Are you remembering that random objects are not "prepared vessels" for possession, thus making the possession test harder? Also, object resistance (it's easier to possess a rock than a comlink).

Because if not, if you toss that rule back into the mix (along with the subclause that failed possessions can't be reattemted for 24 hours, IIRC) they'll find that their possession spirits are a lot less useful.

The maglocks, the antitheft system, heck, the wireless onboard computer (or just the imbedded security RFID's) that notifies everyone where the vehicle is being taken to, so that the local police can easily follow to apprehend (by force) whomever's jacking said car with a spirit?

Even if you say those all become disabled upon possession, in a city GridGuide's going to notice that vehicle that no longer registers, track it, and notify the authorities of its whereabouts. Nothing like a possessed vehicle cruising down the street to draw attention.

You could have the mage go in astrally and point out the target. Assuming he can see the target from the astral, which certainly is not always possible.

I think it could be very amusing if the rocker had his commlink implanted...

That might very well be, but the OP is looking to make things more difficult, not easier.

And surely you will agree, that text from an actual SR4 book is a bit more important to SR4 than some novels or SR3 sourcebooks.

Bye
Thanee

Yeah, but you must find it first. Which is not a trivial task in the astral.

Bye
Thanee

It is not a function of spirit type or vessel. Any materialized spirit has physical senses:a) all spirit types get the Perception skill at Force, which would be totally useless without physical senses.
b) they get the critter power Dual Natured:

See above. A Materialized spirit has physical senses.

It has never been addressed whether summoned spirit can read from the moment they are summoned. There definitely is no learning mechanism for them.

For that "Posessing the crate and shapechange it into a dolphin" thing: I actually kind of like the idea of a loophole that allows you to shapechange an object into an animal, I just didn't think it that far. You could reasonably assign the crate a body attribute from the point of being possessed, though. Size and toughness of an actual metal hull should show up somewhere. Thus, a dolphin might just not exactly cut it, they'd need a fully grown whale Just imagine them getting in a scuffle because coast guard detected an actual whale in the harbor Maybe those pirates even brought a harpoon. Hilarity!
Affecting the internal cargo by the spell also might affect gear in a smugling compartment inside a body as only the container itself has been bought with essence, just saying. I'm unable to see a sharp line here.
Astral backup on call, as mentioned above, is always a great idea, and a reasonable one, too. This way, some astral security and their spirits (cuts both ways, as usual) will happily blast it out with any dual-natured intruders.
Additionally, keep track of the services the spirits owe the summoners and the distance between them. This can quickly become a problem for them.
Also, more wasted ammo never hurts. If there actually is a character/spirit mix that can take full-auto mode, great! Give it to him! In doubt, use Stun ammo, the spirit will dissipate with a full stun track.

Could it be the case that there is a slight power difference notably between the adept and both mages? What exactly does a driver adept contribute to the party? Why is she being hired?
I also heard the tale of a summoner unintentionally sending a spirit into close combat with a fellow sporting Astral Hazing (very short combat), but this trick of course only works once or twice.
I also second the idea of a materialized spirit gaining physical senses. See, some even get additional thermal sight as an optional power. That would be kinda useless without physical sight to begin with, I'd think.

Yes, of course it isn't blind in the physical world.

But spirits still do not sense the physical world in the same way as metahumans do.



Bye
Thanee

I'd have the spirit(s) mug everybody in there for a commlink. Chances are there's going to be some mages who take offense to that. Why would a rocker be emotionally attached to their commlink?

Hehe

I'm sure everyone who bought an original iPhone had such a deep and lasting attachment to it and the design perfection it represents that they never could bring themselves to upgrade. And I also have this bridge. ...

As I said above materialized/possessing spirits do have physical senses. So emotional attachment is irrelevant.

Also the description of the Search power specifies a mental image of the object, not of the aura of the object. So if the mage knows what model of commlink the rockstar has, he can provide a mental image.

Buttercup has been on earth since the 5th world if I recall correctly.

Either way, absolutely nothing in common with a fresh off the meta-planar spirit in terms of experience.

Even the same spirits from different traditions are hard to compare, so don't try to hold up the grand-daddy free spirit as an example of anything.

They cannot discern physical details in the same way as metahumans can, though.



The GM can very easily limit that to items the mage has seen first-hand (as is implied in the Search power, anyways, since the critter also must have seen the item before).

And that is what should be done here.

And even if it can be searched for... the threshold is pretty damn high (10 + distance in kilometers), and the extended test can easily fail, if using the suggested method where you remove one die after each roll.

There are so many ways to make this so hard, that the spirit simply won't be able to do it. The OP only needs to use what the rules provide.

Bye
Thanee

They can make out details though, and given a reasonably detailed description/image can deduce whether something is reasonably similar to the item in question.


This would render the search power largely ineffective or downgraded to a retrieve power. Not sure whether that is the intention.

Of course the Search Power is best used locally. If you use the diminisching dice pools, I'm not even sure success is possible below force 6. I doubt, this will send the right message to the players.

If they have it in their hand, they probably can, yes. But it should be really, really difficult for them. Like a 5 threshold Perception test.

But if we go by your idea, that the mage uses a mental image of the type of commlink. How would the spirit tell it is the right one from the thousands or even millions of equal-looking ones about? After all, there are only a handful of commlink types in the rules (and everyone and their mother has at least one of those).

How could this even work without having some kind of emotional context (the astral stuff, spirits actually understand and can discern very well).



I'm fairly sure that the intention is to be able to find things the mage has seen before. Like people the mage has ascanned.

It is highly useful for that already. No need to make it even better by allowing it to find anything the mage can think up.



Well, did you read the OP's post? He wants to limit spirits, not make them even more omnipotent.

Therefore, I am trying to give him some actual ways to do so, which are very well supported in the books.

This surely is some grey area, so there is some leeway for the GM without actually breaking the rules or re-inventing them.

And again, he wants to make things harder, not easier.

Bye
Thanee

P.S. BTW, where did you get, that materialized spirits are innate dual-natured? Emphasis on innate here. That part could very well only apply to permanent dual beings not such that only gain a dual nature temporarily, like astrally perceiving mages or materializing spirits. In fact, since that part mostly speaks about not having that -2 distraction modifier, it makes a lot of sense that way.

Yes, as soon as your playes grow a brain and you not severly restrict magic or put security in place only to ruin the day of the mage (Which of course stays inactive, if the mages is somehow not on the run, because they would just kill the runners...) mages are overpowered.
The vodoo tradtion is just adding insult to injury...
Than cutting them slag with the rules....

You can make SR magic work. Yes. But only if you are very, very thight in the ruling. Always against magic. If there are two options, take the one which nervs magic.

Back to the original topic, my way to handle this (besides tweaking the rules in my campaign to make it harder to summon high force spirits) is this:

1. Magic protections (wards, patrolling spirits, guard paracritters) can help detect astral invaders, and a security mage can track the link to the summoner.
2. Low force spirits aren't much of a threat, even with little to no magic protection. Situations where a low force spirit can do the job are situations where most runner could do it with no problems.
3. Bringing in a high force spirit (6+) is not unlike bringing a tank. Response will be proportionate and will probably involve feds/security agencies who will hunt the guy who's able to summon magic WMD.
4. Spirits follow the tradition. And the mage/shaman/houngan/etc. is expected to do the same or the spirits won't be happy.

As others said, shapechanging the crate into something (if that's even possible) wouldn't bring along anything inside the crate. All items inside would be separate, and not targeted by either the possession or the spell.

Personally, I limit the Search power to only things the spirit or mage has seen before. A mere image of the commlink won't cut it.

Make sure to implement the difficulties of astral navigation - even if the PCs can show the spirit a map with the exact location of the crate, the spirit would then have to materialize to try and navigate according to the map. It won't automatically know where crate is and be able to zip right there. If navigation and searching takes too much time, the spirit is disrupted and fails.

Make sure to enforce background counts, full rules for possessing unprepared vessels, and full complications of dual nature for possessed items.

Wards are relatively cheap, and easy to put up. They can be encountered anywhere. Maybe the person responsible for security at the venue is paranoid about astral spies - maybe the rocker is.

The search power is an extended test, with quite a high threshold: it's 5 base + 5 because it's a nonliving object + 1 per each km of distance above 1 km. The interval is only 10 minutes, but I would use the diminishing dice pool optional rule for extended tests here (page 64, "Extended Tests", SR4A). That rule would essentially mean that if the object is non-living and it's far away, it may be impossible to locate for a low force spirit. And since I count search as a remote service (remember that if a spirit has to move further than 100 x magic meters away from the caster -- it is a remote service) then it would probably mean that the spirit simply vanishes after failing to locate the crate (remote services forfeit any other services the spirit owes).

Would that help to weaken the spirits a bit?

Another reason why 4A watcher spirits suck monkey balls. They used to all the time, every time find stuff. In 3rd t was, in fact, an unrelated test that simply determined how long it took (which had the possibility of exceeding the watcher's hours-long lifespan). Every other spirit got the Search power, which had a chance of failing to locate the desired object or person entirely.

Why would you make it particularly difficult? Even if you do not know how a maple leaf looks and feels like, if you are shown one you could easily differentiate it from other leaves or other similar objects. Also there is no guideline how exact detailed or understandable a mental image is supposed to be. If you want to make the search power less useful, you could simply let the spirit tell the summoner that he does not have enough data. Again, I am not sure if the rules are supposed to work that way.

The easiest way is to limit the search area. The likelyhood of false positives will be greatly reduced. At least in the case of a commlink there would be not much trouble with having the spirit bring all of the commlinks. In other cases you could let the spirit retrieve the first fitting specimen, then check its authenticity and if necessary send another spirit to get the next one.

If this were the intention, it would have been easy to write this condition down.

I did read the OP's post, I'm just of the opinion that some of the suggestions here are not supported by the rules. If the OP wants to go forth with them he should inform the players that he differs from the normal rules.

Hmm. I thought it was more clear cut. I thought Dual Nature was among their Powers. Well my reasoning is this. There are two forms of dual natured perception: Mages can only ever sense one plane, Critters sense both planes at the same time. If Spirits work like mages, why do all of them get the Perception skill and some even Enhanced Sense (low-light vision etc.)? If they cannot sense both planes at the same time, they could never ever use the skill or the powers. Since spirits are critters it is much more logical that their dual nature works just like that of other critters.

So...the spirit materializes in the rocker's room, grabs the commlink(s), and then...

Just walks out the front door carrying the stolen 'link? They can't de-materialize and carry the commlink. Commlinks can't go through walls, even if they are possessed.

Nobody would try to stop this spirit? Or at the least follow it?

Good point.

Yeah, pretty much. Walks out the door of the dressing room, takes flight (Spirit of Air, natch,) and zooms out of the concert, either through the skylight, or through the front doors, and proceeds to tear-ass down the street/over the buildings.

I know what you're gonna say. "ZOMG CAMERAS!" To which I reply "Concealment" and "Redmond Barrens." The drone security are MCT Fly-Spies. They have a top speed of 15m/turn. Spirits of Air, when Materialized, have a top speed of 75 m/turn.

Sure, everybody will know, plain as day, what happened (except they totally won't, because again, concealment, so the crowd won't be going 'oooh' and 'ahhhh', or 'shoot it!',) but nobody will be able to stop it or track it. Hell, the Runners don't even need to keep it, just access it, rip its little electronic pea-brain, and toss it in a bin.





What can they do? The gangers are literally powerless to stop it, and some random Nabo-fan mage isn't going to risk his ass Astralizing to chase this spirit down and kill it (and most likely get trampled when his meatbod collapses like a stringless marionette, either.) Even if a ganger is sitting on a revving motorbike and ready to give chase, the Spirit can elude him simply by flying over a building or a wall.


It would make a hell of a show, pink mohawk style, though.

Also don't forget about astral signatures. It can be used to track down the summoner.

Not really. The use of magical skills and Critter powers leaves astral signatures of the user i.e. the spirit. There is no connection between the spirit and the summoner as soon as the services are fulfilled or the summoner dismissed the spirit. There is not even a rule whether summoned spirits exist while they are not summoned.

The only way to get to the summoner is observing the spirit, while it is summoned and following the mystical link to the summoner.

The magician's signature on the spirit from the summoning can simply be cleansed before sending the spirit to retrieve the commlink.

Spirit grabs the 'Link and then uses Concealment to hide himself while he leaves.
EDIT: Which apparently ShadowDragon8685 already said. *sigh*

Of course there is. If you want to permanently destroy a Spirit, you must go to their Metaplane and destroy them there. How could you do that if they did not exist when not summoned?

A simple (mag)locked door would still prevent the spirit from leaving.

If you wish to make it easy for them, by all means, do so. Have the dressing room, unlocked, open to the outside. Don't have any form of magical defense (they can't hire a punk wiz-ganger for a day?)

You've got two mages, and no magical security. It should be easy for them. Just like it would be easy for a street samurai to invade an abbey of ultra-pacifistic monks.

If you wish to make it more challenging, there are ample things you can do (and have been suggested) to make it so.

EDIT: And if this rocker is so attached to his commlink, wouldn't he notice it was stolen, and/or that a spirit just materialized in front of him? He'd have it on him, even while rocking out, no? And yes, it's concealed, but anyone with half a brain would just track the newly stolen commlink if they couldn't see it. You can do that with iPhones today, should be able to do that with commlinks of tomorrow.

I meant making sure it is the right one, not just any one that looks similar. The second part is probably not too hard, but the first should be next to impossible for a spirit.



Heh. It would make for a fun episode, though, when security shows up, tracing all those commlink locations via the Matrix.



Yeah, it would. They only specified it in the part before talking about spirits and their summoner.

But if the critter needs to have seen the item to use Search, then why should that mental image transfer be any easier?



My line of thought here would go like this... innate dual-nature is when you are used to that state, because it is always there. Hence no penalty.

Spirits dislike materialization, though. And the text from Street Magic quoted earlier also explains that they frequently overlook physical details.

That doesn't sound like a perception they can use perfectly fine to me.

Bye
Thanee

Hmm I thought that only applied to free spirits, but apparently Street Magic does not make that distinction. If spirits continue to exist even when not summoned has some interesting consequences:
-There may be spirits that have been summoned multiple times.
-Can they learn?
-Do they retain memories from previous summonings? If they do they are a lot less likely to react "directly off the bus" on the physical plane.
-Can they be compelled to reveal information about previous summonings and summoners?

Be as it may there still is no way to summon a specific spirit i.e. the one that stole the commlink, and any signature made by the spirit has no connection to the summoner.

You can summon a Specific Spirit if you have his Formulae.

Yes, but AFAIK only Free spirits and ally Spirits have Spirit Formulae. The retrieval of such a Formula from the metaplanes is restricted to those of free spirits.

Hmmmmm... Thought you could acquire a Specific Spirit's Formula as an Astral Quest. Does that ONLY apply to Free?

Yup.

Don't see why you could not extend this to other spirits, though. Makes for a more interesting result.

I thought there was some fluff (AFB) about the ongoing debate as to the exact nature of what spirits were: manifestations of the summoner's psyche or will imposed upon the universe; independent, intelligent beings from another dimension; or something altogether other?

There is. The fluff basically says magical science (as it were) simply does NOT know.

sort of like light is both an EM wave and a particle, there are elements hinting that spirits can be both of those options. Which means thre's no clear cut answer - Some spirit seems clearly one or the others, other aren't as definite and some might even be both.

Except that would require another service, most likely.


This.

If you want to make things more challenging, it's easy to put up a low-force ward in the dressing room, a maglocked door (or even a standard lock! barrens after all...), and make it difficult to acquire a sufficient mental image of the commlink. Commlinks can be designed to look like almost anything, after all...

As for possessing the adept - and most every other use of a spirit's powers etc - it is never a given that a spirit will interpret it's orders in the way the mage intended.

"Stop that man" could be a use of Accident, Movement, Engulf, Unarmed Combat, Elemental Attack, or a Social Skill test. It all depends on the spirit.

"Kill those people" could easily affect innocent bystanders - including the friends of the mage.

"Incapacitate the security guard" may well require a test for the spirit to even know the concept of 'security guard', and again could be the use of many different powers and tactics.

A spirit won't necessarily choose to do something in a stealthy manner, or in a way that them age would consider obvious. They care little for metahuman ways and laws, and won't think twice about things like 'alarms' and 'cameras'. If it's been given an order it may not care about anything else (except protecting itself) and thus won't adapt well to a changing situation.

If the mage explains every step of a plan to a spirit, things will go better - but may require more services, a longer time to complete the order (vital in combat), or a ticked off spirit that feels like it's being treated as if it's stupid or can't think for itself. This may be enough for it to use Edge to resist the next summoning...

They shouldn't really be treated as metahuman entities when it comes to reasoning and knowledge - their frame of reference is alien, their desires and cares completely different from metahuman views, and they will likely pick whatever way of completing a task that is quickest and easiest for them.

Also, try giving the occasional NPC the Spirit Affinity or Spirit Bane quality to mix things up a bit.

Next time this comes up, I will make the spirit materialize in front of the person pointed out and let him shout "STOP". Then he grasps his/her arm and pulls him back. Even more fun if it's a fire spirit
An Earth spirit might start building a barrier, though..

Yup, yup - my point exactly!

Different spirits will choose very different means to accomplish a task, based on their nature, the relationship with the summoner, the relationship with the target, and any other arbitrary circumstance.

GMing them as individuals can surprise the frag out of the players and PCs both, and be tons of fun!

Yes, but they will not twist the mage's words to screw him nor are there any limitation on how complex the order may be nor is there a speed for the communication of the mental order.

Agreed.