For the life of me I can't remember, are spirits considered dual natured when they materialize? The reason I ask is in SR4A a dual natured creature with the concealment power can conceal vs astral detection as well, which is just bad ass.

Yes, they are considered dual-natured when they are materialized.

Cluelessness

Moral of the story - never include "dumb question" or similar in the title of an inquiry.

wow this is awesomely broken. A force 8 spirit materialized can hide you from basically everything. Just low rent stealth skills and this and you go everywhere unseen vs everything.

Though Force 8 spirits are pretty rare, all concealment does is subtract dice... anyone with more than 8 dice in perception would still get to attempt and see the Concealed individuals... it is STILL a contested roll Stealth vs. Perception after all... Just with a dice penalty...

Real moral of the story - don't post just to insult someone. Thanks!

A bound force 8 spirit is rare, but a summoned one is easy peasy. I'm not even the summoning specialist in our team and I could summon one no problem. I might take some drain but that is what a first aid kit is for. When you are talking about summoning one for concealment, its usually not in a fight so I have the time to get patched up. And the shark shaman in our group specialized in summoning water spirits with a summoning focus heck he can probably summon a force 10 spirit without to much problem. While -8 dice wont stop perception heavy types cold when you are only rolling like 1-3 dice total my stealth skills don't have to be that good to sneak past you. Now sure its possible we could bump into someone with like 17 dice or more to perception but I suspect that is kind of rare.

You are overlooking the wonder that is spirits as guardians. Since they have Perception as a skill, they basically get 2 dice per level to perception checks (1 for skill, 1 for Intuition). This means that your force 8 concealment wouldn't completely beat a force 5 spirit. The force 5 would only have 2 dice to spot you, but its a chance. And a force 6 has 4 dice, and so on. This is before factoring in things like Enhanced Senses, or even similar creatures or tech.

Fortunately, concealment can hide you astrally as well so those spirits can't simply see you coming that way. But, I just wanted to point out that one commonly used aspect of security is not as blind as you might think; therefore concealment while useful, is not "awesomely broken". Part of being a guardian is the ability to spot intruders.

Sure full blown spirits as opposed to watchers can see you, but how many spirits guard a place, and what force are they on average. Thing is even vs a force 6 spirit your stealth checks are only going against 4 dice. It only gets difficult if you are going against a force 8 or higher spirit which is really tough to bind to guard a place. So you only have to avoid the 1 or maybe 2 that are summoned and watching a location. The bound ones will likely be of a low enough force that you can stealth past them if you don't totally blow your stealth rolls.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can heal drain with a medkit or any other means for that matter. Only resting helps.

Also don't forget, there are sensor devices that completely ignore magical invisibility... Not sure how they stack up against concealment, but you never know...

And having midline characters with 12-14 dice of perception (with all the technology out there) is not too uncommon an occurrence, so even at a -8 penalty, they are still rolling 4-6 (or even more) dice to oppose your Stealth roll... care to stake your life on success?

Odds are you will probably remain hidden, but that will always be based on the number of dice you are throwing at the time...
10 Dice stealth vs. 4-6 Dice of perception is fairly even odds of success for the sneaky guy, but there is always the possibility that you will fail with those numbers...

AS far as I know, You can only resist....

Physical Drain can be healed using first aid or any other non magical means to heal someone.
And a Force 8 Spirit is usually bigger than MAgic Attribute, so Drain=physical, if i remember correctly

First Aid works on all Drain. Physical and Stun, just like Medicine.

BlueMax
/who may not be a Medic but he plays one on Sundays.

Forec 8 would be physical, yes... to the typical character...

As for healing drain... Though we have always played that Drain was not capable of being healed by magic/mundane as a default, (you had to heal it naturally)... well, after looking, nothng in the BBB specifically states that you cannot heal the physical drain taken by casting/summoning... I would even say (barring a reference that drain is not treatable by magic) that the Heal Spell could even be used... If it does contain a reference, I could not find it...

My Search Fu is weak this morning...

iirc, don't you have to target one plane or the other with powers? i didn't think you could target both at the same time, even if the power can affect either plane...

That would make mages who can cast heal almost immune to drain, now wouldn't it? ...and how does a medkit heal drain anyway?

Correct, you cannot target both realities at the same time... One or the Other... The only caveat tot hat would be Dual-Natured targets, though the effect will still only reflect on a sinlge reality...

It surely would... and a medkit would heal physical drain (assuming it is possible) the same way that it does all other physical trauma... it is pretty abstract...

How does it heal drain? Easy, drain is a wound. The medic program, or better a real medic guiding the program, analyzes the subject and administers proper treatment.

Logic 5 + First Aid 5 + Medkit 6 -4 from crappy conditions == 12 dice to wash that grey right out of your hair.

BlueMax
/my Saturday group really needs a medic

Magic can NOT be used to heal Drain.
Everything else works just fine.
Which is, in my eyes, one of the Big Problems with SR4 Magic/Drain.

Not that I doubt you, but as I said, My Serch Fu is weak this morning... Got any references to point to... I know that they have to be there somewhere...

I don't think drain causes wounds on the skin or anything like that that could actually be healed with a simple medkit. I've been trying to search the books but no dice so far. I still would not let a mage be healed from drain with a medkit. It's not really that kind of injury, afaik.

I yam at work.
Yes, that's right, Sunday afternoon, i am at work.
i don't have access to the rules. especially not the SR4A, so i don't know if that got changed, but it was that way in SR4.
In SR3, it was, for example, specifically mentioned in an FAQ or errata or something, that the Adept-Power Sympathetic Healing did not work on Stun damage, because it's magic . .
This, coupled with the wording of the heal spells, lead to things like a mage taking 2 light physical drain, then inflicting some other light physical wound, like a knife stab or something, onto himself, then healing the accumulated medium damage and not taking stun, if he was good at that . .

Physical Drain is you starting to bleed from the ears, the nose, maybe from the eyes, your hands/fingers . .
Because all that magical power that your body can not propperly handle has to come out SOMEWHERE . .

Didn't find anything about this, either. So if mundane can heal it, magic can heal it, too. My books are first few printings, so if there's an errata bout this...

edit:
Well I'll be damned... the errata states that magic can't be used to heal drain, but nothing about mundane healing methods.