Say a mage or mystic adept had a favorite weapon, and wanted to give it the ability to "return" to their hand if dropped/lost. Would the mage quicken levitation on himself, or on the weapon? If on himself, does that quickened levitation spell also allow him to move anything within range/weight limits?

Somebody's been watching Krull lately?

Wow, that brings back memories. First saw that on hbo in the early eighties. But no, I just wanted a character to be able to "summon" his weapon.

you cast levitation on an object, which you can then move. this can be seen by the fact that the size of the object to be moved determines the threshold for the spell. if you wanted to be able to move the weapon, you would therefore quicken levitate on the weapon.

alternately, you could quicken magic fingers, which simply gives you the ability to manipulate stuff at range. this would be quickened on the mage, not on something else, and could be used for any nearby object provided the magic fingers spell is strong enough to move that object.

Many thanks, Jaid.

and buster

Another question I had related to this topic. If levitation was quickened on a weapon, and that weapon was dropped/lost, would the character have to see it in order to activate the "return"? For example, if the weapon was only, say, 10 feet away, but was obstructed from view (behind a piece of furniture), since the range of the spell is "LOS", would that prevent the retrieval from taking place?

I would require LOS to the item with the quickened levitate in my games, if only to make it interesting for the mage. Alternatively, you could levitate it but if you couldn't see it, you might not be able to direct it effectively back to you.

Honestly, if you want to have a returning sword, I'd summon up an inhabiting ally spirit and have it use the sword as it's vessel. Then you can summon it back without having to see it simply by calling to your ally. And you get all the other bonuses from allies. Just don't let that sword get stolen or broken

Can an ally who is using Inhabitation make use of the metaplanar shortcut? I thought they lost that ability upon using Inhabitation since that reinforces them more in the physical realm.

Another question: what type of action would "summoning" the weapon count as? If a character also had the quick draw power, would it be a free action?

A spirit-inhabited or possessed sword just sits there, the spirit would need to know the Levitate spell (or Magic Fingers). An inhabited or possessing spirit obviously does not have access to astral travel, therefore it can't use the metaplanar shortcut using astral travel.

However, there's nothing stopping you from creating an ally in the shape of a sword! No reason to go the possession/inhabitation route. An ally-sword could be mentally called to materialize right in your hand. The ally sword wouldn't need to know Levitate/Magic Fingers because an ally can always travel 3D even when materialized. It'd even have the metaplanar shortcut trick. Give him the elemental aura power and you've got a flying, teleporting, intelligent, flaming sword! You could create a whole line of spirit-armor and spirit-weapons.

I'm pretty sure that a spirit in the shape of a sword will have the properties of a spirit, and not a sword. There's some fairly explicit text in Street Magic.

What if it has "realistic form - sword"? Could it have more sword-like properties then? I think yes.