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Acenoid
Hi there!

Question for Shadowrun 3:
Does a free spirit's essence is calculated by F + energy = E?
Are the mental attributes also increased with current energy level?

This would mean that a free spirit with F6 and energy 3 would have all mental attributes and Essence at 9 and immunity to normal weapons at 18!
In case the current essence is lower, the immunity would also be lower.

Or do you calculate it differently?
Acenoid
Well, I've read and read and from what I understood from the books is that the Essence is calculated from the force. Thus, all the attributes are the sum of the force and spirit energy. Lower essence means also lower stats.

Example of a blood spirit with it's essence lowered by 2:
http://i.imgur.com/EE623gy.png

Feedback welcome of course smile.gif
Kren Cooper
From MITS, P114:
"One of the things that make free spirits more powerful than other spirits is their ability to build up Spirit Energy."
"When a free spirit uses a spirit power that is based on Force, add the spirit’s current Spirit Energy to its Force"
"The physical forms of free spirits also benefit from this bonus. For example, a free forest spirit with Force 5 and Spirit Energy 5 has physical Attributes based on a total Force of 10."
"Spirit Energy is also added to a free spirit’s astral Initiative"
"Certain situations may affect a free spirit’s Spirit Energy. For example, a free spirit with a personal domain (see p. 118) doubles its Spirit Energy within that domain."

From that, my read is
Essence would remain as being equal to Force in absolute terms.
Tests against the spirit, or made by the spirit get to add the current Spirit Energy to the Force for the test
It says physical stats are boosted by S/E, but makes no mention of mental stats - so I would assume they are unaffected.
A F4 spirit has stats of 4 and an Essence of 4. It has immunity to normal weapons at 4*2 = 8
A F4 spirit with 4 spirit energy has Physical stats of 8, mental stats of 4 and an effective essence (when testing) of 8. It has immunity to normal weapons at (4+4)*2=16
A F4 spirit with 4 spirit energy in its personal domain has physical stats of 12, mental stats of 4, effective essence of 12 and immunity to normal weapons at (4+4+4)*2 = 24

The main reason to say Essence = Force is that because the Spirit Energy can go up and do so rapidly in a combat:

Imagine, players are trying to fight free toxic spirit, spirit is force 5, so it's base essence is 5. It's got 4 spirit energy though, so it's effectively 9.
The players launch an assault at the spirit, and force it to burn spirit energy to buy a re-roll, like using a karma pool, dropping it down to spirit energy of 2. Now it's effective essence is 7.
The spirit retreats, crosses the threshold to its personal domain and gets double spirit energy, taking it back to an effective 9 essence.
In both the lines above though the spirit has its natural base essence of Force (in this case 5) still remaining - it has not taken any banishing damage directly and is "healthy", but the changes in S/E make its stats go up and down a fair degree.
Acenoid
Thank you for the detailed response. I agree with all your statements. So the easiest way is to state that S/E is added after all calculations on top of the physical attributes and powers. Is by your definition the "physical reaction" a mental or physical attribute? I suppose that Dice Pools remain unaffected, as the physical attributes for them are already increased.

Btw using the definition above would mean that a free spirit on the astral plane is not more powerful than a bound spirit. Since all sprits have all their stats at "force" level.

In the base book the power "materialize" states that the physical manifestation is based on the essence. Since a blood spirit may loose essence I suppose the "current" essence level is applied to the physical manifestation (+ S/E).
Kren Cooper
I would go with not adding to reaction (as it's not a stat directly, but derived from others - but the spirit energy boost to quickness *should* count into that evaluation) - but you do add it to your initiative.

So Spirit at force 4, with 3 SE, has effective Quickness of 7, Intelligence 4, Reaction of 5, and adds 3 to its initiative after rolling.
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