My players asked me this also, and it took me a while to answer. My final answer was that the rules say you can defend with any appropriate mundane or magical ability. My hurdle was coming to realise that a bound spirit isnt an entity as such, but merely a bound power, and a magical one at that. Powers=skills=abilities etc they are all the same. To defend against magic you NEVER have to perform an action, all defences just work, so all spirit magics/spirit skills work the same way.
So a animist has better chances of defending than theists or wizards, because their charms can be many and diverse, and able to be used to defend with in apinch. Of course you are using a base power, fixed at bind time, not your own power which can grow. At start of game these will be very effective (17vs17), but as progression kicks in they will dwindle in effectiveness to become almost useless (10w2vs17).
And this is where my players had problems with animists. A lot of HPs invested into powers that become weaker and weaker (but always good for augments, so not a total loss, and charms are always on!).
To me animists are a challenge to play and develop, but you have to bear this in mind as part of a group of players. If the group have pushed their skills onward then what they encounter will have similar levels. The poor animists is left behind and needs to unleash fetishes just to remain even... so I think a lot of small fetishes (5w range) are actually better than one or two big ones.
Mind you, a "Defeat All Theist Magic - 5w3" spirit would be nice.
The other thing is that common magic charms CAN be increased with HPs (as too your allied spirit), make the best use of this you can!
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