This came up during a run the other weekend. On page 180 is says: " binding is used to compel long-term service from a spirit the magician has already summoned." it goes on to say... "The magician requires one net hit to bind the spirit. Additional net hits beyond the first add to the number of services the spirit owes." My question is this: When you bind a spirit do the services from summoning them transfer? If you summon a spirit and gain 4 services, then turn around and bind the same spirit and achieve two net hits. What would be the final outcome? Would the initial 4 services expire at sunset or would you have a bound spirit with 6 services? If this is the case I wonder when it would be better to rebind a spirit as opposed to summoning a new one and starting over because it is much easier to gain services from a summoning test than it is from a binding test.

Having read it over several times, I'm pretty sure that the services from the initial summoning test stay beyond the next sunset/sunrise.

There are a few reasons for rebinding rather than binding a new spirit with its full initial service set. Say the spirit is of a particularly high force, and that the initial summoning and bonding used edge to make them work without killing/KOing the character and freeing the spirit. Rather than summoning and binding a whole new spirit, using edge again to reduce the risk of character death, it may be better to try and rebind which carries no risk of the spirit becoming unbound with you unconcious before it.

Indeed, the binding of any Force 6 spirit has a very small chance of inflicting 24S drain no matter how high your magic attribute is. It doesn't really matter at that point what your centering is, if your lucky number omes up, you're going unconcious. And you going unconcious means that your spirit goes uncontrolled, possibly even free (depending upon how vicious your gamemaster is at that point). You being down next to a hostile force 6 spirit is probably your ass.

Meanwhile, if you get dropped by drain on a rebinding, nothing bad happens to you. You pass out and in a few hours you wake up and your spirit is standing over you saying "Did master sleep well?"

Rebinding is completely the way to go. Conjuring drain is astoundingly random, and letting the spirit rampage if the drain drops you is not acceptable. From an averages standpoint, every die that the spirit rolls cancels 1 die on summoning/binding tests, and 2 dice on drain resistance tests. But in a much more important fashion, every die the spirit rolls has a 2/3 chance of doing nothing, and a 1/3 chance of negating six of your drain resistance dice.

-Frank

Plus, there's the fact that you may end up building a working relationship with this particular spirit.

"Remember that corporate security wagemage that manabolted you last week?"
"Yes."
"The Johnson hired us for another run against that facility. Tonight's payback time."
"GOOD." *astral cracking of knuckles*