Some questions for yous SR gurus.

1) Every damage Level over the maximum instead increases its Power by two, so conversely does every two damage Powers below the minimum instead drop the damage Level by one? If I get hit by something that does, say, 5(D) damage, and I have, say, Armor 3, I only have to resist 2(D), right? What about if something hits me with 1(D) and I have Armor 9? Since Armor > Power, can I use Armor to effectively stage down the damage? So stage down by (Armor - Power)/2 damage Levels? That way something that deals 1(D) or 3(S) or 5(M) or 7(L) cannot hurt me if I wear Armor 9.

2) Other than Great Form spririts, does anyone in Astral Combat get Reach? Dragons, for instance? Any other spirits? Trolls and Shapeshifters astrally perceiving/projecting? How appropriate/uber would a new Metamagic be that gives you an increase in Astral Reach equal to your Grade?

3) Is there any way an Aspected conjurer can use their spell pool? Can they use it as Spell defence if they have no Sorcery skill? Would a Metamagic that allows spell pool to be used for Conjuring tests as for Sorcery be okay/uber?

4) What is the point in the Wreck(LOS) and Ram(T) spells? Aren't they just Powerball(Deadly) [restricted target: inanimate] spells? Since inanimate objects are unable to make Resistance tests, wouldn't getting a Force 1 Powerbolt be much more effective than a collection of Wreck/Ram spells specific to each thing you want to damage? Because a Powerbolt1(D) is still going to deal Deadly damage to something unable to resist.

5) MitS says that when creating an Ally it gets a random spell with the same limitations you know it with. If that particular spell is Fetish-limited, how is the fetish part satisfied? Can you build fetishes into the Ally Formula you make for your Ally? Could you make all their spells fethish-limited, and include that many fetishes in its Formula? Or would you only need one Fetish for each category, not one per spell?

6) Can an Ally use a focus that is bonded to its creator (seeing as the Ally gets its life-force from its summonner's Magic-point, it will be intuned to its master's magic signature?) If not, if an Ally is to use a focus (eg weapon or sustaining) can the master pay the karma to bond that focus to the Ally?

7) In a recent thread it was suggested to a player that he get his Ally the Movement Power. How is this done? Can they also get Conceal, Guard, Confuse, etc? (This thread got confused between Manifest/Materialize.) Can Allies learn Metamagic techniques from Free Spirits (if you paid the FS in karma and paid karma for your Ally to learn it)? Or could you go on an Astral Quest for these (or maybe to reduce their karma cost, as for learning spells? How much would giving an Ally additional Powers or Metamagics typically cost?

8) Can Free Spirits learn Conjuring?

9) Can you give a Spirit more than one task at once, eg, "Conceal and Guard my meatbody while I'm out, and Confuse anyone who notices it and tries to interact with it"? Or would you instead have to conjur three different Spirits can give them each one of the tasks?

10) Can you instruct a Spirit (with sufficient intelligence) to send a Watcher to find you as a messenger if a specific event occurs? Will Watchers (and other Spirits of yours) obey your Ally?

11) Does a Nosferatu mage's Magic rating fluctuate with their Essence? So Magic = Essence + Grade as normal, but Essence decreases over time and increases after feeds. Would this mean that Magic-loss is nigh on irrelevant to a Nosferatu mage because she just needs to feed again to regain her lost point?

12) When an Ally casts a spell, what is its Magic rating for determining if it causes Stun or Physical drain? Its Force? Its master's Magic rating? Its Sorcery skill level? Or is it able to cast spells at any force only incurring Stun drain along the same reasoning as Free spirits not needing to research spell formulae since they are so intuned with Magic?

13) If an Ally returns to its Metaplane and then comes back to the Prime Material, can it use this like other spirits to heal itself and to bipass wards and barriers? What kind of action is home-planeshift? Can it be made to avoid, say, astral combat or an approaching bullet? Can it be done from Materialized form as well as from purely Astral form?

14) Do / can Allies accompany a character on an Astral quest? Do they count toward the number of companions (which increases the Quest rating) or not?

15) Since a Spirit's primary combat mode will be Astral combat (using Sorcery/AstralCombat skill), if it Materialises and must engage in Unarmed combat, does it default to its Sorcery/AstralCombat skill?

16) Dispelling a spell requires you to resist the spell's drain-code as if you had cast it yourself (whether or not your dispelling was successful). What happens if the spell is Fetish-limited or Exclusive-limited? Do you have to have the appropriate Fetish with you (or take an Exclusive action) to dispell that spell? Do you resist drain using the limitation discounts, or as if it was the full-drain version? If I want to really deter an enemy mage from dispelling my spell-lock, could I ramp up a spell (using MitS alterations) to say +4(D) drain so that when I cast it I use 1 die for casting, and Sorcery-1 + Spell pool + Willpower to resist it. Eventually I'll get it cast and locked, but anyone who tries to dispell it is likely to knock themselves out trying?

17) I dislike the Armor spell not caring how many successes you get, and also being limited to either Physical or Astral plane. I want a spell that say has TN 4 and however many successes you get, you can distribute between your Physical and Astral armor values, each up to the Force of the spell. MitS says a spell is Physical if there is any doubt whether it is Physical or Mana, but Physical spells cannot affect the Astral. Are there no dual-natured spells? Manabolt is mana-based but can 'hit' a creature not Astrally present. So could you have a mana-based defence spell that protects you from both only-astrally and only-physically present opponents?

18) In the recent ?Teleportation? thread it was suggested that you could circumvent the "cannot break the STC" limitation by transforming yourself into an energy beam (such as 'Lightbearers' did). I have been thinking about that. You would presumably generate E=mc^2 of energy from your transformation. Electricity might be neat, but it's hard to control direction of charge flow, and you'd likely melt your conductor, dissipate and ground yourself quickly = dead & buried. If we're doing light, you'd instantanesouly accelerate to c and head off (presumably in the direction you were looking at the time of casting). But at the speed of light, time ceases to pass so you would arrive at the destination at (subjectively) the same time that you left your origin. That would make it an Instantaneous spell, which is handy for drain purposes. However, light is going to be dispersed by impure conductors such as atmosphere, glass, etc and it will also be partially reflected, refracted and transmitted each time it passes through a different conductor such as a window or a mirror etc. So your FastAsLightMage would have to be making damage resistance tests all the time to 'keep himself together'. If you set the colour of the light based on the Magic rating of the mage (IR=Magic 1, Red=Magic 2, ..., Blue=Magic 6, ..., UV=Magic 9+) then you could set the TN for such damage resistance tests to their Magic rating, since higher Magic = higher energy = shorter wavelengths = more diffraction etc. You could also transmit yourself down optic fibre... as long as you didn't encounter a booster station down the line (absorbing and amping a million Terrajoules = exploded booster + dead mage). One-way mirrors would be interesting too - if you can see through you can't get through, but if you can't see through you can get through... assuming it's safe to go through. You'd probably not want to cast it outside either, since if your lightpath happened to suddenly be intercepted by something shiny that reflected you off into space, your character would technically still be alive (and in suspended animation) but unable to act. And if ever he 'landed' he would not be able to cast Beam Me Back Scotty because he couldn't cast outside Earth and if he could, he'd miss.

19) no that's all actually. You can go home early. Sorry there are quite a few. I have been lurking on Dumpshock for a while and these are wonderments that occurred to me.

1. No. Personal armor, and the armor spell, is not hardened unless otherwise specified; so even a 1D attack against someone with a force-6 Armor spell still means he has to roll body against TN 2

2. Projecting/percieving trolls and shifters keep their bonus, and weapon foci add theirs.

3. No. Conjurers never can use spell pool.

4. See the other responses. Wreck and Ram have less drain, which is their advantage.

5. The ally has to hold onto the physical fetish. I suppose if you're building an homoniculi, you could work a fetish into it somewhere; but otherwise, the ally has to have it, just like the mage does.

6. Technically, no. The only focus an ally can use is an Inhabiting focus, assuming it was built with that power and the creator has provided it with a homoniculi.

7. By canon, no, no, and no. Allies can only learn the powers listed in MitS. Some people may house-rule otherwise, but that's their personal decision. (There is a mention in T:AL about Intuit shamans learning a specific metamagic to teach specific additional abilities to allies, but currently that's an NPC-only ability.)

8. Technially, yes. Can they use it? Doubtful. Would they? Probably not.

9. Yes, you can give a spirit multiple services to perform at once; each costs a service.

10. Yes, if you word things properly to the spirit and watcher.

11. Dunno. I'd go with Herald on this one.

12. Ally's force.

13. It can bypass wards and barriers, but technically it cannot heal itself in this fashion. Since it takes a complex action to do everything you describe, it can't shift planes to escape an attack.

14. Yes and Yes.

15. Spirits use Reaction at no penalty.

16. Caster's drain.

17. No, there are no spells that affect the astral and the physical simultaneously.

18. I don't mess with house rules like that, so I dunno. Personally, I wouldn't allow that spell into my games, so it's a YMMV situation.

19. No pooftas!

17) What you're looking for is multi-casting : the rules allow your character to cast multiple spells at once using 1 Complex Action, with increased drain. To obtain the "dual-natured" Armor spell, you'd just have to cast Physical Armor and Astral Armor.

Add that Amror 6 spell onto a sety of Normal clothes with a gel-pack installed (1/1 Hardened armor) is now 7/7 Hardened

Yes, and if you use that particular (IMO ludicrous) interpretation of how the Armor spell works, then you can wear a Secure Long Coat over that, and end up with 7/7 armor, layered with the Secure Jacket (10/8 with the Armor spell) for 13/11 armor, 7/7 of that Hardened. But that's a stupid way to interpret how the spell works, and I seriously doubt any sane GM who'd allow it.

The Armor spell doesn't enhance the usefulness of other armor; it's merely cumulative with it. So, with the setup you describe, you'd end up with 7/7 overall and 1/1 hardened. The same applies to drone armor.

Just because it's cumulative doesn't mean it shares the same properties. If I'm wearing a lined coat (4/2) with four levels of chemseal and a force-5 Armor spell, does that mean I have 7 against chemical attacks, or do I have 11? Based on your argument, I'd have 11.

No, you wouldn't have 11, because the spell specifically states that it adds its rating to the ballistic and impact of your worn armor. Cehm Seal is neither ballistic nor impact. Likewise the spell does not say non-hardened or soft armor, it just says worn armor. By the description of the spell if your worn armor is Milspec Hardened then it raises the Ballistic and Impact levels of your Hardened Milspec Armor. If you are wearing A Lined Coat then it increases the non-hardened ballistic and impact of the Lined Coat.

Thanks k10 and Herald.

(Sorry for bringing up this thread again, but I was out of town in early June...)