As far as I know, if you're projecting and your physical body gets killed, you may remain astral for as long as you had hours to remain projected before dissipating, thus possibly giving you time to find allies and ask them to avenge you, find loved ones and say your last words, find some dark and twisted spirit and make a faustian pact to borrow an Inhabitation or Possession power and gank some other poor bastard's body, undertake an emergency Metaplanar Quest to find a Metaplane where astral forms don't dissipate, or just go and do something you always wanted to do but never would've because you wouldn't have survived it, like try to astrally fly to the moon, or go and tell off Lofwyr or Ghostwalker.

The only thing that's confusing me now is why isn't there an Astral Condition Monitor? (8 + Willpower/2) boxes would seem to be the right choice. If you take a stunball spell while you're Astral, the damage racks up on your normal Stun Condition Monitor; if you take leave of your senses and decide to massively overcast something, you take the Drain on your physical condition monitor, and so forth and so on.

How does that affect your projecting self, though? Do you suffer wound penalties for wounds you load onto one of your condition tracks while you're projecting? What about preexisting ones that were there when you projected? And what happens when your meat body dies; do you suddenly have no more wound penalties at all? Are you effectively invincible for the duration of your projecting time, able to go on an overcasting nova spree, chipping away at Great Dragons with Death Touch with virtual impunity, and able to summon the oversummoned spirit you've already dreamed of? Or are you completely helpless, unable to do anything but perceive that which is obvious and communicate with others?

And what if someone takes exception to your continued existence during your golden hours, and wishes to hasten your departure from existence? Can that Great Dragon turn around and blast you into dust, and if so, to what effect? You don't have any condition tracks any more, because you're a dead magician projecting, so it seems like even nailing you with a deadly Mana spell like Manabolt, or mauling you in Astral Combat, would be completely and utterly ineffective.

Basically, what the heck is going on with a magician when he's past the threshold of mortality and clinging to existence as a psychic projection?

If the Body is destroyed/killed/otherwise made inhospitable for your spirit, you have the rest of your normal Magic Hours in the Astral to live. Then you fade away.
And usually, damage to your body will suck your astral form right back into the body and wake you up. Immediately.
Like, no delay in between. Yes, it's more or less a cop out from this problem, but eh, it works, so try not to poke too many holes into it i guess . .

Wouldn't that handily solve the "my body was just kidnapped!" problem? The Magician could simply Oversummon a spirit to get some physical damage onto his physical damage track, snap to his body, and then wait for his new friend to show up and rescue him?

If you can tell your spirit where your body is, yes, this should work.
But as you don't KNOW where it is, neccessarely, this does not work all that good . .
Remember, you are, as a full mage, limited to magic hours in the astral.
After that, you fade. Even if your Body still lives . .
So, you are out for . . one, maybe two hours . . your body gets taken away then.
You have 4 hours left to live in the astral, in which you have to find your body again.
Else, you go poof and your body dies. And yes, i think it has to be YOUR body.
A wimp would not work i think. I am not sure though . .

Ah, hold that though, you wrote oversummon to take drain damage . .
Can you, actually, summon spirits when you are on the astral?

There's no reason you shouldn't be able to. And if you oversummon to get some drain on your track, under the rule that any physical damage snaps you back to your body, your new friend - the spirit - will immediately come to you as fast as he can, then you can have him go on a rampage against your enemies.

i'm not good with the magic rules, but i think you had to be in meat space to summon spirits . . not sure though . .

I'm not very good with the magic rules either, but summoning a spirit (not binding, but summoning,) is a purely psychic thing as far as I know, so you should be able to do it on the Astral.

And even if not, you could always tag yourself with a mana-based damage spell to zip back to your body, or just overcast anything at all.

How would you know that your meat body has been kidnapped though?

Only by coming back and not finding it where you left it.
come to think of it . . using concealment critter power on the body of a projecting mage is a nasty way to hurt somebody . .

Is there a specific reference for 'damage to the body snaps the astral form back'? I know I've seen a fluffy line to that effect, at least.

Afaik nothing except in previous editions where a full stun track would zip you back to your body.

What about the "silver cord" that connects your astral form to your body? Is that previous versions, or am I confusing real world fluff?

Think that is ok, except a strong astral storm or githyanki silver sword might sever it.











Just in case you were serious, wrong game

The limitation on conjuring while astral was in the older editions: Back in 3rd Edition, Conjuring was an exclusive magical action, meaning it needed total concentration and you could not do anything else mana-related at the same time - like projecting. I have not seen anything in 4th Edition that works that way.

Don't you need summoning materials for conjuring, hence impossible while Astral? Way I've always run it. You can call/command spirits already bound/summoned however.

double post sorry.

Technically, No. Materials are only a requirement for Binding. That said, many Traditions would/could use "Stuff" for the Summoning of Spirits as well, IIRC. But as far as I know, it is all Fluff, with no mechanical Bite unless enforced by the Table.

"Why is he pulling Manga and Anime out?" "Don't interrupt him." "A Hello Kitty Plushie?" "Never dealt with an Otaku Magician before, have you? Now, quiet, he's summoning a spirit."

Nope,
only for Bindig
Conjuring can be done with (even without) just snipping Your Fingers and can be done while projecting

with an astral Dance
Medicineman

i liked the part in one of the novels where a cat shaman summoned a spirit to guard runners . . bits of string, some chicken nuggets and an empty bag.
string starts moving, chicken nuggets disappear bit(e) by tiny bit(e) and then the bag moves and a small little white kitten stretches its head out of the bag and blinks with a questioning:"meow?"

I liked it better back when there was the distinction between spirits and elementals...

Oh! I had forgotten about that! Yeah...

Yeah, the distinction was nice, imho . .
But spirits always could be summoned without materials, just by concentrating on the correct domain . .
Still had to be in meat space then though . .

Some people think it's easier to summon with the stuff (Or it might be a Gaes), there's also the "respect" that Shamans give spirits that Mages don't that's the other possibility. Finally, it's fun to freak out the non-magic types that think you have to do the weird stuff. Then surprise the hell out of them by pull out the big guns and only suffer some bleeding from the eyes, ears, and nose.

Still had to be in meat space then though . .
Then (way back in SR3) Yes
not now (in SR4A) anymore

with a modern Dance
Medicineman

I stand corrected!

But that still has minor ramifications since it limits you to the one unbound summons. Not that you couldn't have others bound, but they can run out of services and such that it might come up during play.

So, did magic evolve since SR3, or did the 'gentleman's agreement' simply get shot all to hell?

Easiest way if you want to think of it in fluffy terms is to say that the mana has grown stronger and Schwartzkopf's Unified Magic Theory is gaining a strong foothold.

Slightly off-topic, but can someone give me the TL;DR version of the difference between Spirits and Elementals in SR3?

I played the game a bit about 10 years ago, but cannot remember the details. We normally avoided magic too iirc

Spirits: Shamans get them.
Elementals: Hermetics get them.

Spirits can be summoned on the fly by shamans but only one at a time and only for an appropriate domain.
For example, on a mountain you could have air or earth. In a building only hearth spirits. in a street only street spirit.
Spirits can not be bound.

Elementals can be summoned via ritual over hours and then bound and called for services when needed until services run out.

Thanks for that

Hmm yes. That sounds (a) familiar and (b) a lot more sensible.

Away to start an SR4 campaign next week now that chargen is out the way, got a shaman in the group so i'll see how it goes but i am already a bit concerned about the potential misuse of her spirits.

she on these here boards?
if so, abuse incoming!
if not. improbable.

She struggles to use a mobile phone, so I doubt it! Haha... Now I doubly hope she doesn't...

Seriously though, seems to me that handling Spirits is going to be a right pain in my arse as GM, and having been here for only a few weeks, that seems to be a consensus. I'm a house rule kinda guy though, so i'll call it as I see it. Don't like gamebreaking stuff. I think I'll be rolling with some smart enough spirits that won't take kindly to being treated as slaves.

The only really game-breaking stuff is possession.
Materialization can be dealt with fairly easy with a tazer . .
As long as nobody pays attention to the possession stuff, you won't have too many problems i guess.

I asked her to avoid Possession just now, while we get to grips with the game and whatnot. That's purely off the back of what I read on here.

Thanks Dumpshock!

Thanks also Stahlseele, you've put my mind a little at ease.

btw, has anyone tried incorporating the SR3 elemental-spirit dichotomy in SR4?

should not be too hard i guess . .
it's just the decision of who can summon what when . .
a hermetic has to plan ahead and keep some bound elementals ready on call.
while the shaman has no on call backup and has to make do with what's available where he is.

I'll keep that in mind.