I forget the time delay, but if a spirit is killed (Physical) as opposed to disrupted (Stun), it takes a lot more to get that same spirit to return to your service. This usually doesn't matter unless talking about ally spirits, though.

I wish I could remember where the details are, but I can't. Sorry.

Either bar will disrupt them.

All right, I knew there was a difference. See Magic in the Shadows, page 98, "Disruption."

Basically, if they go down because of stun damage, they're disrupted. A disrupted spirit can't return for 28 days minus its force unless the summoner goes on an astral quest to retrieve them. This is important because during that exile, they're still considered bound to their summoner, thus limiting the number of spirits they can have on call at any one time.

Spirits that die because of physical damage on the astral plane are destroyed. For the life of me I can't find any rules that go into detail about it, but I'm pretty sure that when destroyed they don't come back.

Bah, I give up. There is a big difference, though. I know this much.

Actually, you're only partially right. According to the rules for spirit battles (MitS p. 95), that's one way to permanetly destroy a spirit. Not the only way. Hence the line "a spirit can be destroyed." It's basically what you would need to do if you only disrupted it (such as killing it with physical damage while it was manifested which does only cause disruption) but don't want to wait around for ~28 days so that it can return and exact revenge on you.

Based on everything I can find on the subject, killing a spirit in its astral form through the use of physical damage destroys it.

The astral quest, I think, is only for free spirits.

Don

Nope.

So if you disrupt a flesh form with stun damage, does the spirit go back to it's metaplane, or stay unconscious in the physical world?

I'm not disagreeing with you, Doc, but why choose to inflict stun damage on the astral, then do a quest to kill it, when you could choose to inflict physical damage and be done with it? That makes little sense.

I'm going to take a look at the part you cited.

Because that's not the only way to do damage (Stunbolt, etc.), and sometimes you don't want to kill a spirit, you just want to disrupt it.

But if you do only disrupt it (such as killing it with physical damage while manifested; it's impossible to destroy a manifested outright), the only way to truly kill it is to go on a quest to do so. Yet if you're engaged in astral combat with a spirit and you kill it with Physical damage, it's gone for good. Otherwise it's just disrupted.

Dont forget that spirits arent the only think you can engage in astral combat. Just because it is *usually* a good idea to choose to inflict physical damage in astral combat doesnt mean that it *always* is.

Its a little more difficult to interrogate that mage to find out why he just spied on you if you kill him, and after the first reflected stunbolt you might want to try some other means of incapacitation.

Where's the page number for killing it outright with physical damage on the astral?

One slight glitch, if the spirit is manifested, it is still vulnerable to astral attacks. Even astral attacks doing Physical damage. But since the spirit is manifested, which puts the spirit in a weaker state, it gets a bonus to not dying? Magic doesn't make sense.

Where's the page number saying that deadly physical damage (on the astral) disrupts a (non-free) spirit rather than killing it?

It's not a weaker state. While manifested, the best physical opponents can do is destroy the manifested form, thus only disrupting it. It takes physical astral combat to take one down for good.

The rules for Disruption (see the page reference earlier in the thread) specify that only stun damage disrupts them. Physical obviously doesn't. It's one of those "duh" bits; if they die due to physical astral damage, they're dead. There's no real reason to come out and state that specifically.

But since common sense has no place in discussions like this, forget I mentioned anything. So what if the rules for disruption specifically state that only stun damage disrupts a spirit in astral form while simultaneously saying that stun and physical damage does the same while manifested? Minor detail, that.

This creates an interesting scenario, one that i've mentioned before in the forums but there was no solid answer.

Some spirits are actually weaker in Astral Space, and are better off materializing to fight because of bonuses to stats. Because they're duel natured when materialized they can do this.

If we discover that physical damage only disrupts a materializing spirit it adds even more complication to this...

I think we must keep in mind there are actually 4 sets of Wounds we must keep track of in this case. Astral physical damage, astral stun, physical physical and physical stun. Dealing Deadly Astral Physical will destroy a spirit.

For bookkeeping, I'd just go with two and make note of the where the final blow came from. If it's physical from the astral = spirit is toast. Any other source and it's coming back, sooner or later.

Don