A quick question that came up. Can you call on a bound spirit while on magecuffs and inside a magemask? Is not really magic at this point (or is it?) so I don't think the glomoss inside the magecuffs would react on it. Summoning would trigger it, but you don't need to summon a bound spirit. You just need a Simple Action to do it.

You'd still need to succeed in the Willpower + Intuition (4) Test of the Magemask, but barring that there's nothing to keep the captured magician from calling on her (already) bound spirits from the metaplanes to reign hell on the captors, right?

Pretty much.
If you have a bound spirit, no mater where on the world you are, as long as the spirit is in the astral or the metaplanes right then, the spirit will appear if you think:"heel boy!" with enough concentration.

Respectfully disagee.
Though possinle but unlikely in a mage mask alone, I would say you got jolted by mage cuffs at least once when you tap the mojo to bring spirit mto heel, possibly more if the spirit turns near enough to trigger the glow moss.

So you're basically saying that asking the spirit to come back is like a summoning in itself (though without Drain), and not done through the mental link between the summoner and the spirit?

My position on this is two fold, the act of calling a spirit to you is depenant on a magic connection and therefore inherently magical.
Secondly, from game balance perspective mage cuffs become significantly less effective at rendering a magician docile.

As I pointed the glow moss may still trigger if the spirit stray to close when summoned.

Neither calling nor commanding a spirit infers magical activity glow moss could detect - and as mage cuffs are based on glow moss, they would not activate.

However, having the spirit stand next to the mage will trigger the glow moss...

You pretty much have to exhaust a mage (and his spirits) before putting those cuffs on, anyway.
It's a good point that the spirit itself will trigger the glow moss.

The question is actually for a piece of fiction. Maybe the escape would work better if only a magemask was involved. Still, giving the order and dropping from the electricity soon after doesn't sound bad.

Thank you. I want to go with the fluff, so it's nice to hear arguments on both sides.

Spirits you have summoned are continuous mental communication with you. If sending them the order "get over here" would activate the mage cuffs, then they should just be going off all the time.

I am looking at this from an SR3/ game world perspective and it is an inference on how magic works. Summoning a spirit from the meta plane is a magical act. Even a mundane summoning a free spirit with a true name invokes this through the magical power of the true name. Consequently if only a magicain can call a spirit which is previously summoned, it must be magical in nature.

I would assert that constant mental communication is suspect, it is an act of will. Once summoned communicating to a spirit via mental command, though possible via astral perception, is not inherent unless an ally spirit with a telepathic link.
Consequenlty if the spirit moved beyond the range of the spoken word or psychic directive via astral interaction; I would rule the summoner cannot issue commands or judge specific circumstances for the spirit. With exceptions for circumstances covered by that magical connection per rules, like being disrupted, banished, stolen etc

This is just my take for fluff and game balance. It is an inference.
I dont really have hard lines though, I occasionally add psychic flashs for my mage PC on spirit emotions/sensations when out of sight and sound. Becasue magic is not science with better special effects but and living art which is part of the being living it.

I know there is no RAW on this call.

For evidence to this way of thinking, could a mundane giving control of an elemental for example, send it to the home metaplane and recall it at unspecified later point with out previous instruction in your game?

For me this is a no, because they have no means of contacting the spirit. The summoner can because they have that magical connection.

Also from a realism point of view, if your arguement is mage cuffs are no good unless you have already disarmed the magicain and dont work on conjurerers, every single law maker would issue a death penalty on criminal magicains with zero tolerance. The risks are just too high to legitimise incarceration.

My 2

Edit: And no, this specifically does not apply to Loaned Services. The spirit is bound by it's summoner, not whoever is granted temporary usage.

Interesting. That has changed.
Does that extend into the metaplanes or if the spirit is given to someone else to control? Through a ward? Through background count? Through mana void?

If it does not in the metaplanes, then I stand by my interpetation that a magical act will occure.

Duely noted in any case, I have avoided clutterin the mental attic as still playing SR3 so avoid the SR4a

I think you missed my question on that one. Does the summoner still have communication with a spirit loaned to someone else? Is what i meant.
Which would mean it would be possible to over rule any instruction an eves drop on conversations etc

A sizable change for old SR3. Perhapes to big a step for me with out limitation.

Edit: It just struck me that Watcher spirits just became very VERY useful in SR4a with that ruling. Who need mindlink?

If i remember correctly(never been good with the magic stuff), that connection was there in SR3 too . .
Also, yes, the mage has constant link to his bound spirits, no matter where they are or who is ordering them around.
That does not mean that they can spy through their eyes. Things like that would be another service, most likely cancelling out the older loaned service.

All you have to do is talk and ask questions per this ever present psychic link me thinks.

In SR3 the spirit could effect the summoner from astral but did not have the constant telepathic hotwire, could just be the raise in the mana levels but without limit its over the top for me. Like the, a watcher spirit can find anyone, anywhere fiasco.

It essenitally allows a conjuring capable wizzer to be immune to mage cuffs as long as the spirit is somewhere in the astral. And this is with my debatable stance that summoniing from the meta planes is a magical act.
So to stop your player who has spent the requisite BP without a double tap or keeping them comatose, you have to push plot believibily to near breaking point.

Ref tweaks imminent I fear.

Kinda like a Rigger with built in comlink is immune to Gag and Blindfold you mean?

Okay... I think I'll have the spirit somewhere in the astral, maybe on a remote service, as the Spirit-Summoner Link does not extend to the metaplanes in SR4A.

Calling bound spirits from the metaplanes would, by my logic, have to be some kind of a magical act.

Sure, but not magical activity that can be detected by glow moss. That's a difference.

Ah yes. Forgot about that bit.

I guess that's why mages in prison slowly go insane with the buzzing of magemasks.

Total sensory sealing off your eyes while simultanously overloading your ears? Yeah, i think that might make mages a bit funny in the head O.o . . Not that they haven't been a bit off their rocker to begin with, talking and seeing things that are not there after all ^^

as in this instance you have a jammer or pulse spell. Mage cuffs where designed to move wizzer prisoners, soon as you leave a warded area your charge summons all the spirits availible to escape.

With the summoning from metaplanes, its a ref call to catorgise it as part of summoning and so trips glow moss or independant and so does not.

Either way the wizzer is laughing if they have a spirit on the other side of the planet in the astral.

By the way, do those masks actually stop the mages from going into astral space?

Magemasks would hinder the attempt, as you have to make a test to do anything.

Magecuffs, on the other hand, zap a mage right back into their body when they try to astral project.

understood