[Sternenwind]

SIN - Yes
Maglock Passkey - Yes
Drone - Yes, if jumped in; no, if not
Agent - No

The reason you can't use Edge for the last two is that they are separate entities; you aren't rolling for them. The SIN check is something you can get lucky on, as is the Maglock Passkey. For the drone and agent though, your luck has nothing to do with how well or poorly their programming functions.

So what is the difference between a Sin-scanner or magkey pass card and an agent or drone? You are not rolling for a magkey passcard or a Sinscanner. No skill or attribute of your character is involved in the test.
On the other side Agents don’t even have an own matrix monitor.

All four are more or less advanced programs packed in more or less hardware doing their thing without direct control from a sentient being, except the “do your thing” command.

[8-bit]

I can't give you any book quotes for any of those answers. I can tell you that out of the 7 or so groups I've played with, Agents and Drones can't have Edge spent on them. SINs and Maglock Passkeys? I've never actually seen Edge spent on them, but most GMs I've played with would allow it. After all, spending it there means you aren't able to spend it elsewhere.

[Pixie]

What should the Force be for a Great Form Spirit?  I might have missed it in Street Grimoire or maybe it's discussed elsewhere in this forum but I'm not seeing it anywhere.
I'm thinking something around Force 15 seems reasonable, but the fluff makes it sound like it's more Force 20+ ("9.1 Richter scale" quote from page 187 and such).

A Great Form spirit can be at any force.  It requires summoning the spirit via the Invocation ritual.

[Herr Brackhaus]

SIN - Yes
Maglock Passkey - Yes
Drone - Yes, if jumped in; no, if not
Agent - No

The reason you can't use Edge for the last two is that they are separate entities; you aren't rolling for them. The SIN check is something you can get lucky on, as is the Maglock Passkey. For the drone and agent though, your luck has nothing to do with how well or poorly their programming functions.

So what is the difference between a Sin-scanner or magkey pass card and an agent or drone? You are not rolling for a magkey passcard or a Sinscanner. No skill or attribute of your character is involved in the test.

Agreed with Sternenwind on SIN check, because the GM simply rolls a "Device Rating x 2 Test with a threshold equal to the rating of the fake SIN" to check it.

A Maglock Passkey is different, however, because the rules for maglocks state that resolving a maglock passkey against a lock is done through an "Opposed Test between the passkey/forged keycard rating and the maglock rating".

[silencer201]

Quick question, Do gas grenades like pepper punch do damage over time during the 4 rounds they are active, or do they only do damage once.

[Lucean]

Gas grenades can expose the victim to multiple doses of the toxin. So you'd have a resistance test for every two combat turns of exposure for Pepper Punch.

[McGuffin]

I got a question regarding enviromental modifiers.

The text only mentions them in context of combat, with the notable exception of perception tests.
But what if a character sneaks outside of combat during the night? So far I thought these modifiers would surely apply there as well, meaning outside of combat when using skills that could be influenced by those modifiers.
How are you handling this? And are there maybe page references that I missed?

Thanks.

[Kincaid]

I got a question regarding enviromental modifiers.

The text only mentions them in context of combat, with the notable exception of perception tests.
But what if a character sneaks outside of combat during the night? So far I thought these modifiers would surely apply there as well, meaning outside of combat when using skills that could be influenced by those modifiers.
How are you handling this? And are there maybe page references that I missed?

Thanks.

Perception tests use the same modifiers as environmental modifiers in combat (p. 135), so the guard trying to spot someone sneaking at night will likely suffer some form of penalty.

[McGuffin]

Perception tests use the same modifiers as environmental modifiers in combat (p. 135), so the guard trying to spot someone sneaking at night will likely suffer some form of penalty.

Thank you. But what about the person sneaking? Wouldn't he suffer from some kind of penalty as well, assuming he hasn't any vision enhancements?

[Kincaid]

Perception tests use the same modifiers as environmental modifiers in combat (p. 135), so the guard trying to spot someone sneaking at night will likely suffer some form of penalty.

Thank you. But what about the person sneaking? Wouldn't he suffer from some kind of penalty as well, assuming he hasn't any vision enhancements?

That's entering into GM-call territory (and how-many-dice-do-you-want-to-roll territory).  Darkness doesn't make you more or less quiet (perceived differences in sound at night aside), so there's no worry there.  If you were trying to avoid an obstacle that would ruin your efforts to be quiet--a patch of dry leaves, for example--that GM would probably call for a Perception test, which brings us back to the visual modifiers.

[McGuffin]

Thank you very much, Kincaid, that helped a lot.

[gradivus]

I'm fairly confused and wanted clarification on what the following (from Street Grimoire, page 41) even means:

"Assigning tasks outside the general area of their tradition will not receive a response from the spirit (for example, a Buddhist mage telling an air spirit to heal him will get no response, as air is a Combat spirit in that tradition, while the Health spirit is earth)."

It seems to contradict core (all spirits can use powers as tasks) and is a massive change to how spirit types break down, but there's no errata covering it, and it's only covered in a single sentence.

It's mostly just a fluffy bit.  That's why you don't see any rules for it.  This is justification for a GM saying that a player cannot use a spirit outside their selected field of expertise.

I wouldn't say there are no rules- SR5 pg 303:
Aid Alchemy, Sorcery, and Study: As a service, the
spirit can add its Force as a dice pool bonus to your Alchemy,
Spellcasting, Ritual Spellcasting (for spell rituals), and
Learning Tests if its type matches the spell’s category, as
listed under your tradition (p. 279).

The  Health Spirit of your Tradition can give you a bonus to your DP to cast Health spells for example but not illusion spells.
You could also argue that the wording in Street Grimoire could be interpreted to include Spell sustaining and Spell Binding but that's less clear and is GM fiat territory.
As far as the unbound services- doesn't effect them at all.

[Lucean]

Minor addition:
The bound Health Spirit ...

By argueing you can really screw a player, especially when it comes to Spirits of Man and Innate Spell. A Spirit of Man categorized as Manipulation could be given Heal as Innate Spell. There is no further restriction aside from knowing the spell to grant to the spirit. Could the spirit cast the spell? What if the mage in question doesn't even know manipulation spells?
Things should be kept simple. Just remove that sentence - and especially that horrid example - from the book and just use the spirit categories for the services listed on p. 303.

[monkeywrench]

In character creation, if I wanted to play a Troll - who wouldn't - do I have to use either my A or B priority codes? or can I dump my E into metatype and save the rest for the other slots?.
I apologise if this has been answered

[Kiirnodel]

You would need to use Priority A or B to create a Troll. You only gain access to a particular metatype through a priority where it is listed on the chart.

For example, at Priority E for metatype, the only choice is to be a human.

Now, you do get extra Special Ability points for choosing higher priority, for Troll at A priority, you get 5 to spend. But you cannot play one at all if you don't use at least a B for your metatype Priority