Question we ran across at table last night--can all the spirit types fly? Air and Fire are listed as doing so. Ghost Cartels shows flying Plant Spirits. All have free movement on the Astral. Thoughts?

From Shadowrun Companion:



The "Fly" skill (and Fly-Movement) for Spirits of Air, just tells you, that they can do it better

I'm fairly certain that passage refers to free spirit PCs and NPCs who coalesce into a metahuman form. I don't think it was meant to imply that an Earth Spirit that materializes into a shambling hunk of rock can hover. Only spirits that have the Flight skill/power, like Air Spirits, can actually fly while materialized.

Hm, it's in the free spirit chapter of the companion, but imho it's pretty generic. Difficult to say.

Geodude disagrees. Geodude very disagrees very much.

There is no flight power. Materialization itself grants three-dimensional movement.

Free Spirits are different from "Critter Spirits" like Earth, Air, Water, etc., the ones listed in SR4 and Street Magic, and use different rules.

Technically speaking, there are no rules for determining who can and cannot fly. Nothing actually says that Tiny the Troll can't flap his arms and take to the skies. Some critters that obviously can fly have a separate flight movement rate, others do not.

What about the common sense rule?

Say, what-what? Nawww, dogg, there's a Flight skill listed next to the Air Spirit in the SR4 Critter section. Runners aren't meant to be beset by flying Treebeards and Pikachus.

I say no; On the Astral plane they can move three dimensionally just like a projecting mage does. Manifested spirits (or projected mages) can also still move in 3D. But once a spirit materializes then they're limited by the form of their summoner's tradition. An air spirit in the form of a large bird could still fly, for example, or a spirit of the water in the form of a cyclone might also have a certain amount of 3D movement, but a spirit of man in the shape of a revolutionary war soldier, for example, wouldn't.

Agreed. Be sure to note the difference between Manifestation and Materialization. Very common thing to get confused over. When a Spirit of Earth Materializes it is "made of earth" and thus is bound by the physical laws of that substance.

He's right - a materialized spirit can fly...even earth elementals.

A spirit with the flight skill can fly faster though - just like a character with the run skill can run faster.

Editted to add:

Common misconception. Materialized spirits aren't made of any specific material. Their materialforms are just mana held together by sheer force of will.

Oh I didn't say it was RAW, that's just the way I do it.

To expand on that a bit, I agree that an spirit of earth isn't actually made of earth, as indicated by posters above. However, I run my games such that the tradition of the caster defines the appearance and -- to a certain extent -- the capabilities of their summoned spirits. Even within the rules, the difference between possession vs. materialization traditions is there, so I just expand on that a bit.

If someone comes to me with the Oz tradition where spirits of earth are represented by the flying monkeys, then those spirits would likely fly even if a shaman's spirits of earth -- represented by a humanoid mass of rock -- may not. Not sure if I would okay such a tradition, but that's a separate issue. I've had two games with custom traditions within them now and prefer to let my players have a good time defining their specific paradigm of sorcery/conjuring as much as possible giving them as much leeway as I'm comfortable. I think it makes the game better.

There's a significant difference between hovering and flying. An Earth Elemental isn't going to shoot up into the sky like Superman. At least I doubt that's what the devs intended.

But it can if it wants to.

Exactly. Saying you need the flying skill to fly is like saying you need the athletics skill to run. You don't, it just makes you better and faster at it. All spirits can fly, but most (those without the flying skill) just aren't all that gracefull in the physical world.

I understand that the RAW states spirits can float or hover but, mechanically speaking, granting any spirit the ability to fly like an Air Spirit would be game breaking. Even a Force 1 spirit is pretty uber as-is. My rule of thumb is that if a PC can't run away from a critter with a chance of escaping, it's an unfair scenario.

Even if a spirit can't fly, it can always go into astral to follow the runner everywhere. The only chance of escaping is to defeat the spirit or go behind a ward - and both ways will also work if the spirit can fly

There's actually a few more ways than just those two, including simple distraction or conning it (ie: "Look over there! Zoom, away I go!") or leading the spirit into a large crowd of people and forcing it to make an opposed perception roll vs. a reasonable PC Stealth roll.

I always treated flight for non-air spirits as an optional power, taking it gives them a aerial move speed equal to land speed and the flight skill. Air spirits of course can allready fly.

Then again I also allow beast, man, and plant spirits to take realistic form as an optional power, I tend to follow the rule in most situations that most spirits can't do everything, but there is a spirit who can.