One of my keener players recently made a spirit focused mage and really showed us what Spirits can do. He knew next to nothing about spirits when we started the session, and just asked questions and figured things out...
He used spirits for sustaining spells, for magical guard, for searching, for assensing, and of course combat. He refused to go in person, but when our interrogation of a target was going poorly, he ordered a character to give the target Little Smoke to force them to go astral, used his 8 watcher spirits and himself to hold the projected target in place, then used mind probe (because the target was astral, his projected form could cast it on the targets now astral form). We were really impressed over all.
But a question arose about remote services. My old group always played with the understanding that a summoned spirit can be sent on a remote service, then all services are lost but you can summon a new spirit while the old one is completing his task. When a mage summons with little effort and has 8 charisma, he quickly ends up with 8 spirits running around... 3 for magical guard, one for movement, one running a search, two for conceal and a last for combat. Wowzer! At one point I said, 'Why did they hire my adept for this run, why doesnt he just send his damn spirits in?'
So the question is, without doing any binding, how many spirits can you have out? In what situation can you have multiple spirits out, when none are bound (only summoned).
QUOTE (SR4a p188)
A magician may only have one unbound spirit summoned at any
given time, and no more bound spirits than her Charisma attribute.
Spirits on remote service and on standby count toward this total.
given time, and no more bound spirits than her Charisma attribute.
Spirits on remote service and on standby count toward this total.
Do they count toward the bound spirits total, or the summon spirits total (meaning if you have a spirit on a remote task, it still counts as your only UNBOUND spirit allowed)?