Q: bound spirits and range

[Shiningbrow]

Just a quick question, which I haven't quickly found the answer to...

To use a bound spirit's MPs and spells, do you have to be in physical contact with the binding object? 

Corollary to that - what about commanding spirits? And telling those bound in animals to cast their spells?

And, if you don't need to be in physical contact, what's the range?

 

[Bill the barbarian]

8 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Corollary to that - what about commanding spirits? And telling those bound in animals to cast their spells?

 

This does not answer the question fully but it might help.
You must be in contact with the enchantment holding the spirit to be able to communicate with it in the case of a bound spirit. It has no perception of the mundane world otherwise. Without communication you can not command it. It can not see a target. You can release and Command it magically and it can now sense and interact with the mundane world but sans Command, well easy come easy go... You can release it and have one non magical Command it must obey and then it’s gone. The range of the Command spell will be the effective range linearly of control and the duration of the spell will be its range temporally. Now this does not answer the question for a bound spirit in an animal (what used to be called a familiar in RQ 2). There are rules in RQ 2 for this but...Ah, I will stop and look it up and then edit it in later.

ETA

The range of the telepathic link between binder and bound is 3 miles. If this range is exceeded, the bound spirit is freed. If the animal dies, the bound spirit is also freed.

from RQ 2 page 41

Edited January 29, 2021 by Bill the barbarian

[French Desperate WindChild]

For me it depends on the situation and the spirit. The rules I follow  :

0) the owner must touch the binding object to give instruction to the  bound spirit

1) the order is a "always order"  like "heal me when I am wounded" or "guard the door"

the spirit acts in the range around the binding object. for example "guard the door" implies that the enchant is near / in the door. Don't care where is the "owner" once the instruction is given

If the "object" is an animal, that means it can move.

2) the order is a "right now order" like "heal this guy now" or "follow this guy"

the spirit is allowed by the owner to "leave" the binding object.

 

but there are some issues in this second case :

a) If the spirit is not back at end of the "command" spell, the spirit is free and no more bound in the binding object

b) If the order does not contain any instruction as "come back when xxx", any no friendly spirit will of course not be back at the end of the command spell (-> a)

c) in case of friendly spirit (allied of course, but cult and just "friend" too) , I consider the spirit as an npc : to determine if it leave the "owner" or go back at the end of its mission (I consider there is no need of spell to request a friend to do something, except if it is against its own interest)

 

[Shiningbrow]

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

the order is a "always order"  like "heal me when I am wounded"

How would the spirit know?

[French Desperate WindChild]

35 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

How would the spirit know?

good question : but by extension, what would know a spirit about mundane world ? how can it detect gold for example ? How can a healing spirit heal the good part of my body  ? How can another one put fire on this roof and not the other one

I would say because it is bounded in the mundane world so it perceive the mundane world

If not, how can a bounded spirit do anything ?

so the spirit knows I am wounded because i am in the range of its perception (aka the range of spirit spell).

[Shiningbrow]

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

good question : but by extension, what would know a spirit about mundane world ? how can it detect gold for example ? How can a healing spirit heal the good part of my body  ? How can another one put fire on this roof and not the other one

I would say because it is bounded in the mundane world so it perceive the mundane world

If not, how can a bounded spirit do anything ?

so the spirit knows I am wounded because i am in the range of its perception (aka the range of spirit spell).

Well, I'd answer that by saying - if you're in contact with the binding, then the spirit will get the mental impression of where you want the spell cast. It effectively is perceiving the world through the binder's senses.

BTW, for Detect Gold (and some similar Detect spells), any gold in range will glow. However, there's also an element of direction and distance... perhaps the spirit tells the binder this information???

[0xal0t]

We play some pretty tight rules on this.

If you are using the spirit to cast its spells and/or use its magic points then you must be in contact with the item it is bound into. Otherwise it cant see/perceive/interact with you. 

If you are using a bound spirit without the aid of a control/command spell you can give it a single command (with some qualifiers depending on its Intellect/10 rounded up). After that it is free to act as it chooses.

To have a spirit act in a predefined manner it needs to have Pow spent on the Binding Enchantment to make it work (Gusans armband has a spirit with Strength and Countermagic 3 known, the use of the command word {spinach} means that the spirit will attempt to cast in this order strength until it succeeds and in the following round after it succeeds on Strength it will attempt to cast Countermagic 3 until it is successful) It will only work if worn on the owners arm (bareskin)

For using disease spirits we play it as the round of commanding the spirit, it manifests on this plane, coalescing around/in front of the commanding character then undertakes its command as of the next round.

For awakened animals or spirits in animals we allow the PC to yell commands for action in the current round with a +5 SR action mod or to act normally the following round.

For allied spirits we allow instant telepathic communication that means the spirit can act this round with no negative modifiers.

 

The ultimate rule we follow on these things is how does the spirit percieve/interact with the world at large. We treat a spirit/elemental that is bound in a container as being like a Djinn (10,000 years give you such a crick in the neck). Once released and under control they are limited nothing to how they interact but the length of control/command is a limiting factor. 

PS you can always say in Binding Conditions that the elemental or spirit is able to travel/follow in the material plane but it can be a nuisance with movement rates or space they take up physically and may not be worth the power cost of doing so