Possession and spirit bolt/blast.
How do they interact?

In the current adventure we are facing an early breakthrough of shedim, we don’t know a lot about them but we know they are a spirit that possesses a body, and that with the spirit gone the body is not a great threat, our tactic in the last encounter was to force the spirit from its body (ether threw banishing or beating the regeneration it grants the body) and then banishing the spirit itself, this means we have to kill each spirit 2wice and it has a chance to claim another body or run. Having only one member of the team (myself) capable of interacting with the astral (seeing the spirits and banishing them) this is a time consuming and dangerous tactic

Looking for a way to tack the spirit directly I cam acres the spirit blast spell, with this spell I could directly kill the spirit if it will affect a spirit that is possessing a body. But will it work and why.

If the answer is different for shedim and other forms of possessing spirits (notably loas as it will be hoguns I ask for information on spirit blast and position)then I would need to know that as my in character decision on whether to try it will be made without specific knowledge of shedim.

Edward

Anybody got an opinion.

Edward

well, i don't have mits but i'm under the assumption that the spirit has a presence on the astral plane and as such is subject to the effects of a spell cast on that plane. i believe the only things not subject to that spell are non living entities, like wards, and mages and critters. so far as i know all spirits are affected by that spell.

Sorry, been busy.

A possessed being is a dual being, mana spells effect the possessing entity. This also applies for shedim using the Inhabitation power.

So, your spiritblast spell could potentially take out a cemetary full of shedim.

Assuming that you can 'see' (with astral preception) the shedim 'seperately' from the possesed body, they you should be able to target it seperately as well. If you can see it, 'seperately' for that matter, you can just hit it with manabolt.

Not at all, actually. If you see a horde of shambling zombies and cast a manaball on them, all the ones you see fall down-whether they're a pack of ghouls, corpses reanimated by shedim, or some really drunk magicians goings for a skinride in the ugly tree's greastest victims.

The point is that during possession/inhabitation, the astral entity is occupying the physical body. Which you can legitimately target with the spell. Consider the fact that you can target any metahuman with a mana spell without astrally perceiving their aura: the same thing works in this instance.

So would the spirit (as apposed to the body it inhabits) have a presence on the physical plain (I am recalling that you must be present on the same plane as the target so a fully astral entity can not be targeted buy any spell unless the caster is preserving or projecting). This is not much of an issue for my character as he is rarely not perceiving.

Second do I need to penetrate there masking and recognize the spirit to target the spirit, I would think not as you can normally cast a spell on somebody that you have not noticed or recognized as a valid target. Examples of this would be a rat you didn’t notice in the ally where you cast power ball or the elf poser you tried to save from humanis thugs buy casting slaughter human.

But dose the entity still count as a spirit when it is possessing something and witch condition monitor do you apply the damage to. (I am thinking yes and the sprits physical track but I could be considered biased).

Edward

Because the host's aura is suppressed (or in some cases, their astral self is not present). The physical spells effect the meat bod, but the mana spells effect the entity going for a skinride. So, any physical or stun damage dealt by a mana spell isn't reflected on the host's body-it affects the possessing magician or spirit.

You could also go beat the shit out of the host body, but the possessing entity won't be hurt at all...although unless they're masochists, they probably don't enjoy the sensation.

Thankfully, in the case of loa possessions and the like, the host body is insulated from undue injury caused by a neglectful spirit's occupancy.

Manaball effects living targets. If anything, I would think the host's body would shield the inhabiting spirit.

I also thought that manabolt/ball was ineffective against shedim, (and I am not in any way overly familiar with them) and that was why they were such a pain to get out of your buddies body. Like they had to be driven out from the astral, but that may have concerned banishing.

Manaball effects living targets because it targets the aura. If the possesser's aura is the only active aura, then it takes the blast.

All this aura crap is what had me wondering, considering SR3 got away from the idea of targeting auras. Be that as it may, Ancient History is quite right, as the information on possession powers and metamagic in MitS clearly follows what he said.

Thanks AH, as Edward's GM I am most grateful to you