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 How do you sneak past a spirit?, The ultimate burgler alarm? |
 Jun 23 2006, 09:08 PM
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#26
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Horror  Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445  |
Uuuuuuh, one of us needs to re-read the book. I was under the impression that only Force 8 and up did.
But I've been known to make retardedly stupid moves before, so I shall do so. |
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Jun 23 2006, 09:14 PM
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#27
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
That's interesting. It says in the Conjuring part that all Spirits have Immunity to Normal Weapons, but none of their Powers list it.
Yet another case of contradicting rules. But I guess I'm wrong. I'll have my crow wilt salt and mustard, thank you. |
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Jun 23 2006, 09:26 PM
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#28
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 393 Joined: 20-June 06 Member No.: 8,754 |
No worries, it's not the only confusing part in that book :(
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Jun 23 2006, 09:29 PM
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#29
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
Not that it matters. Unless the spirit is high force, all it's going to do is make the Sammie reach for his Panther AC. (You did hand out Panther ACs, right?)
I mean, wow, look at me. I am Force 2 Spirit of Water, hear me ROAR! I have hardened armor four! Ow! Ow ow! Stop shooting me with that Streetline Special! That hurts! |
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Jun 24 2006, 01:07 AM
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#30
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Target Group: Members Posts: 33 Joined: 23-May 06 From: California Free State Member No.: 8,597 |
Immunity to Normal Weapons isn't listed as a separate power for spirits, because it's a part of the Materialization power. I believe it's been that way since SR2.
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Jun 24 2006, 09:26 AM
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#31
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
Ought to be under the critter entries too, though. I kind of think that professional Shadowrunners ought to be able to find a way past spirits. Like ShadowDragon said, there's no way a corporate mage is going to be exhausting himself by summoning powerful spirits for guard duty on a routine basis. And wagemages are not the Magic 6 types you see as PCs. You'll see watchers or low-force spirits. Issues with spirits that you don't get with mundane guards: 1. Astral Perception. 2. Immune to mundane attacks for purposes of guarding (they don't have to materialise to keep a watch) 3. Instant notification of spirit's demise. Point 1, I'm not too concerned about. The GM needs some way of catching the astral mage sometimes. Same for invisibility. Point 2. Definitely an issue for mundane-only parties. If you have a mage, then it's her chance to shine. If not, then you have to get creative. There are ways a mundane party can deal with this (see below), but the main problem is going to be knowing that there's a spirit there in the first place. Point 3. Probably the hardest thing for Shadowrunning teams to work around as it nulls their ability to use the traditional kill the guard quick and put the body in the cupboard. Also, spirits are immune to many of the tactics that would incapacitate a spirit. Still, there are ways that you can disable a spirit without killing it. Suggested tactics as follows: (magic:) Mental manipulation spells, e.g. Control Thoughts. This allows incapacitation of the spirit without alerting the summoner by destroying it. Short term only, but at least an option. Mana Barriers. Again not a long term solution, though you could use a spirit to sustain it. It can keep a low-force spirit locked up nicely though. (non-magic:) The point of these is that spirits are not much different to certain mundane security mechanism such as motion detectors - they're something you just have to work around. Unorthodox approach routes. If you know there are spirits guarding the doors, try parachute drops or gliders, clambering up the sewers or tunneling through walls with drills and electric monofilament chainsaws. Supplement with Hush spell if available. Blitzkrieg. A perfectly valid approach to shadowrunning is to replace stealth with speed. Trip every alarm in the place if it means you can get in and out in under five minutes. Heck, if you have a hacker, then combine it with blocking outgoing alerts to delay those reinforcements. Misdirection. Send a false alarm to the North side, and enter through the southside. If you know how your target's guard system works, then you can manipulate your opponents reactions to your advantage. Or trigger false alarms (and burn services too) - for example, a trapped bird or office pet gets somewhere it shouldn't and the spirit goes charging off to alert its master that something has gone through. The team charge through and get to the next zone whilst the mage and security detail come galloping up to find the bird etc. The bird will probably get manabolted, but neither the spirit nor the mage knows that anyone else passed through in the mean times. Split second timing, sure. But that's what shadowrunners are all about. So basically, I think if a team is creative and willing to adapt their tactics, then a spirit guard isn't insurmountable. There's always plan B. ;) |
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Jun 24 2006, 12:37 PM
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#32
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
What mainly annoys me is that Spirits make a mage in the party a must-have. It's almost to the point where I wanna say "Wizard, Cleric, Rogue, and Meatshield", or in this case, "Mage, Shaman, Hacker, and Sammie". I mean, mundane characters can fill a lot of rolls. It's not too hard to get your Hacker some shooting skills (in fact it's probably vital to his survival) and even to tack on some low-powered Face skills after that.
But there's nothing a Mundane can do against a Spirit with an appropriately large Force. Even if they pulled out a similarly large vehicle - say, an IFV - a Hacker can shut it down, a Sammie can drop onto the turret and slice in, a heavy weapons guy can blow it up, and the Mage can get a spirit to manifest the Accident power inside the turret. Or, you know, blow it up. But if there's a Force 6 spirit around, unless somebody has a sniper rifle on hand Halo-style, or else a Panther AC, you're boned. There's nothing anybody can do about it as it fries the team. I mean, the same might be said about an in-house Technomancer leaving Sprites in the systems you needed to hack, right? Wrong. There's always the physical "Steal the actual hardware the data we want is on, and just give that to Mr. Johnson. Warn him about the Sprite if we're feeling generous." :) |
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Jun 24 2006, 01:55 PM
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#33
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Target Group: Members Posts: 41 Joined: 23-June 06 Member No.: 8,768 |
A Force 6 spirit is doable by mundanes. Thanks to Stick-n-Shock halving armor and giving a base 6s(e) damage code, weapons having AP, and your damage rating being modified by net successes, an Ares Predator loaded with Stick-n-Shock automatically affects any Spirit up to Force 7 (Need 1 net success, so Force 7 and -8 AP from halving armor and -1 means that you can get through the 14 armor). Add in Called Shot (the + damage type) and Burst modifiers (the attack summary defines modified DV only as base with net successes, but never mentions anywhere where the Called and Burst modifiers would go, so either they are added at the same time as net successes or they add to the base damage imho), and even ridiculous Spirits can be affected.
The big problem is not the armor- it's the armor combined with the ridiculous amounts of Edge they get. Edge equal to its Force means that it's tough to hit even 6-7 Force spirits. Once you get to 8+ Force spirits where you have to withhold dice in order to crank your DV, and Spirits will be almost impossible to hit, even using your own Edge. It's for those that you need Panther Cannons and such, although even those are not guaranteed- the Spirit with its Edge can still be rolling as many or more dice than you shooting to avoid the weapon completely. Then they can do it again for the damage check. |
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Jun 24 2006, 03:11 PM
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#34
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Target Group: Members Posts: 34 Joined: 3-May 06 Member No.: 8,522 |
This is true...but you are forgetting something. The same happens to a squad of runners without a Hacker! How are "non-wired" players supposed to complete the mission to find and retrieve important paydata if they only have basic computer skills and an almost-average computer? It's nearly IMPOSSIBLE for them to get past 'net security. And how much trouble do they have to get into against a good security system without an expert hacker? So... Spirits CAN be "worked" by a group of mundanes...but with great problems. The same applyes to purely electronical stuff...a Hacker expert becomes a total necessity. |
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Jun 24 2006, 05:05 PM
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#35
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
That's not quite right. Leaving aside the possibility of non-specialised characters being much more able to hack in SR4, the real point is that unlike the hacker, the mage's role overlaps with the Samurai. At least, that is, it overlaps in favour of the mage. A mage can do everything a samurai does - area effect, super-reflexes, sniping. Heck, in a lot of ways they're better at it than the samurai. When was the last time you adjusted the blast radius of a grenade on the fly? But a samurai can only do part of what a mage does. And they operate in the same arena and with the same objectives unlike the hacker. Spirits are just the best example of this problem. |
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Jun 24 2006, 05:25 PM
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#36
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
A GM putting an impossible to bypass magical threat against a completely mundane team is doing one of two things: railroading a mission failure or running the game poorly. The first might be forgivable if it makes for a good story. The second isn't.
In general fixers will tailor the hired team to the run whenever possible. If a job is known to require magical skills, he won't contact a team without an awakened member. If a run is going to require slicing past heavy net security he won't contact a team without a dedicated hacker. Sometimes you find yourself needing to get past a threat your team can't handle. You've got a few choices. The biggest are: 1) Give up. Return any up front money you got and go have some beers 2) Charge in anyway, and possibly die. 3) Drop your pride and go hire some temporary help. There's usually nothing in the contract that says you can't farm out some tasks to someone you've hired. It'll cut into the bottom line, but some money is usually better than no money. |
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Jun 24 2006, 06:03 PM
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#37
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,664 Joined: 21-September 04 From: Arvada, CO Member No.: 6,686 |
Easiest way I can think of, assuming the spirit isn't obscenely high force. Have your mage put on some mage sight goggles. Slip the cable under the door, have mage mana barrier the spirit.
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Jun 24 2006, 06:06 PM
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#38
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Then the spirit returns to his metaplane and comes back to astral outside the mana barrier. Depending on his orders he might not do that, but you generally don't know the spirit's exact orders. It might be worth a shot, but could just alert the summoner when the spirit pops over there to tattle.
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Jun 24 2006, 07:39 PM
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#39
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 144 Joined: 19-June 06 From: CAS baby Member No.: 8,736 |
Why not just have a couple of watchers patrolling the grounds? If that was the case the party might have a brief window to sneak past "watcher A" and bypass a maglock/alarm to gain entry before "watcher B" rounds the corner of the building.
If you want to keep the spirits stationary remember that your NPCs are only (meta)human. Maybe the shammy was out drinking last night and after summoning 3 watchers he really needs to lay down on the couch in a 2nd floor office offering your mage the perfect opportunity to stunbolt him with a pair of binoculars. Or maybe he's simply a smoker and goes outside to catch a cig with one of the guard every couple of hours. That's just my 2 cents though. Also, hi everyone! :noob: |
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Jun 24 2006, 07:47 PM
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#40
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
Watchers are horrible at watching. Their 1 logic, 1 intuition, and lack of perception skill means that they are completely incapable of seeing anything even remotely sneaky. Think of the dumbest dog you've ever known. That's a watcher, but without the heightened senses.
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Jun 24 2006, 08:13 PM
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#41
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 502 Joined: 14-May 03 From: Detroit, Michigan Member No.: 4,583 |
You'd love my houserule of spirits and edge. ( derived from my houserule on spirits and karma pools from SR3 ) Houserule ------------------- Summoned spirits do not have edge but they do have access to their summoners edge pool. So if a spirit is being shot by a panther cannon the summoner may give it a point of his edge to help it survive. If a spirit is out on a remote task and its summoner isn't around to lend it a point of edge it's out of luck. ( literally ) This goes with the theory that summoned spirits just don't care. You can have a bound earth elemental manifest in front of a truck to prevent the folks inside from getting away and it will do it. It doesn't even care if it lives or dies. In order to use edge you've got to care about the outcome. Bound spirits simply don't.
I'd never allow that. First off going to the metaplane and returning is essentially a new task. Second the spirit would return to our world from the metaplane in the exact location which it left or to the location of its summoner. So the only way the spirit could do the metaplane skip past the mana barrier is if its summoner was standing on the other side. |
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Jun 24 2006, 10:24 PM
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#42
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
That's an interesting system. You could be even meaner and give the spirit free access to the summoner's edge. ;)
I've got problems with metaplane interactivity as well, which hopefully will be answered in the magic book. |
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Jun 25 2006, 12:50 AM
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#43
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 502 Joined: 14-May 03 From: Detroit, Michigan Member No.: 4,583 |
It would, but it violates the spirit of the house rule. The idea is that the spirit doesn't care if it is successful or not or if it is destroyed or not. It's the summoner who cares. And therefore it is the summoner who supplies the edge when it is important to him that the spirit is successful or that the spirit survives. Besides I never have a house rule to be cruel. This houserule is more for game balance than anything else. |
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Jun 25 2006, 12:54 AM
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#44
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
It was a joke. I actually like the system. Our method of handling spirit edge is to have the GM decide if an when it gets spent. Spirits are NPCs, not PCs, so the players don't choose. Edge is a rule, not an in character concept, so spirits can't be ordered to spend it. Lots of folks disagree (and that's cool) but it works for us and doesn't require any house rules (something we prefer to avoid wheenver posible).
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Jun 25 2006, 01:21 AM
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#45
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Midnight Toker Group: Members Posts: 7,686 Joined: 4-July 04 From: Zombie Drop Bear Santa's Workshop Member No.: 6,456 |
One way to make spirits less formidable is to bring back the Willpower attack. Sammie pulls out his Ronco Pocket Fisherman and rolls Willpowerx2 at CHA/2 base damage. The Spirit resists with Force or Forcex2.
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Jun 25 2006, 03:09 AM
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#46
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 502 Joined: 14-May 03 From: Detroit, Michigan Member No.: 4,583 |
What's weird is that SR4 states "It is very difficult for non-magical characters to attack and damage a physical spirit. Only the truly courageous, driven or mad have enough force of personality to allow their attacks to affect a spirit." (which is basically cut and paste from SR3) then does nothing to back up that statement and proceeds to give them immunity to normal attacks and leave it at that. I'd almost venture to say that they cut out the personality assault rules out of space issues.
Something like this? Attacker uses Willpower x 2 Defender uses ????? to avoid the hit ( probably reaction ) Attacker does (Charisma/2) damage Defender resists damage using Force. |
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Jun 25 2006, 03:27 AM
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#47
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Horror Group: Members Posts: 5,322 Joined: 15-June 05 From: BumFuck, New Jersey Member No.: 7,445 |
I, for one, must say that I like the idea of giving Spirits free access to the summoner's Edge, and make them care about their own survival.
"Okay. You send your Force 9 Air Elemental spirit up against that jet fighter. *rolls* The air elemental hits the Jet square-on the intake with a lightning bolt... *rolls* and the jet goes down in flames. The guys on the ground fire a SAM at the Edge... It, uhh, has to resist naval-scale damage. It... *evil grin.* "It burns a point of your Edge to score a critical hit on it's soak test." |
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Jun 25 2006, 03:58 AM
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#48
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,598 Joined: 15-March 03 From: Hong Kong Member No.: 4,253 |
SAMs in general shouldn't do naval scale damage, they typically have fragmentation warhead in the 10-50 kg range which are really not naval scale.
The SA-5/S-200 SAM which is the biggest I can think of delivers a 215kg frag/he warhead (or a nuke), but the missile itself weights in at a whopping 2800kg. Typical warhead sizes: Hand held Sam: 2-4 kg warhead (Stinger, SA-16, etc) (1-5 mile range) Short Range SAM 3-8 kg warhead (SA-8, SA-13, etc) (3-10 mile range) requires vehicle mounting, each missle weights 30-70 kg. Medium Range SAM 40-80 kg warhead (SA-6, SA-11, etc) vehicle mounting or fixed emplacements, each missile weighs 500-750 kg Compared to the warhead on anti-shipping misiles which start at 100kg :oops: |
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Jun 25 2006, 04:05 AM
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#49
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Target Group: Members Posts: 41 Joined: 23-June 06 Member No.: 8,768 |
It has been pointed out to me that the burst modifiers to DV will not help against the spirits' armor b/c it is not included when comparing to armor by its own text. I'm sorry, totally missed that- makes it even harder to affect higher force spirits.
I think the rules on no Edge but potential borrowing from the summoner is very interesting. I'll mention it to our GM (although he'll probably just read about it on this forum :) ) |
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Jun 25 2006, 04:55 AM
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#50
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 502 Joined: 14-May 03 From: Detroit, Michigan Member No.: 4,583 |
Here's something to think on The burst damage modifier does not apply to armor comparisons. But the points added to DV from net hits on the shooting test does. And of course the target lowers the net hits by trying to avoid the attack using reaction. So in an attack were the hardened armor value is only a few points higher than the weapons base DV you have a better chance of avoiding complete resistance by using a wide burst ( which lowers the spirits dodge dice and thus its ability to lower your net hits ) than with the narrow burst which raises the DV. Things that make you go...... huh? |
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