Hey guys. I was wondering if it stated in RAW anywhere that you're allowed to have spirits bound at chargen. If so, how many, at what force, and at how many services can they be? Also, what's your opinion on using skills before game start, such as for preparing vessels, training animals, etc?

Yes. BBB pg 85: Spirits.
Bounds spirits cost BP equal to the number of services owed.
Services owed is limited to Summoning skill (or conjuring group).
Bound spirit force equals the Magician's Magic attribute.
The number of spirits is limited to the Magician's Charisma attribute.

Joel

Also from a cost perspective.

You're almost always better not binding spirits in chargen. Just buy the ritual materials you'll need to bind them immediately after play starts.


EG: you have a magic 4 mage. You have a binding of 4.
You can spend 1BP for 1 services of a magic 4 spirit out of chargen. (you can spend up to 4, but you see where this is going)

OR
1BP == 10 force points worth of ritual materials to bind (500Y per point of force).
For .4BP worth of resources...
now immediately after play begins, you can use your ritual materials to summon, and bond the same force 4 spirit for a fraction of the cost. For that 1BP you could bind the force 4 and 2 force 3's (provided your charisma was high enough).

Lets say you don't do well on the initial summoning/binding test and only end up with 1 service... you're still ahead of the game if you rebind the spirit again to add more services.

If you have time and raw materials you can even make that cheaper by turning your own raw materials into ritual magic kit using the enchanting skill and tools.


All that assumes you have a relatively good magical skill level and can successfully summon/bind spirits of the force listed. IF you don't then, spending 1BP in chargen may make sense to have it bound... as rebinding a spirit doesn't carry the same risk of it running wild if you fail the binding check. Though it's also far less cost effective though, as you'll end up with less services owed for BP/nuyen at the end of the day.

Could you use Kits/Shops/Facilities for Binding and Ritual Spellcasting?

I think that's what the specialized Foci are for, so I would wager not, because the kits/shops/facilities tend to be mundane, although I suppose magical versions may be possible, I just do not believe rules for them exist.

Well, what I really need is a bound spirit at chargen who I can just tell to possess my armored clothing, maintain movement on me, and leave like that indefinetly. That would be ideal, but I worry about abusing my spirits by having them perform overly long services, even if by RAW I technically could do it. The game I'm going to be playing in isn't going to leave much downtime at all for even binding spirits or getting to my magical lodge so having a few spirits bound at chargen would be indispensible.

That would cost you 2 services per 12 hour period to do that. 1 to specifically posses your armor, and 1 to use movement on you.
As far as down time to bind spirits, I think its measured in a small handful of rounds to summon and bind them, so I really wouldn't be too worried if I was you.

Complex action to summon and hours equal to force to bind them. Most GMs give a day or so advanced warning before you even meet for the first run, and plenty more before you actually have to go on one.

My bad. Either way, still not too lengthy.

Why would it only last 12 hours? Is that in Street Magic somewhere?

I think it is the basic BBB that services generally only last 12 hours max (I know sustaining a spell in particular has a time limit on it because there are options for long term that drain a spirit's force) otherwise you could wring infinite use out of a single service.

A simple "Protect me." order to a spirit would last forever for instance, which would rather defeat the purpose behind limiting numbers of services.

Its not '12 hours' per say, its till sun up or sun down, OR 12 hours if your in the arctic or antarctic circle

I know summons only last til sunset/sunrise but I don't remember reading anything about bound spirit services doing the same. If you have a page number or something though, I'd appreciate it.

Each continuous use of a power which extends past the sun crossing the horizon costs one service.

So yeah, a summoned spirit can't maintain a spell for very long, and a bound one is going to be pissed at you for making it bind a spell, and you're likely to wrack up the spirit bane quality real quick.

No no no, I'm not asking it to sustain a spell, I'm asking it to sustain a power, something it can do with literally no effort for indefinite periods of time. I haven't found anything about how long a bound spirit can do this except for this line on page 95 of Street Magic.

"If a spirit is asked to perform a specific task, it will use any and all powers in its arsenal to complete the task, but will terminate those powers once the task is complete. If the spirit is asked to use a single power, it will continue to do so for as long as it is able or until the conjurer asks it to cease."

There's also the section on Long-Term Binding on page 94 but it says I can pay Karma to keep a spirit at a service for a year and a day, not how long it will keep at sustaining a power as a service without Karma expenditure. Does anyone have a page number on that day/night service thing?

In the SR4 book, it is page 177, under Spirit Services:

I thought that was only in reference to summoned spirits, not bound spirits. I always took not vanishing at sundown/sunup was one of the major advantages of having bound spirits.

That is correct. From page 178, under Bound Spirit Services:

As did I.
P.167 SR4, under Binding: "The services it owes from its original summoning will remain until expended, rather than expiring at sunrise or sunset."
P.178 Bound Spirit Services: "A bound spirit will not vanish at sunrise or sunset - its services remain until they are used regardless of how long it takes."
p.178 Remote Services: "A bound spirit's terms of service do not expire at sunrise or sunset, however, so the spirit can continue on for a considerable time."

I don't believe it's ever really addressed (though it should be).

I personally think 1 service per solar cycle is pretty good. As it's inline w/ spirit summoning and such. Just because a bound spirits UNUSED services don't go away at sunrise sunset... doesn't mean an active one won't use another charge.

I mean, it costs karma if you want the spirit to use it for a year and a day, so if you're not using karma, 1 service definitely shouldn't last more than a fraction of that.

I heavily suggest you point out this discrepancy to your GM along with the other party spellslingers. Ask him for a clarification and don't try and pull any fast ones on him.



My local GM just says one service per lunar cycle, (aid sorcery, etc. though he also has things like attacking break invisibility/concealment). Also we require that the spirit be in the area (generally defined as the extended detection range astral or materialized. (force^2*10 meter, EG: force5 250m). The reason for the in the area is that we don't want things sustaining powers from their home metaplane where it's almost immune. He also runs a very magic heavy game. In a more normal game... where magic is a bit more rare, then it can very quickly overpower things if you don't accept some reasonable checks on your power level relative to the other players.

i was fairly certain that there is an official statement somewhere suggesting that simply costing 1 service each sunrise/sunset to maintain the service was a reasonable houserule, and it was recommended for people who felt it was unbalanced not to include it (which is probably most people).

however, i cannot for the life of me find it in any book. it may have been an unofficial suggestion by one of the dev team.

All right, thanks guys. I'll talk to my GM about it and tell him what you've suggested. Oh well, I guess my dream of always on Immunity to normal weapons and force 5 movement for 2 chargen build points will go unfulfilled. So, what are your guys opinions on using skills before game start, like preparing vessels and training animals?

That gets purchased just the same as if you didn't have the skill. The thing to remember about starting resources is that it isn't how much money you start the game with, but a representation of all the things you've gotten in your life. Bought, stolen, built yourself. For instance if you have a high programing skill and buy a bunch of programs, it is reasonable to claim that they represent the programs you wrote yourself, and the X 'nuyen' you spent on them actually represents all the time you spent writing programs that you could have spent making money or improving skills or whatever (There is actually stuff along these lines in the book, I'm not just pulling it out of nowhere)

So yeah, you can have a prepared vessel at the normal cost, and you can have animals you've trained, but they'll cost the same amount of resources as if you'd just bought them.

The reason behind this is it allows your character to have used their skills in the past without skewing character generation or allowing for weird arguments. For example, all your starting gear could be stolen, but it'll still cost the same number of BP as if you'd bought it. If you got a discount on animals because you can train them yourself, then others will ask why they don't get their stuff for free if they claim to have (And have the skills to have) stolen all some or all of their gear.

Are there any actual page references for the claims that Bound spirits' services expire on the dawn/dusk cycle? It seems like everything textual indicates that this isn't true and that a Bound spirit performs its service(s) perpetually. So if you bind a spirit of Man, give it Innate Spell, and have it cast it and sustain it, that spell is in effect until it stops; which could very well be hundreds of years.

I'll admit I haven't read Street Magic or the new 20th Anniversary edition very thoroughly since my group doesn't currently use them, but the base SR4 book seems pretty clear that bound spirit services last until they are completed (1 minute or 1 millennium, it doesn't matter.)

Yeah, that is basically what the book says, that the spirit will basically stick around and sustain their ability until the heat death of the universe. And it is odd that they didn't address this in the A edition since that lackluster wording has been brought up before.

Still, it seems unlikely that sustaining a spell by a summoned spirit can only last a few turns, and a bound spirit only lasts a few days (And will get you the spirit bane quality if you're not careful) but if you give the spirit the spell through inate spell, it lasts all eternity with no problems. Seems rather unbalanced and easily makes spirits of man the best spirits by far because a half dozen bound with a single service can make you almost invulnerable (Armor, deflection, concealment, improved reflexes and a few others) or at the least far far stronger than the mage is intended to be.

I think the really odd thing is that in Street Magic on page 94 they give rules for long-term services that cost Karma, but they've never given a minimum time limit on spirit services. It seems like they've thought about giving a maximum duration on normal bound spirit services but I can't for the life of me find it anywhere in any of the books.

One thing about Long Term Binding vs. regular Bound Spirit services is that once your spirit performs the Long Term service it no longer counts against your total number of spirits allowed (and, of course, it costs Karma.) This can be more useful to low Charisma casters. It can also be more beneficial if you intend to exploit the Endowment power.

as i indicated in my previous post, i don't think it's anywhere official. in any event, it was only a recommendation, and apparently not even an official one at that, apparently; officially, you can have a bound spirit sustain a spirit power for as long as you feel like. though at some point, the spirit will probably get mad at you for taking advantage of it presumably.

While I tend to think that there ought to be a limit on how long a spirit can use a power, or in general how long a single service can last without the long term service cost, I will note that there is one indication that the writers intended it to be able to last longer than 12 hours.
The Aid Study service adds the spirits dice to the extended test. As a single service, the dice are added for the entire test. Which is a lot more than 12 hours.

Yours,
Joel

I agree Joel. Generally I feel that the only reason to go w/ sunrise/sunset is that is when all the services on an unbound go away, and as a principle it's generally good form that things follow the same form for simplicities sake.

Locally, like I said my local GM goes w/ a lunar month. New moon, and full moon taking the place of sunrise/sunset. (IE: 1 service per 2 weeks). This also sorta meshes well w/ magical rituals taking place at those times as well. It seems to work well.

But the book does not say that a bound service will go forever... ordering a spirit to do some meaningless impossible task for example... ordering a spirit to dig a ditch, and refill it forever for example. You're not going to get a perpetual motion machine by putting a spirit in a hamster wheel for a single service.


As far as the OP:
a few holes...
1. it takes a service to order a possession spirit to possess something. (the spirit will not just posess that a guard for you... as it needs to 'attack' the guard or mundane object to possess it, and it may very well fail). Also spirits don't like possessing mundane objects for good reason. (like being helpless against damage inflicted on a helpless inanimate item)
2. clothes is a collective noun... the spirit possesses one item. EG: your sports jacket... or your pants... etc.
2a. you do not have hardened armor... whatever the spirit possesses does.
3. Hardened armor does not stack w/ normal armor (look at the power, it lacks the cumulative with worh armor phrase, so only the higher value applies).

The rules do not handle the situation well at all.
Lets say you put it on a work coverall... we ignore the normal 2/2 armor I think that the clothes may have, and replace it w/ say 8/8 for a force 4 spirit.
The closest way to handle this would be to treat it as a barrier... but that brings up other problems... such as the spirit will take damage as it's host vessel is damaged.... how many boxes of damage does the clothing have? (note this is different from how many boxes damage does the spirit have! a spirit w/ 10 boxes physical could possess a troll with 13 boxes physical, and the spirit would die after the possessed troll took 10 boxes of physical, even though the troll isn't dead, similarly a spirit could possess a weak body and the body could die before the spirit).

Now the barrier takes damage and can be destroyed seperate from you...

Usiing spirits as nothing more than barriers and watching them get destroyed repeatedly, will get you a spirit bane quality... which will result in such things as non-cooperative spirits and spirits spending edge to resist summoning.


I heavily do not suggest using possession traditions unless you understand the problems and benefits of them very well, and you again, have sat down w/ the GM and gone over them w/ him.

Multiple clothing as a barrier to possesion armor is a good point, but considering that an armored jacket represents the same bypass armor penalties as a full, skintight body armor suit despite the obvious greater ease one would have head-shotting someone wearing the former seems to imply to me that I wouldn't have too many problems in this area, although my GM could rule differently for common sense's sake.

As for your point about me not having hardened armor if my armor does, that's kinda ridiculous. That's like saying that I don't have armor, my armored jacket does.

I've read a few posts here pertaining to Immunity stacking with worn armor and it seems to be a lot more up for debate than how you make it seem. I would say that the fact that there's no specific sentence within the Immunity rules saying that it doesn't stack with normal armor just leaves the subject open to interpretation. After all, there's no specific rule stating that vehicle are immune to toxins but we can reliably assume that they are.

I have thought about the implications of using Possesion spirits as armor, but have come to the conclusion that while such a service might seem more dangerous than simply summoning a spirit for combat, the armored clothing I am wearing is liable to be able to take quite a bit more punishment than my fleshy body, meaning that if we are both subject to the same attacks I'm the one who's going to die/fall unconscious first, leaving my spirit free to flee combat before being disrupted. And even if a spirit does suffer a full damage track, the only true consequence to it would be that it would be unable to return to the physical plane for 30-Force days, not an unforgivable consequence. Overall, considering that spirits are liable to be summoned into the thick of combat on a regular basis by ordinary magicians, I don't see this particular type of service as being that much more dangerous or abusive.

Finally, I believe you are a bit confused on the rules pertaining to possesion and the damage track. A possessed vessel has its relevant physical stats increased by the possessing spirits force, and the two of them are considered to be a single, duel-natured entity, using the same damage track, for the duration of the possession. If a spirit possessed a weaker vessel, the combined entity would have a greater physical damage track than either party individually, and even if said entity took damage greater than the original weaker entity's physical damage track, until the possession ended and both entities had to deal with the damage they had taken as a combined entity. So a possession won't end unless the duel entity takes damage enough to fill up it's enhanced track, although one should certainly be cautious about taking more damage than one can take outside of possession. In that case, it would probably be a simple matter to persuade the spirit in this case to mantain the possession until you had the opportunity to heal yourself to above critical condition.

Not as silly as you think. Normal armor doesn't have HP in shadowrun and doesn't take damage. However by possessing it, it does. And how many HP does it now have? If normal armor has zero... then it may be appropriate for there only to be the spirits HP, nothing more. Please understand, I like playing devil's advocate a bit.

Also you said clothes, not armor jacket. EG: i thought you were trying to wear mundane clothes possessed so it didn't appear like you were wearing armor or under armor. (in which case, armor doesn't stack rules start applying, and that's why I suggested treating it as simply a hardened armor barrier). If you can't tell, I oftentimes point out potential problems in the system when people try out exotic stuff like this. Since worn armor doesn't stack unless it explicitly says so...
That leaves 3 options.
1. it doesn't stack at all... I don't think so
2. Look at each layers hardened and normal value, and apply the higher of each (normal stacking)
3. Treat one as a barrier, sort of like shooting through the troll shielding the squishy mage behind him with his body. (this is a little wierd as it does result in stacking... but technically the spirit is 'worn' as the inaminate item. which would not normally stack)

As far as the hardened armor rules cite. It's crystal clear, to anyone who can read and apply basic logic. Neither under ItNW nor under Hardened armor does the power say it stacks!!! Look at spells like Mystic Armor, cyberware, etc. Every other occurence will say that it is 'cumulative with worn armor'. All the posts saying it should be ARE NOT BASED ON READING RAW. They're based on FLUFFY reasoning of this is how I think it exactly works... it's magic... it's a spirit... but in every single item in the book where they stack they're listed as cumulative. Nowhere under ItNW or Hardened does it say this, I challenge you to show me where it does.

Also, look at the possession sidebar on p102 and 103. For an inanimate object in particular, increase 'body, armor, and speed' by the force. (not 2x force as ItNW hardened would do). So if you possessed your 8/6 armor jacket w/ a force 4 spirit... now it's body would go up by 4 (undefined attribute on armor), it's armor will go up by 4, it's speed would go up by 4 if it was capable of moving on it's own (which it isn't). You effectively end up with a 12/10 piece of armor, w/ 8 points hardened, while only needing a body of 4 like normal to wear it unencumbered. (still pretty damn good, I give you props on that). So you may have more normal mundane armor than you realized if you didn't catch that bit about increasing armor by force.

Also if you actually possess the armor, the spirit would benefit from it's own possessed form armor, so effectively if shot, both you and spirit would have to make a damage soak test.

Though we're both right on the damage tracking... I had confused the stun & physical damage tracks... (my latest character is using a lot of non-lethal and runs into this (stunbolts & melee tasers)). p103 sidebar. They have a single physical damage track, but their stun tracks are separate. When the possession stops apply the full combined track to both entites for physical damage. Not that having to spend some nuyen for new armor is going to set you back too much given it's relatively low cost. Or if you have the armorer skill to patch it up yourself.

Best of luck, if you can't tell I play devil's advocate a bit. I think the concept is really cool, just don't piss your GM off in the process of doing it. And remember it's possible to end up w/ rediculous amounts of armor so that any damage the GM can do to actually hurt you will fry your teammates... and if the GM is forced to bring that much damage he can't legitimately only use it on you. And the normal counter to a massively armored target doesn't work... magic... you're a mage w/ counterspelling making that route hard to pull off as well.

You can do it. You just have to re-Bind the spirit every so often. The services will cost you at least two services per day. Just make sure that you re-Bind and get 2+ services each time.

That gets expensive though, since you have to pay 500xF per binding. And generally a spirit will get mad if you keep binding it again and again. It wants to go home, go on some dates, pick up that hot spirit of woman or maybe that literally hot fire spirit

a few things:

1) when a spirit uses the possession power, whatever it possesses is clearly not a normal <whatever>, unless the spirit has the realistic form power. this power is generally not available to spirits unless they are free or inhabitation spirits.

2) there are already rules for spirits improving the attributes of stuff they possess. if anyone attempts to shoot the spirit/your armor directly, it will face the spirit's hardened armor. otherwise, the armor rating will be increased by the spirit's force. you do not gain hardened armor either way; shadowrun armor does not degrade, so the toughness of the armor is not relevant.

@Jaid: are you sure you're not getting possession confused with inhabitation? Inhabitation does indeed normally change the physical form of the object, but possession is a different thing entirely and while the end product is duel-natured, I don't recall reading anything that says the mundane form of the object is affected at all. Also, if my armor has hardened armor and my enemies have to penetrate it to get to me, how exactly do I not have hardened armor?

@Karoline+darthmord: That would probably work, unfortunately the game I'm playing won't leave me free to go to my magical lodge very often to rebind spirits. I think the best solution for this is to just summon a spirit every morning and evening and tell him to possess my armor and maintain movement then. That way I have a replenishable supply of services that's completely RAW legal

@Falconer: Thank you for playing Devil's advocate. We're not going to come to a suitable conclusion unless there's a little debate. As for the HP of armor rules, I honestly think they should exist. In addition to this problem there's also a spell in Street Magic that damages guns, armor, and other inanimate objects, and if these things have no health then I have no idea how to handle this. I hesitate to suggest this, but perhaps armor's physical damage track should be based on it's impact rating, which generally indicates its density and thickness. I just feel that giving some kind of damage track to armor would help fill a few holes in the shadowrun rules.

All right, let's say for a second that I accept your view that a possessed person doesn't stack his worn armor with his ItNW, I'd still say that in this case it doesn't matter. In this case it's not the person in the armor who's got Hardened Armor, it's the armor itself, making this more like bone lacing or Cyberlimb armor stacking with ItNW, which does work. Possession enhances the object of possession, so if armor is built in to the possessed object it would make sense that it is enhcanced by whatever armor the spirit has.

Also, as for your point about my GM needing to throw enough firepower at me to hurt me killing my teammates, on the reverse side of that, I'm one of two tanks in my group. I need to be able to take damage for other members of my party without being wiped out. Shadowrun has always been a game of eggs carrying giant hammers. In order to be able to be hit by even a normal hammer, I need to be a steel clad shell, let alone the multiple hammers I'll be taking as the tank of the group.

Actually armor and other objects have 'health'. You just have to figure out what they are made of and then go consult the barrier info. Have to do a bit of math to work out from the base area to the area of the armor, but you can get a general idea.

And yeah, possessed people/objects are fairly obviously possessed. Just like a spirit that materializes and looks like a human can never be mistaken for a normal human (Without really bad lighting or realistic form), a possession spirit will always be obvious when they are possessing something. Don't know an exact page number, but look up realistic form.

Cool. So that means my tank can go into battle with glowing magical armor. I think the biggest problem with the barrier method for determining health is that the table mentioned uses values for blasting a meter wide hole in a wall, it doesn't mention how much damage armo takes or how much health a gun has. I don't know, I feel that this issue has been discussed as much as it can be without resorting to GM fiat and house rules.

Well yeah, that's why I said you'd have to do some math. The health mentioned gets you a 10cm hole 1m in diameter. Thus if you figure that armor is about 2cm thick and roughly 1m in diameter (When you consider all the material that goes into it. Jackets might be 2-3m) so you take whatever the structure health is and divide by 5 and you get a rough estimate for the health that the armor would have.

Easy way to assign a Physical Health Track is to use the basic rule of thumb... all items have a health track equal to 8 + 1/2 Body... figure the body and go from there... many things will have a body of 0, so therefore after taking 8 points of directed damage (ie Specifically targeted, such as by a Wreck Spell), they are no longer functional... if you really need such rules that is...

Keep the Faith

if you want the spirit's armor for when somebody shoots you, have the spirit possess you. if you want to upgrade your armor, well, the spirit can do that, too; it will boost the armor rating by the spirit's force rating.

the problem is that you are assuming the spirit's hardened armor actually makes stuff bounce off of it. while that *may* be the case for, say, a manifested earth spirit (but may also not be the case), it is likely not the case for a manifested air, fire, or water spirit. hardened armor can just as easily mean "i don't care if you shoot me with a bullet, it will just pass right through without inflicting significant damage".

if you play with armor degradation rules, your armor would be largely protected from them. otherwise, the only effect (unless someone specifically targets your armor) is that the armor's rating will improve by the rating of the spirit (which increase the rating of objects it possesses by it's force).

I seem to remember its being optional rules for possession being obvious, and then based on the force of the spirit doing it, but then again someone could have laced my breakfast with something...

And if you have a good charisma, and channeling do both...

I actually agree w/ Jaid's reading here. I'm neutral on one part where I'm trying to find more to back it up.


Possessed objects are clearly possessed. Maybe to someone w/ assensing they'll be blindingly obvious (why's that tin can have a shining aura?). There's a lot of discussion about one of the uses for a possession tradition, to possess a guard and use it to infiltrate the facility... if the guard is obviously possessed to other guards, that seriously limits the options there.

Catch here is assensing is pretty much the pure domain of the mage, few adepts spend the points for the power. And dual-natured isn't that common, though even then w/o assensing skill they'll see the glowy astral but not be able to interpret it.

However, I'm a little curious.. where do you draw the line on the barrier line of reasoning. If the party cyber-troll intentionally lets the light pistol rounds hit him to serve as the mages human shield... how would you handle it?
To me most straightforward, is do it normally, have the mage roll reaction + cover normally.
Then though how do you handle the 'stray' rounds which catch the troll. (outside of assuming he 4:1's them to nothing).


Patrick:
I repeat my earlier point. The GENERAL RULE is that armor does not stack. Hardened armor is tallied seperately from normal armor. You have NOT pointed out anywhere in the rules where it once says they are cumulative (unlike all other sources of stacking MAGICAL and mundane sources).

Since it's the item which doesn't have it, SR uses an abstracted system. So you can't get down too far into the details. What if you're wearing the armor and you get randomly hit in the face by the SMG spraying bullets. The only thing which is 100% protected by the spirits immunity power is the possessed item. I also agree w/ the later... a small calibre bullet passing through a ghostly spirit form could very well do no damage but not be stopped. (though I don't agree w/ the notion that a spirit doesn't have some kind of CKS hits either just because they're magical constructs).

Also, before we get too far off track here. It is trivially easy to summon a high force spirit (not bind it, but just summon it). In which case you can easily get ItNW hardened up into the 14/16/18 range. There are very few attacks which will reliably hurt you at those levels. Outside of elemental attacks and even those are hard. You're only talking about bound spirit services... You don't need to bind a spirit, when you can summon one on the fly (if you're willing to take the drain.. and anyone dealing in spirits should heavily look into the centering metamagic).

If you deal less w/ trying to get around the self-possession rules, and instead just take the metamagic channeling w/ your first karma, you'll have far less problems. (that's the power which allows you to have the spirit possess you while still retaining control of your own body). I don't see why the end-run around the rules is so important. (part of the problem w/ the end run around the rules is you have 3 spirits... nothing stopping you from giving 3 party members the benefit. Or worse.. the GM playing turnabout is fair play and all the guards have possessed armor and ItNW, meaning none of your team but the mage can do anything.).

You see how that very quickly ends up going nuclear and why I'm cautioning you against taking it too far.

Another option, depending upon your tradition and the spirits you can summon, is using your first Karma for Invoking rather than Channeling. If you have access to Possession Spirits with Endowment great form power (Guardian and Task) you can have them grant you Possession as a power. You can then Astrally Project and Possess your own body. Now you have most of the benefits of Possession, but can also still use all of your own skills and powers. You also have the benefits that come with Invoking. If you are worried about your Charisma limiting your number of bound/invoked spirits, you can always use Long Term Binding and pay Karma to gain the Possession power for a year and a day.

That sounds so munchy it hurts....

not sure that would work... the possession spirit does a lot of talking about spirits, and not astrally projecting humans afaict.

that said, immunity to normal weapons would certainly be an option.

anyways, as far as the spirit form thing, this is taken from SR4A:

(bolding for emphasis mine)

now, this is talking about materialising spirits, but the closest i can see to gainsaying it is from street magic, which indicates that possession spirits show through similar to a shamanic mask. the most generous interpretation i can think of for this would be to allow them to not be immediately obvious, but to require a perception test with a threshold of 6 - force, like the shamanic mask (this is the most generous i can see being, since nothing indicates that possession spirits are any less evident as being spirits, and the rules are quite clear that unless otherwise specified rules applying to manifesting spirits apply to possession spirits also. additionally, nothing in the realistic form power indicates that possession spirits have it automatically.)

digital grimoire has this in an example relating to a possession spirit:



as well as



as well as