That's a weird way for a spell to work.

The Realistic Form/ Mutable Form/ Aura Masking combination is a powerful one indeed, and can be enhanced with the Disguise Skill, whose dice pool is augmented by Force when Mutable Form is active. Both Free Spirits I play have this combination. Add the amazingly versatile Artisan Skill, and you can walk into just about anyplace as the guy they hired to redecorate... and actually carry out the redecoration!

Increase Attribute is a great spell, but like so many of the boosting spells it is Physical, and will dissipate the instant you go astral. The limitation to Mana spells in the astral plane severely reduces the usefulness of Quickening for Free Spirits, one of whose greatest advantages is the ability to pop in and out of the material plane.

As a matter of fact, I thought that too. But someone here on dumpshock said, it is only a limitation on casting. If it is sustained it stays.
(Does make sense as a matter of fact. )

(Well, and as a matter of fact, there is no reason not to make it a mana spell afterall. The rules for that are in Streetmagic. You will even have less drain.)

On word to the qualities:
I think you should make it a GM call in any case. There are just some thing not making any thing (celerity for a free spirit ?)
Mentor spirit on the other hand is a very fitting.
(It would even fit to make it a must have)

The rules for PC free spirits are so bad that you have to house rule at least a bit to even create a character. IMNSHO the GM and player should just figure out something that works, isn't overpowering, doesn't break his game (and materialization or a few other powers might do that to some games) and fits with the other characters. And then reserve the right to make changes if it doesn't work as expected.

From SR4A, on page 182 it says,

"A physical spell can only affect a target that has a physical form, and is incapable
of affecting an astral form (see the Astral World, p. 191)."

And on page 193 it says,

"Only mana spells affect astral forms."

The fact that they use 'affect' in both cases, rather than talking about casting, is hard to read any way except that physical spells don't work in astral space.

Does anyone have something concrete to contradict this?

Prove it, kzt. You keep saying that FSPC's are terrible and weak and horribly overpriced and unworkable character types and so on, but 1) you've yet to provide any concrete proof that they suck as much as you say they do, and 2) you have repeatedly failed to respond to and counter the arguments of those who have expressed disagreement with your statements. It's a slight bit rude in terms of open discussion etiquette, actually.

People being rude on the Internet? Say it ain't so!

Also, does he need to provide proof? He says he's right, and thus it's so. Right? Why let facts get in the way of things?

RAW says that force is both the maximum and minimum for all stats. To raise any stat requires raising force, which therefore requires raising every stat at the same time.

It's odd, but every person who says that RAW PC free spirits are just fine has also said that they ignores that rule because it's stupid. So yes, the people who claim RAW is fine have to house rule character creation.

Welllll.... there are two interpretations of the same text, one of which most who play FSPCs use because it makes playable, not-overpowering PCs.

pbangarth, it's still ambiguous. "Affect" could mean during casting, or at any time; I'm assuming RAI is that Increase Charisma don't work on astral either way. I could see a sustained casting of it 'go dormant' while the spirit was astral, and kick back into effect when appropriate. Or, the spell instantly drops when the spirit stops being a valid target. Quickening might change things more, because it's karma-paid. It's unclear, so the GM can just decide what's balanced, and what's fair.

Unfortunately, page count and ink-price restrictions prevent manual writers from detailing all possible variations of a rule's usage. We have to do some digging ourselves. There is the similar situation of background count, in which Quickened spells, even if totally negated, repair themselves after leaving the BC area of effect. So I guess, as you suggest, a Quickened Increase Attribute spell could disappear on the astral, only to reappear once the Free Spirit returned to the physical plane.

@Yerameyahu
I had this interpretation two. But as a matter of fact it does not make any sence looking at it in the game.
Why should the spell stop working on the spirit, if he is leaving the material plane? (If it would need a physical body it would fail anyway)

(As a matter of fact I dislike increase attribute to be a physical spell, because it should only work on living beeings after all. You do not want to increase the "body" of a drone, do you?)

@pbangarth

So you have to guess what they intended with the rules. Why it is a physical instead of a mana spell.
How physical spell are supposed to work anyway etc.

Yeah, I can certainly see how that would be problem, given that IMR charges only $45 for 379 pages versus HERO that charges a full $40 for a mere 460 pages. ...

It ain't a problem of word limitations.
It is a question of how the rules are created. If you add aditional possibilities as does Shadowrun you will run into Problems, because the rules already written mostly did not account for the rules to come.

For example: All the spirits in Streetmagic got Counterspelling, none of the basic spirits has it. Why not?
The counterspelling was (I suppose) a idea to stop the Stunbolting of spirits.
To stunbolt a force 7 spirit is now quite a Problem to solve.
But since the old spirits do not have these benefits they are much weaker.

BC is an other example. Every mage with no initiations is close to useless if he hits BC 2 or even 3. This leads gamemasters to not using a BC for the most part.
Because if you give the Barrans a BC of 2 the magic 4 mage with logic 4 and willpower 4 will be close to useless.
So there is mostly no penalty for astral perception, making it (in combat) the most usefull kind of perception. (exept for the -2)
Furthermore there is also the possibility to get boni for astral perception. So you may end up with 0 or even +1.

Same thing with free spirits and health spell. Why think about it, if there are non? And honestly, why give increase attribute another -1 drain modificator?
Same thing with essence loss and vampirers. Why write essence rule, which are not working for everyone?
(For example: For every started point of essence below 6 the effectiv magic raiting is reduced by 1. )

So, like I said, the GM is the one who has to decide what happens with a sustained or quickened spell on a Free Spirit. It's a pretty rare case, but obviously crucial when there's such a player in your game.

Background count has always been one of the issues I refer to when attempting to refute the argument that mages are overpowered. I don't think the problems it brings up for astral beings were unforeseen at the time of writing. My opinion is that BC was intended from the start to be one of the issues magicians, adepts and spirits would have to deal with on a regular basis in an urban environment. You want free flow of mana? Get the hell out of the city! You want firepower in the city? Call the sammie.

This is an aside which could open up an old can of worms. So folks, please don't go there.

As far as Quickened physical spells and the astral, my GMs (for my FSPCs) and I are happy to see them fizzle.

Maybe THIS time around it will be resolved.

Seriously? No chance.

@pbangarth

So you make them mana. (At least the health spells)
One point of drain less. No problem.

I suspect an issue with that simple dodge around the problem is that changing the physical aspects of a person's body, whether strength, speed of neurons, whatever, may be seen by a GM as requiring a physical spell.

The description on page 159 of Street Magic (under Step 2: Choose Spell Type) of what kinds of effects mana spells and physical spells have seems pretty clear on this point.

@pbangarth


Well, whats a spirit?
So for a spirit any increase attribute spell has to be mana in the first place.

Anyway, increase charisma, willpower, logic or intuition would be ok as mana spells for metahumans.