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Message no. 1
From: david lowe <dlowe@****.COM>
Subject: Sustained spells and familliars
Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 12:48:36 -0800
Question for ya'll. My main character is a shaman who has a familliar. I've
learned some spells for him (the familliar) and want your opinions on
whether or not he needs to be manifest in order to cast and/or sustain them
on my character.

D.
Message no. 2
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Sustained spells and familliars
Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 10:51:06 +0100
david lowe said on 12:48/28 May 97...

> Question for ya'll. My main character is a shaman who has a familliar. I've
> learned some spells for him (the familliar) and want your opinions on
> whether or not he needs to be manifest in order to cast and/or sustain them
> on my character.

For casting spells on your character, IMO it depends on whether you're
astrally perceiving or not. If not, then the ally would have to manifest
(a spell is not a power, which can be used from astral space on the
conjurer); if you are astrally perceiving, you form a bridge through the
physical and astral planes, and so can be ground through. Naturally that
means you can be the target of a friendly spell as well.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Wat u bent, dat is niets anders dan de herinnering aan uzelf.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-

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Message no. 3
From: Dust <rogan@*******.BERGEN.ORG>
Subject: Re: Sustained spells and familliars
Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 08:44:44 -0400
On Wed, 28 May 1997, david lowe wrote:

> Question for ya'll. My main character is a shaman who has a familliar. I've
> learned some spells for him (the familliar) and want your opinions on
> whether or not he needs to be manifest in order to cast and/or sustain them
> on my character.
>
> D.
>
I think he would cast it like any other magician. If he's astral
he's gotta ground it and if has nothing to ground it through he's gotta
manifest.

Dust
Message no. 4
From: Flo <florian.goll@******.UNI-WEIMAR.DE>
Subject: Re: Sustained spells and familliars
Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 19:19:13 +0200
> Question for ya'll. My main character is a shaman who has a familliar. I've
> learned some spells for him (the familliar) and want your opinions on
> whether or not he needs to be manifest in order to cast and/or sustain them
> on my character.
For casting he must be manifest (or how do you cast spells on humans???)
Sustaining them he can bolt of in Astral Space!
(Its a house rule!)
Message no. 5
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Sustained spells and familliars
Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 11:44:22 +0100
Flo said on 19:19/29 May 97...

> For casting he must be manifest (or how do you cast spells on humans???)
> Sustaining them he can bolt of in Astral Space!
> (Its a house rule!)

Probably, though SR doesn't say much about ally spirits sustaining spells
at all, so almost anything would be a house rule.

Anyway, if I were you I'd take another look at that house rule.
(Meta)human magicians can't do that trick -- if a magician casts a spell,
(s)he must drop it when shifting to astral projection. Astral perception
is fine, but projecting interrupts the spell (see Spell Duration, SRII
page 128).
You can of course reason that a spirit is much more familiar with astral
space and magic, allowing it to sustain a spell even while shifting
completely to the astral plane.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Wat u bent, dat is niets anders dan de herinnering aan uzelf.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-

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Message no. 6
From: Gossamer <kajohnson@*******.TEC.WI.US>
Subject: Re: Sustained spells and familliars
Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 12:44:13 -0500
> > For casting he must be manifest (or how do you cast spells
> > on humans???) Sustaining them he can bolt of in Astral Space!
> > (Its a house rule!)
>
> Probably, though SR doesn't say much about ally spirits sustaining
> spells at all, so almost anything would be a house rule.

This is also the house rule we use. The way we rationalize it is
that elementals used to sustain spells are present astrally only,
it would seem reasonable that a familiar would be able to sustain
one while astral as well.

[astral projection stuff deleted]

> You can of course reason that a spirit is much more familiar
> with astral space and magic, allowing it to sustain a spell even
> while shifting completely to the astral plane.

The transition was the crux of our arguement as well. We
found no way around it, and we decided the issue based on
the fact that familiars cost so (*^&$*^%&( much that they should
be able to have a few benefits... flimsy reasoning, but that's what
happened.

Now, this ability is not as unreasonable as it may seem. LOS
must still be preserved, and that forces the familiar to be
present for the operation. An opponent mage will have the
choice to attack the spell or the Familiar, and we just had a
discussion on how wimpy Familiars are in combat...

So, there's a mage with her Force 4 familiar (cost a bunch),
that has cast and is now sustaining a Force 3 Improved
Invisibility spell on its mage partner. So the mage goes
galavanting around good old Corp Central... If CC has no
astral security, wizgirl gets in and out no sweat. If, however,
they do have an astral SecForce, that guardmage has a
choice of attacking the Force 3 spell, or the Force 4 spirit
(and the spirit is at TN +2 due to sustaining). Guardmage
(of course) attacks the Familiar, kills it in 2 attacks or less,
wizgirl gets caught naked in CC, plus loses her pet, and
maybe a Magick Point if she got the Ally through an
Initiation Ordeal... bummer.

Having a Familiar sustain spells is a bad idea if the other
side is expected to have magickal support. If not...

Welcome to the Sixth World, where Magick is Power...


Love,

Gossamer

Further Reading

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These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

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