Could someone be kind enough to help me with something from MitS? The description of the Storm power and using it to attack people- Storm Strike- mentions that one of the manifestations is lightning, right? So if I wanted, I could call one up and tell it to lightning bolt some poor schlub. If there was already a storm going on, and then you asked the spirit to use it to hit a target with lightning, would there be any magical signature to differentiate it from a normal lighting bolt? Thanks.

Er that is one of the way's it can manifest but it does not do elementla lightning damage. You don't command a spirit to lightning bolt unless it has "lightning bolt". Strom strike hits everything in a HUGE area, and the lightning is just a part of the whole. In short IMHO no, you order it to storm strike and it storm strikes, the rules for its damage are clearly written.

Your other options would be to get the Great Form to stop the Storm Strike for one or two rounds and start lightning bolting the crap out of your target OR to summon some other spirits...to your question though BitBasher IS correct in stating that they're two separate powers. Now what I'm wondering is whether or not that answers your question about whether or not the two types of damage (storm and lightning) can be differentiated....

My first instinct would be to say that it would (IF you could get the spirit to do storm strike OR lightning bolt) since either power is likely to have a distinct signature (like Thunderclap v. Ball Lightning, for example). Of course, I'm not an expert here either.

Maybe it would help to clarify exactly what your'e asking.

IIRC storm strike does Force(S) damage to everything within Force times 100 meters radius from the spiritm where Force = the force of the spirit. Armor is completely ignored and the spirit can exclude a number of targets equal to its force, which had better be the summoner's party.

This power does NASTY drain to the spirit and I think the mage AND costs a service every time it is used.

It doesn't kill a single target it kills damn near everything in it's radius, which at force 5 is a kilometer side to side.... and domain lines do not matter since the spirit is a great form (has to be to use storm) and and it ignores domains.

This power is death incarnate, the "ignores all armor" is the kicker.

Do spirit's leave an Astral Signature?

Kanada Ten: They do and it's possible to see the sig if you can catch it in time. Does anyone remember offhand if masking affects residual sigs? They'd have to, wouldn't they?

*checks the Storm and Storm Strike powers to be sure* Storm Strike is nasty, BitBasher, doing (force)S damage to all within it's area of effect, as you said. What I've found to be a little different, though, is that the only way this damage can be avoided would be to have a spirit of equal or greater power Guarding you which _could_ be done by the first great form though it would count as another service. What I was implying was the idea to use the Lightning Bolt power (instead of Storm Strike) to deal damage and trying to explain if it would show a different variation to the Spirit's signature.

Ah well. Looks like I'll just have to go back to waiting for the storm and than lightning bolting them manually to arrange those 'tragically fatal occurences' and then cleanse the signature.

Hehehehehehe, or you could just do that....

<edit: sig on too many times in too few posts>