiation might enable you to learn the next sort, it wipes out any prior version.
-
I have a hard time wrapping my head around the new "Paths" element to magic in 5e, of which Blood magic now is. (Still a twisted form of magic, not recommended for players)
My biggest issue here, is like many others have said, Spirits are already powerful, and magic is already powerful. And this, no matter how you want to phrase it, or "karma it away", still upsets a balance that is built into the magic system . (the limitation of Spirits per tradition). Unlike deckers, you ultimately get capped on what they can do by their gear (or Riggers for that matter), Or Street Sams by their Essence, there is no such cap for magic.
In theory, a player could invest every single point of Karma over his career into just two things, raising his magic attribute and initiation. If that career spans 3000+ karma (as is the case in my mage) that means you are running around with a mage with a magic rating of 30+ and initiated 24+ times. However, a Cyber or Bioware character, no matter how much money he has, is still limited to his 6 essence.
-
In the end, Logic based traditions don't really make use of their Logic all that well.
A Hermetic Mage makes a great medic with his high Logic. Not to mention that with a good Perception, he has a better chance at spotting those sneaky ninja types due to his higher Mental Limit.
-
In the end, Logic based traditions don't really make use of their Logic all that well.
A Hermetic Mage makes a great medic with his high Logic. Not to mention that with a good Perception, he has a better chance at spotting those sneaky ninja types due to his higher Mental Limit.
I agree, they make excellent use of the First Aid and Medicine skills. That's about it though. They aren't using any of the mechanic skills, any hacking skills, any hardware skills, and it's unlikely they are going to use a whole lot of forgery/armory skills (although they certainly can). The higher Mental Limit is kind of null; an Intuition or Charisma based tradition with Intuition 5/6, Willpower 5, and Logic 3 will have a limit of 6. Plus, that limit is really easy to raise with wireless Vision Enhancement.
I'm saying that comparing a Hermetic Mage using their Logic to a Charisma Based Mage using their Charisma is really no comparison. Social skills are extensively used. Even an Intuition Based Mage uses their Intuition more; in Initiative, Dodging, Perception, and Assensing, just to name a few.
-
Thing is Reaver I get a lot of this will disrupt the balance and break things but the only actual example is the logic mage one and really I don't buy that because either you care about the mechanics and don't play them or don't care about the mechanics and do.
Otherwise I can't see how being able to summon more spirit types disrupts any balance. You can't summon more spirits per casting, you can't summon more spirits than your normal limits, you can't even summon a healing spirit of man if you already have a combat spirit of man in your tradition. All you can do is summon more different types of spirits and even there only the normal ones no blood, toxic, shadow, insect or other special ones. As it is there's examples like the one I posted earlier where the spirit restrictions actually prevent you using a spirit for its assigned role because it has no abilities that are suited to that role.
You want to convince me this isn't a valid approach I need solid concrete examples of how say a hermetic mage being able to summon a beast spirit, a shinto mage being able to summon an earth spirit or something else is going to break the balance of things.
-
It's not about other skills on LOG vs. CHA. Look at the uses for Charisma just with Magic.
It determines the number of bound spirits, your damage in astral combat, allows you to bring spells and foci through wards.
And what does Logic have? They don't even use Logic for attacking in Astral Combat despite being the corresponding attribute to Agility!
You don't need Logic as a Charisma-mage, but you need Charisma as a Logic-mage or you set yourself limits for magical capabilities.
-
I'm not arguing that Logic based mages need a boost, I just don't see how opening up additional spirit types actually has any impact on balance at all.
-
In theory, a player could invest every single point of Karma over his career into just two things, raising his magic attribute and initiation. If that career spans 3000+ karma (as is the case in my mage) that means you are running around with a mage with a magic rating of 30+ and initiated 24+ times. However, a Cyber or Bioware character, no matter how much money he has, is still limited to his 6 essence.
Which means you now have a mage with a 30+ magic, who has initiated 24+ times, and who still has the crap stats, skills, and spells they started the game with. Meanwhile, the mage who initiates, oh, say, only 15 times has a few skills in the 9-12 range, and a bunch of spells - and the street sam / decker / rigger have oodles of attributes and skills maxed out, and are kicking ass left and right - while your aforementioned 'magic and initiation' mage can't even fragging touch them, because of what they've enabled themselves to be.
While Essence has a hard limit, boosting Magic has a practical one - and while you're spending precious karma boosting magic and getting initiated, you AREN'T spending it increasing your skills, or buying new ones, or spending time developing contacts.
'Magic has no upper end' is at its heart a false complaint.
-
I'm not arguing that Logic based mages need a boost, I just don't see how opening up additional spirit types actually has any impact on balance at all.
The most serious aspect of balance (although in another direction) would be access to spirits with Magical Guard and therefore extra dice for counterspelling. But that is an entirely different issue which also can be resolved differently.
-
Thing is Reaver I get a lot of this will disrupt the balance and break things but the only actual example is the logic mage one and really I don't buy that because either you care about the mechanics and don't play them or don't care about the mechanics and do.
Otherwise I can't see how being able to summon more spirit types disrupts any balance.
Your logic here is flawed. If you give a class / a char more options, no matter what they are, you make them stronger. More options = more power. Even if you give them the option to take a meta magic which inflicts 7 unresisted physical dmg on them self and 1 physical dmg on the target. It would be a crappy meta magic, but by letting them choose to take it the class gets a little little bit more powerful.
If a mage can choose for a little karma his spirits he is much more powerfull.
Right now logik caster have by comparison the advantage of good spirits. If everyone can get them, this is not much of an advantage (it's 13 karma or whatever you would like a new spirit to coast worth, and the disadvantage they have is much bigger then 13 karma). You have to compare the diffrent caster typs. They all have advantages and disadvantages. If you take the disadvantage (beeing limited to some spirits) away, you make one class in comparison more stronger. If one class gets stronger, in comparison the other class gets weaker.
-
I repeat give me hard examples of this if you want to convince me. I'm willing to reasses my position but if all I get is "You disrupt balance" I don't buy it I need examples of how exactly it does that if I can't see them or I don't see any reason to accept that there really is a problem.
-
I repeat give me hard examples of this if you want to convince me. I'm willing to reasses my position but if all I get is "You disrupt balance" I don't buy it I need examples of how exactly it does that if I can't see them or I don't see any reason to accept that there really is a problem.
I gave you some.(more options -> more power, nullifying the disadvantages of char/int caster in comparison to log castern). If you don't want to see them, it's fine.
I don't know what hard examples you want or what part you don't understand. In which point do you disagree?
-
Just make your houserule and be done with it. Your table, your rules. We don't have to prove anything to you.
-
Your logic here is flawed. If you give a class / a char more options, no matter what they are, you make them stronger. More options = more power. Even if you give them the option to take a meta magic which inflicts 7 unresisted physical dmg on them self and 1 physical dmg on the target. It would be a crappy meta magic, but by letting them choose to take it the class gets a little little bit more powerful.
I can't agree with that. you have to look at the opportunity cost, too. The character has to use that crappy metamagic instead of getting something else for his karma.
-
agreed
Just make your houserule and be done with it. Your table, your rules. We don't have to prove anything to you.
-
Your logic here is flawed. If you give a class / a char more options, no matter what they are, you make them stronger. More options = more power. Even if you give them the option to take a meta magic which inflicts 7 unresisted physical dmg on them self and 1 physical dmg on the target. It would be a crappy meta magic, but by letting them choose to take it the class gets a little little bit more powerful.
I can't agree with that. you have to look at the opportunity cost, too. The character has to use that crappy metamagic instead of getting something else for his karma.
No, that's the diferents between having the option to choose it or the requirement. If you rule that he has to take a crapy metamagic then it could be a disadvantage. But having the option is a benefit. Options are always an advantage, because you can choose not to take them, so they can't be a disadvantage.
-
An option is neutral if no-one would ever take it. It's neither advantage nor disadvantage. But I'm just arguing semantics, let's end this branch of the discussion.
-
You've said how you think it disrupts balance (more options = more power) but I can't see it doing so here. I'm asking for an actual example of how introducing this would interrupt game play. For example.
All mage spells do 5 times more damage and can't be resisted by normal armour as a houserule.
You can then point out this will disrupt balance because it invalidates the street sam as a fighter since the mage just firebolts everything, and opposing mages fireball and kill entire parties if they don't have a counter caster.
There's an visible way in which that rule would heavily disrupt the balance of the game, here on the other hand I can't see how adding the option to spend 13 karma plus to gain an extra spirit type is going to heavily disrupt anything. I'm asking for that, an example of how this could actually disrupt things since I can't see any.
-
More options give you the possibilty to customize your character to u needs. You can make more synergies and combination which could be really strong. How strong an additional option is depends on the option and the settings. If you know your GM really likes to give all his npc's a strong fear of Plant spirits for example the possibilty to summon a plant spirit (no matter what the karma coast are) would be really strong. It's just an example and a really unlikely too.
But let's take the christian theurgy. The drain stats will + char are really strong. imho (other can disagree) Fire elemntar for combat is kinda ok, Earth for illusion and Guidance of manipulation are meeeeh...
The christian theurgy got the advantage of strong drain stats, but the disadvantage of not the best spirits.
Let's compare that to the zoroastrian. The drain stat will + log ist the worsed (as explained before). But they got the Spirit of Man for Combat. Spirit of man is imho the strongest Spirit you can get for combat. It can cast fireball/manaball and so on. So you basically double your damage output.
The zoroastrian got the advantage of a really strong spirit and the disadvantage of a kinda useless drain attribut.
Both got a big advantage and disadvante over the other. If you rule, the christian theurg can take the Spirit of Man too, for let's say 20 Karma, the whole advantage of the zoroastrian would be gone. And 20 karma is not the worth of the crappy drain attribut. To compensate the zoroastrian you should make a list with skills linked to logic and charisma and coun't the dices the charisma caster has more on usefull skills from his attribut. Then add a value for the possibility for the christian to select elf and get +2 drain attribut (with centering it's like 2 ranks of initiant). And know you have 2 balanced traditions but a huge huge mess of houserules too. Now you have to do that for all the other traditions.
Right now the traditions aren't perfect balanced (but this is kinda impossible), but i think the authors did an ok job and put a lot of thinking in it.
So far for the balancing between magical traditions. Now lets take a look on the balancing between other classes.
Mages are the most flexible class in the game. They only use one skill for all spells, a sam needs for shooting diffrent weapons alone 3 or more diffrent skills. A mage does all that better and much much more with just one.
Beside sorcery they got a second really really strong skill, imho more powerfull then any other skill (except sorcery) in the game: summoning. Spirits and spirit powers a really strong (you can't defend vs spirit powers with more then your stats, no equipment, no ki, no cyberware, nothing). But they a restricted to 5 spirits and theire spirit powers. A mage can't have all the cool spirits/spirit powers. It's the same as a sam can't have all the cool cyberware, he is limited by his essence. Why should a mage have the possibilty to buy of for 20 Karma this limitation and a sam not to buy more essence for 20 karma? I know this is a bad example, but bad example are sometimes the best to show a point.
Mages are the most flexible class in the game. This is the biggest advantage of a mage over a sam/rigger/hacker/ki, they only need one skill and can buy all the diffrent spells for only 5 karma. They have theire toolkit at hand all the time. What could be the intention to give this swiss knife 5 more tools? You only would increase the distance to the other classes.
Karma cost raise with the game and you would come to one point where you have to choose raising Spellcasting from 9 to 10 for 20 Karma or get for the same karma the access to a spirit with his own initiative, which can cast the same spells like you. Which option would be more powerfull? 1/3 of a hit in your spellcasting test or 3-4 additional manaballs per turn? The higher you scale, the more powerfull the buying of a spirit of man would become. Not only would the raising of your skill cost more even more, the spirit will be stronger too (because later you summon higher spirits). And it's not only spirit of man, there are a lot of really other good spirit powers to, they are worth more then a little karma. The possibilty to summon exact the spirit for the task ahead of you with the perfect spirit power for this situation would be a really really strong advantage and worth a lot more then 20-50 karma.
-
I still don't see how the spirits work that well when as said before you have an air spirit for healing that can't heal.
That said ok I see your points there on the spirits affecting things although when your talking about a character with 9 in a skill is it really a game where a spirit will make that much of a difference (I can see it at lower levels). Given this how would you feel about allowing access to the other spirit types if they were assigned what people feels is a bad/worst function e.g. air for healing or man for detection? In games where those divisions are dropped it doesn't matter, i games where they aren't your preventing someone taking man as a combat spirit?
EDIT
By the way Lucean this is why I make these threads I have my opinions and yes in the end I will decide what is and isn't in my game but I freely admit I'm a fairly inexperienced GM and even less used to Shadowrun so I prefer to hear what more experienced people think. I may disagree, I may decide to do what I intended to begin with or I may adjust or even drop it. Take living's post I'm a bit doubtful but thanks to his actual examples I can see things I'd missed originally.
-
Ok.
First, you keep referring to an ability NO SPIRIT has. There is no Spirit that can "Heal" you.*
Why?
Because, NO spirit has a "Heal Other" power. And NO Spirit has Spellcasting/sorcery as a skill*
*The Sole exception to this is a Spirit of Man, But a Spirit of Man can only cast spells that YOU know. So, for the Spirit of Man to heal you, you must know a healing spell.
-
Which is my point I was just using spirit of air as an example. Essentially any spirit other than a spirit of man (if you know the healing spirit) is completely and utterly a waste of space as a healing spirit because they can't heal you.
-
Which is my point I was just using spirit of air as an example. Essentially any spirit other than a spirit of man (if you know the healing spirit) is completely and utterly a waste of space as a healing spirit because they can't heal you.
Which is why every GM I've ever played with either ignores it, or doesn't take it quite so literally.
-
And neither can a Spirit of Man unless you, yourself have the healing spell. (which is not a guarantee).
For the spirit of Man to be able to cast, you also have to summon him at a correct level of Force for this to even be an issue. (Force 3+)
So that is a lot of IFs for "Spirit of Man" as "Healing" spirits (which isn't even a category of spirit in SR, it's "Health", as in ALL the health spells)
But, they and any other health spirit can do, is Aid sorcery to augment you casting of a health spell (ANY health spell).
Which, BTW the is all any spirit of any class can do..
Fire spirits don't cast fireballs (no sorcery skill remember); But they do have elemental attack (which is NOT to be confused with fireball!)
And this seems to be a large problem with many people. They automatically look and see that no Spirit can cast spells and go "WTF, this has to be wrong" When it's not. Many people ascribe abilities to spirits that they just don't have, sometimes they do this flippantly (like when some people say: "And the fire spirit just fire balls them")
Spirits, while very powerful, are also very limited.
An Unbound Spirit can only do the following things:
Combat
POWER use
PHYSICAL task
Remote Service
A Bound spirit can all of that, plus the following:
AID alchemcy, sorcery, or study in it's sphere of influence. So a shaman could summon a spirit of Water, and get is aids in casting any Dectection spells the shaman may have and want to cast. BUT the spirit itself can not cast a single spell.
Sustain a Spell YOU have cast and initially taken drain for, and only for (FORCE) turns
Bind a spell for (FORCE) days, but the spirit loses 1 rank of Force per day...
And lastly; You're Meta-Gaming. All you are doing to looking at a stat block of numbers and saying "WTF this is Wrong" with out looking at the traditions and the spirits on the whole of what they are. Which is a metrophical outlook of life.
Take a look at Shamanic Tradition and their spirits. They all make sense in the Shamanic sense of the "power elements" and the categories of Magic.
Violence and Combat under Beast Spirits (like Bear, or Wolverine, Or Shark, Or....)
Health, welfare and nuturment in Earth (the Mountain, the Forest, the Spring, the Brooke)
Manipulation in Spirits of Man (Lying, Cheating, Greed, Lust, Rage, Contempt)
Dectection in Water Spirits (Purity, Truth, Washing away the lies)
Illusion in Air Spirits (whispers, half truths, Fog)
but have said before. do as you will.
-
And yet people are using that to say this proposal is broken ::) make of it what you will.
I'm not actually looking at the mechanics at all what got me thinking about this is that I like a shinto tradition mage and from a spirit standpoint guidance spirits, guardian spirits and earth spirits are a HUGE part of that tradition as I see it. Fire and manipulation less so but even there as I said there are situations where they would apply.
Honestly this thread has taken me a long way from allowing a metamagic to add a spirit type to just blanket allowing all normal spirits for all traditions. If that upsets your logic vs charisma tradition balance so badly you wont play logic traditions well honestly I don't think you'd have played them in the first place.
-
@Senko
Sounds good to me. Metamagic to gain access to another spirit type (non-blood/non-toxic/non-insect, etc.)
But I also take the far less limited interpretation of traditions' spell-spirit pairing.
I base my use from:
"[the tradition's listed pairings indicates] which types of spirits and spirit powers they might be likely to call upon in particular situations." (SR5, pg 279, emphasis mine.)
"You can summon spirits of your tradition." (SR5, pg 300.)
"You can only choose a spirit of a type available to your tradition - most traditions have five types to choose from." (SR5, pg 300, other than force, no other restrictions listed in Step 1 of summoning.)
"The nature of the services the spirit can provide depends on the type of spirit and its Force and powers (Spirit Services, p 302)." (SR5, pg 300. By "type" of spirit, I read as Air or Earth, meaning a summoner cannot command a Water Spirit to use a fire-based Elemental Attack.)
"The services a spirit can perform are based on whether or not it's bound to you." (SR5, pg 302, no mention of traditions' themes affecting services.)
Coupled with what Reaver aptly said, that traditions are "a metrophical outlook".
My use being: Summoners greatly prefer to summon spirits for tasks that match their traditions outlook (and cannot summon spirit types not listed in their tradition). So a mage ("Followers of the hermetic tradition are called mages" (SR5, pg 279)) will be most comfortable (a role-playing opportunity) in conjuring a Fire Spirit to fight for her and an Air Spirit to search a building for a missing person but is, game-mechanically, able to conjure an Air Spirit to fight for her or a fire spirit to search a burning building for a missing person.
Hehe, I was ready to rant that it's rather silly if a mage ("Followers of the hermetic tradition are called mages" (SR5, pg 279)) could only summon Fire Spirits to fight for them specifically, and that magicians in general are bound (Ha!FragginHa!) to only one type to summon to fight for them, but as I was building my case I turned to Street Grimoire which states:
"Mages of that particular tradition may only summon the spirits listed with the tradition, and they are restricted in the tasks they can assign them. Assigning tasks outside the general area of their tradition will not receive a response from the spirit (for example, a Buddhist mage telling an air spirit to heal him will get no response, as air is a Combat spirit in that tradition, while the Health spirit is earth)." (SG, pg 41.)
But that bit is so full of silliness (only hermetics ("mages")? A Buddhist that's a hermetic magician or a Buddhist-tradition magician? Air Spirit heal him with what? Concealment or Guard? Or use Accident to trip them into the hospital gurney?) that I am treating it as written while under the influence of a spirit's confusion power and keeping with my original interpretation.
But I heavily adhere to the limitation of five base types per tradition as part of they way to define, especially for role-playing aspects, the tradition.
And using a metamagic "expanded summoning" to gain access to another spirit type sounds reasonable to me especially if the new type is tied into the existing tradition of the magician. For example, through initiation the mage is able to see how Guardian Spirits are a manipulation of one's enemies' weaknesses (and is then linked to manipulation for the mage, along with Earth Spirits), or the shaman sees that from the earth grow the medicinal and nurturing plants and thus link Plant Spirits with Health (also along with Earth Spirits).
-
I rather like that interpretation over the books version myself.
EDIT
You know thinking about it this would make a rather nice metamagic for invoking.
Initiate into the invoking school and then you can take
1) The summon greater spirit ritual.
2) The summon ally spirit ritual.
3) Advanced Summoning: By studying other traditions you have learn to summon spirits of a type other than that normally used by your tradition. When taking this select a normal spirit type not normally available to your school (list of normal spirit types, probably some mention of examples of non normal). Additionally you can add other normal types at a cost of 5 karma per type.
-
@Senko
[thumbs-up emoji]
Though I prefer:
1. "Through greater understanding and awareness of your tradition you have learned..." or "Either by studying other traditions or through greater understanding of your own you have..."
2. I wouldn't use the additional for 5 Karma. Especially given my more open reading of summoning spirits via traditions. I would do "You can take Advanced Summoning multiple times as a metamagic choice upon initiating to a higher grade, learning to summon a different spirit type each time." Or at the very least increase it to 10 Karma as I feel it should cost more than learning a new spell.
-
Maybe thing is all the magic stuff seems to be 5 (spells, rituals, alchemy, power points at creation, enchanting bonuses like govi) and I really am a little leary of tieing it straight to initiation as its 10 + 3 * initate rank and that adds up fast. To get all spirit types and nothing else your looking at 13, 16, 19, 22 for a total of 70 odd karma.
-
Hm. Plus Queen, Worker, Soldier, Mother ... Blood ... what else we got? :D
-
As I said no insect, blood, shadow just the ones that are typically allowed in PC traditions.
-
*shrugs* And I suggested setting the maximum 'extra' spirits capable of being called to 1, but hey ...
... not that I haven't had 'spirit-callers' in my own games, capable of conjuring any kind of spirit ... but then, I also had higher levels (at greater expense) of mage types, too ...
-
My point was more that I think the insect spirits aren't a metamagic so far as I know so the karma cost progression could be different for them. Blood yes that's a metamgic of sacrifice and the one I propose is a generic PC metamagic for those types. However I'm not sure what the cost would be for insect summoners, or toxic for that matter. Hmmmm I suppose we can go with the assumption that it requires initiation but then we must decide whether its all insects of a type or one type. I vaguely recall something about their summoning powers coming from the queens. It was obvious from the emoticon you were just making a good natured joke I was merely pointing out if your interested in calculation karma costs to gain those it'll be higher than just initiating I think.
Although that is a bit of a scary thought imagine facing a greater, toxic. blood spirit.
EDIT
On looking over toxic spirits I see they get to choose their own spirit types rather than getting ones appropriate to their specific tradition (doom, plague etc) and no roles.