[living]

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?

[Lucean]

Just make your houserule and be done with it. Your table, your rules. We don't have to prove anything to you.

[prionic6]

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.

[adzling]

agreed

Just make your houserule and be done with it. Your table, your rules. We don't have to prove anything to you.

[living]

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.

[prionic6]

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.

[Senko]

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.

[living]

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.

[Senko]

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.

[Reaver]

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.

[Senko]

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.

[8-bit]

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.

[Reaver]

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.

[Senko]

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.

[Fizzygoo]

@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).