Enhancing spirits -- what's possible? Options

[kerbarian]

Clearly you're not going to give a spirit cyberware or bioware, but can materialized spirits benefit from everything else that characters can?

You can summon a valkyrie (guardian spirit) with the Automatics skill and give her an assault rifle. Can she also suit up in heavy armor? (I assume it wouldn't stack with her Immunity to Normal Weapons, but it could exceed it.) Can her summoner cast Increase Reflexes, Increase Agility, and Combat Sense on her? Can magic be used to heal her after a fight?

As far as I can tell, all of that's possible, though I don't know what her augmented attribute maximums would be for Increase [Attribute] spells. The rules talk about spirits picking up and using weapons, but I can't find anything about casting, for example, health spells on spirits.

[CanRay]

All I know is that those spam messages about "Spirit Enhancement Pills" don't really work.

...

What?

[Summerstorm]

Also: why wouldn't worn armor and spirit armor not stack?

Pretty much every armor stacks, only worn with other worn (usually) not.

Inherent armor, spell effects, internal armor, Ki-powers... all are a nice +add.

Regarding the healing: Very possible, yes. It is a living, wounded subject with a body (at least at the moment, when it is materialized).

And enhancing attributes? Sure why not. More IP's: yeah. I don't see any problems with it at all. I think it might be weird having them "take the effects with them" though, when they give up their materialization i think they lose any physical effects, and you have to recast it, when they reform.

[kerbarian]

Also: why wouldn't worn armor and spirit armor not stack?

Pretty much every armor stacks, only worn with other worn (usually) not.

Inherent armor, spell effects, internal armor, Ki-powers... all are a nice +add.

Yeah, it's not clear. All those things you mentioned are explicit armor bonuses (I think), while Immunity is "added to the damage resistance test as normal armor." If it's like normal (worn) armor, it wouldn't stack with, say, an armor jacket, but it's a bit fuzzy.

And enhancing attributes? Sure why not. More IP's: yeah. I don't see any problems with it at all. I think it might be weird having them "take the effects with them" though, when they give up their materialization i think they lose any physical effects, and you have to recast it, when they reform.

You could also cast Increase [Attribute] on an astral spirit, though, right? It might be reasonable to have such spells fall off when the spirit changes states, since all its stats change then, but if the spell can apply in both states and the magician is still sustaining it, I think it also makes sense for the spell to stay active.

[Draco18s]

Yeah, it's not clear. All those things you mentioned are explicit armor bonuses (I think), while Immunity is "added to the damage resistance test as normal armor." If it's like normal (worn) armor, it wouldn't stack with, say, an armor jacket, but it's a bit fuzzy.

Helmet and Jacket are both "normal armor" and stack with each other.
Armor explicitly stacks in this game.

[Makki]

nowhere does it say you can't give a spirit drugs, does it? The same way people argue, you can poison and neurostun spirits.
Give'em K10, maybe speedball it with some Betameth, and send them back to the astral or metaplane before the 23S damage kicks in

[kerbarian]

Helmet and Jacket are both "normal armor" and stack with each other.
Armor explicitly stacks in this game.

"If a character is wearing more than one piece of armor at a time, only the highest value (for either Ballistic or Impact) applies. Note that some armor items, like helmets and shields, provide a modifier to the worn armor rating and so do not count as stacked armor."

The problem is, neither an armor jacket nor Immunity to Normal Weapons "provide a modifier to the worn armor rating". i.e. neither of them is listed as +X/+X or says that it modifies other armor. So it looks like they'd count as stacked armor and you'd only use the highest rating.

On the other hand, Immunity isn't really worn armor (e.g. it won't have encumbrance), so maybe the normal armor rules (which disallow stacking) don't apply. My inclination, though, is that unless there's a rule explicitly allowing the armor to stack, it probably shouldn't.

[Tanegar]

It is a living, wounded subject with a body (at least at the moment, when it is materialized).

You're making a sizeable assumption there; to wit, that a materialized spirit has the same kind of body as a metahuman, with blood, organs and whatnot. That is a huge assumption, and one that is, AFAIK, not supported in RAW.

[CanRay]

nowhere does it say you can't give a spirit drugs, does it? Give'em K10 and send them to the astral or metaplane, before the damage kicks in

Oh, that's a great way to get a bad rep in the spirit world!

Next time you summon a spirit, "What did you do to Brynhildr? She came back and cold clocked Thor after kicking the All-Father in the groin and stealing half of Sæhrímnir's meat! For the first time in memory, there are those that have gone hungry in the Feasting Hall of Odin! EXPLAIN YOURSELF!"

[phlapjack77]

+1 bonus point for taking the effort to type that weird combo a-e character

[CanRay]

I try to get things right when I'm talking about the Æsir. Last thing I want is a pissed off thunder god after me. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

EDIT: Also, one of my protagonists, the one that's a borderline Marty Sue-style "Competent Man", is a follower of Ásatrú (His wife converted him), and I really don't want him pissed off an inside my head.

... Well, more pissed off than he already is.

[LurkerOutThere]

Why would boost reflexes for a metahuman work on a spirit?

At the least it should take a custom spell.

[Fikealox]

I agree that a custom spell would be necessary, though my reasoning differs. I don't think Boost Reflexes is necessarily restricted to metahumans, but all Health spells must target an 'organic system' (per p 163 of Street Magic), which I don't think Materialization grants a spirit (per p 90-2 of Street Magic). I'd allow custom spells to have equivalent effects on spirits, but they'd could not be Health spells.

[LurkerOutThere]

Personally i wouldn't strictly from a game balance perspective but to each their own.

[Dahrken]

I don't think most drugs would work as intended if used on a materialized spirit, because they are designed to produce their effect by interacting with a (meta)human physiology and metabolism, which are something a materialized spirit lacks.
For exemple a spirit's body does not have a blood flow to transfer the active chemicals from their entry point to the target organs - and those organs don't exist !

A Possessing or Inhabiting spirit may be affected though their host, but I don't remember reading any rules about that.

It's similar for a Heal spell. I agree with Fikealow that it should not work on a materialzed spirit. With a Possession spirit it will obviously heal the host but likely not the spirit, and it will probably work with a merged Inhabitation spirit.

[kerbarian]

Why would boost reflexes for a metahuman work on a spirit?

That's what prompted my original post -- the rules don't seem to be clear either way. Health spells don't say anything about being specific to metahumans, and the general spellcasting rules say "A metahuman spellcaster can target anyone or anything she can see". Casting a combat spell at a spirit works fine, and spirits do have the attributes and condition monitors that would be affected by health spells, so why wouldn't health spells work on spirits? The main answer seems to be "because it doesn't seem like they should". The rules are vague, so I think that's a valid interpretation, but it's also subjective.

There is the reference that Fikealox pointed out in Street Magic that health spells affect an "organic system", but that's also not definitive. Do they mean organic as "pertaining to living organisms", which spirits could qualify for, or do they specifically mean carbon-based flesh and blood?

[Critias]

The closest thing to an outright rules precedent I can think of off the top of my head would be the (admittedly kind of a train wreck) Free Spirit PC rules from Runner's Companion. Page 93 talks about Free Spirits not being able to be healed by traditional first aid and medicine, not being able to use drugs "or anything else that requires an organic body."

It's not necessarily concrete where other spirits are concerned, but it certainly gives the impression that certain things do (or don't) affect spirits, whether they're manifested or not.

[Mäx]

Yeah, it's not clear. All those things you mentioned are explicit armor bonuses (I think), while Immunity is "added to the damage resistance test as normal armor." If it's like normal (worn) armor, it wouldn't stack with, say, an armor jacket, but it's a bit fuzzy.

How on earth isn't something that's added to a test not a bonus to that test.

[Tanegar]

Attributes aren't bonuses. Neither are skills. Neither is worn armor. The armor gained from ItNW is just armor, not a modifier.

[Modular Man]

First of all, the spirit needs to be able to use said equipment. Guns are generally used with hands, armor has about the size of an metahuman. So if the spirit comes in a shape fitting this, it should be possible. This also depends on spirit type and the magician's tradition.
Why wouldn't a health spell affect spirits? It affets dogs or horses, too, any living being, as far as I know. Paracritters, too. The spell still manages to effect all those very different and sometimes strange metabolisms. So why would it specifically exclude spirits?
Another nifty trick I'm going to use one day: My character will magically shapeshift a force 6 fire elemental into a black bear. Maybe he even will form-fit troll-sized chain mail armor via "Fashion"-spell to this beast. Well, the armor will likely be hot afterwards. He's got all necessary skills and knowledge anyway.

[Yerameyahu]

A horse, a dog, and even a paracritter have vastly more similar bodies than a spirit.

[Draco18s]

A horse, a dog, and even a paracritter have vastly more similar bodies than a spirit.

Cats have raspy tongues like dragons, too.

[Yerameyahu]

Mhm, and both norwhals and unicorns have uni-horns. maybe spirits are grouped by Linnaean taxonomy? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Modular Man]

A horse, a dog, and even a paracritter have vastly more similar bodies than a spirit.

Sure. Yet I think a healing spell would affect a spirit likewise... I just wanted to point out that a healing spell is not restrcted to humans. I know that spirits are far from a classic flesh-and-bone body... well, many of them at least.

[CanRay]

"Um, I'm sorry Ma'am, but I can't find any body armour in your size. Might I suggest Victoria Secret's line of Armoured Lingerie?" "Stupid human perception of Amazonian Physique."