Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Character creation and critique => Topic started by: zarzak on <04-17-12/0051:25>
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I was wondering - what are considered 'good' possession traditions, and what are considered 'bad' possession traditions?
For example: Voodoo uses willpower+charisma (charisma being useful for binding more spirits). Does this make it a 'good' tradition? Conversely Qabbalistic uses willpower+logic (logic not being so useful for binding). Does this make it a 'bad' tradition?
Or should one base it off of what spirits the tradition has access to? If so - what are considered good spirits for possessing things (or should it be looked at as 'what is a good combat spirit' vs 'what is a good sneaky spirit' etc).
Sorry if these are newbish questions - I spent some time digging around for answers but couldn't find anything too useful.
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the best (meaning GM will hate you most) is voodoo, because it has guardian spirits. You can give them any weapon skill and build your sown small army of possessed gangers.
second most useful are those with Task spirit, because they basically work like magically skillwires. Need to run away? summon task spirit with Running skill and be possessed, etc.
otherwise, I don't think there are "bad" and "good" traditions anyways. Some are just harder to play roleplaywise.
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you can also be an elf and get more charisma as voodoo
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So the possession options are:
Qabbalistic:
Air, Earth, Fire Water, Task, Willpower + Logic
Hedge Witchcraft:
Earth, Water, Plant, Air, Task, Willpower + Intuition
Voodoo:
Guardian, Water, Man, Guidance, Task, Willpower + Charisma
Egyptian:
Fire, Earth, Air, Guidance, Water, Willpower + Intuition
Rastafarian:
Man, Beast, Plant, Water, Guide, Willpower + Intuition
Psionic:
Fire, Air, Man, Guide, Task, Willpower + Intuition
So this means that Voodoo is by far the best (guardian and task spirits + charisma), whereas qabbalistic, hedge and psionic are distant seconds (only task and logic or intuition)?
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there are three more in Digital Grimoire (Egyptian, Psionic, Rhastafarian)
Also, Voodoo being the best mechanics-wise, it will mean, your GM will hate you and NPCs will think you're responsible for shedim, so they will hate you, too. :)
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there are three more in Digital Grimoire (Egyptian, Psionic, Rhastafarian)
Also, Voodoo being the best mechanics-wise, it will mean, your GM will hate you and NPCs will think you're responsible for shedim, so they will hate you, too. :)
Cool, thanks. Updated the list then. :)
Still nothing anywhere near as good as voodoo, I guess.
Thats too bad ... Voodoo is definitely on the lower half of the interest list of that bunch of traditions for me.
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Then you shouldn't pic it. A character isn't all about power but also roleplaying.
I know you can get both but sometimes taking a less that optimum road can be as fun, and you should big a tradition you will fell good playing.
Rasmus
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It's not really accurate to say Voodoo is the best. Voodoo is the best of the Charisma traditions, but that's by default. There are good reasons to be a Charisma possession mage, but that's hardly the only useful type of possession mage.
Generally speaking, each type has their advantages:
Charisma: being an Elf, more bound spirits (very good with Possession, since low-force Bound possession spirits are still plenty dangerous).
Intuition: Other types of mages can't afford to dumpstat intuition, unless they are willing to suck at perception, assensing, and combat (since it affects Initiative), but you can be an Intuition mage and have low Logic and Charisma (probably 2 in each so you don't get GM aggro, and it's good to have 2 focus slots). Because of how Possession overwrites your mental stats, this is a good plan if you don't want to self-possess, and instead want to stick your spirits into Homonculi or corpses.
Logic: Being cybered. This one is actually potentially very, very broken, because spirits actually overwrite your magic when possessing you, and they still overwrite your Magic when you have Channeling. So you can lose Magic to cyberware that gives you buckets of drain dice and passive defenses (eg, armored cyberlimbs), and then get it back by having a big spirit possess you. Even if your GM houserules that away, it's still not a bad way to work.
Voodoo is the only Charisma possession tradition and already has great spirit selection anyways.
Likewise, Qabbala is the only Logic possession tradition. They have OK spirit selection. Task is there, which is key, because task is really great.
Intuition is where you actually have a choice.
Psionic is incredibly terrible because they have huge, huge random drawbacks - no mentor spirit (sucks), no enchanting vessels (double sucks), and vaguely worded things about how you can't learn most spells (maybe sucks). Don't do it unless you intentionally want to make a weaker possession mage. I also really hate the flavor; these guys are basically the equivalent of the Flat Earth Society.
IMO Hedge Witchcraft is the best. The reason for this is that Task is far and away the best of the "utility" type spirits, and any spirit type with Element Aura and Engulf is enormously dangerous in melee (A fire spirit in a Plasteel homonculus punches people for F+11/-half, which is crazy). Between Water, Air, and Task, they have most of the useful powers, Air is perfectly good at fighting, Earth is mostly worthless, and Plant has the niche Silence ability, and the very good Regeneration great form which allows for hilarious regenerating truck antics. No Guidance means no free Divination, and no Guardian locks out the weapon-based combat route, but really, Engulf+Element Aura is plenty dangerous.
Rastafarian is defensible. They get Guidance, which is neat, and Man, which opens up a lot of useful tricks. Man spirits are really good for Materialization, but only meh for Possession - the reason is that they will just have Force in mental attributes and skills, but can easily have crazy huge physical attributes because of how Possession works, so relying on physical combat generally works better for spirits. That said, you can still do neat things with them. The real issue is that Rastafarians don't have Task, and Task is really good and IMO worth more than Man and Guidance put together.
Egyptian is just less good spirit selection than Rastafarian. Fire/Earth/Air for Man/Beast/Plant is not at all a good trade.
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Or you can always make your own tradition to match what you want to see. There are guidelines in Street Magic for this. Coming up with a unique tradition can be a cool way to add some depth to your character, especially if you get into the philosophy of the tradition. An example of a homemade tradition would be the Swordmage, which I created, and can be viewed here (http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=5689.0). I'll admit that I created it after watching Hero and Kill Bill a few too many times, but inspiration comes from everywhere.
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Making my own tradition is a good idea .. except that I'm not very creative. Might to do so, though. :P
Umaro - that is very clever with the logic based tradition. That actually sounds really appealing to me (mostly from a flavor standpoint - I'm Jewish and so can think of some fun ways to play a cybered Kabbalah mage). Why couldn't you also do that with an intuition based one though (I'm just curious)?
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Making my own tradition is a good idea .. except that I'm not very creative. Might to do so, though. :P
Umaro - that is very clever with the logic based tradition. That actually sounds really appealing to me (mostly from a flavor standpoint - I'm Jewish and so can think of some fun ways to play a cybered Kabbalah mage). Why couldn't you also do that with an intuition based one though (I'm just curious)?
You can do the same tactic as an intuition based tradition. The big reason to do it as a logic tradition is that you can buy bonuses to Logic at the store with Cerebral Boosters. It's more of a synergy thing than "only X can do this" thing.
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Yep, it's that there's no Intuition equivalent to Cerebral Boosters.
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Yep, it's that there's no Intuition equivalent to Cerebral Boosters.
Or Charisma!
There's Empathy Software, sure, but that doesn't help with Drain. ;)
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Ah ha! Gotcha. :)
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The only good possession tradition is a dead possession tradition. >:(
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Depending on your group's gaming style finding teachers and formulae for exotic or self made traditions may be difficult. A voodoo mage might not have problems finding that in a New Orleans based campaign but Seattle might turn out to be a hard place for any houngan.
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Depending on your group's gaming style finding teachers and formulae for exotic or self made traditions may be difficult. A voodoo mage might not have problems finding that in a New Orleans based campaign but Seattle might turn out to be a hard place for any houngan.
That's what the Matrix is for. WhoDoDatVoodoo.net is only a click/tap/thought away, no matter where you are. ;D
And no, I haven't put that in a browser to see if it actually goes anywhere.
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Depending on your group's gaming style finding teachers and formulae for exotic or self made traditions may be difficult. A voodoo mage might not have problems finding that in a New Orleans based campaign but Seattle might turn out to be a hard place for any houngan.
That's what the Matrix is for. WhoDoDatVoodoo.net is only a click/tap/thought away, no matter where you are. ;D
And no, I haven't put that in a browser to see if it actually goes anywhere.
It don't 8)
Rasmus
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mega chicken but he is myth
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Out of curiosity does anyone have a good Voodoo example build to use ? If my GM ever decides to allow that kind of stuff into the game I wouldn't mind playing the necro face of the group haha :D
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The Spirit Medium (https://docs.google.com/document/d/19_Z7dkjuhbeEneNPtTzjoGexmH0dDFsWCO6CVppVYgc/edit) archetype is not too far off. I'd probably cut Stunball and Laser, drop 2 intuition, add Binding 4, Enchanting 1, and specialize Summoning/Binding/Enchanting in Guardian/Guardian/Vessel Preperation. (Intuition is less important on a Possession mage because it gets overwritten for Initiative purposes when possessed, as are combat spells because possession gives you so many other ways to fight; having Stunbolt is probably still a good choice, though).