Spirit combat and spirit magic questions

[Titus]

First, Denalor thanks for your detailed response. Sorry if I confused matters by saying "do spirit binding" when I meant "use the spirit binding skill".

A follower with spirit binding skill of 25% was given a fetish holding a Strong Paw spirit (POW 9) by his shaman. A battle is about to begin and he wants to have the power of Strong Paw aiding him. He knows he needs to meditate (or focus, or pray to the spirit, or pray to Waha to help him, etc.) to have a good chance to command the spirit. Does he release Strong Paw from the fetish and then meditate and on the 10th CA try to command it with an 85% chance of success? Or does he meditate for 10 CAs, releasing the spirit on the 10th CA and attempting to command it with an 85% chance of success?

Releasing a spirit takes a single CA, no matter what. So what you are actually referring to is that free action to command the spirit. Well, you “take your time” (in that case 10 times as long) to gain a +60% bonus to your skill.
See Taking your time regarding the discussion whether this option is applicable to magic skill.
Well, to answer your question I think it must be
He releases Strong Paw from the fetish and then meditates and after the 10th CA tries to command it with an 85% chance of success… Reasoning being that a free action cannot take 10 times as long as an option, since free x10 is still free.
But since that whole process is a release plus a free action you can well interpret it both ways. And thus you cannot get an answer, you must decide yourself whether you want to allow taking time.

Thanks, I had read the thread you referred to and had decided to allow it for magic. It will only enhance your chance of success, not the quality or quantity of magic.

I think if a free action requires a skill check and a player wants to take time to enhance that skill check, that it should be considered a minimum of a CA in the calculation for determining time. Generally you can't try the same "free action" more than once in a CA, so this seems reasonable to me. Of course, "seems reasonable to me" as opposed to specified in the rules makes it a house rule, I guess.

I think I will be going with prep first and then release. I am envisioning the "free action" of commanding the spirit in the same CA that you release it as all part of a single action, Release and Command Spirit.

In another thread (Understanding Spirit Magic), there was discussion about how often you can try to command the spirit. I think Loz suggested that it be once around, as a free action. But if you wanted to allow it, a character could expend a CA to try again before the next round. I will probably allow expending the CA if the spirit magician wants to. If not, then I suppose I should make the "free action" in the calculation to enhance the skill check a round instead of a CA.