I started wondering if spirits go free when a magician is unconscious? Does it matter if it is due to D Stun or just sleeping? Tradition would seem to matter or the use of conjuring materials.

I have found where it says when conjuring if Drain kills or knocks the shaman or mage out, the spirit becomes uncontrolled.

I have found where bound elementals and bound watchers stay if the magician is asleep - both require conjuring materials.

I have always played that mages can sleep without their spirits running away.

Does the limit of only until the first following sunrise or sunset mean that shamen can't go to sleep without their spirits departing?

I have played both ways about D Stun - some games you keep your spirits, some games you don't (following the summoning precedent.)

Is this addressed somewhere that I am overlooking in my haste? If so, you need not disseminate the rule, just point out the page.

Thanks.

I think the main thing to keep in mind is that a bound spirit isn't the same thing as an active spirit.

When the spirit is present and in service to the conjurer, going unconscious breaks the symbolic link of master and servant (you physically can't order it about any longer). So the spirit is then free to do whatever it wants - leave, finish the job, go on a rampage, etc. And since that rule doesn't make an explicit exception for types of unconsciousness (making naps equivalent to knockouts), this affects any active spirit currently under your control.

A bound spirit isn't necessarily under your direct control. The nature of the compact just means that it has to drop whatever it's doing and come when you call for it, and then do what you ask of it. Otherwise, it's free to go about it's spirit-y business. Which is why sleeping doesn't break the binding as long as there are services owed - so neither should going unconscious. Any active business the spirit is on may be negated, as it would be with a nature spirit. But any further services owed are still there.

Nature spirits can't be bound, and are always considered to be under active control until dismissed/uncontrolled. So losing consciousness frees them of any further obligation to the summoning shaman. But since Shamanism in general tends to view conjuration as asking a favor from a colleague, rather than binding the genius loci to your will. So most shamans would either dismiss the spirit before turning in for the night (unused tasks or no unused tasks) or, if the job were important enough for the spirit to pull an all-nighter, sit a vigil until the job is done.

So, you don't know either. (I am kidding.)

See, I have had it rationalized both ways as a player, and as a GM I usually discus it if someone brings it up. I have a forum game going where I kind of just made the decision that would make the game more fun for the most players, but wonder if I did a dis-service that will hurt in the long run.

Just hoping someone with more time than I have at the moment might find it, or someone might know where it says that I am overlooking. (Anyone with a searchable 3rd edition pdf?)

I've been wondering about SR4. What happens to a magician's spirits, bound and unbound, if he's incapacitated or asleep? Do they keep fighting? Do they go away? Is it just something you ad-lib as it comes about?

My group's SR4, not 4A, but really, we're too rules-confused for it to matter.

Since someone opened it up to 4th edition, does anyone remember if this was defined on 1st or 2nd edition. (Don't have those books with me, so may need more than a page number.)

It seems that there's no existing rules for this in SR4...

Don't know about SR1, but there where rules for this in the SR2 grimoire (in the chapter on free spirits) and there seem to have been some in SR3 as well, even though this thread indicates that they've also been unclear.

I thought it was fairly clear - and it still kinda is. But I really should have re-read the section instead of relying on what I thought it said.

For both questions, the best answer relies on the standard RPG rule guideline: lacking specifics, go with the general. Anything else is Rule 0.

Having read through the relevant sections in both the core book and Magic in the Shadows, there are only two conditions where a spirit goes uncontrolled: if you die/go unconscious from the conjuration drain damage or if both participants in a Control contest fail their respective Conjuring tests.

A nature spirit's period of servitude ends when you run out of owed services, you leave that spirit's domain (or, in the case of some spirits, the domain leaves you), or the next sunset or -rise. 'The Shaman takes a nap' is not one of the named conditions. Elementals are always bound, and remain so until all of the owed services are discharged (or the magician dies) - regardless of how long it takes.

In both situations, the general rule(s) are those regarding a summoned spirit with favors owed. And in that instance, the spirit does whatever it's been tasked with (to the limits of its abilities) until you meet one of the enumerated criteria that ends a single service. At that point, it either leaves or goes on standby to await further orders, depending on whether you have services remaining or have violated any of the other conditions.

The specific instances where service ends are also enumerated in 4th edition. Unbound spirits last until the next sunrise or sunset, they stray out of the magician's range while active, or you run out of services (whether you've used them all individually or burn them all on a single remote service). Bound spirits stay bound until you run out of services (however long that takes) or their binder dies. Apparently unbound spirits will finish whatever you last told them to do and hang out until time runs out. It also lists only three instances where the spirit goes uncontrolled: when you're incapacitated by conjuring drain when summoning or binding, or if you critical glitch on the latter.

I've never played or heard of a spirit staying bound to a dead magician. Heading to check 2nd edition.

Where's this?

No.
I don't recall any rules regarding unconsciousness except the one about conjuring drain. I had a quick look at SR2/3 and Grimoire 2 and paradoxically, saw nothing.

For Watchers - MitS.100, second column about halfway down. For Elementals - SR3.186, last paragraph, inferred.

This is inferred but I run things that natural sleep is fine but being knocked out by deadly stun results in active elementals/watchers testing for becoming uncontrolled, bar remote service of course.

What is the Test? Use the test for losing an Ally, or to see if a spirit becomes a free spirit, or...?