Hi, new member to the forums but I have been reading many of the posts.

I have a question regarding ally spirits. Though I have a long winded explanation before gettng to it. Sorry...

Pg. 104 SM: under step 4 for creating an ally spirit the spirit would need Magical Guard power to get counterspelling.
Under step 3 for creating an ally you can only give an ally powers from spirits of your tradition have.
Magical Guard (being a new power...) is not available to Core hermetics or shamans so they cannot create an ally with counterspelling.

However, on page 105, under the Magic Skill Use paragraph all allies have the Magician quality and that you can design an ally with ANY magical skill known by the summoner. Where it goes in to state counterspelling as an available choice.

My question is: which paragraph is correct?

They could both be correct in that even with the magician quality you still need to give an ally Magical Guard but figured I would ask just to be safe.

They can both be correct. You'll notice that Magical Guard allows a spirit to use the counterspelling skill. And a spirit can have the counterspelling skill and not be able to use it. Take the Soldier Spirits Insect tradition for example. All soldier spirits get Counterspelling skill. But you have to give them the Magical Guard power as an optional power if you want them to be able to use it.

What he said. There's no conflict, it's just that Magical Guard was a bad example and superfluous because an ally can use counterspelling without Magical Guard due to having the Magician quality.