Something that came up in our last session but fortunately for myself as the GM the point became moot. Here's the scenario.

Players are looking for something in a building, the Mouse shaman wisely summons a hearth spirit to aid in the task. The objects in question are in a room guarded by an air elemental. It should be said that the elemental is force 4, the hearth spirit a force 5. The rules say it should take the hearth spirit 5 minutes of game time to locate the object. Will the elemental be able to prevent it? Or will the hearth spirit back off as combat isn't really part of its service? If they're coming into conflict which has the better chance of winning?

IIRC the Search power is only hindered by the Concealing power, so the air elemental will not be able to prevent the Spirit from finding it. However, I'm assuming the Air Elemental has orders to prevent people from taking the object, so when the time comes for you to zero in on the location given to you by the spirit and pick up the package, the Air Elem will fight you. At this point, if the Mouse shaman wants his hearth spirit to attack the Air Elem, resolve combat as normal.

In our team we play that the "Search" ability doesn't give the spirit some mystical way to know where the object is, it actually has to go around astrally doing the search. So something can destroy the hearth spirit or prevent it from completing its job.

Depending upon the command to the Air Elemental, it may decide it can "guard" the object simply by watching it to make sure nothing attempts to damage it or remove it. It may not even fight the Hearth Spirit when it enters the room. (GM call based on the orders given and the spirit's intelligence.)

If the Hearth Spirit is attacked by the Elemental, it might see the object and depart after the first round of combat. If it doesn't see it, it's a GM call based on the orders given and the intelligence of the spirit on whether it fights to complete it's search, or returns to its master saying it searched the whole building except for the one room where something attacked it. The Hearth Spirit might decide it can whip the Air Elemental, and defend itself till the Elemental is dead, and then complete its task.

If the Elemental does fight the Hearth Spirit, it might not follow if the Hearth Spirit runs. (GM call based on the orders given and the spirit's intelligence.)

A low force hearth spirit, blocked by a ward, might wait forever for the ward to drop so it can complete its search. But a Force 5 Hearth Spirit should be able to do more than a simple literal interpretation of its commands, unless it wants to just do a literal interpretation.

Good point. I'll modify my position in light of your post.

Let's say the Spirit Power helps guide it, like a dowsing rod in the hands of the gifted, so that it takes far less time than searching every nook and cranny. But I believe it does have to go to the object and see it to complete its search.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

I guess it should be noted that the Air elemental's orders don't have it guarding a particular object but the room that the object is in - hence does the hearth spirit have to enter the room to find the object or does it's search power simply allow it to go through an inventory of all that is in its domain?

If the object is within the terrain that the Air Elemental was set to guard or patrol, it must make the standard Astral Perception Test to spot the Hearth Spirit while it's on its Search service (which, according to the power's description, has the spirit actively seeking the goal, not just knowing where it's at). If it spots the Hearth Spirit, it'll attack.

*steeples fingers*

Excellent.

Powers (outside of casting in appropriate situations) aren't exclusive, correct? So that could lead to the interesting situation where the Searcher is also Concealing themselves.

What if the search power was like the Cataloge spell any mage can get, it just takes a lot longer for the Spirit to cycle through all the crap on the list, and then identify where it is. I mean the Cataloge can tell what is in a given area but you have to be realtively close to it for the detection spell to find it. So the spirit may just have to get close to it to know here it is.

Ok, the spirit "casts" the search power, his domain is the area the spell searches. Now it has to move around to zero in on where it specifically, if he dectects in his domain.

I guess I am saying the search power is like the Cataloge spell on steroids.

Because the power requires the spirit to seek out the object. It's not a detection power or a clairvoyant one... you're sending the spirit out to look for whatever it is you want it to find.

Read the power. It specifically states that it's seeking the object out in its domain. There is nothing to even hint that it's anything but aside from the very convulted Opposed Perception Test it has to make to succeed in finding it. Note that it's specifically a Physical power, too. As in, not mana or thought-oriented. It's physically searching the domain seeking out the object.

Concealment opposes Search, but it doesn't make a spirit on a Search service immune to anything else.

I cannot comment on the power description as I am at work and my books arr not, but:

Well, like I said earlier, it power specifically states that the spirit is seeking out the object. It's the first line of the power.

Uhm, you may want to point to that little caveat, then, because it's nowhere in the description of the power in Critters (p. 14 if you're interested).

The only strange thing about it is the way it handles the Perception Test to find the object. I'm guessing it's supposed to be a bonus for the spirit using the power (since it's supposed to be cranked up version of a normal "eyeball searchin'"), but the rules for it are just kinda weird.

In a nutshell, it's specifically a Physical power, the spirit is specifically seeking the object, it's an Exclusive action, and it requires Line of Sight. If it were some mystic mumbo-jumbo, that last qualifier in particular wouldn't be there.

I would think that Exclusive action strongly implies that it IS a mystical action.

It's a good idea, but alas..

Concealment:
Doesn't work on the astral.
Won't work while using an exclusive power, like Search.

I'd still like a page reference to the bit about wards influencing the Search power. I did a quick scan through the bit in MitS about Wards and Astral Security and I didn't see anything like that. The closest thing was a bonus for a spirit set to guard or patrol an area if they also have the Search power (since it's supposed to reflected a heightened familiarity with their domain, thus an ability to find things hiding therein).

Anyway, you're all free to handle it however you like. I just happen to think that it's pretty obvious that the spirit is Searching for the object. The name of the power, the first sentence of the power, and the implication of just about everything else about the power suggests as much. But if you prefer it as some sort of weird clairvoyance power, all the more power to you. Doesn't make any sense why it would be a Physical power, though. If it were, they should have just as much success finding astral objects or entities, too... yet they don't.

Cataloge is a Physical spell and all I have to do is be with in my magic rating X force radius to know it is there. I can't tell you where specifically but I know it is there.

Using triangulation you could locate an item using Catalog more precisely by noting when it passes into the area of effect and using 3 passes from different directions.

Ah, there it is. Never thought to look here.

In any case, nope, I don't think the spirit tosses the place. If something is enclosed in a box or a safe, I assume it looks inside it -- it's a spirit afterall. It also makes sense why an astral barrier would interfer with that ability; the power may be physical, but the spirit is still a spirit, and just looking through a barrier or ward causes the same penalties if I remember correctly.

But you're right, the very last sentence of the quoted rules implies that it's more than just a physical search, so I'll give up the argument. Still going to treat it like that in my games, though... just makes a lot more sense to me all around.

Regarding the topic at hand, though, it's all a moot point. As a LOS power, the nature spirit still had to enter the room in order to search it. The elemental would still get the chance to notice, and thus attack it for entering its guarded zone.

It has to be a physical power because if it were a mana power it could only find living things.