Reading up on my ritual spellcasting rules I've found the following text:

"Individual magicians with foci or bound spirits not otherwise occupied may use them to help with Drain." SR4A, p.185, Ritual Drain

This is news to me. I was quite sure that neither spirits (except allies) nor foci (except centring foci) could help with drain and cannot find any text to contradict me besides the quote above.

Can anybody set me straight on this?

In SR4A, the references to foci and spirits removing Drain were removed, except in this case which appears to be an oversight. It contradicts all the other text.

Now indirectly, through things like foci sustaining spells that raise Attributes, or bound spirits aiding in spells that do so, these things can help.

If memory serves if you choose not to add the focus dice to the summoning test, you can choose to add it to the drain test. (I'll see if i can find a page number for that.)

As to spirits i do believe on the under the aid sorcery action if you didn't spend those dice on the straight test, you may also be able add those to the drain test, that isn't discussed in the section on tasks. But drain packed spirits can do it for sure.

Well i can't find a page reference for that so I may be recalling a previous edition (which i'm prone to do). Perhaps wiser heads then mine have input on this?

See page 199 of SR4A. Foci add dice to the Sorcery or Conjuring attempt dicepool. Not to the Drain resistance.

See page 187 of SR4A. Aid Sorcery adds dice to the casting pool only. Not to the Drain resistance.

EDIT: Yes, in earlier editions you could assign dice to the Drain Resistance Test.

All part of the effort to bring magicians back in line with other character types. Too bad they shot that effort in the foot by buffing Conjuring in 4e.

In what way do you see this having happened?

Now, it's been a while but here is how I remember Conjuring to work in previous editions.

Shaman could only summon Nature Spirits. They could not bind them to service and get things like Aid Sorcery, etc. The Nature Spirits summoning rules were pretty strict about being in the proper domain to summon a given type of spirit and about the spirit not being able to leave their domain. The Nature Spirits didn't have a lot of combat abilities, iirc, but had loads of utility in the form of Confusion, Concealment, etc.

Hermetics had to spend a fair amount of money and some time to bind elementals to their service. In exchange they got to keep more than one spirit bound at a time. They got to make use of Aid Sorcery and similar "metamagic" abilities. They also got some better combat utility out of elementals. Drawbacks included no on-the-spot summoning of new spirits and elementals lacked most of the utility abilities of possessed by nature spirits.

Unifying these two systems in 4th edition gives all magicians the flexibility and utility of shaman summoning (without the strict domain rules) and also gives them the advantages of Binding and access to the more combat-oriented elemental spirits that used to the sole purview of hermetics.

That, to me, is buffing Conjuring.


edit: Note that I'm not making a value judgment about this change. I'm just stating my opinion that Conjuring is more versatile and useful for all magicians in 4th edition than it was in SR1-SR3.

It was errata'd out due to poor wording. People were assuming that a spellcasting focus added its rating to BOTH the spellcasting test AND the drain test. Rather than clarify, they chose to make it so that it could not add to the drain test at all.

IIRC there was an area that mentioned it could still be used as either an alternate rule or, at the very least, add it as a house rule. My table uses withholding dice from Spellcasting to add to Drain Resistance.

4th Edition spirit summoning is way better then it used to be. Even if you don't allow the drain thing. Having every type of caster have spirits is way better then the old method. Most games i see generally don't need to go beyond the caster calling up a moderately power spirit at the beginning of the session, and just using that through out. Compared to the old ways I'll take it.
Now to be fair, spirits are not as dangerous as the used to be, but i'm really ok with that as well. (It was just silly when a force 8 spirit could trounce a whole party just b/c they didn't have the mage/adept with them.)