Spirit Powers vs The Astral Options

[BlackRabite]

My team was finalizing some plans yesterday and someone asked me if a sustained spirit power could be dispelled, I wasn't sure so I looked it up and I was surprised at how hard it was to find the information. It turns out that it can't, the counterspelling section specifically excludes spirit and critter powers but during my search I noticed that no other interaction between spirit powers and magic are listed and it spawned a couple more questions.

Can sustained spirit powers, like Movement, be seen on the astral plane and assensed?

Can sustained spirit powers pass through a mana barrier without disruption?

[Umidori]

Pretty much anything magical has some sort of astral aura when active, so while I can't point to RAW at the moment, I would say that Spirit Powers show up astrally - someone under the effects of Movement will have an indicative aura around them (although you may not necessarily recognize what the aura is), and you can assense and interact with them like any other aura.

As for Mana Barriers, I again can't point to RAW, but I would treat them just like active spells, foci, and everything else like that - meaning unless you want to "push" through via certain options like metamagics, you're going to have to "drop" and "recast" the power on the other side. Since spirits can use planar shortcuts this shouldn't be a problem, although it should probably expend a service.

~Umi

[Sendaz]

end of page 315 in core and start of 316 states:

Adept powers and many always-on critter powers are innate and so are unaffected by a barrier.
The gamemaster has the option to have certain ranged and sustained
critter powers (such as Concealment or Movement) suffer the same fate as spells[/quote]

By RAW it does not stop a sustained critter power like Movement, but the GM is within his rights to hourserule it to do so.

[Umidori]

I'd certainly treat Movement and the like as spells that don't require casting or resisting drain (Movement in particular can get really exploity very quickly), but good to know there's RAW on it.

It makes sense for more spell-like powers to be affected, and for more "passive" ones not to be.

~Umi