[Shinobi Killfist]

Well, it takes 4 to reroll all failures now so every second or third round you can do it.

In a fight maybe. Out of a fight/encounter  where are you earning edge and when does the scene end. If you try to abuse it I doubt a gm lets it fly.

[Michael Chandra]

Well, it takes 4 to reroll all failures now so every second or third round you can do it.

Yeah, but then you can only summon a dangerous spirit inside combat, while getting shot at so you can score Edge. Because after combat is over, bam you're back to your Edge rating max and any excess is lost. So it takes a 4-Edge mage to be able to reliably handle a dangerous drain roll, and if you only have a 50% chance of making the summon... So no, with rerolls being more expensive, I suspect Mages will quickly learn to deploy several weaker Spirits instead of going the 'classic' Force 8+ Spirit in combat.

Note to self: Write a program that rolls 1 billion times and calculates odds for scenarios that way, or handles rolls with smart logic to calculate exact odds of services and drains... -,- The same roll impacting 2 things, services and drain, always was a pain to do with AnyDice.

Yeah, not seeing 18 f1 being a smart move. I would go for 3 f6 and call it a day :-p or maybe 3 f5 and 1 f3, or if you want to make your brain explode, 1 f8 2 f5. With the new healing rules, may actually be more beneficial to do f > magic rating if still allowed and take physical drain, have squad heal you up with medkits + magic

Question: I can't find anything indicating drain has become healable, though of course the recap-document is still incomplete. Could you tell me where you got that from?

[PiXeL01]

Drain damage has never been able to be healed in previous editions, so why should that change now?

[markelphoenix]

Drain damage has never been able to be healed in previous editions, so why should that change now?

Healing rules are completely different with 6e, which is why I said may, not will.

[dezmont]

Drain can be healed in 5e in a few ways, like slap patches and naps. 6e healing may also make drain easier to heal if they assumed the new system would cause mages to take more drain.

As to "binding was more drain so its a buff" the main point of binding was to pay drain during downtime when it was irrelevant. I have been playing 5e from launch and literally can only think of one time outside a living community scenario where downtime binding is banned when binding stun was relevant, in a survival scenario where the mage wanted to get a spirit to guard folks against arctic wind all night.

Like if you give a mage a week of downtime they can just spend 3 in game days getting up to their binding limit and be good to go for next job maxed out on spirits that will cost 0 stun to summon. Even with just a day's downtime you could get a solid 2 or 3 spirits in 5e, and eventually the GM will be forced to give some long term downtime. Of course a single pre run summon leaves more than 3 hours of naptime to shake off even a full stun track, but now you can't do that trick and have 8 spirits extra in the back pocket. Or maybe you can, depending on how easy it will be to get summoning dice to eat drain. From what I understand to take no drain from a summon requires 3 times as many hits as the spirit has, but I gotta admit the new drain rules by removing drain resist made it less intuitive for me so I may have misread it.

Of course overall spirits seem stronger. It just is interesting how losing it weakens the mage toolset (even if its offset in other ways) because of how binding makes you feel when you use it because its so clunky.

[markelphoenix]

Drain can be healed in 5e in a few ways, like slap patches and naps. 6e healing may also make drain easier to heal if they assumed the new system would cause mages to take more drain.

As to "binding was more drain so its a buff" the main point of binding was to pay drain during downtime when it was irrelevant. I have been playing 5e from launch and literally can only think of one time outside a living community scenario where downtime binding is banned when binding stun was relevant, in a survival scenario where the mage wanted to get a spirit to guard folks against arctic wind all night.

Like if you give a mage a week of downtime they can just spend 3 in game days getting up to their binding limit and be good to go for next job maxed out on spirits that will cost 0 stun to summon. Even with just a day's downtime you could get a solid 2 or 3 spirits in 5e, and eventually the GM will be forced to give some long term downtime. Of course a single pre run summon leaves more than 3 hours of naptime to shake off even a full stun track, but now you can't do that trick and have 8 spirits extra in the back pocket. Or maybe you can, depending on how easy it will be to get summoning dice to eat drain. From what I understand to take no drain from a summon requires 3 times as many hits as the spirit has, but I gotta admit the new drain rules by removing drain resist made it less intuitive for me so I may have misread it.

Of course overall spirits seem stronger. It just is interesting how losing it weakens the mage toolset (even if its offset in other ways) because of how binding makes you feel when you use it because its so clunky.

Been keeping up with the google doc that tallies all known 6e info: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZPN1-6xfGD9SV6xD85eaJIWoNq0NcsBdE3CQI8s5rJU/edit#heading=h.h701ncsxs7zi

Way I read the summon from the doc and from interviews I've watched, it's # of hits from spirit = Drain to resist. So, if you do a force 4, spirit rolls 8 dice (fx2 dice). For all the hits the spirit makes, you then have to roll your will + tradition attribute to resist. Let's say you're an elf with 5 will + 8 charisma (no special qualities that contribute to drain), 13 vs 8 is pretty solid safety net for relatively powerful summon that lasts 1 sun rise + 1 sun down.

[markelphoenix]

I am concerned about Strength as a stat. Only applies to Unarmed combat for damage, no longer provides to melee weapon damage? Did strength just become a dump stat?

[Michael Chandra]

Drain damage has never been able to be healed in previous editions, so why should that change now?

Healing rules are completely different with 6e, which is why I said may, not will.

Ah, yeah that's not how that 'may' came across, it came across as 'with X changed, the following tactic may become interesting', not as 'maybe X changed and will make the following tactic interesting'.

From what I understand to take no drain from a summon requires 3 times as many hits as the spirit has

That sounds overly dramatic. They'll be the same drain, you just can't edge it as easily due to the remake of the Edge system. And the drain will in fact be a more narrow bellcurve, due to smaller standard deviation with rolling Fx2d6 instead of (Fd6)x2. The main complications will be that it's harder to get services and that the drain will be harder to Edge against when it rolls exceptionally well. But that just serves to encourage people not to throw in massive-Force summons, so no harm done.

At 13 drain dice, a Force 4 will average 0.26 drain and a Force 6 will average 0.77 drain, with odds of 4+ drain being 5%. So a single hour nap would suffice even if a Force 6 is a pain, and several Force 4 you won't really care about.

I am concerned about Strength as a stat. Only applies to Unarmed combat for damage, no longer provides to melee weapon damage? Did strength just become a dump stat?

To me, Strength always was a dump stat. Shock weapons sufficed, even if I had to grab Indomitable to up my Physical Limit.

[Finstersang]

Multi-Summoning without Binding is the worst of the bad ideas I have heard so far. It shits right down the throat of everyone who rightfully complained about the ridicolous power level of summoning in 5E. Yes, even with the higher Drain Values.

Seriously, who wanted this?
"Gosh darnit, I wish it wouldn´t be so hard to summon an army of almost invicible combat assets that can walk through walls!"

And what the hell is even up with that Limit? Magic * 3? Are you kidding me? How do you even reach that number? That would be 18 Spirits on a Summoner with Magic 6! Or are we talking about Magic / 3 here and this is just a telephone game error? Because that would be at least somewhat reasonable.

Oh, just realized that it´s the Total Force of the Spirits. That´s still pretty strong, but at least not a totally arbitrary limit that´s impossible to reach (unless the Summoner wants to troll the table and actually goes with an army of 18 Level 1 Spirits). I still think there should also be a reasonable maximum number of Spirits. Just in case...

(And tbh, Magic*2 in total Force would have been enough. They could have added Qualities and Techniques for dedicated summoners to bring that number up...)

[markelphoenix]

Multi-Summoning without Binding is the worst of the bad ideas I have heard so far. It shits right down the throat of everyone who rightfully complained about the ridicolous power level of summoning in 5E. Yes, even with the higher Drain Values.

Seriously, who wanted this?
"Gosh darnit, I wish it wouldn´t be so hard to summon an army of almost invicible combat assets that can walk through walls!"

And what the hell is even up with that Limit? Magic * 3? Are you kidding me? How do you even reach that number? That would be 18 Spirits on a Summoner with Magic 6! Or are we talking about Magic / 3 here and this is just a telephone game error? Because that would be at least somewhat reasonable.

Oh, just realized that it´s the Total Force of the Spirits. That´s still pretty strong, but at least not a totally arbitrary limit that´s impossible to reach (unless the Summoner wants to troll the table and actually goes with an army of 18 Level 1 Spirits). I still think there should also be a reasonable maximum number of Spirits. Just in case...

(And tbh, Magic*2 in total Force would have been enough. They could have added Qualities for dedicated summoners to bring that number up...)

I kind of want to look at spirit abilities when book comes out. I wonder what kind of shenanigans you can come up with as far as distractions with 18 F1 spirits that you have a lot of services with. Spirits of Man that mimic a certain wanted individual maybe, showing up in 18 different locations?

[Banshee]

I also worry about the magic success & drain soak test being the same roll. Yes, it removes a roll, but it also makes failures potentially more dangerous.

it is not, drain is still a separate roll but has higher values in general so packs more punch

[Shinobi Killfist]

Drain can be healed in 5e in a few ways, like slap patches and naps. 6e healing may also make drain easier to heal if they assumed the new system would cause mages to take more drain.

As to "binding was more drain so its a buff" the main point of binding was to pay drain during downtime when it was irrelevant. I have been playing 5e from launch and literally can only think of one time outside a living community scenario where downtime binding is banned when binding stun was relevant, in a survival scenario where the mage wanted to get a spirit to guard folks against arctic wind all night.

Like if you give a mage a week of downtime they can just spend 3 in game days getting up to their binding limit and be good to go for next job maxed out on spirits that will cost 0 stun to summon. Even with just a day's downtime you could get a solid 2 or 3 spirits in 5e, and eventually the GM will be forced to give some long term downtime. Of course a single pre run summon leaves more than 3 hours of naptime to shake off even a full stun track, but now you can't do that trick and have 8 spirits extra in the back pocket. Or maybe you can, depending on how easy it will be to get summoning dice to eat drain. From what I understand to take no drain from a summon requires 3 times as many hits as the spirit has, but I gotta admit the new drain rules by removing drain resist made it less intuitive for me so I may have misread it.

Of course overall spirits seem stronger. It just is interesting how losing it weakens the mage toolset (even if its offset in other ways) because of how binding makes you feel when you use it because its so clunky.

The issue with binding was since the die pool you went against was higher it reduced the force of the spirit you’d attempt it vs.

Spirits I normally could summon with little risk might be in the knock me out from drain level. As a dm I’d much rather have a player with 1 force 9 and 5 force 5 spirits than 3 force 9 spirits in sr5. If they had kept that trend so in 6e maybe 1 force 6 summoned and 5 force 3s bound I feel it would be more balanced.

Without seeing spirits in this edition it’s hard to know how this will play out entirely.

[Shinobi Killfist]

One thing they mentioned about char gen. 1 skill at 6. The rest max at 5. Are they going back to 6 max for skills. I really hated how attribute focused 4e was. 10 from your stat max 6 from a skill. Skills felt almost meaningless in comparison.

[Banshee]

One thing they mentioned about char gen. 1 skill at 6. The rest max at 5. Are they going back to 6 max for skills. I really hated how attribute focused 4e was. 10 from your stat max 6 from a skill. Skills felt almost meaningless in comparison.

that is just at char gen ... skill ranks go to 9 then with the specialization and expertise you can get to a total of 12 dice from skill

[Why?]

The misinformation to the public is pretty strong. Like you have these folks with the quick start rules or box set or whatever playing live streams that say one thing, then you have these (authors I presume? i.e Banshee) saying something else. The drain example.

I think we all appreciate intel on the changes in the new edition but can we at least get it right before we call it out?