Shadowrun Conjuring

[Flyndaran]

Now that I got help for cyber/bioware, I want to move on to another of the tricky translations.

My idea for conjuring needs limitations: requires expensive ingredients to summon I'm guessing around $1000 per 25% of character total....
AND points of success on said summoning only gain equal limited number of "favors".

Other than that critique my initial setup, please.

Magic ratings of 1-6 based on essence is my unalterable basis.

Allies: summonable (+100%) 2+Magic number of individual spirts at a time.
Conjuring skill is simply the 15,12,9,6 frequency of appearance with 18 standing in for the all the time one. +25% character total per magic point making the low essence dudes only able to conjur pipsqueaks.
The costs fatigue seems like a minor nuisance since no one would conjure during a firefight.

Assuming everyone understands what I wrote, what are some of your suggestions?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Allies: summonable (+100%) 2+Magic number of individual spirts at a time.

When I built it, I made it a Modular Ability. Two, in fact, one for Summoning, and one for Binding. Spirit Summoning costs 4 points per slot, and 5 points per point in each slot, and Spirit Binding costs 4 points per slot, and 2 points per point in each slot. They also have a built-in FP cost: it costs FP equal to the base points of an Ally of the level you're trying to summon. So if you're trying to summon something with 25% of your point value, that's 1 FP, while if it's 150% of your point value, it's 10 FP. High Conjuring skill reduces this, as per high skill with magic in normal GURPS Magic.

I didn't bother trying to model the "services" element really, to be honest. I just said that all Spirit Summoning Allies had to have Favor, and disappeared after one task, whereas Spirit Binding stayed around indefinitely.

Applying the Essence= max spirits mechanic is simple - just make players buy that number of slots.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Conjuring skill is simply the 15,12,9,6 frequency of appearance with 18 standing in for the all the time one.

I prefer having a separate Conjuring skill, and just making all spirit Allies take the X4 Constantly modifier. The FoA roll is supposed to be rolled every day for Summonable Allies, so that would mean that a FoA 12 bound spirit might show up fine the first day, but refuse to appear the second day, even though you have services left.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

...
I prefer having a separate Conjuring skill, and just making all spirit Allies take the X4 Constantly modifier. The FoA roll is supposed to be rolled every day for Summonable Allies, so that would mean that a FoA 12 bound spirit might show up fine the first day, but refuse to appear the second day, even though you have services left.

All services are gone after 24 hours unless bound to yadda yadda yadda.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

All services are gone after 24 hours unless bound to yadda yadda yadda.

? Not sure what you mean here. I was talking about Bound spirits, which can definitely hang around for longer than 24 hours (actually, it's "until next sunset/sunrise", which is more like 12 hours, but whatever), but still require a skill roll to conjure, and have a limited number of services. The Frequency of Appearance rolls simply don't model that well, and if you're going to use a skill roll for bound spirits, you might as well make it useful for summoned spirits too - that's certainly how SR does it, after all.

[Mr Frost]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

...I was talking about Bound spirits...

Are they spririts whom have had too little fiber in their diets ?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

N

My idea for conjuring needs limitations: requires expensive ingredients to summon I'm guessing around $1000 per 25% of character total....
AND points of success on said summoning only gain equal limited number of "favors".

You seem to be mish-mashing Hermetic and Shamanic Conjuring.

Shamans don't need the expenditure of $ and can call fresh spirits whenever they need after the old ones have gone. On the other hand they can't have spirits waiting on call at all. They _can_ call their spirits within a modest amount of time on the combat scale.

I'd say Shamanic Conjuring is just to flexible to be anything except Modular Ablities with appropriate limitations. I.e. Nature Spirits can do a lot of different things but the spirits of the place where you are may not have the abilities you need.

Hermetic Conjuring can't be done in combat, does require expensive material components but does give you elemental spirits on call.

It still doesn't require permanent expenditure of metagame resources like cp though(Karma in SR terms).

I think you're still looking at something like Modular Abilities with a different set on Limitations. Alternatives would be abilities purchased outright with Recharge (expensive ritual) limits.

I'd only reserve cp expenditure for analagous things where SR called for karma (which would probably be abilities bought for cp in Gurps anyway).

Conjuring is a bread and butter thing for full SR magicians and one for which they should pay an appropriate cost, just not an ongoing one.

Confronted with your cp burning rules I'd never play anything more than a Spellcasting Adept. Burning cp every time you use a spirit is just not viable (unless you don't spend significant cp for a "base" ability to Conjure and don't use many spirits anyway).

I'd almost certainly spend my cp elsewhere.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

You seem to be mish-mashing Hermetic and Shamanic Conjuring.

Shamans don't need the expenditure of $ and can call fresh spirits whenever they need after the old ones have gone. On the other hand they can't have spirits waiting on call at all. They _can_ call their spirits within a modest amount of time on the combat scale..

I think that's 3rd edition. I don't recall that difference in 4th.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

...I think you're still looking at something like Modular Abilities with a different set on Limitations. Alternatives would be abilities purchased outright with Recharge (expensive ritual) limits.

I'd only reserve cp expenditure for analagous things where SR called for karma (which would probably be abilities bought for cp in Gurps anyway).
...
I'd almost certainly spend my cp elsewhere.

I think there's some kind of poor english on my part. I meant no cp loss just for spirit conjuring. The percentage is just a way to show the difference between high and low magic conjurers.
Where are you getting repeated expenditures?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

? ...The Frequency of Appearance rolls simply don't model that well, and if you're going to use a skill roll for bound spirits, you might as well make it useful for summoned spirits too - that's certainly how SR does it, after all.

I was missing bound spirits. That part just seems too fiddly for translation. I'ld just sweep it under the limitation for services and cross my fingers that it all evens out price-wise.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I think that's 3rd edition. I don't recall that difference in 4th.

SR 4 core rulebook, p. 176. "Conjuring can compel a spirit to come to the magician and provide services or favors (Summoning), [or] force an already-summoned spirit into more lasting service (Binding)..."
Both types exist as separate abilities. The change that SR 4 made was to allow both types of ability to all sorts of spellcasters. In SR 3 and earlier, shamans could only summon, and mages could only bind.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I was missing bound spirits. That part just seems too fiddly for translation. I'ld just sweep it under the limitation for services and cross my fingers that it all evens out price-wise.

I really think it doesn't. There's a pretty radical price difference between "Ally who will only help out a limited time, and will leave with the next sunrise", and "Ally who is more or less available all the time".