Totally agree on these points.

If the facility is high security they will have thought of spirits. If the facility is not high security then your entire team is overpowered compared to the security anyway. Spirits are just the icing on the kick-ass cake.

You can always take out spirits by ramming them with a car, van, or bus. (Dresden did this against a plant spirit in the parking lot of a WalMart).

Satchel charges 1-4 kgs of explosives with a decent rating can take down just about everything. Explosives are cheap and fun.

If you are moving along the themed elemental damage lines, I would use Allergies. Have the allergy to their opposition element cause them to lose their powers. salt vs Air, fire vs Plant and or Water, leaving the ground for Earth, water for Fire and so on....

If you never want to see spirits in your game, or more specifically, any above force ~3, its fine, otherwise its terrible.

I would 'fix' attack of will by making it Willpower + Relevant Close Combat Skill. Damage is still equal to Charisma, probably. I would also state that drug and technology based modifiers to EITHER attribute or the skill do not apply. Your Pheromones do not give you extra damage boxes, being on kamikaze doesn't make it easier to banish a spirit, and your Reflex Recorder does not come into play. Only your martial skill and your determination matter.

Since afaik attack of will is defended against with the spirit's Reaction + Unarmed Combat just like a physical attack, I see no reason weapon reach (and for that matter troll reach) shouldn't come into the equation.

If I was going to house rule it, that is how I would house rule it.

Restricting them to shot guns would be better, as we actually have tazer shells now.


This is good, as it would reduce to ping/splat effect


I really think these two suck


So long as the allergy makes sense based on the spirit type, though given the infinite range of the metaplanes, its possible what some spirits are allergic to can not physically exist within our universe.

Wooo Hyperbolic exageration for the win.

You want to summon a force 6 spirit, The spirit rolls F*2 for 12 dice, getting 4 hits, woop de doo.

How many mages have you seen with Drain pools of 12 or higher? Most dedicated PC magician's I've seen have 12-15 for their drain dice.
That means, that on average they're taking 0-1 drain.

That's not exactly, never happen.

If you include the Drain Value being twice the gross hits, then that shoots up to 8.
That's less happy, A good mage will take ~3-4 stun damage.

If you want pre-meditated High Spirit Summoning, allow materials, foci, etc to add to the drain pool.

Like hope or goodwill.

I've always felt that if you've reached the point where you're up against spirits with no magical backup, the heavy weapons should come out. Yes, it's pink mohawk, but what else are you going to use that Thunderstruck or Panther for?

Let your Trolls feel warm and fuzzy. Let them use the heavy guns.

More like a square which contains 8000 degrees of internal angles.

If you want to realize not all mages in the world are highly tuned to absorb drain from summoning, and yet some spirits used in security applications are exceedingly common, meaning the drain must be tolerable or else no one could ever afford to employ them.....

As I read the OP, he was thinking about the ramifications of removing SnS, not that this was a given already. If that is not the case simply ignore that part of my post.

To me it is not any more cheesy that killing spirits with fire, but that is just my opinion.

Magicians summoning for security applications are using lower force spirits, or they are using longer term rituals to summon spirits, and using 'cash money' ie: ritual items, foci, gifts to the spirits, to increase their effective Drain Pool.

And Really, I would expect a Corp Mage who specializes in Security applications, specifically the summoning and binding of spirits for security, for a LIVING. Would actually be quite good at dealing with drain issues.

Spirits should not be a insta-summon something more bad-ass then all the other PC's.
Spirits should either be.. insta-summon low force spirits to run interference, do a small specific task.
Pre summon a big-bad spirit as part of legwork. Like a Street Sam buying a LAw and a couple of Frag Rockets, or 10 kilo's of plastique.

The whole spirit issue is the application of a lot of skill, expensive gear, and side effects and risk in the form of drain. It is a large investment for a short period of use.

With guns it is lots of skill, less expensive gear, no real side effects, and little newyen cost per use.

You need to balance the equation by either spending a lot more for a one shot item such as explosives or shell out for a more expensive gun like a laser.

I've found that the good old Elephant rifle usually does the trick with EX-EX or APDS rounds does the trick. 11DV -2AP, or 10 DV - 5 AP (when firing both barrels) usually does the trick up to anything up to F8 spirits and above.

For those spirits above that my rigger has a cannon mounted on his van. Or you can decide to run really really fast (IMG:style_emoticons/default/twirl.gif)

I mostly have a problem with killing 'fire' spirits with fire...

If we can put out an oil well fire by setting off a bomb next to it, I don't see why we can't disrupt a fire spirit with a thermobaric kablooey. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

As for killing spirits without resorting to attacks that shouldn't work, regular attacks involving excessive force. Grenade machine guns, thunder struck gauss guns, lasers, assault cannons, suicide drones with explosives, ramming with vehicles, using explosives to implode buildings onto them, etc....

Spirits are the big ramification, don't you think? What else would be a big ramification?




Well, I'm not wild about that. Sure, water spirits, but fire elementals should be fairly good at handling it.

A solution which could be charming, or complicated, is to give spirits Allergies based on the elemental rock paper scizzors of their tradition; Wuxing spirits might have different allergies than Hermetic ones. For example, a Wuxing Water elemental might be allergic to wood ("Wood absorbs water") rather than fire.

I think the easier solution is to remove SnS and go back to older versions of ItNW. They only get F instead of F*2.

I still don't understand the problem. Are there a large preponderance of street level games where the PCs run around with stock pistols and regular ammo? The PC in my group has a sniper rifle that's not even hugely tricked out and that thing, with APDS, can take out a Force 6 spirit in one shot. That sniper rifle is the heaviest weapon in the group, no LMGs, railguns or assault cannons. Between the dual-wielding Warhawk(equivalents), the sniper rifle, the mage, and the adept with Killing Hands, I would need to throw multiple Force 8+ spirits to begin to overwhelm the team.

It's not that my team thinks spirits are a joke but the ItNW is not the spirit power my team is afraid of.

Don't forget that no spirit likes getting Thunderstruck.

Spirits should be an assistance to a mage, not a force than can single-handedly destroy a tank column that a starting mage can manage.

Honestly the real issue should be "why do you feel the need to throw high level spirits at your players instead of real opposition that uses superior tactics". Exceptions going to bug spirits, I'd like to see your tricked out players taking on multiple F10 bug warriors and THEN not complain about ItNW in 4th Edition.

The problem isn't ITNW, the problem is F10.

Even with a less severe F6 spirit, let's really think about it. You need to bypass twelve (12) armor in order to even harm said spirit. That's a lot of armor, and bursts don't help you overcome this. Sniper rifles are great, of course, but how often are carrying around a sniper rifle and can quickly access it? Not often.

More reasonably speaking we have SMGs, Heavy Pistols, and Assault Rifles.

SMG is 5P. With Ex-Ex you're looking at 6P -1. This means you still need 5 net hits. The spirit still gets to dodge as well. Statistically you'll need 15 dice to get a decent chance. Wide burst helps, but you still need 5 hits.

Heavy Pistol is 5P -1. With Ex-Ex you're looking at 6P -2. This means you'll need 4 hits. Spirit still gets to dodge as well. Statistically you'll need 12 dice to get a decent chance.

Assault Rifle is 6P -1. With Ex-Ex you're lookin at 7P -2. This means you'll need 3 hits. With a wide burst you can probably negate most of the dodge of the spirit. You'll only need 9 dice to have a decent chance.

This is assuming optimum scenario, namely that you're already loaded for bear with loud, powerful ammunition. This does not factor in movement, lighting, cover, etc. APDS is ridiculously hard to get ahold of, especially given you're buying 10 rounds at a time, and should not be really considered the end all be all.

I'll add in one last one for the gun bunnies that noticed it missing.

Ruger Superwarhawk is 6P -2. With Ex-Ex (which we all know you're loading exclusively) you're at 7P -3. You need 2 hits and chances are you're throwing in excess of 16 and called a shot as well (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I still think that the +DV from Burst and Full auto should count for penetrating armor.