My Aztec shaman character, Chimalli, is primarily a spirit summoner, using Willpower (5)+Charisma (7) to resist drain. He has one level of the Focused Concentration quality (+1).
Is there any easy way that I can increase drain resistance for summoning? Are there any items/qualities/whatever I can get to increase his resistance? What's the cheapest in terms of karma cost?
The Sacrifice metamagic is not beyond the realm of possibility if I can find a teacher (it's highly appropriate to the Aztec tradition, after all). However, it would be hard to use this in combat summoning, since it takes two full Complex actions (I would have to maintain Increased Reflexes, also.), and I have to have something to kill handy.
Best Answer
It is very difficult to increase drain resistance. You have identified the likely routes, with the potential extra option of a Mentor spirit, drugs to ignore the pain, or 'ware to soak the damage.
From here:
Therefore there are two routes to reducing drain, increasing attributes or cheesing the opposed test.
Now, Mentor spirit with spirits of man (according to this) may modify that test. (support here).
In the same area, they suggest better living through chemistry:
From the same source, they note that you cannot use foci to resist drain:
Sacrifice does seem quite useful:
This neatly reduces the utility of the "Bag of Rats" and causes some interesting moral problems. On the other hand, it also doesn't require the death of the target.
This is absolutely the way to go if you're the kind of shammy who summons a big expletive spirit at the beginning of the day and has it hang around. I get the sense that in-combat summoning is kind of inefficient and difficult in the first place.
This page suggests some 'ware alternatives:
But that is a massive sacrifice...