Guard prevents from glitching. So far, so good. But how does it exactly work? Does it simply switch a critical glitch to a normal glitch and a normal glitch to a success? Does it have any limitations or is a force 1 spirit sufficient? Is there any specific ruling on that?

It prevents Glitches, so No Glitch or Critical Glitch is possible while protected by Guard. At least, that is how I understand it. Does not matter the Force of the Spirit either from what I remember.

Guard also protects against environmental dangers as well... Sunstroke in the Desert, etc.

But you also didn´t see a more detailed description of this power, dont you?

I am not sure I take your meaning. What exactly do you want to do with the Guard power? If it is just a description of how Guard works by preventing Glitches, I think you can simply come up with any number of ways to show how Guard prevented a glitch. Perhaps instead of an EX-EX round exploding while in the weapon, it discharged harmlessly in midflight.

paying your local magical services contractor or the rat shaman around the street to long-term bind a F1 spirit sounds like a very decent idea. no glitching for 1 year and 1 day for 2500 cash and 1 Karma.
hell, the group's mage can just assign one per spirit to every group member. There seems no limit on how many spirits one conjurer may long-term bind

I have a very nitpicking GM and i already know that he is going to discuss over this. So if there is somewhere a reference more detailed than "prevents glitches" it would be very handy for me. This was basically the question. I simply don´t want to discuss about "you need a force x spirit to negate THIS glitch" or "it says it prevents glitches, not CRITICAL glitches" and so on....and on...and probably on...^^

Also a Force 1 Spirit and its powers are too easy to pop. Just a teeny bit background count and you lose the protection... and i guess the spirit has to come to you to renew it then.

Since a BC of 2 and even 3 is not really that rare a Force 4 sprit is pretty much obliguatory. Also the spirit needs to be able to reuse the power on you, or not? For example you go through a ward rating 6... would the power be able to skip with you into it? I know... per RAW a power is not a spell (which many people are made painfully aware of by getting told: no counterspelling MUHAHAHA), but shouldn't wards and astral barriers take the power out when crossed.

Depends on it... the mana for the power comes through the metaplanes... but does it always and without fail FINDS the recipient?

Also a spirit following you around is the opposite of inconspicuous to any astral observer. And checking the guard power, the spirit has to have astral LOS on you for the power to work. That means the spirit has to follow through any astral barriers or wards to continue providing it. Which means that based on standing orders from the mage, the spirit would either wait outside of such areas and renew guarding when you leave them, or try to break through any intervening wards.

"The Guard power can also be used to prevent a glitch from occurring. Guard may be used on a number of characters at once equal to the critter’s Magic attribute" (Running Wild, p. 212). Duration is Sustained, so it's a lasting effect, not just a one-shot deal. The only part of this power that scales with Force is the number of beings the spirit can protect at the same time. As Pyrite points out, though, the spirit must have LOS to every being it is Guarding.

and

"If a character rolls a glitch and scores zero hits, then she has made a critical glitch" (SR4A, p. 62). A critical glitch requires both zero hits and a glitch.

If you're protected by a spirit's Guard power, it prevents a glitch from occurring. If a glitch cannot occur, a critical glitch also cannot occur.

That sounds reasonable...thank you.^^

Is there somewhere where spirits are different with regards to sustained actions than mages? Because as far as I understand it, targets of a sustained spell only have to be in los for the initial casting. Wouldn't spirit powers be similar?

Actually, you're right. Critters and spirits do not have to maintain LOS. (I've edited my previous post accordingly.)

"Sustained powers may be maintained over time at no effort or cost. Because these powers are innate, the critter is not subject to any strain or modifiers for keeping the effect going. Even taking damage will not disrupt these powers’ ability to sustain. Also, line of sight does not have to be maintained after the power takes hold of its target. Critters may sustain a number of powers equal to their Magic at one time" (Running Wild, p. 204).

...

I'm going to have to go pet shopping.

You can only have Charisma number of spirits bound at any one time. I don't think any mage is going to sell that slot for that little for a whole year.

Does a spirit on remote service for you still count against your bound limit? After all, you can no longer control it. That would say to me that it's not bound to you anymore...

A bound spirit that goes on remote service is still bound, and will return to standby after it's finished with its task.

An unbound spirit is released and doesn't count anymore, but will vanish at sunup/sundown.

"A conjurer can semi-permanently assign a bound spirit to a service or set of services by paying Karma equal to its Force. Once bound with Karma, the spirit no longer counts against the magician’s bound spirit limit and any remaining services are lost" (Street Magic, p. 94).

So the long-term binding frees up the bound spirit slot, but at the cost of Karma. I doubt you'll find too many mages willing to give up Karma without some serious motivation, unless your GM allows some kind of Nuyen-to-Karma exchange.

Here's the spirit I use to suggest those offers. So far, no one has taken me up on it.

I see. Yeah, I doubt many magicians would take anyone up on that offer except for really high fees.

And then there's the added problem of the spirit being stuck on the remote service. It's not a loaner, so you can't order around the spirit after the command is given. It performs one task, and that task is likely to be "follow this guy around and maintain Guard on him." If you take the wrong kind of plane ride or walk through an astral barrier, that spirit isn't going to stop and just wait on you to come back -- it's going to try to follow, and probably get disrupted unless it's really powerful. And really powerful = more karma = super-high prices.

So I guess that yes, you can do this. It's probably just a really awful waste of resources.

The protection from natural hazards part can be pretty useful itself. Not drowing in water, noting getting stung/bitten in a jungle, going through brambles without a scratch, no frostbite in the arctic, no damage from a sandstorm, ect. Guard is a very very useful power.

Not drowning...hmms. I can see not drowning at sea, or in a river. If you get trapped in the wrong bit of the sewers with pressure building up underneath you and nowhere to go, you drown, power or no. Aside from such circumstances, very useful.

Now, does the power extend to your gear? Survive the sandstorm with your Ares Alpha in perfect working order, or does it need a two hour clean and fresh lenses for the smartgun scope?

Long term binding does not count towards your Bound Spirits Limit. It costs Karma Instead... In this case, 1 per Runner.
And Spirits that are on a Long Term Binding Service will return to such service if Disrupted, once their Time on the Metaplanes has expired (28 Days - Force). Long term Binding is very, Very Useful.

I would go with your gear benefiting as well. Until said gear becomes unreasonable.

by the rules of SM, a PC can pay Karma directly to a NPC Free Spirit. So why can't a PC pay Karma to a NPC Mage?

I think you're interpretation of "natural hazard" might be different than what the book is suggesting. I think, due to the nature of glitches, what they are referring to is hazards that occur naturally, like accidentally falling down a manhole; not things in nature that are hazardous, like drowning. Think of it the way someone from the Enlightenment would refer to nature, and not how someone from the Sierra Club would refer to nature.

Because it is a mechanical disconnect. It raises a million questions about the nature of Karma in the Sixth World(How would one go about transferring Karma? Is it measurable? How does one attain Karma from a non-Shadowrunning perceptive?) and brings the players to a place where they are not acting as people, but acting as a third party controlling an avatar with a set of numbers.

There is a mechanism for transferring karma to a free Spirit. No such mechanism exists to give karma to another metahuman.

I usually donate karma-points as birthday presents for my fellow runners, but we use an eraser and a pencil as mechanism.^^

I'm sure Spirits can bestow Karma to Metahumans as well as take it. Why they'd want to, well...

Spirits work in ways that even Dragons find mysterious at times.

Drowning and heatstroke are specifically called out as examples of things the guard power protects against in its description. (SR4A 295)

I'll cede that, but I reserve the right to maintain that there is a difference between "save from drowning" and breathing underwater

The difference becoming moot, however, in its application.

Until one of my players summons a spirit to cast the Guard power to allow him to go without SCUBA gear on, say, the HK adventure in Ghost Cartels. On that point I feel the need to set precedent.

There is a difference between those. But Guard keeps you from drowning. How? Up to the GM. Maybe it ensured you found a large air pocket or you get saved by someone/thing. Who knows? The point being that Guard protects you from such things. The 'how' of it isn't so important other than just needing to mesh with the story.

heheh... I can see that...

And honestly, this is why this game is stupid or at least the magic portion of it is. Not this alone mind you but this is one more example of a cool idea getting really poorly written and now being directly open to abuse and needing GM intervention

Further it raises a question, if the power can work on drowning and heat stroke why can't it work on blunt trauma, radiation poisoning, horrific burns, hell why doesn't guard protect from EVERYTHING that can kill you. Where's the internal logic even by the loose definition of "A wizard did it" that allows guard to protect from one and not the other.

Funny, I thought the point of "a wizard did it" is that there is no internal logic.

Personally, I don't see a problem with Guard letting you breathe underwater. "Oh noes! The player's character survived so we can have more fun next week!"

Yes well honestly i hold SR to a higher standard then bad DnD writing (not saying all DnD is shitty just the particular example is drek)

Really you don't see a problem with entire chapters of gear being negated by a force on spirit with the guard power? It's not just about consistency or survival. It is a matter of what is the point of playing a non magical character in shadowrun. Can anyone name me one thing outside of the matrix (and even that is no longer holy ground thank you designator spell) that can't be done with a PC mage in shadowrun. Even teleportation, the holy grail in SR magic when i first started playing has pretty much been reduced to a questable if your taking a very literal view of the magic rules.

I'll No Prize this, as it requires more skill than detracting: The guard power prevents normal, environmental accidents and hazards. Sixth World magic has been shown to be directly influenced by the happenings of the natural world, hence lots of happy magic in tree loving Amazonia and the Tirs, and to be whacked out of proportion by unnatural happenings, such as mass murder or radiation. The Guard power allows the character to reach a harmony and flow with nature, in which he acts in concordance with the flow of mana and the natural order, hence normal environmental accidents are prevented. Thus a character is in tune with the ambiant heat of the Mojave or the currents of the Amazon though spiritual intervention, but not through the unnatural blunt force trauma of a lead pipe, something, about which, the natural environment has little say.

This is why the book states that critters powers are not intended as hard and fast rules, but as guidelines for GMs. It presumes we are not morons and that our players aren't dicks. If that presumption is not the case, however, there isn't a system created they can't screw up.

No more than I see it as a problem that cyberware can make scuba gear unnecessary. Which is to say not at all. All three options (gear, cyber, magic) have their advantages and their disadantages. Gear is cheap but easy to interfere with, cyber expensive but the most well-protected, and spirits (especially Force 1 spirits) are free but very fragile.



How so? Street Magic flat out states that magic cannot give teleportation. Has this been overruled in a later book?

Astral gateway power, it's teleportation with a few more steps, but it's certainly doable.

You don't see a difference between gear, which you can spend money and have taken away, cyerware which you have to get some very specific pieces of cyberware to do the same function which has no other use, is "expensive" and takes up a portion of your finite potential and a power that most spirits get which means every mage who can summon spirits get? You really see parity between those three groups? I'm flabbergasted not necissarily trolling.

Forinthbras that logic doesn't hold up(at least to me): Preventing you from drowning puts you at cross purposes with your stated enviroment, everything else in the underwater enviroment either takes the water in or keeps it out entirely, guard agaisnt drowning does soemthign questionable in between, with evidently no downsides. Yay for abstract magic.

Further it's been shown over and over and over again that SR magic doesn't give a crumb whether your a happy bunny indian shaman or a satanist who calls forth magic by getting the intercession of Elvis, the effects are one in the same. Hell some of the most effective magic in the system is literally powered by metahuman suffering.

Definitely. That Force 1 spirit is a holdout pistol away from death, meaning your mage is suddenly drowning, and may or may not be able to summon another spirit under such distracting circumstances. I'm not saying you're wrong, all game groups are different and if magic is too powerful for your group you should definitely reign it in, but in 3 editions worth of SR we've never had a game where everybody played magical characters. And that's with a very strong streak of power gaming at our table.

I'm not seeing it, but I'm not up on my Astral Lore. I don't see anything under Astral Gateway or Astral Rifts referring to travel other than allowing mundanes to astrally project. Nothing in either section indicates that moving the body is possible. It even states that if you move the body the character's astral form can get lost and die.

Is there another rule that factors into this, or a loophole I'm missing?

No, you do have the gist of the power. Not missing anything. It is not Teleportation in any way, shape or form. It is Astral Projection for Mundanes.

That is why the critter powers are left intentionally vague and up to GM interpretation, as stated in the the Powers section. To take the Guard power as described as RAW, is not, in fact RAW. Crazy, I know, but follow me. I'm taking you to a good place. As abstract as it sounds, the chapter specifically states that these are guidelines, not hard and fast rules. So to interpret "saving someone from drowning" to be the same as "breath underwater" isn't RAW. Heck, to interpret any Critter power as a hard and fast rule, rather than a guideline, isn't RAW either. Saving you from drowning could mean the spirit brings you to the surface as per the Movement power, or you black out and wake up on the shore or there is a piece of scuba gear nearby that some dead guy is clinging onto. It is not and does not provide for specifics within the mechanical world, and it specifically states that it's not supposed to.
You are more than welcome to come up with a way in which the Guard power works within your defined system and to ensure there is neither an internal logic miscalculation or mechanical disconnect. the rules specifically allow for this.
Don't take the (mis)interpretation of a few trolls and power gamers to mean the system is "stupid."

It has been shown that SR magic works in tune with a natural order and is disrupted by an unnatural one. That's what background count is. Your particular interpretation of the natural order is entirely up to you. Even Blood Magic relies on it. No matter your tradition, you still have to live and work with the ambient flow of mana. Nothing supersedes that. Thusly, only some spirits can manipulate you to conform to that flow, thus preventing you from being so stupid as to stay out in the sun for 24 hours. That's just my No Prize submission. Feel free to come up with a reason it works on your own.

Or you could just crap on other people's work. That's easier.

tl;dr

I kid. I skimmed. Just wanted to throw in a thought for "not drowning". Beware, personal opinion and interpretation follows.

1: assumes you have buoyancy
2: assumes you are not in a restrictive situation, i.e. open water rather than a flooding sewer or cave

Guard power just means you float on your back, and avoid choking on water splashed into your face. Doesn't make you float just because, but does modify the manner in which you float even if unconscious and unable to act. If you're heavy/ dense enough to be sinking, you sink. If you're in a situation where there is nowhere to get air, you drown.

I think the point of the power is to counter accidents, not the inevitable consequences of intentional actions.

Slip and fall overboard from a ship? Maybe the Guard power makes it so you didn't slip after all.
Jump (or get pushed) overboard without gear? That's your own fraggin' fault (or someone else's), not an accident.

Glitch and accidentally shoot yourself in the foot? The Guard power prevents that. Maybe your finger slips off the trigger in the last microsecond and you don't shoot.
Draw, aim at your foot, and pull the trigger? Again, that's your own fraggin' fault.

I think the "and hazards" part just indicates that the power isn't limited to preventing glitches, though that's a nice power in itself, but that it also provides a more general but low-level protection.