Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: df_0 on <04-13-16/2045:43>
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I'm going to be running the finale of our campaign and it will inevitably end with the players against the BBEG. One of the players has expressed interest in summoning a force 12 spirit. I've told the summoners that if they attempted to summon a spirit over 3/4 of their magic rating (so for MAG of 6, this would be 9+), the spirits would resist being summoned by using edge (houserule from somewhere, spirits are OP enough the way they are).
Anyways, since they know this they just want to burn edge via smackdown (auto-succeeds an action with 4 net hits (SR5, pg 57)) and then with their Spirit Affinity quality, have 5 services of a F12 spirit.
I really don't want the summoner to do this because spirits are pretty OP and it will overshadow basically all the group members. They are also burning edge because it is the last game of this campaign, so they really don't care about repercussions. They are burning a point of edge, so I guess that is a pretty big cost to their character, but I feel they really don't care about the cost since it is the finale or the other players.
Any advice? Have the spirit counter-burn edge? Let it happen and just add a counter to attempt to take it out by the BBEG?
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Huh, I've never considered what happens if a character uses Smackdown in an opposed test. A success test is straightforward enough, but if the test is opposed wouldn't that just mean that they'd have to roll and compare hits like normal?
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My thoughts (YMMV):
1. "[Player] expressed interest in summon a force 12 spirit": cool.
2.a "I've told the [players] that if they attempted to summon a spirit over 3/4 their magic rating...the spirits would resist being summoned by using edge": House rule that the players are aware of so...cool.
2.b. (nitpicking): "over 3/4 magic rating" means over 75% of their magic rating, so rating 6 magic, 75% equals 4.5. But even in the way you seem to intend, as in (3/4 magic)+magic, that would be 10.5. Where Magic rating plus 1/2 Magic rating, or Magic * 1.5, would give you the 9 you use in the example.
3. Burn edge with smackdown...okay...but Spirit still gets its roll. Even if you go super-nice GM and just assume that smackdown gives auto 4 successes and ignores opposed test rolls (which I wouldn't suggest), the spirit still gets to roll it's 12 dice (so you can multiply the hits it gets by 2 in order to return the smackdown favor in the form of physical drain on the summoner). So - cool.
4. No GM wants the players to do these things that kill the BBEG. But they do. Learn to love them for it (as long as they're playing by the rules).
5. Yeah, if you've got them burning edge then you have them scared which, as a GM, is what you should be doing. If they sweat and burn edge and gnash their teeth and pull their hair during the final battle then you've done good. :)
6. The final advice: Play in the rules. If the players go out of their way, burn edge, and summon a force 12 spirit and they survive the summoning attempt...don't crush that unfairly. Don't arbitrarily add in magical abilities/resources for the BBEG after the PCs have done their legwork (and therefor should have had a chance to discover those abilities/resources). If you design a BBEG that underestimates the players' force 12 capabilities...then the next BBEG probably won't, but this BBEG will have to get clever and devious and nasty in order to survive. -kind of stuff-like adivces.
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Let it happen and just add a counter to attempt to take it out by the BBEG?
This is what I'd do, personally. Not saying I advocate that course of action, necessarily, just saying this is where my instincts take me.
Your player is definitely gaming the system a little bit, and I could get how you're annoyed. From their perspective, though, they're probably looking at it like pulling out all the stops and giving their character a nice finale. The fact that this is the last session of a campaign kind of changes things. You're going to be retiring the campaign, but your players are also going to be hanging up their characters. It's only natural to want to go out with out a bang, maybe have a cool story you can tell people later. Your player had the good sense to not try this trick earlier... he or she has been aware of it but was holding back in order to not to completely throw off the power level of the game. Now that it's time for the grand finale, your summoner is naturally going to want to go for a big finish. What's the harm in letting them do that, really?
If I were you, I'd probably tell the player, "Yeah, sure. And you can even keep your Edge." Then I'd work with the other players and each give them some special bonus for this, their last run. Maybe the street samurai gets a special pass to a delta lab and gets a piece of high-Availability cyberware for free. The decker gets a new and improved deck, the adept gets a crazy weapon Focus, and so on.
Naturally, you'll want to scale up the last run and make it more challenging to account for all this new firepower. But it's your finale, man! Why not let your players break out all the best toys before you put them back in the box forever?
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3. Burn edge with smackdown...okay...but Spirit still gets its roll. Even if you go super-nice GM and just assume that smackdown gives auto 4 successes and ignores opposed test rolls (which I wouldn't suggest), the spirit still gets to roll it's 12 dice (so you can multiply the hits it gets by 2 in order to return the smackdown favor in the form of physical drain on the summoner). So - cool.
Um... Smackdown is pretty clear in that the character automatically succeeds with 4 net hits. Not 4 hits, 4 "net" hits. As in 4 more than the target. So no, RAW, the spirit wouldn't get to make its opposed roll. Or, more accurately for purposes of this particular example... let the spirit roll to determine the drain inflicted, but the Shaman would still net 5 services regardless of the result. Unless of course the result is a dead Shaman.
Letting your player burn Edge, and then turning around and flat-out ignoring the benefit of burning said Edge is a pretty lousy thing to do.
But you do have a point... while Smackdown lets you get the fancy Force 12 spirit and the services, the poor bastard is still going to have survive all that Drain.
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Um... Smackdown is pretty clear in that the character automatically succeeds with 4 net hits. Not 4 hits, 4 "net" hits. As in 4 more than the target. So no, RAW, the spirit wouldn't get to make its opposed roll. Or, more accurately for purposes of this particular example... let the spirit roll to determine the drain inflicted, but the Shaman would still net 5 services regardless of the result. Unless of course the result is a dead Shaman.
Letting your player burn Edge, and then turning around and flat-out ignoring the benefit of burning said Edge is a pretty lousy thing to do.
But you do have a point... while Smackdown lets you get the fancy Force 12 spirit and the services, the poor bastard is still going to have survive all that Drain.
I was too quick to re-read Smackdown and was wrong in that quoted statement, specifically "which I wouldn't suggest." I agree with the RAW and I would roll the opposed dice to determine drain.
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Yeah, sorry I was snippy. I completely forgot about the Drain consequences of this Shaman's choice, so I can understand being fuzzy on the rules. They're a beast.
By the way, I'm pretty sure you can't use Smackdown for Drain. Drain isn't an "action," chummer. So there's going to be some risk involved, either way. A lot actually.
Really, Fizzygoo and I are in agreement that you should just let the player do it. If you roll it out on the table, there's a non-negligible chance that his summoner will blow his brains out with Physical Drain, which would just be hilarious, so that plus permanently burning a point of Edge? I say let them have it. If it works, they kind of earned it.
You can remove the risk and just hand them a F12 spirit, as well as some goodies to the other players, too. That would be the "nice guy" GM option. Again, it's the end of the campaign and I don't see the harm in letting them dye their mohawks pink, but YMMV.
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If you roll it out on the table, there's a non-negligible chance that his summoner will blow his brains out with Physical Drain, which would just be hilarious, so that plus permanently burning a point of Edge?
Hehe, exactly. Somewhere between 2-24 Physical Drain and if the summoner falls unconscious or dies...the summoning still succeeded so GM has the option for a force 12 free spirit that decides to attack the dead/dying summoner, the summoner's team, the BBEG, everyone, no one, etc. :D
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You could always rule that the spirit also burns a point of edge.....
that ends up with a tie.... and not an outright success for the mage.
(Note: This is a dick move IMO, but valid for when some players try to do such "game breaking"* actions)
*Game Breaking depends on your table. At mine, a Force 12 spirit, while nothing to laugh at, is not actually that out of place.....
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If your BBEG isn't a threat at a level where they have something to throw against Godzilla, they're probably not enough of a threat. The big, huge, final, ultimate battle of ultimate destiny is the time to pull out all the stops. And that means crazy stuff like this. Smackdowns are for the big stuff.
However, do keep in mind the limitations. There are either two or four rolls involved, here.
First, the summoning roll. Player burns edge to smackdown, sure. However, the spirit still throws dice to determine drain, as stated above. 12 dice, +6 for edge, with exploding 6's. Average of 6 off the initial roll, and another 1 and change off the explosions. Probably looking at something in the 6-8 range for successes. That's 12-16P drain.
Second, the player has to resist that drain. They probably won't die. If they're smart, they're going to have a sustained Increase Attribute spell on them from some source or another to give them +8 dice to drain. However, that is a serious wound. Going in like that is suicide, and that damage can only be healed by resting. However, come sunrise or sunset (read: not enough time to heal ANY of that drain), that spirit is gone. They can armchair it, send the spirit in with the team to do their cut of the work. They can go with the team despite the severe internal hemorrhaging and then die in short order leaving the spirit masterless. Or...
Third! They roll binding to actually have that spirit at their disposal for any appreciable amount of time. Spend three hundred drams, light enough incense to choke an elephant, and the spirit rolls double their force. In this case, the math makes more sense for the spirit to post-edge, so on average, we're looking at 24 dice, average of 8 successes, with 16 failures. Reroll. Average of 5-6 successes. Total of 13-15 ish. Which means...
Fourth! If we're talking 15 successes, we're talking about resisting 30P drain. That will kill your player on any natural roll, unless they are incredibly lucky and get many explosions spending edge. Not might. Will. And even if they somehow survive, they have a long, vulnerable recovery time ahead of them while waiting to besiege the BBEG. Which means the BBEG has time to make a move.
Realistically? If they're burning edge to summon this spirit, the most practical option is to burn edge on the drain so they're fresh for the fight, leaving them vulnerable to the dawn, should the BBEG have a good stall tactic handy.
Also, force 12? If this is the final game of the campaign... hasn't the mage initiated and boosted magic? I would expect 14 or 16.
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If you go with the rule that burning edge means net hits and therefore the spirit gets a roll and therefore a lot of potential drain, inform your player up front about this (even if it's just by rereading the rule and placing emphasis on the net in net hits). That way the player is aware of the consequences. Of course just handwaiving it and giving some goodies to the other characters might also help to keep the balance. A last fight can be epic so there's no problem giving them some extras and then upping the bad guys.
Our gm always gave us just about anything we asked and could explain, but he would make note and then use it against us.
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As I recall, in the Arcology podcast's actual play, an enemy blood mage really hated the runner team after they ruined his life, and this NPC burned edge to summon a force 12 great form blood spirit before gathering all the resources he had left to raid the PCs' safehouse.
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If he is burning edge, I can't understand the problem. He's using up a get out of death card for 5 tasks. I would happily trade a f12 spirit to not die, and with up to 24 drain, he may have to burn another point in order to survive his first burned edge. Seems like magic has the built in equalizer of drain.
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Also please keep us posted on how this final battle goes df.
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While this is kind of ruining your big fight that you put work into.....
He is burning a lot to do this.
At a "Minimum" he's flat out loosing 10 to 40 Karma depending on his current Karma level.
He's also probably spending a 2nd point of edge just to help resist the drain.
Assuming a "near Max" Elf Cha Summoner with 5 Will, 8 Cha, 2 Attr boosts = 21 Dice = 7 Hits
Burn Edge to Reroll 14 = 5 ish more hits.
So he can still go on the run with 0-4 physical damage on average.
I think I'd drop down to maybe a F8 Spirit & just spend the 2 points of edge, get 2-3 services & go into the fight with a powerful spirit v/s a godly one.
Saves you that 10-40 Karma & the Physical Damage.
And doesn't upset the well made final battle.
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Definitely roll the spirit's dice to resist, using your house rule, in order to compute drain; then absolutely make him roll drain. Because you see - if the drain knocks him out, the spirit goes free. And then instead of having a kickass F12 spirit to stomp BBEG, they may be a) down one mage, and b) be facing a F12 spirit who wants nothing more than to turn Yon Unconscious Mage into paste, along with all his buddies.
Yay!
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That said, one fun dead man's trigger is not to burn edge to stay alive, but to burn edge to smackdown summon the biggest, meanest water elemental you can, with a fire elemental aura, so that it's constantly furious and is inclined to murder everything around it in a mad flail without your prompting.
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That said, one fun dead man's trigger is not to burn edge to stay alive, but to burn edge to smackdown summon the biggest, meanest water elemental you can, with a fire elemental aura, so that it's constantly furious and is inclined to murder everything around it in a mad flail without your prompting.
;D
This man has the right spirit!
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I doubt his teammates would agree, as they would also be targeted. :-\
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First, the summoning roll. Player burns edge to smackdown, sure. However, the spirit still throws dice to determine drain, as stated above. 12 dice, +6 for edge, with exploding 6's.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought a spirit's edge equaled either the summoner's edge, or in the case of a free spirit the Spirit Force.
Granted the character could have a edge of six, so you may be right in that situation.
Other than that yes 18 dice to resist summoning with exploding sixes, I'll take those numbers any day of the week when somebody is burning edge on a spirit. Especially since that will be physical drain. Let them roll.
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Don't care what certain parties on these boards say. Edging the spirit's summon or bind resistance rolls is intentionally trying to kill character(s). That is not the sign of a good GM.
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The warning is up front.
It's not there to kill players. It's there to discourage pushing spirits beyond a certain point, and is only used when you're going beyond... I think OP said force 6.
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Purely going by the books (pg. 304 of the core rules), summoned or bound spirits either don't have Edge, or never use it. Considering how high normal summoning Drain can get when you are summoning high-Force spirits, giving them Edge on top of that seems a bit much.
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Bound/summoned spirits have edge. They just don't use it on behalf of their summoner.
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Glyph and Blue Rose may both be correct, as the rules are as vague as ever :D
Summoned and bound spirits don’t have their own Edge pools (or if they do, they don’t use them).
Of course, on pages 303 and 304 all spirit types are listed as having an EDG attribute of F/2, so... yeah.
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Glyph and Blue Rose may both be correct, as the rules are as vague as ever :D
Summoned and bound spirits don’t have their own Edge pools (or if they do, they don’t use them).
Of course, on pages 303 and 304 all spirit types are listed as having an EDG attribute of F/2, so... yeah.
Not vague at all.
The rules say that summoned and bound spirits don't have Edge of their own, so that means that the Edge rating listed on those other pages is for Free Spirits only.
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Is a spirit you are summoning really a summoned spirit until you've succeeded at summoning it?
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Is a spirit you are summoning really a summoned spirit until you've succeeded at summoning it?
What came first?
The Chicken? Or the Egg?
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Glyph and Blue Rose may both be correct, as the rules are as vague as ever :D
Summoned and bound spirits don’t have their own Edge pools (or if they do, they don’t use them).
Of course, on pages 303 and 304 all spirit types are listed as having an EDG attribute of F/2, so... yeah.
Not vague at all.
The rules say that summoned and bound spirits don't have Edge of their own, so that means that the Edge rating listed on those other pages is for Free Spirits only.
No, the rules say that Summoned Spirits might have edge, but if they do they never use it on behalf of the summoner.
The house rule that spirits could potentially spend edge to resist being summoned is not a new one. And it sounds like in the OP situation it was pre-determined long before that endgame scenario that sufficiently high force spirits will pre-edge to resist being summoned. Presumably this is done as a deterrent against magicians trying to over-reach their summonings.
Back in 4th edition when I played a Summoner in a missions game, I had a GM rule this way when I tried to summon a Force 9 spirit (my magician had a magic of 5) in the middle of a combat. I was quite lucky that the GM still managed to roll low on the larger die-pool and I still managed to get my spirit. But I also didn't have a problem with the decision to do that in the first place.
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I think that if it's stated up front that beyond a certain point, spirits will be using edge to resist summoning, it's not the GM trying to kill players. The player knows up front that when he tries to do this, the opposing dice pool will be bigger. If he still wants to try, well, he knows the consequences of his action.
I personally would make it a houserule that spirits use edge as soon as the force is higher than 'player's magic' or 'player's magic x1.5' instead of a fixed force, but that's my personal opinion on it.
It's another thing if you start doing it all of a sudden without warning the players or if you do it only from time to time.
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Another thing to keep in mind, if players are abusing high-Force spirits, is that a spirit's mental Attributes are based on Force, so a Force: 12 fire elemental will be a super-genius (Charisma, Logic, and Willpower of 12, and Intuition of 13). So if the services demanded by the mage displease the spirit, it should have no problem subverting the intent of those commands.
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I think that if it's stated up front that beyond a certain point, spirits will be using edge to resist summoning, it's not the GM trying to kill players. The player knows up front that when he tries to do this, the opposing dice pool will be bigger. If he still wants to try, well, he knows the consequences of his action.
I personally would make it a houserule that spirits use edge as soon as the force is higher than 'player's magic' or 'player's magic x1.5' instead of a fixed force, but that's my personal opinion on it.
It's another thing if you start doing it all of a sudden without warning the players or if you do it only from time to time.
Up front or not, it is blatantly attempting to kill the character.
The Drain value for summoning and binding is high enough without that. That Force 12 used as an example will on average generate eight! points of Drain damage (and for most characters that will be Physical rather than Stun) because average hits on 12 dice is 4 and you double that for the Drain. Sure, it's possible that they might get lucky and only have to manage absorbing 2 physical (at minimum) but they shouldn't be punished for getting lucky like that especially since they could get the opposite luck and face 24 Physical Drain.
You spend Edge on that Spirit (blatantly violating the rules of summoned spirits not having their own Edge pools) and you end up with an average Drain of 12 Physical. On a max here (though no real maximum given exploding 6s) the Drain could go anywhere from 36 Physical (or higher, again due to exploding 6s).
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I think that if it's stated up front that beyond a certain point, spirits will be using edge to resist summoning, it's not the GM trying to kill players. The player knows up front that when he tries to do this, the opposing dice pool will be bigger. If he still wants to try, well, he knows the consequences of his action.
I personally would make it a houserule that spirits use edge as soon as the force is higher than 'player's magic' or 'player's magic x1.5' instead of a fixed force, but that's my personal opinion on it.
It's another thing if you start doing it all of a sudden without warning the players or if you do it only from time to time.
Up front or not, it is blatantly attempting to kill the character.
The Drain value for summoning and binding is high enough without that. That Force 12 used as an example will on average generate eight! points of Drain damage (and for most characters that will be Physical rather than Stun) because average hits on 12 dice is 4 and you double that for the Drain. Sure, it's possible that they might get lucky and only have to manage absorbing 2 physical (at minimum) but they shouldn't be punished for getting lucky like that especially since they could get the opposite luck and face 24 Physical Drain.
You spend Edge on that Spirit (blatantly violating the rules of summoned spirits not having their own Edge pools) and you end up with an average Drain of 12 Physical. On a max here (though no real maximum given exploding 6s) the Drain could go anywhere from 36 Physical (or higher, again due to exploding 6s).
And getting hit in the face with an anti-vehicle missile while sitting in an elevator will do umpteen bajillion P.
That's why you don't want to put yourself in situations where you're getting hit in the face with an anti-vehicle missile.
There are things that, mathematically, have a chance of killing a PC. If a PC chooses to cast a force 14 lightning ball, they know full well the drain can kill them. That doesn't mean you're trying to kill the player. That means casting a force 14 lightning ball is a Big Deal that puts a massive, potentially lethal strain on the mage.
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There's also the situation to keep in mind. Does he have any relevant Qualities? I mean, I wouldn't have a summoned spirit ever spend Edge if you have Spirit Affinity for that type, as an example. Is his Spirit Index high? Is there any specific reason the spirit wouldn't want to show up for a bit to party?
Given the guy is Burning Edge because it is near the end of an entire campaign, I'd let him do this without repercussions on the Summoning besides whatever the Spirit rolls (without Edge). And in the big fight, I'd provide an excellent fight for the group, with said high Force spirit factored in. Why kill the fun (and the character in a thematically boring way) when the game is nearly over?
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There are things that, mathematically, have a chance of killing a PC. If a PC chooses to cast a force 14 lightning ball, they know full well the drain can kill them. That doesn't mean you're trying to kill the player. That means casting a force 14 lightning ball is a Big Deal that puts a massive, potentially lethal strain on the mage.
There's a difference between that Lightning Bolt's Drain than there is a blatantly antagonistic "fiat" move of having an already high Drain summon get even higher through Edging the resistance.
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There are things that, mathematically, have a chance of killing a PC. If a PC chooses to cast a force 14 lightning ball, they know full well the drain can kill them. That doesn't mean you're trying to kill the player. That means casting a force 14 lightning ball is a Big Deal that puts a massive, potentially lethal strain on the mage.
There's a difference between that Lightning Bolt's Drain than there is a blatantly antagonistic "fiat" move of having an already high Drain summon get even higher through Edging the resistance.
It's advertised up front and spirits at magic rating are already broken as frag. A force 12 spirit is capable of giving even a seasoned runner team a run for their money.
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All4BigGuns
How about you don't tell people how to play their games, and we won't tell you how to play yours
Calling a house rule that is agreed upon at a table "blatantly antagonistic" is more than a little ironic. If you don't like it, fine, say as much and move on. But if it's clear that a table has this rule, that's up to them and I for one wish you'd stop being so blatantly bombastic in your statements.
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All4BigGuns
How about you don't tell people how to play their games, and we won't tell you how to play yours
Calling a house rule that is agreed upon at a table "blatantly antagonistic" is more than a little ironic. If you don't like it, fine, say as much and move on. But if it's clear that a table has this rule, that's up to them and I for one wish you'd stop being so blatantly bombastic in your statements.
Gotta agree. Also...
"There's a difference between that Lightning Bolt's Drain than there is a blatantly antagonistic "fiat" move of having an already high Drain summon get even higher through Edging the resistance."
Leaving aside the blatantly antagonistic language used in the argument, the argument forgets something: this is not a normal situation. This is not a shadowrunner deciding to summon a Force 12 spirit as a regular part of a regular game. This is a shadowrunner deliberately planning to burn Edge, which is something that the character would probably not do, except that the character has an OOC knowledge that his world (campaign) is about to end. In other words, the character is metagaming to realize that he does not need to plan for the future any further than this next combat. Since this is not something that the character would normally do, it's quite reasonable to have the spirit ALSO do something that it would not normally do.
If the character normally summoned F12 spirits, and normally did NOT burn Edge to do so, then those spirits should normally NOT use Edge against the summons. But when the character changes his normal style because he knows that he won't need the Edge next week, then it seems reasonable that the spirits would also change their style.
If the character does semi-regularly burn Edge to summon F12 spirits, then I don't see a reason to have the spirits burn Edge... the Karma cost of re-purchasing the lost Edge will weaken the character through lost potential improvements, so it's a fair trade-off. It's only when the trade-off is unfair (the character knows that he will not need to re-purchase the Edge point since the campaign ends), that it makes sense to have the spirits act unfairly.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I believe this sidetrack has gone on long enough, and I know I have been a part of it, but it's been getting pretty scathing, so I'm going to ask something I rarely ask.
Please do not feed the parasprites.
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Parasprites? Well there's a frightening thought, a paranormal sprite!