Clearly you're not going to give a spirit cyberware or bioware, but can materialized spirits benefit from everything else that characters can?

You can summon a valkyrie (guardian spirit) with the Automatics skill and give her an assault rifle. Can she also suit up in heavy armor? (I assume it wouldn't stack with her Immunity to Normal Weapons, but it could exceed it.) Can her summoner cast Increase Reflexes, Increase Agility, and Combat Sense on her? Can magic be used to heal her after a fight?

As far as I can tell, all of that's possible, though I don't know what her augmented attribute maximums would be for Increase [Attribute] spells. The rules talk about spirits picking up and using weapons, but I can't find anything about casting, for example, health spells on spirits.

All I know is that those spam messages about "Spirit Enhancement Pills" don't really work.

...

What?

Also: why wouldn't worn armor and spirit armor not stack?

Pretty much every armor stacks, only worn with other worn (usually) not.

Inherent armor, spell effects, internal armor, Ki-powers... all are a nice +add.

Regarding the healing: Very possible, yes. It is a living, wounded subject with a body (at least at the moment, when it is materialized).

And enhancing attributes? Sure why not. More IP's: yeah. I don't see any problems with it at all. I think it might be weird having them "take the effects with them" though, when they give up their materialization i think they lose any physical effects, and you have to recast it, when they reform.

Yeah, it's not clear. All those things you mentioned are explicit armor bonuses (I think), while Immunity is "added to the damage resistance test as normal armor." If it's like normal (worn) armor, it wouldn't stack with, say, an armor jacket, but it's a bit fuzzy.


You could also cast Increase [Attribute] on an astral spirit, though, right? It might be reasonable to have such spells fall off when the spirit changes states, since all its stats change then, but if the spell can apply in both states and the magician is still sustaining it, I think it also makes sense for the spell to stay active.

Helmet and Jacket are both "normal armor" and stack with each other.
Armor explicitly stacks in this game.

nowhere does it say you can't give a spirit drugs, does it? The same way people argue, you can poison and neurostun spirits.
Give'em K10, maybe speedball it with some Betameth, and send them back to the astral or metaplane before the 23S damage kicks in

"If a character is wearing more than one piece of armor at a time, only the highest value (for either Ballistic or Impact) applies. Note that some armor items, like helmets and shields, provide a modifier to the worn armor rating and so do not count as stacked armor."

The problem is, neither an armor jacket nor Immunity to Normal Weapons "provide a modifier to the worn armor rating". i.e. neither of them is listed as +X/+X or says that it modifies other armor. So it looks like they'd count as stacked armor and you'd only use the highest rating.

On the other hand, Immunity isn't really worn armor (e.g. it won't have encumbrance), so maybe the normal armor rules (which disallow stacking) don't apply. My inclination, though, is that unless there's a rule explicitly allowing the armor to stack, it probably shouldn't.

You're making a sizeable assumption there; to wit, that a materialized spirit has the same kind of body as a metahuman, with blood, organs and whatnot. That is a huge assumption, and one that is, AFAIK, not supported in RAW.

Oh, that's a great way to get a bad rep in the spirit world!

Next time you summon a spirit, "What did you do to Brynhildr? She came back and cold clocked Thor after kicking the All-Father in the groin and stealing half of Sæhrímnir's meat! For the first time in memory, there are those that have gone hungry in the Feasting Hall of Odin! EXPLAIN YOURSELF!"

+1 bonus point for taking the effort to type that weird combo a-e character

I try to get things right when I'm talking about the Æsir. Last thing I want is a pissed off thunder god after me.

EDIT: Also, one of my protagonists, the one that's a borderline Marty Sue-style "Competent Man", is a follower of Ásatrú (His wife converted him), and I really don't want him pissed off an inside my head.

... Well, more pissed off than he already is.

Why would boost reflexes for a metahuman work on a spirit?

At the least it should take a custom spell.

I agree that a custom spell would be necessary, though my reasoning differs. I don't think Boost Reflexes is necessarily restricted to metahumans, but all Health spells must target an 'organic system' (per p 163 of Street Magic), which I don't think Materialization grants a spirit (per p 90-2 of Street Magic). I'd allow custom spells to have equivalent effects on spirits, but they'd could not be Health spells.

Personally i wouldn't strictly from a game balance perspective but to each their own.

I don't think most drugs would work as intended if used on a materialized spirit, because they are designed to produce their effect by interacting with a (meta)human physiology and metabolism, which are something a materialized spirit lacks.
For exemple a spirit's body does not have a blood flow to transfer the active chemicals from their entry point to the target organs - and those organs don't exist !

A Possessing or Inhabiting spirit may be affected though their host, but I don't remember reading any rules about that.

It's similar for a Heal spell. I agree with Fikealow that it should not work on a materialzed spirit. With a Possession spirit it will obviously heal the host but likely not the spirit, and it will probably work with a merged Inhabitation spirit.

That's what prompted my original post -- the rules don't seem to be clear either way. Health spells don't say anything about being specific to metahumans, and the general spellcasting rules say "A metahuman spellcaster can target anyone or anything she can see". Casting a combat spell at a spirit works fine, and spirits do have the attributes and condition monitors that would be affected by health spells, so why wouldn't health spells work on spirits? The main answer seems to be "because it doesn't seem like they should". The rules are vague, so I think that's a valid interpretation, but it's also subjective.

There is the reference that Fikealox pointed out in Street Magic that health spells affect an "organic system", but that's also not definitive. Do they mean organic as "pertaining to living organisms", which spirits could qualify for, or do they specifically mean carbon-based flesh and blood?

The closest thing to an outright rules precedent I can think of off the top of my head would be the (admittedly kind of a train wreck) Free Spirit PC rules from Runner's Companion. Page 93 talks about Free Spirits not being able to be healed by traditional first aid and medicine, not being able to use drugs "or anything else that requires an organic body."

It's not necessarily concrete where other spirits are concerned, but it certainly gives the impression that certain things do (or don't) affect spirits, whether they're manifested or not.

How on earth isn't something that's added to a test not a bonus to that test.

Attributes aren't bonuses. Neither are skills. Neither is worn armor. The armor gained from ItNW is just armor, not a modifier.

First of all, the spirit needs to be able to use said equipment. Guns are generally used with hands, armor has about the size of an metahuman. So if the spirit comes in a shape fitting this, it should be possible. This also depends on spirit type and the magician's tradition.
Why wouldn't a health spell affect spirits? It affets dogs or horses, too, any living being, as far as I know. Paracritters, too. The spell still manages to effect all those very different and sometimes strange metabolisms. So why would it specifically exclude spirits?
Another nifty trick I'm going to use one day: My character will magically shapeshift a force 6 fire elemental into a black bear. Maybe he even will form-fit troll-sized chain mail armor via "Fashion"-spell to this beast. Well, the armor will likely be hot afterwards. He's got all necessary skills and knowledge anyway.

A horse, a dog, and even a paracritter have vastly more similar bodies than a spirit.

Cats have raspy tongues like dragons, too.

Mhm, and both norwhals and unicorns have uni-horns. maybe spirits are grouped by Linnaean taxonomy?

Sure. Yet I think a healing spell would affect a spirit likewise... I just wanted to point out that a healing spell is not restrcted to humans. I know that spirits are far from a classic flesh-and-bone body... well, many of them at least.

"Um, I'm sorry Ma'am, but I can't find any body armour in your size. Might I suggest Victoria Secret's line of Armoured Lingerie?" "Stupid human perception of Amazonian Physique."

Again, you're assuming that spirits are alive in the organic sense. It's not that spirits have unusual metabolisms, it's that there's nothing to suggest a spirit has any sort of metabolism. They don't eat, sleep, or breathe. Their materialized forms are formed from pure mana. What is there for Heal to affect?

Why the drama about Increase Reflexes? RAW is pretty specific in this regard: it works on materialized spirits/spirits in a living vessel. Nowhere in any rules passage do they suggest that the spell is in any way restricted to metahumans.

There's a different caveat, though: all health spells are touch spells, so you need to maintain touch to the target. Guess possession wins again.

Touch to cast, sustaining is "whatever." It doesn't even need LOS.

Do you have a page reference for that? Our group tends to rule otherwise, mostly because we haven't found a clear entry in the book.

Came up in a thread recently, I'll see if I can find a quote.

Here we go:

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=34325
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=32835

I will counter your argument of "Formed from Pure Mana", and ask you this? What is there to actually Damage? How do you Damage Pure Mana?

If they have a Damage Track, and are alive, then they can be healed with magic. I am pretty sure you would not argue that spirits are Alive... Of course, I could be wrong...


*Shrug*

Seconded.
It's simple, I like it and it can quickly become a mess to mix shadowrun magic and traditional physics. I just don't see any rules that actually forbid a use for spirits. Neither do I see a big isssue of game balance. Well, I don't do that often anyway...

The same way you damage a Physical Barrier spell, which is also constructed of mana: objects intruding into the volume occupied by a materialized spirit, whether bullets, melee weapons, or fists, disrupt the cohesion of the mana field. Thus, when a spirit reaches the end of its damage track, it doesn't die, it just loses its grip on physical reality and is forced to retreat to the metaplanes. I certainly would argue with the assertion that spirits fit any biological definition of life; as I previously noted, they perform no biological functions whatsoever. I would argue that spirits represent a non-biological form of life, in the sense that they exhibit activity independent of their surroundings, and manifestly have the capacity to reason and communicate. Indeed, the very fact that spirits cannot die is the primary argument against their being biologically alive: everything that lives (biologically speaking) can die. If it can't die, it can't really be alive.

But a Spirit can be permanently destroyed (in effect, it can Die). You have to kill them on their home metaplane, however. So, by your definition (Bolded above), a Spirit IS ALIVE, and, at that point, should be able to benefit from Healing, magical or otherwise.

IE's and Great Dragons are Functionally Immortal. Spirits are Functionally Immortal. All three can be damaged, and all three can be permanently killed. All three can heal over time (which indicates some sort of Biological mechanism at work, as they heal their wounds), so why would Magic not be able to speed that process up?

That just means it's a bad definition. They're not biological life, period. Now, decide what that means RE: drugs, health spells, etc.

And there you are assuming again. A spirit's ability to reconstitute itself does not necessarily imply any biological mechanism or process at all. I would liken it to the manner in which crystals grow by absorbing minerals from the surrounding medium. Biology requires differentiation: blood, organs, bones, and so forth. If you cut into a spirit, what do you find? I seriously doubt it would be anything recognizable as an organ.

As for spirits being able to "die," that's also an assumption. Yes, they can be destroyed, but in what way is that analagous to biological death? You have to literally travel to another world, find its True Name, and unravel the part of physical reality that allows the spirit to exist. Technically, you don't need to be in contact with the spirit at all. A spirit cannot be destroyed, or even permanently injured, by physical trauma. Therefore, it cannot die in the biological sense.

And yet a Single Celled organism is still alive... A Virus is Alive...

Potayto, Potahto... Suffice it to say that I disagree with you on that...

As for Permanent Destruction by Physical Trauma... What would you call filling it's Damage Track on its Home Plane... I would call that Physical Trauma that results in Destruction. Anything else is just semantics...

The whole 'is a virus alive?' isn't a settled fact. But it doesn't matter, because 'alive' isn't the question. 'Biological, carbon-based life form' is.

Please, Show me where it requires a target to be a "Biologocal, Carbon-Based Lifeform" to target with a Spell...

Most Health Spells are Mana Based...
Attribute Affecting Spells Must be Physical Based...







NO Where can I find a Documented Quote that requires your target to be a Carbon-Based Lifeform when it comes to Health Spells (or any spell for that mattter)...

Can a Mana Bolt affect a Spirit? Yes, therefore the Requirement for having a Living Being as a target has been met (Mana can only target living beings after all). Since that requirement has been met, any Health Spell can also work against a Spirit. Of course, if you are going to target a Spirit with an Attribute affecting spell, it must be Materialized.

You cannot have it both ways...

Just Sayin'

*shrug* That wasn't what we were talking about. You and others were arguing that a spirit, a virus, a horse, a dog etc. were all equivalent living creatures. They're not. They're different. You're the one who said 'biological mechanism'. Fikealox quoted Street Magic regarding 'organic systems'.

I can certainly have it both ways.

Number 5 is Alive!

Drugs I would definitely disallow. The rules don't need to specify what elements drugs need to be effective because we already know that bodily organs are necessary. We also know that spirits can mimic eating but not gain sustenance which implies an inability to incorporate material into their being.

As for Heal, well there's no question the rules are missing a sentence or two. Personally I'd disallow as it is asking the spell to do two very different things. I suppose a view of SR magic that considered the actual mechanics of a spell to be little more than simply re-writing the universe to make an effect 'just happen' like a pre-chosen wish one could call it a 'make something less hurt' spell, but I prefer to assume spells have an inner logic (if you will) involving processes and reactions not totally dissimilar from the machinations of a gun, say. That makes more sense than the alternative when one considers the existence of spell formulae and multi-million nuyen corporate research. I say spells are not general enough in scope for one to be able to do both.

Re: the combat spell comparison. You can shoot holes in both glass and fabric with the same gun, but only one can be fixed with needle and thread.

On the other hand, one could argue that a healing spell just reinstates a being as it should be: A living being has an aura, damages are noteable in it (via assensing). The spell simply locates those disturbances and removes them.
Voila, healing effect that does not exclude spirits.
Although I just did, reasoning magic with physics (or biology, in this case) doesn't really get one anywhere. At least that's my opinion...

This seems to be the text passage fikealox was mentioning:

It reasons about a whole different matter and only mentions "organic system" on a sidenote. To me, this is far too less for a clear ruling. I prefer my rules clear, though SR4 is lacking that sometimes. So it might be even RAW, yet I don't think it's RAI.

I don't think drugs should work for a spirit, too. The rules allow it. So this might be time for some house rule, should the need arise.
It just seems that I view the matter of a health spell just different from others in this thread... To me, spells are mostly "they work just fine, that's it. Hey, it's magic."

He's a cog-based lifeform.

Point Taken... An no you can't...

Um, turns out those Spam messages about Spirit enhancement *DO* work. But it's bigger than my head now. A lot bigger. And angrier. And hungry.

...

Help.