Squinky's thread on spirits got me looking around and thinking (always dangerous)...

In past editions of SR, I thought an individual service from a bound spirit ended at sunrise/sunset. For example, if a mage had a bound spirit providing Guard on herself, it would cost an additional service at each sunrise & sunset if she wanted it constantly protecting her for multiple days.

In SR4, I don't see any such extra cost of services at sunrise or sunset. For example, if a character wanted a bound spirit to provide Guard for a month, it would cost only one service.

Alternately, there is Remote Service, which also appears to allow the indefinite use of a power?

Maybe this is old news for everyone else, but this is new news to me - am I interpreting this correctly?

I'm away from my books right now, but from reading on spirits latley, I thought a bound spirit would stay up to a year and a day? Or is that for when you pay karma to make a bound spirit do a task longer?

That is for Long Term Binding... they will per form a single task, to the exclusion of everything else, for a Year and a Day. Such a Binding will cost the Conjurer Karma equal to the Spirit's Force.

paying 1 Karma for a F1 Spirit to use Guard on you so you will never ever glitch again is much cheaper than increasing Edge. also long-term bound spirits don't count against the cha limit

Edit: I'm not sure what's gonna happen when you walk through a ward

No Doubt...

Now I'm totally confused -- how long do the services last? As I read SR4, a single spirit service can last until the next sunrise or sunset even if you're talking about a bound spirit. Let's break it down:

1. Magician asks bound spirit to perform a task. (until sunrise or sunset)

2. Magician assigns a bound spirit to perform a task remotely. (as long as it takes)

3. Magician pays karma for long-term service of a task from a bound spirit. (a year and a day)

Doesn't this mean that you can evade the need for long-term service so long as you can somehow make it a remote service? I wonder if I'm misunderstanding, because one of the example situations in SM in which karma might be paid for long-term binding is that "[c]orporations frequently bind spirits in this manner to guard and patrol their property." But that otherwise sounds like a remote service.

Maybe I just don't understand what constitutes a remote service.

Well, you cannot assign a remote service to an unbound spirit. Additionally, a remote service uses all services, so it is a moot point. A remote service is anything that takes the Spirit out of the immediate area of influence of the conjurer (Magic x 100 Meters, if I remember correctly). This is sealed by Binding the spirit with Binding materials upon completion of the ritual. Disruption ends the remote service immediately.

A Long term Service is a continuous Service that is assigned, which the spirit will pursue, even returning to it if disrupted, once it can return to the material world from its metaplane. This is sealed with a Karma Expenditure on the Conjurers part.

If you have a conjurer that is attemptimng to bypass these limitations (having a remote service that could potentially take a very long time), then he should be confronted with it through interaction with the spirit (a gentle gm reminder of the requirements for such activities), as it demands its rightful payment.

My 2 anyways...

Thanks, Tymaeus. What sorts of things are legitimately remote services? And can the remote service include a command to report back to the magiciain at the end of the service? (E.g., the remote service is to "go hunt down and kill Evil Bad Guy and then let me know when you've succeeded.")

I'd say, that's a valid service description.

Agreed...

That's what I used to think too, but here is a quote from the core book:


That's what it appears to me. The difference being that bound spirits on a remote task spirits *do* count against your limit of bound spirits and they will not continue on a remote task (or set of tasks) after being destroyed/disrupted (unlike the long-term services).

Hey, good to know...