I've got an interesting series of questions...

Can a Mystic Adept without Astral Perception use a spirit (or watcher) to effectivally see someone's aura?

If the Mystic Adept sends a watcher to track down someone and it (the watcher) observes the aura of the target, can it relay that information to the Mystic Adept, or to another spirit?

The reason this question has come about is I have a posession tradition mystic adept in my group. I was toying with a house rule that in order to possess a specific individual the individual needs to be within line of sight of the mystic adept. His counter arguement is that if he knows the aura of the intended victim that should eb enough to remove the LOS requirement. I do agree whith this, however without Astral Perception would a watcher be able to pass along the aura information.

Thanks as always for the feedback.

-D

First off- I'm not familiar with any posession traditions rules, but wouldn't being able to seperate your spirit/aura/magic twinkie from your body before shoving it into another's body?

Going with that sort of thing isn't an issue or required, since it wasn't specifically asked about, I would saw that with out actual Astral Perception the character wouldn't be able to understand the spirit's explanation. I'd liken it to some one explaing to my automotive ignorant self how to strip down and rebuild an engine. I'll be nice at least assume who ever is telling me all this is speaking the same language as i am, for the purpose of posession.

I could see a spirit being able to tell a person about the target's aura so they know what's there. Depending on successes of the spirit's assensing roll, that is. And it's obviously going to take a service.

So the mystic adept is summoning himself to posses someone? That makes no sense.

Magic LOS can't be 'passed' between people.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. A possession-tradition Mystic Adept can summon spirits with Possession. That's all.

To answer some of the questions...

IMO possession tradition is a tad too powerful. But rather than nerfing into non-existance the spirit abilities I wanted to add a light limitation on the available targets that can be possessed by the spirits summoned by the Mystic Adept.

So my thought was that if the MA wanted one of his spirits to possess someone specific, that person would need to be within LOS or the MA would need to know the target's astral signature so that it could be passed to the spirit. Passing the astral signature to the spirit would allow it to know exactally who to possess. LOS would also allow the spirit to know exactally who to possess.

My main question is can another spirit (say a watcher) assence someone and pass the astral signature of the assenced person back to the summoner via the mental link that they share? The MA does not have astral sight and as such can not see an astral signature for himself.

I hope that clarifies the situation.

Thank you,
-D

Edit: This has nothing to do with the spellcasting side of the MA only the spirits and the way they enter our world.

On the surface, since you're using a house-rule on possession anyway, I would say allow or disallow it as you see fit.

Otherwise, I would have it work something like targeting for ritual magic, or the advanced material / sympathetic links from Street Magic

If you have no LOS on the target, just the aura descritpion is IMHO not enough for the magic to work. As phlapjack77 said, it is more the realm of ritual magic, with the watcher acting as a spotter.

Still confused. Surely the spirit is the one with the Possession power, and also the one with Astral Perception?

I think the question boils down to "is the following sequence possible" :
- Spirit A assense the target, describes it's aura to the caster and then goes away
- later, the caster summon spirit B, describe it's aura to spirit B and send it to possess the target.

IMHO it won't work unless spirit A is able to communicate with spirit B directly, bypassing the astrally blind mystic adept..

Oops, think I misread something here. Actually, now that I'm fully awake I know I did.

Still stand by what I said about being told about an aura. Sure, he can get a quick run-down, depending on successes, but without seeing it himself, or having some way of seeing it, the MA just isn't going to be able to make sense of the finer details or what have you when it comes to an aura.

The power Aura Perception isn't cheap, I guess, when you are playing a Mystic Adept. What with your points being split to begin with. But isn't there a spell that lets you look into the Astral? Astral Window, wasn't it? Not to mention a few drugs out there.

The reason I mention those is because those are alot easier than trying to tinker this ruling. I smell shenanigans from the player since instead of rolling with this limitation, they are wanting to make a change. What abuses could be done with this change, aside from not shelling out the points for Aura Perception, is beyond me at the moment, but my Sneaky Player Senses is screaming right now.

Try some deepweed. Its even from the basic sourcebook, and it forces everyone awakened to astrally perceive. You will have to default assensing though.

This is spot on.

The player's stance on the "describes the aura" part of this is that through the mystical link between summoner and spirit the aura information could be passed like the mind link spell would allow. Since there is very little data about the spirit-summoner link the next closest ability that I can find is the mind link spell and it would allow for that information to be passed.

Though I do like the idea of direct spirit to spirit passing of the information, thereby bypassing the astrally blind MA.

Thank all for your input. I know I'm firmly in the realm of house rules but I'm trying to be fair and balanced (unlike Fox News).

-D