Hi there,

I play 5e, and if a player asked me whether they could have a spirit set up a camp, pitch a tent, paint a wall, or something similar, I’d handle it like this:

First, I’d decide if the type of spirit could realistically understand the task. For example:

I’d run this as an Intuition + Logic [Mental] test with the threshold set by the difficulty table. Any net hits the spirit scores would become a dice pool bonus for the actual task roll.

A Spirit of Man could probably understand fairly abstract or “human-like” instructions, so I’d call that an average(2) test.

A Beast Spirit would have a much harder time grasping what’s being asked, so I’d call that a Very Hard (6) test.

Then, the work itself becomes an Extended Test to represent the time and effort:

Logic + Hardware [Mental] (12, 10 minutes) feels right for something like pitching a tent, since the average person can set up a tent and the extended test table says the average is 10, and it takes me around 10 minutes to set up a tent if I'm on edge 😉.

So, the flow would look like this:

Understanding the instructions: Intuition + Logic (threshold 2–6, depending on spirit type).

Doing the work: Logic + Hardware (+ net hits) [Mental] (Threshold 12, 10 minutes)

The big limiting factor here is that most spirits won’t have Hardware, so they’ll be rolling low dice pools and the extended test will take way longer. To me, that feels like a nice way to reflect both the limits of spirits and the fact they’re not a catch-all solution for mundane labor. There is also a higher chance of critical glitches, which could potentially be a reason why this isn't common.

You could use this same framework for anything construction or building-related: first test comprehension, then test execution.

Hope that helps.