I still say that if someone wants to be immune to bullets, fine, let them be immune to bullets. That doesn't mean you win Shadowrun. It's a fun gimmick for a character, but it won't break the game. I suppose it might if you've got an asshat player who doesn't care if his shenanigans fail the run and get his team killed, in which case you probably shouldn't let that player play a bulletproof death-bot, but otherwise it's really not a problem.

There are few shadowruns where not dying when a very large number of people shoot at you with very large guns actually helps you succeed at your mission. It just helps you survive to fail another day.

Pain editor.

Huh... So you effectively have 20+ boxs.... That quite a few stunballs, but it's only one possession spirit.

Street Magic, 102, "Possessing spirits cannot perceive or operate AR or direct neural or cybernetic interfaces, and do not benefit from implants, cyberware, or nanoware that would require active control (i.e.: a spirit can benefit from a vessel’s bone lacing or eye replacement, but cannot activate vision enhancements or a datajack)."

So, even if they successfully possess him, (which, a force 4 spirit would have a 50/50 chance), he'd just fall down. About the worst they could do is make him say mean things.

This is probably off topic, but the mental picture here is priceless.

Spirits can activate cyberlimbs. Cyberlimbs don't have an active interface. You don't have to spend an action to activate cyberlimbs, you use them just like normal limbs. It's just like how spirits can see out of cybereyes, but not use vision enhancements -- cyber parts that function just like natural parts can be used by spirits, because they're part of you, since you paid essence. The spirits just can't operate the interface to use their bells and whistles. They could use cyberlimbs to walk around and do regular stuff, they just couldn't turn on a cyberhand gyromount, fire a cybergun, etc.

Hehe, well said. Ordinarily, you want to not be shot at at all. If you just stand there and take it, the enemies will call for backup. And the enemies always have a LOT of backup once you go beyond a basic street level run. I see lots of people try to create your perfect defense type shadowrunners who can't be hurt, but that's a losing battle. No matter how many dodge dice you have, full autofire will hit you. And no matter how many body dice you have, a mana spell will still fry your brain. And no matter how big a spirit possesses you, someone else will have a bigger one... or just a big mana static spell that nerfs it into a little baby spirit (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) The real problem with your spirit tanks is they rely on military grade spirits, which always gets the astral overwatch mage team called in, and even for high force spirits it's pretty easy to banish them.


A successful shadowrunner has to be balanced - defensive enough that you can survive bad situations, stealthy enough that you can hopefully avoid bad situations, and offensive enough that you can overcome bad situations. If you don't have all three, if you gimick out on one or the other, you are not a shadowrunner. Pure defense makes you a circus performer who can impress everyone with their toughness or dodging, pure stealth makes you a good spy, but not much else, and pure offense makes you a splatter on the pavement. None of which really cut mustard for a shadowrunner.

"direct neural or cybernetic interfaces" cyberlimbs are controlled via DNI. Thusly, spirits can't use them.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/proof.gif)

Possessing spirits can indeed move cyberlimbs (in effect they're puppeting the vessel's body) in the same manner that they can a rag doll, a corpse, or a golem. What it can't do is use any implanted ware in that cyberlimb that requires DNI activation or control (such as a cyberweapon/implanted device, or control a cameleon sheath).

the Syn has spoken.
so what about a voltron build? could you have those limbs themselves be inhabited by spirits?
i know, it would not do too much but the image of a voltron-troll just screams awesome at me ^^

Cyberlimbs are part of your body. You can't have multiple spirits possessing the same body.

Now, if parts of you were drones, that might a different story. If you had drone hands and drone eyes, you could detach those and put spirits in them, because when you detach them they stop being part of you. Not that it would be useful for you to have no eyes, no hands, and four really worthless possessed drones though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) If you want to be a spirit juggernaut, just have one possess you (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

Now, if you had a bunch of drones with their own seperate control systems stuck together into one big drone, spirits could probably possess each part. They would have to be separated enough for each to be its own vessel though, because you can't have multiple spirits in the same vessel.

tilt @.@
ah, yes, i forgot about the part where the drone-hands and eyes are suddenly your body as long as they are attached x.x . .

Another question, can a possessed character still issue DNI commands to his cyberware? Does the spirit take over his brain too? He is still able to think, so shouldn't he still be able to issue DNI commands, such as telling all his limbs to turn off? Or if merely turning them off doesn't stop the spirit from moving them, to lock in place?

This is great, still working fairly hard to keep from laughing too loud here at work. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

No, they can't. A possessed character is basically walled off inside their own mind. They don't have any power to do anything except observe what's happening and give commands to the spirit possessing them. They could order the spirit to activate cyberware, but since the spirit can't do that, nothing would happen.

As to whether turning off someone's limbs would make a spirit stop moving, that's a good question. A possessed person couldn't turn off their own limbs, but a hacker could. I would say that turning off the limbs wouldn't affect a spirit though. After all, when a spirit possesses a plasteel homonculus, it can still walk around. And homounculi are basically just statues with articulated joints, they can't move on their own. Maybe turning off a limb would prevent the limb's attributes from adding to the spirit's, though. If you had a Str 8 cyberarm, and a force 6 spirit, it would usually give you a Str 14 arm (assuming Str = Force for the spirit). But if the arm's powered servos and such are deactivated, it would no longer have a strength, right? But then again, a plasteel homonculus has a strength even though it can't move on its own... So maybe the spirit can make the arm work even without power, because it's magical.

And what if the hacker/sammy sends a command that locks the joints in place. As in, actively resists being moved.

I would question whether a cyberlimb has a "don't move" override. It seems like a bad idea... Assuming that it could be physically locked in place, I guess the spirit couldn't move it. But short of a physical lockdown, it wouldn't matter what a hacker does.

Surely theres a "hold position" command. Good for when you're wanting to be absolutely as still as possible.

If that was true, cyberlimbs would give you a bonus to stealth or something.

a cyberlimb is just a machine . . granted, an sophisticated machine, but a machine none the less . . i don'T see why they should not come with such a command . . i mean, in SR4 they finally wrote in the biggest advantage of those things . . you can frigging switch off the pain if you want to . . technically speaking you could lock your str15(if the whole arm or just the hand is STR15) around a ledge and switch off anything from fatigue to pain that would not be happening in the rest of your meat body and just hang off of that ledge for some days on end . .

Turning the limb off is not the same as a physical lock. A physical lock would have to engage some kind of powered mechanism that actually prevents the limb from moving. The utility of such a mechanism would be really trivial, so I don't see why it would exist. "Because they can" is not a very good justification for building technology into a device. You don't need a physical lock to keep a limb still, because it's a machine I imagine that your ordinary effort to keep your limb still would automatically work really well. Normal limbs shake because of the biological workings inside of them, so when you tell your limbs "don't move," they might still move. Machine limbs wouldn't. You wouldn't need a physical lock to keep them still, so it doesn't seem like something that would be built into them.

Hmmm...

I guess if a cybered up tank were possessed by a spirit, it might be possible for the hacker to hack its limbs and turn off the powered assist. The spirit would then only get its force strength, much as if it were possessing a plasteel homunculus.

thoughts?

Hrm, or, possibly, since the limbs are not being mentally controlled to use their motors/servos etc, their strength naturally doesn't help the possessing spirit. Since effectively, the limbs aren't receiving "move" commands, but rather are moving as a result of the possession.

@ornot: That's what I thought, until I realized that a Plasteel Homonculus has a strength rating, and it doesn't have powered assist, it doesn't even have power. I think the spirits can use their spirit-osity to make a cyberlimb work at full capacity no matter what a hacker does, because they're magical. If they can make an immobile statue with articulated joints walk around, they can make a cyberlimb work. See p.87: A plasteel homonculus adds 8 to the spirit's strength even though it can't move on its own. So the spirit operates the person's body not like they were just a different brain controlling the same body. They infuse the entire body, and make it dance like a puppet, using their own magicky force to animate it, even if it's not alive and can't move on its own. That makes me think that a hacker could send whatever signals they wanted to a cyberlimb, but the limb would not respond because it's being controlled by magic now.