/srg/ - Shadowrun General

>Who or What does your character hate?

She is a literal samurai who is hardcore into Bushido so she pretty much hates dishonorable assholes. Yes, I know the irony that she is a shadowrunner. She doesn't expect everyone to adhere to her personal Codes of Honor, but people who go out of their way to be cunts just grind her gears.

>What about SR do you hate?

The writing/editing. I hate how much space the books dedicate to jacking off Jackpointers. I couldn't give a flying fuck about them and their shitty personalities. It makes me even more frustrated that the only reason this is even an issue is because CGL couldn't afford actual writers so they just let the interns insert their mary-sues.

Also the excessive focus on Awakened stuff. How many magic books are we up to now? Three? Four? I wish more location-based lore books were published. The SR universe is interesting but its a shame we only get to see such a small portion of it.

Serious question - should I add on Partial Cyberlegs with skimmers, hydraulic jacks, armor, that kind of thing? For the super-sprinting mobility, ability to drop two stories without breaking legs, the whole shooter platforming element? Have a sort of 'those boots from Portal, but they're my actual legs' thing?

If you want it, sure. Depends on how you GM structures your runs. Could be very useful if you double as an infiltrator which sams are pretty decent at.

But generally if you're already taking internal ware, there's not much point in going for cyberlimbs

They'd just be partials, for the mobility utility. Not full limbs, with useful attributes.

Mostly I'm just trying to keep it in-theme, though. I figure being able to jump from a balcony down to an atrium below, or sprint at speeds which no human should be able to maintain, fits a lot of shooter games pretty well. Especially the DOOM-types.

If dual wielding was of any actual benefit, I'd suggest gyromount cyberarms

Huh, shit, is a Partial Cyberarm enough to get a gyromount?

It is, with 2 Capacity to spare for Armor or whatever.

Maybe I'll give this dude a full set of Partials, where he's still using all of his meat-attributes but has a ton of Armor and Capacity to throw around at basic utilities.

Gepetto!

>Who or What does your character hate?
Dumbasses who beg for the life instead of fighting for it.
>What about SR do you hate?
The special snowflakes of the setting(Harlequin, Frosty, ect. ect.), the sub-par writing, and the lack of games based on the setting.

Last one especially bothers me because there's a quite a bit of games set in tabletop settings(Mostly D&D but still) and only, like, seven Shadowurn games. A few of which are actually good, i.e the HBS games.

Hey, I want to run a module for my 5e group that would get them introduced to Shadowrun. While they're broadly familiar with dice-pool systems, they aren't really good with cyberpunk or anything Shadowrun. Any suggestions?

Foodfight is basically made for this

Stand up for our National Anthem, fucker.

I hope you won't be playing a nigger.

If you have a Cyberarm Gyromount in both of your arms, do the bonuses stack? Or is there no reason to get more than one?

There's no reason to get more than one unless you plan to dual wield, and dual wielding is kind of crap.

Gotcha, so Channeling and actually binding spirits needs to wait until I get into the game. I'm assuming the same for Invocation to get Great Form Spirits. How far can I go in char-gen, though, as far as setting up the kinds of spirits and the like that I want/need? Are these like drones and I sort of stat them out myself, or will it all depend on what the GM makes available? I'm guessing that certain types of spirits have uses that make them better at certain things than others? Beasts for combat, Air for concealing, Man for social stuff, etc.

Also, spells. I have 10 slots, but if I'm going to be a Dedicated Conjurer -- that's a Quality I'll need to be taking, right, or is it skippable? -- then I'm going to be using all of my spells for Ritual spells, right? Do you have a list of 10 that are best suited for Summoning/Banishing/Counterspelling shaman?

I looked it up. It never occured to me that it would be under the quick-start rules. Thanks for leading a horse to water.

I also have a fun idea for the run that they would do after they get together in Food Fight.

What, am I making you uncomfortable?

>Gotcha, so Channeling and actually binding spirits needs to wait until I get into the game. I'm assuming the same for Invocation to get Great Form Spirits.
Bingo.

>How far can I go in char-gen, though, as far as setting up the kinds of spirits and the like that I want/need?
You get 5 types of spirits depending on your Tradition, and then Dedicated Conjurer lets you pick a few more types. They have stat blocks premade in Core and Street Grimoire, which scale with the spirit's Force. The higher the Force, the better the stats.

>Also, spells. I have 10 slots, but if I'm going to be a Dedicated Conjurer -- that's a Quality I'll need to be taking, right, or is it skippable? -- then I'm going to be using all of my spells for Ritual spells, right? Do you have a list of 10 that are best suited for Summoning/Banishing/Counterspelling shaman?
It's skippable, but you'll be missing out on getting to pick some of the sexier utility spirit types. As for rituals, there are a few in core, but a whole lot more in Street Grimoire. I'd look through and grab anything that sounds interesting. Several of them build off of expanding the effects of normal spells you know, so ignore those outright.

>I hope you won't be playing a nigger.
It's the 2070s. White people are the minority now. Most people in the UCAS are mixed black/latino/white. The future is brown, chummer.

Oh, he doesn't hate anything any more.
Horizon fixed that.
It was counter-productive.

What do I hate about Shadowrun?
All metaplot since the start of the tempo arc in 4e, and most recent mechanical design decisions.

Binding is a bad idea, omae. You'll run out or money faster than you can last in bed with a 12 year old girl, since binding takes forcex25 reagents (500ny per force) and you will only get a limited amount of services out of them. With higher force spirits, you're looking at an expenditure of 4k+ and will likely only get a couple of services from them.

If you still want to do it, go right ahead, but it's a good idea to use fresh spirits for most things.

The future is already here as far as clapistan is concerned. But luckily I never play in the UCAS.

Okay, so as a Shaman I get access to Beasts, Earth, Water, Air, and Man. These are listed as certain categories, but that's mostly just a lose idea of how that tradition typically uses them, right? If I was in a pinch, I could still call upon a Spirit of Man for Combat? Taking Dedicated Conjurer gives me three extra types of spirits I can draw on with 6 ranks in Summoning. I guess Plant, Fire, and Guidance? These just seem like random words to me. You said some of the utility spirit types are sexy, is this just because of different powers they have access to?

So then what do you recommend as far as a build goes? The general feel I'm looking for is an elderly (Aged II) Native American Boar shaman who lives down in the warrens of a subterranean city, addicted to whiskey and with a few brats that he takes care of because their parents are burn-outs. Key skills that I want to have access to is Summoning/Banishing/Counterspelling, probably with some social skills in there to round him out.

Germany is 50% Turk and 25% Arab in the 2070s.

The remaining 25% is Jewish.

>You said some of the utility spirit types are sexy, is this just because of different powers they have access to?
Bingo. Task, Guardian, and Man are classic examples of really appealing spirit types.

Spirits tend to have (Force+/-X) for each of their attributes, with X depending on the attribute and the spirit in question. Earth has lots of Strength, Air has lots of Agility, you get the idea.

Then, each type of spirit has a different selection of optional powers - that's what really makes the difference in utility applicability.

For example, a spirit that can use Concealment is something else entirely from a spirit with Venom.

>These are listed as certain categories, but that's mostly just a lose idea of how that tradition typically uses them, right? If I was in a pinch, I could still call upon a Spirit of Man for Combat?
Yyyes and no. In the core rulebook, those categories only affected what kind of spells they could assist with. In street grimoire, the freelancer's under the impression it limits what types of anything they can help with. Your GM will probably lean towards the former, rather than the latter.

If not, all the more reason to have those wildcard extra spirit types, you know what I mean?

That doesn't really seem plausible given current demographics. It would require the Turkish and Jewish population to multiply like actual rabbits. Not really likely, as much as I like latkes and kebab.

Oh and it would require every single ethnically German person to leave the country, which realistically isn't happening.

>Oh and it would require every single ethnically German person to leave the country, which realistically isn't happening.
They all went to Belgium and Denmark for the beer and never left.

Gotcha. Though I heard great shit about Plant for the Great Form's regeneration. And since I already get Man, I guess ditch fire for now and get Plant, Task, and Guardian.

>Though I heard great shit about Plant for the Great Form's regeneration.
It's pretty fucking incredible, yeah, once you get all of your cards lined up for it.

>A Charisma 7 Elf versus a Charisma 5 Human is at a clear advantage

>theorycrafting
>puts one metatype at maximum value, and the other set below their own maximum, to enhance their own choice

Low points.

The difference between Elf and Human is minimal, if you go for max CHA on both of them (6 vs 7 is not some insurmountable gap, nor is it in any realistic way a limit or crippling to a character). The real difference is that you have one fewer die on tests (which mathematically is a tiny difference) and that you have a maximum of 6 bound spirits instead of 7, but as points out binding is super expensive. I disagree with them that binding is generally a bad idea, but you're not going to be a Pokemon trainer; in my experience the best use of Binding is to combine it with Edge on the tests, and a fuckload of reagents, to get yourself a high powered Manipulation or Combat spirit as an emergency card.

Spirit Categories are described in Street Grimoire, and basically limit the types of action a spirit can do. Pg.41
>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).

If your GM has any experience with SR, he'll see this as a necessary rule, to stop you from roflstomping everything with arbitrarily powerful spirits. It's a good clarification of something that's poorly explained in core, which leads to people treating Binding as a godskill because they just get a stable of ultrahigh-Force spirits and have them do everything forever, which is against RAI, the RAW of SG, and the basic rules of playing a game with other people and not outshining everyone all the time.

>puts one metatype at maximum value, and the other set below their own maximum, to enhance their own choice
An elf's maximum charisma is 8. They're both at 1 below their maximum.

Make sure you know what you're talking about before you post.

>puts one metatype at maximum value, and the other set below their own maximum, to enhance their own choice

Did they release a hotfix patch to nerf elves agility down one point or are you just smoking too much deepweed?

>agility
Meant charisma, this deepweed is strong yo.

>Make sure you know what you're talking about before you post.
Can you imagine how quiet it would be here if we all did? No one really wants that.

Okay, fantastic to hear some more feedback. Definitely leaning towards Human if only because of that edge. I've played enough to know how essential Edge can be, and in the body of a frail little mage, I won't say no to having more.

So you use Binding more during downtime to get yourself an ace in the hole for when you really need it, rather than going about it like a Pokemon trainer. Summoning some various local spirits as needed before going on runs, utilizing them to their fullest, and then letting them go on their merry way while you've got a real badass waiting in the wings?

I'm guessing I still want to have 2-4 ranks in Binding even at CharGen just for those raw bindings that I actually do make, but no need in going super deep on it since it's something I do rarely in downtime rather than frequently?

That also makes a lot of sense about the categories, thanks. So my shaman's summoning up Beasts for combat, Man for manipulating people, etc. Are you generally limited to what you can summon based on where you are? It's not like I have to go out into a park in order to get in touch with a spirit of Plants, is it?

Swapping over to human, and I'll keep asking moronic questions.

>Summoning some various local spirits as needed before going on runs, utilizing them to their fullest, and then letting them go on their merry way while you've got a real badass waiting in the wings?
Nope. You can only have one unbound spirit summoned at a time, and they disappear at Sunrise/Sunset, whichever comes first. You're going to want to have a full stable Bound either way. If anything, that's extra vital/essential if they can't be applied outside of their focus.

>I'm guessing I still want to have 2-4 ranks in Binding even at CharGen just for those raw bindings that I actually do make, but no need in going super deep on it since it's something I do rarely in downtime rather than frequently?
You're going to do it every single downtime, and it'll determine how many Services you can score for the reagents you're spending. Edge can play a role there too, though.

>Are you generally limited to what you can summon based on where you are?
Nope. Your locale is entirely unrelated to your conjuring. You'll do most of your summoning from the Lodge in your apartment.

>Summoning some various local spirits as needed before going on runs, utilizing them to their fullest, and then letting them go on their merry way while you've got a real badass waiting in the wings?

Generally yeah. The divide between Shamans and Mages used to be (among other things) that Mages summoned elemental creatures, magic automatons of fire, earth, etc. that served them without fear, favour, or even really conscious thought. Shamans, meanwhile, got in touch with local spirits of a place and bargained for their help. So a Shaman would burn some reagent-laced cigarettes as an offering to get the Spirit of 6th Street to come chat and tell him whether or not a car carrying a little girl went by this afternoon, say goodbye, then head down to the harbour and summon up the spirit of the bay to carry him and his team to the boat the kidnappers are using to escape.

That divide is gone as of 4/5e; you could bring it back with some of the qualities from Forbidden Arcana. Now you can summon one spirit, who will hang around until they run out of services or sunrise/sunset hits, whichever comes first. You can bind a summoned spirit, putting it 'on retainer' (having a max of your CHA, where it doesn't disappear at sunrise/sunset and can help with some other stuff plain summoned spirits cannot) and summon up a new spirit. Whatever spirit can be summoned at whatever area you want; the only limit is that the GM may (i.e. should) apply background count rules, so summoning is easier in some places but harder in others.

Trying to keep a stable of spirits with multiple services is hella expensive. Nothing stopping you from doing it, but it's a waste of time to trying and have a bunch of spirits on standby. On a case-by-case business, you may want to bind up a few extra spirits (for example, going into a situation where you're storming a Knight Errant jail you might want a couple of Combat Spirits ready to go), but don't spend every downtime trying to keep 6 spirits.

Oh, okay. So the Pokemon trainer bit isn't entirely incorrect, and before even considering going on the run, I'll want to shell out the nuyen on the reagents to bind 2-3 spirits? Guessing I want at least one for Combat -- with each Combat costing a service -- as well as one for Manipulation or Illusion? And since these are bound, they are mine until I expend their services at which point, I could just as easily attempt to summon and rebind them during the next downtime. But in the active running, I'd want to be using unbound spirits as much as possible just to not have to fuss with expending a precious commodity?

I can certainly see how that can end up being pretty expensive. The Boar spirit gives me an extra service, and Spirit Affinity (Beasts) will give me another for those Combat spirits to help extend out their service, though.

See, I remember that from playing 3rd, and I am hilariously out of touch with how pretty much everything works. For one, it's be absolutely forever since I ever looked at a list of spells. For another, everything seems different from the parts that I do remember.

>But in the active running, I'd want to be using unbound spirits as much as possible just to not have to fuss with expending a precious commodity?
Summoning is something that has to be done before a run - because you have to set up a Lodge and shit - and you can only have one Unbound spirit at a time. So that's, at most, a single wildcard spirit - and one where you'll have the eat the Drain for the rest of the run, since the spirit's gone at sunrise either way.

It's useful, but super niche, compared to having a Bound spirit prepped and ready to go, already on hand.

>I could just as easily attempt to summon and rebind them during the next downtime.
Never rebind the same spirit - that's bad mojo, gives you a reputation as a slaver. The same type of spirit and the same Force, sure. But not the same individual entity.

>I can certainly see how that can end up being pretty expensive.
You'll spend less on Binding than the Rigger does on repair parts.

Oh say can you see, by the thorshot's bright light. What so proudly we hailed at the end of 2D's career. Whose nakama accompanied him through the perilous fight. Oh the bloodshed we watched was so gallantly streaming. And Dervish's red glare, as he flew through the air gave proof to the night that our Bend was still there. Oh say does that star-spangled armor yet gleam. The crew of the free and the armor's bright sheen.

So that first run that I join in, if I don't have any time to pre-bind, I'll just need to be running on the seat of my pants to get the dosh and the time to do some bindings in that first bit of downtime?

As far as rebinding, does this also go for shaman? I was still under the assumption that they had a much more respectful relationship with the spirits they summoned and consorted with, binding be more the equivalent of a long-term partnership rather than a mage's slavery.

>As far as rebinding, does this also go for shaman? I was still under the assumption that they had a much more respectful relationship with the spirits they summoned and consorted with, binding be more the equivalent of a long-term partnership rather than a mage's slavery.
If you rebind as a shaman, you're an asshole shaman. You've got to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

>So that first run that I join in, if I don't have any time to pre-bind, I'll just need to be running on the seat of my pants to get the dosh and the time to do some bindings in that first bit of downtime?
Pretty much. You'll Summon an Unbound spirit at the start of the run and hope that's good enough to get you through a single run.

A single spirit and Assensing can get a lot of mileage, though, especially if you lean on your teammates instead of them leaning on you.

I thought Assensing was something you usually just pushed to a spirit since they tend to be naturally good at it? How many dice should I slinging at that, 6-8?

You go full cyber, with sword shaped spurs. Just remind everyone you meet that you didn't ask for this

>I thought Assensing was something you usually just pushed to a spirit since they tend to be naturally good at it?
I usually try to be good at it in my own right. Spirits can roll pretty well, but relaying back to someone the details of 'ware and mood and such tend to be more hit-and-miss. They're creatures of magic, not metahumanity.

>How many dice should I slinging at that, 6-8?
Shit, if that's all you can afford then don't even both.

So... 12? I'm just asking, because I've got shitall idea how to build a shaman.

8-12 is the range you should be chasing to be really decent at Assensing, same as any other skill.

What is the best Cha based Tradition?

>Summoning is something that has to be done before a run - because you have to set up a Lodge and shit

Nope. Summoning is a Complex Action, does not require a lodge. 300 core.

>binding be more the equivalent of a long-term partnership rather than a mage's slavery.

>Bound spirits find it distasteful being forced into servitude, and they sometimes struggle against the mystical bond. Such an effort is futile, though, unless the magician is on the brink of death. If the gamemaster chooses, a spirit that has been set on a particularly long and/or undignified task may struggle against their binding, which imposes a –1 penalty to all tests as the magician works to compel the spirit to do his bidding, like a dog on a leash (an analogy, by the way, that would not make many spirits happy). At any point, the magician can take a Complex Action to try to bring the spirit to heel through an Opposed Summoning + Magic vs. spirit’s Force + Willpower Test. If the magician ties the spirit or get more hits, the spirit is calmed down and performs their service without further penalties for the summoner.
>This modifier should only be applied if the summoner is either cruel toward the spirits he controls or if he repeatedly puts them at risk (occasional combat is fine, but being routinely disrupted gets old). This magical power drain is the compelling reason why most magicians keep their bound spirits at rest. While the spirit is resting in astral space, the bond between magician and spirit has no effect on the magician. It should only be used when roleplaying calls for it, or to keep a player from abusing spirits in gameplay.

301 core. Binding is unpleasant for a spirit. Depending on your relationship with the spirit world in general and that particular entity, it may be seen as a deal done willingly if not whole-heartedly (rather like working a 9-5 to pay the bills), or tantamount to slavery.

Alright. And so for the standard shaman summoner -- very probably going the route of Dedicated Summoner -- I should have 8-12 rating+att in Assessing, Ritual Spellcasting, Summoning, Banishing, Binding, and Counterspelling. Then toss on Pistols/Perception in the mix as well as part of the standard kit. As far as the magic-y shit, which of those deserve specialties? Do you typically just put your Combat spirit as a specialty, and if so, summoning or binding or both? I've got 28 skill points, and just trying to make the most of 'em.

>Depending on your relationship with the spirit world in general and that particular entity, it may be seen as a deal done willingly if not whole-heartedly (rather like working a 9-5 to pay the bills), or tantamount to slavery.
Regardless of your relationship, you don't start accruing a negative Astral Reputation until you start rebinding spirits.

>Nope. Summoning is a Complex Action, does not require a lodge. 300 core.
You're right. I was thinking of Ally Spirits, I think. They require a Lodge to summon.

Personally, I like the Vodou tradition. Guardian for Combat, Task for Manipulation, and possession for friends you can give a hearty high-five to before going and getting drunk together.

Assessing is important enough in a lot of situations you want to be able to do it yourself, instead of burning services. With 6 MAG it's trivial to have 9 dice in it, and going up to 12 (or 10 with a specialization) doesn't hurt.

>What is the best Cha based Tradition?
Anything that isn't Possession. Possession is a tradition made obsolete by Channeling - which, ironically, is the first Metamagic that a Possession tradition always seems to take.

>6 MAG
Assensing uses Intuition.

Having specialties relating to your tradition's Combat spirit is a good bet, yeah. As well as assensing Auras, since other subjects are kinda pointless.

>I'm guessing I still want to have 2-4 ranks in Binding even at CharGen just for those raw bindings that I actually do make, but no need in going super deep on it since it's something I do rarely in downtime rather than frequently?
This is exactly the issue I have with Binding - it's so expensive that you rarely get to use it to its fullest potential during normal play, so you kind of want to save points on it. However, you can't save points, since the binding roll determines how many services you get out of your high force ace in the hole. So the only real options are either to completely ignore Binding and instead use spirits as catch & release while spreading the points saved on other skills that increase your survivability and versatility (my preferred method) or go in deep and just deal with the fact that you're not going to get much use out of the 6 points you dumped into it (unless you want to kill your wallet)

Man, Binding scores you fucking tons of utility, and you're going to spend less on Reagents than the Rigger does on drone repair parts.

It's expensive, but it pays off dramatically.

I hate that Texhnomancers get the shaft.
I hate that there isn't more armor options. Run & Gun has high fashion shit sure, but a severe lack of paramilitary or sylized/thematic heavy gear. Also not enough stealth suits.
I hate that drakes cost so much & can now except cyberware.
I hate that the books are so fucking scattered with shit layout.
I hate that alchemy sucks huge fucking balls & I can't play a gadget mage.
I hate that the Matrix rules makes my eyes bleed because they are so convoluted.

My character hates corps, corp culture, vegetables, the horrible conditions of the barrens, the tyrannical iron fist of corprate law, hard work, the destruction of the manasphere making it hard for him to cast, that his girlfriend makes him wear a condom, that fact that he is gonna die from a bad run someday instead of being happy & old, that if he does have kids that he will never be able to give them or his love the lofe he wants them to have, itchy underwear, the fact that every move he makes is probably recorded somewhere, that corporate brands track his purchases, but ,ostly he hate when Mr. Johnson thinks he can double cross Johnny B. Goode just because he can.

It doesn't matter. The spirit themselves will dislike it, and does it really matter if you "technically" have a decent Asral Rep if the spirit themselves hates you enough to fuck you up for binding them?

Binding, not even once.

Fuck off, Chain Breaker. You're like that white guy who's so into hood culture that you turn off the actual black people.

How good is the Wheel? I have an elven street mage & am wondering how it compares. I hate shamans

>Intuition
My b.

>you don't start accruing a negative Astral Reputation until you start rebinding spirits
Using the rules and only the rules, yes. Doesn't mean that binding is not explicitly called out in multiple locations as an undesired thing for the vast majority of spirits, including the quoted text box (which has rules outside of Astral Reputation) and the section under summoning glitches which encourages gamemasters to have a critglitch spirit 'talk to' the summoner about how much binding sucks.

There's a step between when mechanics get involved and what is actually occurring in the world.

Riggers have always been the money sink archetype, though. It's like saying it's OK you're not having meals today because some kid in Somalia hasn't eaten since August.

Fuck off, binder. Go to one of those megacorps if you like enslaving sentient beings so much.

That actually makes a lot of sense. Well, wait, you Summon a spirit and then you Bind it, correct? Do you still get to keep those services from when you originally summoned it, with Binding just letting you get some extras?

There's no way to sort of get a sort of fragment of your Mentor Spirit to assist you physically? Just using something like that as an Ace in the Hole for when shit gets read dirty, I can just get my Boar mentor spirit to make some noice?

Chaining a spirit of energy to your whim is just as bad as the corps that chain you to a desk. Fight the tyrants chummer, don't become one.

Give me examples of things that a bound spirit can do that an unbound couldn't, because the way I see it, you're literally wasting a service unless you need to do some long-range (summon fucks off after completing a distant task) or sustained (summon fucks off at sunrise/sunset) surveillance or something. I don't really consider aiding all that useful, and you're better off getting sustaining foci than letting a spirit sustain your spell, and you never want to spellbind (unless you enjoy being hated in the spirit world)

And besides, I find that mages are very money-hungry early on anyway since you don't get that much during chargen, and there is probably a lot of gear you could buy to, again, increase your survivability and versatility.

>Do you still get to keep those services from when you originally summoned it, with Binding just letting you get some extras?
Yes. You need to get at least 1 net hit to Bind it, though, otherwise it will disappear at sunrise.

The big advantage of Binding is less milking lots of extra Services out of it, though, is that you can Summon and Bind a big, mean motherfucker when you're between runs, and then spend a few days safely recovering from the Drain. Just Summoning, but not Binding, you have to either stick with low-Force spirits or enjoy having a bunch of drain from the Summoning because you don't have time to rest before it disappears.

>There's no way to sort of get a sort of fragment of your Mentor Spirit to assist you physically?
No.

>There's no way to sort of get a sort of fragment of your Mentor Spirit to assist you physically?
That's what the bonuses are essentially all about, omae - your mentor spirit helping you out in a small way.

Mentor's Mask alternate rules in Forbidden Arcana, might have something. Also, you can always fluff it as you asking your mentor for a spirit/aspect of themselves to help you

>Do you still get to keep those services from when you originally summoned it, with Binding just letting you get some extras?
Yes. Which is why, if you're not going to pump binding to the max, it's best to Edge out the Summoning test to get the most services there, then bind and hope to do well enough that you might get an additional service or two.

There is no way to get a mentor spirit to do stuff for you as an individual entity. They exist in GM fiat zone, where they can break the rules that apply to other spirits (notably, they appear without being summoned), and they can punish you if you do stuff they don't like. Boar is already metaphysically putting in a good word with you when you're summoning; don't get greedy.

>Yes. You need to get at least 1 net hit to Bind it, though, otherwise it will disappear at sunrise.
Along with the reagents you spent on the binding ritual.

1. You can have a stable of Bound spirits ready to go selected for utility powers. You can dismiss and call them as you see fit throughout the entire run, rather than having to have one and only one Unbound spirit around at one time.

2. You can Summon and Bind a big, powerful spirit a week before a run, and then spend a day or two sleeping off all of that Drain. Try to Summon an equivalently-powerful spirit on the day of the run (because it will disappear after at most ~12 hours) and you'll be carrying around Stun/Physical damage from it for the rest of the night. Better stats, more powers, less killable, and without killing yourself with drain in the middle of a run.

3. Aside from having time to heal from summoning a big, mean motherfucker of a spirit, it's also an opportunity to get extra Services out of it, so that you know it has some staying power when you really need it. Summoning it there, in the moment, you don't know if you're going to only get enough Services to last a single fight, or if it's going to be good to last the entire run. When you Bind a spirit, you can actually plan for that going in, instead of random-rolling your spirit 'ammunition.'

4. There are Rituals and effects like Great Form Spirit which apply exclusively to Bound spirits, meaning they have fundamentally more utility, especially for a dedicated conjurer.

5. If worse comes to worst and one of your spirits gets exploded, you can drop another Bound spirit at the problem instead of having to Summon again, and again, and again. That Drain adds up really quickly when you're eating it in the moment, instead of eating it three weeks ago during your downtime.

>Along with the reagents you spent on the binding ritual.
500 nuyen per Force of the spirit. Even an unkillable god-monster of a Force 10 spirit only costs 5,000 nuyen to Bind.

Most spirits you Bind are going to run you in the 2500-3000 nuyen range to Bind, and that Binding is going to last you several runs in a row before you're likely to blow through all of your Services.

The cost is extremely minor. There's a good chance that your Street Samurai is going to spend more on Stick-n-Shock and grenades in a given run than you are on Bound Spirit Services.

Okay, so I'm seeming to hear a general consensus which makes me think that it might be best for me to just skip Binding at CharGen or only have a rank or two in it. I already have Jack of All Trades, so bumping it up as play goes on shouldn't be much of an issue, and it isn't like I'd be able to really afford binding anything as I just get started anyways. I'll expect to have it up to 12 dice or so by the time I start actually getting Metamagic and the like, though, for the purposes of Great Form Spirit and the like.

I figure as long as I'm a Big Boy summoner, I should be able to limp by with a relatively small amount of dice in Binding when I join the team.

I'd invest a lot more in Binding out of the gate, but you're not going to be killing your character by not doing so or anything. Conjuring is such a powerful toolset that even being a mediocre conjurer lets you blow a lot of other archetypes out of the water. Think of your character as an experiment, and see in retrospect whether you might have preferred a bit more Binding in play.

. You can have a stable of Bound spirits ready to go selected for utility powers. You can dismiss and call them as you see fit throughout the entire run, rather than having to have one and only one Unbound spirit around at one time.
But using a power eats a service. Sounds expensive, chummer.

>2.
>3.
>4.
These parts I can understand and agree with, however the risk of failure still applies to summoning and binding. And there's also the risk of bound spirits breaking their chains and fucking you over if you ever get injured, especially if you've been a dick to them. And/or if you bound too powerful a spirit that really doesn't like being in servitude.

>5. If worse comes to worst and one of your spirits gets exploded, you can drop another Bound spirit at the problem instead of having to Summon again, and again, and again. That Drain adds up really quickly when you're eating it in the moment, instead of eating it three weeks ago during your downtime.
Frankly, if the situation is that bad, then you're probably looking at a dead shaman anyway, since no opposition would be so dumb as to ignore the pesky mage that keeps throwing big nasties at them.

>3-5k
>extremely minor
Do I smell a player who's being babbyed by their GM?

Unless you're using the optional restrictions in Forbidden arcana they're al much of a muchness, only thing that really matters what spirits they have associated with which category, just pick one you like.

Planning on making a Decker/technically a rigger character soonish.

What kind of things should I make sure to get during chargen? I'm better at making a mage than a Decker.

>3-5k every 2-3 runs
If that's not a minor expense to you, I don't know what is. It's a big initial investment, when you're first filling out your stable, but after that upkeep's pretty chill.

So can you become homies with spirits or something?

Sure, if you invest in a bunch of Qualities giving you a positive Astral Rep.

That's what your Mentor Spirit is, omae. A spirit who's your homie.

More specifically I'm making a paranoid shut in who abuses the shit out of the setting equivalent of Amazon, so some ideas for booby traps would also be appreciated

everything is relative, and yes when compared to the cost of vehicles, drones, cyber/bioware and cyberdecks - you know all the key things runners need to upgrade 3-5K is a fucking piddling expense. Just because the RAW run rewards are basically inadequate, doesn't mean that a GM who bumps up they monetary rewards is babying anyone.

>I already have Jack of All Trades, so bumping it up as play goes on shouldn't be much of an issue

Hold up. JoaT is not precisely a trap option, but very close to it, especially for a mage for whom karma is a precious commodity. Raising skills in game is hella expensive. Even with JoaT, trying to go from 2 points to 3 is still 11 karma, which is going to be a run or two of work. It really only works as a good quality if you have stellar attributes, and want to buy a rank in a bunch of skills to avoid defaulting.

And speaking of skills. With C skills, I'm currently going with... A point in both the Athletics and Influence groups. 6 in Assensing (10 dice), 5 in Ritual Spellcasting from Magician, (11), 5 in Summoning from Magician (11) plus the specialization in Beast, 4 in Banishing (10), 4 in Counterspelling (10), 3 in Pistols (6) plus specialization, 2 in Perception (6) plus specialization. 1 in Arcana for now (4, though there's a rule to allow you to use your spellcasting attribute for it which would make it 7 if the DM uses it), 1 in Navigation (5), 1 in Sneaking (4) plus specialization.

It won't be every 2-3 runs if you keep using spirits as much as you imply. And if you've bound a low force spirit which owes you a fuckload of services, you might as well summon them on the spot and not bother with binding.

>places ridiculous restrictions on you
>homie
Fuck off, MSIDF

In theory yes, by acquiring the ally spirit metamagic. In practice ever having the karma to formulate a decent Ally spirit is probably a tall ask.

youtube.com/watch?v=VKSbvypUodw