Noob question, for a new Nethermancer

[Lys]

Tel's point is valid: Spirit Talk, like Speak Language (magic or mundane), is a medium of speech, not a nuance. If all folks needed to do was communicate, then all the social skills (Intimidate, Seduce, etc) would be unnecessary. But no, the point is you need a medium of speech - a shared language - over which to perform nuanced interaction (Intimidate, Seduce, etc). If you both speak Orc, then you can exchange information in Orcish; if you want to browbeat them, you still have to roll Intimidation. The magical speaking Talents (Spirit Talk, Elemental Tongues, Speak Language) just provide that medium without actually knowing the language - the magic provides interpretation.

You would have a point except that the books say you use Spirit Talk to interact with Spirits, not to just communicate them. There's the passage i quoted in the Nethermancer Half-Magic description that implies it. Then there's the Summoning section that straight up says it: "After calling the spirit, the summoner must negotiate with the spirit using the Spirit Talk or Elemental Tongues talent (as appropriate) against the spirit’s Social Defense. For every success scored on the test, the spirit agrees to use one of its powers to perform the desired service."

NOW, that being said, here's the reason that Nethermancers would need Charisma whereas Elementalists would not. Elemental spirits are completely alien things and social skills flat out don't work on them. Unfortunately, I cannot for the life of me remember which source book that is from, but it is a published thing. You can't seduce them, you can't intimidate them, you can only reason with them. So, interaction tests aren't a thing with them. Meanwhile, many Ally spirits are those of passed on Namegivers, and Namegiver spirits DO completely follow the laws of Interaction tests. So, you CAN just reason things out with a Namegiver spirit, but you CAN also Intimidate, Seduce, Deceive, etc. That's where Charisma really comes in.

Ally Spirits are the denizens of the various Netherworlds, which includes but is not limited to dead Namegivers. So they can be plenty alien and inhuman, and in fact the book straight up says they are more mysterious than elemental spirits. Moreover one must consider from a game design standpoint that it's unfair for Elementalists to be able to deal with their summons only using Spirit Talk but require Nethermancers to also invest in social skills in order to deal with theirs.

[Telarus]

I take the language in the Summoning section to be specific to the Summoning ritual. That ritual binds the summoned spirit into certain ritual forms of interaction.

If the test succeeds, the Nethermancer can sense the presence of the spirit and use spells, or talents such as Spirit Hold or Spirit Talk, to communicate and interact with the spirit.

On the half-magic note, I interpret that as meaning that when randomly running across a spirit and your half-magic roll detects it, you cannot use any of the normal Interaction test rules until you have "opened communication" with Spirit Talk (or force it to stick around if it just bails on you once you address it). From there, normal Interaction tests apply. I interpret it this way because Spirit Talk does not ever mention gaining a service, that is specific to the Summoning talent/ritual. As a GM, I apply this to all spirits. I see this as the reason that the Elementalist and Nethermancer get Elemental Tongues/Spirit Talk first, then Elemental/Spirit Hold, then Summoning.

[The Undying]

Tel's point is valid: Spirit Talk, like Speak Language (magic or mundane), is a medium of speech, not a nuance. If all folks needed to do was communicate, then all the social skills (Intimidate, Seduce, etc) would be unnecessary. But no, the point is you need a medium of speech - a shared language - over which to perform nuanced interaction (Intimidate, Seduce, etc). If you both speak Orc, then you can exchange information in Orcish; if you want to browbeat them, you still have to roll Intimidation. The magical speaking Talents (Spirit Talk, Elemental Tongues, Speak Language) just provide that medium without actually knowing the language - the magic provides interpretation.

You would have a point except that the books say you use Spirit Talk to interact with Spirits, not to just communicate them. There's the passage i quoted in the Nethermancer Half-Magic description that implies it. Then there's the Summoning section that straight up says it: "After calling the spirit, the summoner must negotiate with the spirit using the Spirit Talk or Elemental Tongues talent (as appropriate) against the spirit’s Social Defense. For every success scored on the test, the spirit agrees to use one of its powers to perform the desired service."

None of what you said invalidates or opposes what I said. I specifically said you can reason with them, the medium for reasoning is provided by language, either magical or mundane. HOWEVER, just like I said, spirits of Namegivers CAN ALSO use Interaction skills.

It's like you're talking about oranges and I'm talking about a fruit basket. Yes, oranges (Summoning) are included in a fruit basket. But there's a lot more there than just oranges.

NOW, that being said, here's the reason that Nethermancers would need Charisma whereas Elementalists would not. Elemental spirits are completely alien things and social skills flat out don't work on them. Unfortunately, I cannot for the life of me remember which source book that is from, but it is a published thing. You can't seduce them, you can't intimidate them, you can only reason with them. So, interaction tests aren't a thing with them. Meanwhile, many Ally spirits are those of passed on Namegivers, and Namegiver spirits DO completely follow the laws of Interaction tests. So, you CAN just reason things out with a Namegiver spirit, but you CAN also Intimidate, Seduce, Deceive, etc. That's where Charisma really comes in.

Ally Spirits are the denizens of the various Netherworlds, which includes but is not limited to dead Namegivers. So they can be plenty alien and inhuman, and in fact the book straight up says they are more mysterious than elemental spirits. Moreover one must consider from a game design standpoint that it's unfair for Elementalists to be able to deal with their summons only using Spirit Talk but require Nethermancers to also invest in social skills in order to deal with theirs.

First, again, I don't see a problem with what you said and what I said. I said "many Ally spirits," not "all," so yes, there are plenty of other Ally spirits that are not Namegiver spirits, meaning that it isn't a given that Interaction tests work on them.

How is this unfair? Honestly.

Elemental spirits are very ... I can't think of a good word. They've got blinders on. They cannot tell you why a thing happened. They can't give you impressions of things. They're very matter-of-fact and observational. Furthermore, they're limited in their perspective: an Earth spirit can't tell you if something flew by, for example.

Namegiver spirits have all the nuances of a Namegiver. They can tell you that "the person looked sad as they roamed aimlessly around the corridor" where an Elemental spirit would tell you that "the people moved haltingly around the corridor." That's a strength. The penalty to that strength is that, as Namegiver spirits, they have odd motivations and hangups where Elemental spirits don't. Sometimes, you need to cajole or entice them when logic fails. Lastly, the book STRAIGHT UP TELL YOU that Charisma is important to Nethermancers - how is it unfair to overlay a Charisma system on one summoner and not the other WHEN IT STRAIGHT UP TELLS YOU that Charisma is important to one and not the other?

[The Undying]

You would have a point except that the books say you use Spirit Talk to interact with Spirits, not to just communicate them.

Just checked the book, and it does, in fact, NOT say this, unless you're quoting something I'm not aware of.

If the test succeeds, the Nethermancer can sense the presence of the spirit and use spells, or talents such as Spirit Hold or Spirit Talk, to communicate and interact with the spirit. (emphasis added)

That might sound like splitting hairs, but that's kind of what you did in the first place.

[Lys]

The argument is that you can use Spirit Talk to communicate and interact with spirits, not that you are limited to only using Spirit Talk. If you want to use normal interaction talents you can, but Spirit Talk alone is sufficient. We're both splitting hairs, but we're splitting them in different directions.

[The Undying]

Trying to say that "communication = interaction" is a word choice. It's not the same as "since communication is interaction, there is no need to Interaction tests." We are communicating, right now, via the internet, this web forum, and the written form of the English language. We are INTERACTING by nature of the fact that you say something, I say something, back and forth. You can technically interact without communicating - rolling a ball back and forth is interaction, petting a cat is interaction. However, if I have specific intention, I can perform a SPECIFIC TYPE of interaction, which is modeled in Earthdawn as Interaction tests.

Tel made the point early about Summoning causing a specific use case of Spirit Talk or Elemental Tongue. It seems like you're trying to take that specific use case caused by Summoning and expand it to all uses of spirit Talk or Elemental Tongues. That is not the case. Outside of Summoning, each Talent is exactly what it is. Here's the text for Spirit Talk:

The adept is able to talk to spirits and entities, including those who do not speak a language known to him and those who do not communicate verbally, by making a Spirit Talk test against the spirit’s Mystic Defense. If successful, the adept may talk to the spirit for a number of minutes equal to his Spirit Talk rank. This talent does not compel the spirit to talk to the adept, it merely makes communication possible. (emphasis added)

How can one convince someone to talk? Or to talk about particular things? By reason (just talking things out), by barter, or by appealing to a particular mindset - which is an interaction test (e.g., Deception, Intimidation, Seduction).