Well, maybe not so quick. ANYway, I'm trying to get a few things sorted out here and I'm hoping that someone will be able to help me.

When summoning a great form spirit, as I understand it, one makes the initial test to bring the regular spirit and then another test to Invoke it. The part that's bothering me is whether additional dice from the previous test can be used here or not. The description seems to imply that this second test occurs as part of the initial summoning though it doesn't say anything about whether or not the dice allocated from before apply as they had initially or whether they've already been expended...am I making sense yet?

All I really need to know is whether the additional dice (from totem advantages and foci) need to be set aside for this second Conjuring test or not. Successes garnered from centering can be applied to this as well as the first summoning; would it apply to dice?

Thanks in advance for your help,
Morg

<edit: grammar is my friend>

This is subject to debate. Many treat totem bonuses like a pool, which would require refreshing. However, others say that it applies to every magical test made by the shaman, so it would apply to both tests. Personally, I apply the bonuses (and negatives) to each roll.

Foci dice always behave like a pool, IIRC.

Hmm, tough question. Id hazard a guess that you dont really apply dice to one or the other, you basically roll the same test twice. So like say you had conjuring 6, totem advantage of 2, and a force 2 focus. You allocate 8 of the 10 dice to conjuring, and 2 to drain. You roll the first conjuring test as normal using the 6 dice, and a normal drain test using charisma plus the 2 you set aside for it. Then you basically make a second test using the exact same allocation against the appropriate new tns.

This fits with the wording (which admitedly could be interpreted other ways but this isnt contradictory) and also follows the specifics on centering (where you make one centering test and apply it identically to both conjuring rolls). It sounds to me like you basically make two tests to get a bigger spirit, and have to pass both to do so. But to keep it simple both tests are made with the same dice allocation, which also prevents people trying to change which dice go where to get easier great forms with more services or something. Thats my take on it anyhow.

Thanks for your help!

I knew it'd end up being a judgement call as it could go either way and I really appreciate both of you taking the time to offer your opinions on this. Now if I could only get a character with Invoking....