[SR4] - Ally Spirit communication Options

[Machiavelli]

Hi Cummers,

is there a reference in the rules, if ally spirit in animal form can speak, even due their physique is not capable to do so?

Second Question: is there a limit in meter / kilometer for the telepathic communication between ally and master? I cannot find the rule.

Thank you.

[SpellBinder]

If you're referring to the Sense Link between summoner and ally spirit, Street Magic, page 54, side bar. It's summoner's Magic x 10 meters.

[Machiavelli]

Aaah, perfect. Thank you.

[Mantis]

Ally communication can be telepathic just like with any bound or summoned spirit so the form doesn't matter as far as that goes. Since spirit forms are just a shell anyway whether it can 'speak' or not isn't really limited by form. An earth spirit in the shape of a bunch of rocks could as easily speak as one in the shape of a golem. Since the spirit isn't actually pushing air past vocal cords to talk the form is irrelevant to speech capabilities.

[Machiavelli]

Agreed, but my problem is another one. In our current run, the rest of my team is on one of the lowest levels of the Wuppertal-Plex. I am sitting 3 levels above them with 9K and 3S damage. To aid them, I told my ally-spirit to give some support and he scouted the area astrally. Now he found a bunch of feral Ghouls around the corner, manifested in front of my group to warn them, but he has the shape of a dog and the GM (and I) wasn´t sure if he can tell them vocally what is around the corner or if he can just growl and point in the direction of the threat.

[bannockburn]

What's that, Lassy? Timmy fell into a well?

Joking aside, the easiest for your ally spirit would be to use a complex action to switch form, provided it has a form actually capable of speech.
The base power Sapience does not grant the ability to speak, nor does Sense Link, which is, in any case, limited to the summoner.
I would further argue that Realistic Form gives the realistic form of a dog, which cannot speak either. This rules out the "out of the box" powers.

If you haven't invested the points in either a form capable of speech, an additional power like Mind Link (provided it exists in the list of spirits your character can summon), or a spell like Mindlink (provided your character knows it), it will not be able to speak.

All that being said, that's probably an extremely intelligent, and more importantly sapient dog there. It could easily scratch written instructions or a picture with its claws.

PS: It's "catch", not "caught" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Machiavelli]

I was about to do the Lassy-joke myself, but yes, that is the situation. ^^

Unfortunately i will have to stay with growling because the dog was the only form i gave the ally. Summoning this thing was expensive as hell and i just gave him the most needed powers, etc. Force 6 was absolute priority. ^^

Thank you for the help.

[bannockburn]

2 points of Karma saved at the wrong time (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Still, you can add new forms later without it costing more, unlike Force.
Should be relatively trivial to modify your ally.

[Machiavelli]

Indeed, that was the reason. I saved as much karma as i could, but because force later costs double, i put the focus on this value. Also i didn´t want to wait any longer, so i skipped the further forms and one or two powers so that i get this damn ally right away (i knew a hard run was coming and it is the first character in our group sice over 20 years of gaming that invested in an ally).