Joerg B:
>Under RQ2 a standard priest >>could discorporate, whereas shamans
>couldn't by default.
A situation so logically inept that it had to be changed, and anyone who still uses this particular holdover from RQ2 deserves any ludicrous situation he gets into. In any case, since we were discussing shamans vs. sorcerers, only embryonic shamans existed in RQ2, and sorcerers not at all.
I mentioned that totemic magic is good vs. ghosts.
JB>As are Humakti
Humakt do not have access to Free Ghost.
If you want to bring priests into the discussion, I freely admit that a priest is as good as a shaman at protecting his flock from certain evil spirits. Again, this doesn't apply to sorcerers.
>> 2) If the shaman wins a spirit combat, he can bind it into his
>>fetch or a magic item, whether corporate or not.
>JB. However, he needs all the MP the fetch just spent to overcome
>the spirit to contain its MP.
This comment, Joerg, is so specious that I wonder if you can be serious. First off, it's unlikely the shaman has lost more MP than the captured spirit. Next, note that the spirit's current MPs are 0, which any fetch can contain with no trouble at all. As the spirit's MPs recover over time, so do the fetch's.
Finally, the shaman doesn't _have_ to bind it into his fetch. He can put it into a magic item, like anyone else. It's just that he has the fetch as an additional option.
>the fetch is useless as >a permanent storage for spirits, unless the
>shaman wants to spend >most of his time discorporated hunting for
>all the escapees.
Either you have not played much with shamans, or else you use very aberrant rules. I can't think of a single time a shaman in any of my campaigns had an "escapee".
JB>>In order to discorporate the shaman has to perform a lengthy
>>ritual. An intelligent spirit would disturb the shaman during this
>>ritual. e.g. by igniting the ritual components...
The spirit has to know the shaman is doing it, and where the shaman is, and be facing a shaman too stupid to set up any defenses. Get real, Joerg.
>A sorcerer specialising in bound ghosts will have a quite versatile
>attack force even against spirits. A low power Multispelled Dominate
>on the bound ghosts (while still in their bindings) will give him
>full control over his minions. Effectively, you get a one man spirit
>army attacking equal to a shaman.
Let's take your pathetic example here, Joerg, and see just what we're up against.
Incidentally, in my revised sorcery rules, Dominate requires Intensity of at least half the target's MPs. If the target fails to resist vs. the target's MPs, he falls under the caster's domination. A being inside a binding enchantment cannot resist this spell, and only one Intensity need be used regardless of the being's MPs. This does fill the idiotic loophole making multispelled 1-point spells superior to a normal Dominate. I didn't do it to weaken wizards -- I did it so that the best way to cast this important spell wasn't to roll 18d100, striving for an 05 on each one. This activity is so game-stultifying that it was an obligation to alter that particular rule, no? BUT, even if we use the old, bad rules, we get the following:
SORCERER SPECIALIZING IN BOUND GHOSTS -- he needs Summon Ghost, Dominate Ghost, and Resist Spirit, each of which costs him weeks of toil to master, plus a POW apiece (for spell matrices, lest they diminish his free INT). He'll need at least the Dominate at 90% or more, lest he fail in casting it under duress. The Resist can be cast outside of combat. Each pet ghost costs him 2 POW for the binding. To gather a ghost takes several hours of ritual. When the ghost arrives, the sorcerer Multispells 18 Dominates (which costs 18 MPs, of course), which gives him a 75% chance of overcoming the ghost as it appears. If he fails, the ghost flees at the rate of 10-20m per strike rank, which takes it out of range long before the sorcerer gets a second chance to cast.
If the ghost doesn't flee, it will attack, in which case he must engage in spirit combat, and needs a Resist Spirit at least equal to a ghost's average POW, say 16. If he attempts no more than a Multispell 7 Dominate, he can try to cast it once a round.The Multispell 7 wins 30% of the time. The sorcerer makes his Concentration roll ,36% of the time assuming INT 18. This gives him an 11% chance per round of "getting" the ghost, for an average of 5 rounds. During those 5 rounds, the ghost will succeed, on the average, of eating 2-3 MPs.
This means that the sorcerer needs access to 72 MPs minimum to be safely certain of ghost-summoning. And he spends an average of 39 MPs per ghost. (He could reduce this by having bound spirits cast spells on his behalf, but this requires even more POW for _their_ bindings, time to teach them sorcery, etc). The sorcerer needs 10 POW spirits for these MPs, (adding 55 MPs to his 17 for 72 total). This requires 10 more POW for the bound spirits. The Power spirits also take Summonings. A mere Multispell 10 gives an 89% chance of defeating the average Power spirits
SHAMAN SPECIALIZING IN BOUND GHOSTS -- he needs Control Ghost and Spirit Screen, which costs him maybe two afternoons. Each ghost beyond those in his fetch costs 2 POW for the binding. (Any reasonably worthwhile shaman ought to be able to maintain at least two ghosts in his fetch.) He doesn't need extra MPs to take over the ghosts. All he needs to do is discorporate, go to the spirit plane, and look for the ghosts. This isn't wholly safe, but neither is the sorcerer's Summoning -- he can summon up bad things by accident, and if the sorcerer gets an elemental or the Bad Man, he is sunk, whereas the discorporate shaman is practically immune to these threats (elementals can't enter spirit combat).
A POW 16 shaman with Spirit Screen 3 defeats a POW 16 ghost 90% of the time. With Spirit Screen 4, he'll win 97% of the time. The shaman will lose MPs in the fight, of course -- 4 for casting S. Screen, plus an uncertain number to the ghost. If we assume that he loses 8 MPs each time he fights (a grossly high estimate), then it costs him 12 MPs per combat.
TOTAL INVESTMENT IN A SORCERER WITH 10 BOUND GHOSTS 10 POW for 10 Power spirit bindings. 3 POW for 3 spell matrices 20 POW for 10 ghost bindings Summon Ghost and 25% in Resist Spirit 90% skill in Dominate Ghost 33 POW total ~ 2 years (to learn spells, cast summonings, etc -- the greatest amount of time is spent getting Dominate Ghost up to 90) app. 530 MPs (over the course of the summonings TOTAL INVESTMENT IN A SHAMAN WITH 10 GHOSTS Control Ghost & Spirit Screen spells. 16 POW (for 8 ghost bindings) 12 days (to learn spells and discorporate) MPs = 120 MPs.
A shaman can achieve the lofty level of 10 ghosts far more quickly, and at a lower level of power than a sorcerer with this goal.
NOTE that if a Daka Fal shaman has a colossal edge over the sorcerer, and that other shamans typically get special bonuses from their cults, too.
>When it comes to exorcism, the picture gets ludicrous - here you
>have the body of the possessed victim, there you have the inanimate
>body of the shaman, who gets beating after beating if the possessing
>spirit has a POW of 4d6 or greater.
Unless the sorcerer sensibly casts Spirit Screen, or has a POW higher than 14 when he goes into combat, or uses a healing spirit, or sends a friendly ancestor, etc.. Cut me some slack.
>Why not have a scene where the spirit master performs the exorcism
>while remaining inside his body?
What stops you? Have the shaman use a specialty spell or ritual. Shamans have access to spirit cults, unique spirits, friendly spirits who willingly help them, etc.
>The RQ3 shaman is about as dull as the RQ2 shaman.
Eat me. It's no duller than the players who run them. I've had enormous fun with these shamans over the last decade.
>Suppose a target beaten down to say 12 MP but a two-point spirit
>block up and the 22 MP spirit having lost 3 MP. What now? Will the
>spirit hover around, waiting for the spell to fade out?
Since the 19 MP spirit only has +7 MPs on the target, he can't break off, unless you adhere to the rule that Spirit Block actually cuts off spirits weaker than it, in which case the 19 MP spirit would be knocked away from the target, but I guess he could hang around for fifteen minutes.
>So a spirit combat, once initiated, will always be fought to one
>opponent losing out big? Why?
A spirit combat, once initiated, has three possible endings:
or b) use a spell to capture the loser.
or c) keep going till the loser is at 0 MPs, whereupon it is neutralized and can be ignored.
3) both sides voluntarily agree to stop fighting. Nothing prevents this from happening except GM and player lack of imagination.
>The shaman might not have seen a pain elemental before visiting the
>Machine Ruins, but he'll be able to figure out how to deal with it
>sooner than the sorcerer, with his rote spells and stratospheric
>logic.
>The sorcerer will send his hounds (e.g. ghosts) against the spirit.
And the shaman won't? He's got _more_ bound spirits than the stupid sorcerer, since he not only has all the spirits (and better ones!) than the sorcerer, plus he also has extra spirits held in his fetch.
Why does the shaman have better spirits than the sorcerer? Because the sorcerer needs to learn a separate summon and control spell for every type of spirit. This costs him 50 hours per summon spell (plus 1 POW to keep it in a matrix, lest his free INT dwindle). It costs him 2 years to train a control spell up to 90%, plus another POW for its matrix. At this rate, no sorcerer is going to learn very many different Dominate/Summon pairs, and will restrict himself to only a few types of spirits, if any.
A sorcerer can go hunt on the spirit plane and look up the type of spirit he needs. He can get by without a control spell if he wants, since it only costs him an afternoon to get it back, but he can learn the control spells for these spirits if he needs (taking a single day to learn each one)
Hence, a shaman can have various elementals, pain spirits, wraiths, hellions, etc., and change his assortment of spirits depending on what is needed for the task at hand.
Sandy P.
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