Magic ammo, possessing ammunition Options

[djinni]

saw the thread in SR4, searched here couldn't find anything.
is there a way to have a spirit possess a bullet or an arrow? in SR3?

[mfb]

an obeyifa might, i'd have to check the specific rules. it wouldn't do you any good, though--the bullet would not do damage to astral entities, because in SR3, astral physics don't work that way. high-speed astral collisions don't do damage to astral entities.

[djinni]

[mfb]

obeyifas are described in MitS, in the first chapter. i forget what page. basically, instead of summoning spirits that fly around and do stuff, they summon spirits into prepared totems. i think the totem has to be touching the obeyifa to work, though.

there simply aren't any rules for hurting astral/dual entities with dual-natured objects, except in melee. the rules for astral travel include no mention of taking damage from collision, which is what this would be.

[Snow_Fox]

magic bullets have been one of the holy grails of R&D&M back to first ed in '89 (gods have we been discussing this that long?) but so far no magic missles, as soon as they leave the spell slinger's hand they are no longer active.

[DuckEggBlue Omeg...]

I think people have assumed things which don't actually exsist in the rules. Astral collisions don't occur due to a lack of physics or what have you, they don't occur because it's REALLY easy to dodge things when you can move and react at the speed of thought.

Now I'm not saying normal phyics apply, but there is some interaction. Take attacking an astral barrier for example, it's a completely inanimate oject, except it has force and trying to attack one with high force, will result in you taking damage and getting your astral presence disrupted (SR3 pg176). Now call me simple, but that sounds to me alot like the very physical act of punching a wall and hurting your fist becuase it's stronger than you.

This becomes especially true when you're dealing with dual natured stuff. Dual Natured things are limited by their physical bodies, for example they do STRENGTH M damage in Astral Combat (SR3 p176), and importantly cant simply dodge things at the speed of thought. So if you take a dual natured being, like a materialised spirit, and physical hit it with something else dual natured you essentially force the 2 things into astral combat, regardless of whether or not your still holding it (like a dual natured bullet). MiTS, pg 83, "Under certain circumstances, a dual-natured item or person may be forced into conflict with an astral barrier through physical momentum." It's not a huge leap in logic to assume 2 dual-natured objects can be forced into conflict by physical momentum aswell.

If you can somehow produce an independantly dual natured bullet, and fire it at a materialised spirit the 2 are forced into astral combat and damage can be done. Now this by no means makes it neccessarily effective (making a dual natured bullet is as simple as using FAB in capsule rounds, but making a dual natured bullet with enough FORCE to actually do anything, is another matter entirely), but it certainly is possible.

[mfb]

[djinni]

[mfb]

then why don't you take damage from attacking a physical wall with a physical spear, and failing? you're implying that every time you try and fail to attack an astral barrier with an astral spear, the spear bounces off and smacks you in the face or something. why should that be true?

[djinni]

[mfb]

the analogy does not make sense. if you hit a wall with your fist, there is a clear reason, based in physics, for why your fist hurts afterwards--your fist, which is soft, collided with the wall, which is hard. if you're attacking a ward with a spear, physics says it's not going to hurt you. the reason a ward can hurt you, even if you attack it with a spear, is because the ward is attacking you at the same time you're attacking it. that's not a collision, that's active combat.

the most you could get is a bullet that makes astral attacks against dual-natured targets. against astral targets, unless the astral form is trapped somehow, they're just going to get shoved out of the way by the bullet because there's no inertia on the astral. the bullet won't make an attack against them because, rather than being forced into conflict, it will just push them aside or back.

[djinni]

you're completely missing the point, so I'll just drop it.

[Kagetenshi]

For what it's worth, I must be as well.

~J

[djinni]

[mfb]

er, no, i'm actually doing the exact opposite. i'm pointing out that, judging from the way the rules work, physics don't apply on the astral plane.

[djinni]

[mfb]

for the love of mike. my point is that since physics says the ward won't hurt you if you attack it with a spear, then physics must not apply--since the ward actually can hurt you when you attack it with a spear.

look, you misunderstood what i was saying, okay? DuckEgg was suggesting that physics, as we know them on the physical plane, apply in astral space. i was disagreeing with him. i'm saying now what i've been saying this whole thread, and said in the SR4 thread: physics don't apply on the astral.

[djinni]

[Kagetenshi]

[DuckEggBlue Omeg...]

[mfb]

[DuckEggBlue Omeg...]

None of which actually contradicts anything I was saying.

When I'm talking about collisions, I'm talking about 2 things colliding and interacting, just because the 2 things don't have mass doesn't mean they don't interact. Trying to equate to 'real-world physics' isn't useless or confusing. I could have tried to use the interaction of photons, but I don't think that would have helped. I don't care if ALL the effects of hiitng a wall aren't the same as hitting an astral barrier (djinni correctly pointed out, it's an analogy), the point was to illustrate what I consider to be a misconception about 'astral combat', that being that it's anything other than 2 forces colliding an interacting. People seem to have it in their heads that 'astral combat' is some very complicated interaction, an idea which probably comes from terminology, but an astral barrier is an INANIMATE object, being on the astral doesn't change this. It can't fight back, yet it does damage, because when 2 objects collide (whether they have mass or are composed of pure energy) interact with each other automatically. It does not require for both, or even one of the object/beings involved to 'conciously' engage the other, it just happens.

Astral collisions don't occur like this though simply because it's easy to avoid accidental collision when anything moving does so at the speed of thought (and also reacts at the speed of thought, possibly faster seeing as astral thought isn't limited by the make up of your physical brain, and isn't dependant on the limitations of normal vision) or that whilst astral collisions cause an interaction they are so easily avoided (in the astral) that they never occur, atleast not accidentally. Think about it, under your logic of things getting 'pushed aside or back' and saying collisions do occur but they have no appreciable affect, astral travel would be a pain, your heading inside a building to scope it out and suddenly you get side swiped by some joker fast traveling and a few moments later your on the other side of the planet. It didn't 'hurt' but it would get very annoying. The mage in your example doesn't get pushed out of the way, he simply dodges it, there's no logical reason for him to decide to not dodge it.

Again, momentum/inertia don't affect the nature of collisions in astral, and the collisions are very EASY to avoid, but to say that when collisions do occur that there is no effect doesn't make sense. The ONLY correlation I'm making is that collisions can occur because 2 astral forms can't occupy the same space, and that when that happens 2 opposing forces are forced to interact, and damage can occur as a result. Again this is supported by wards and other non-sentient astral objects being able to damage you when you attack them. Nothing I've seen in cannon contradicts this view, with the POSSIBLE exception of the use of the term 'astral combat' which a person COULD take to imply something more than a simple collision, used to describe nearly all such collisions, but I think deriving anything more from that than the implication that you use the same rules for multiple things is a little absurd.

Yes, all this means that a 'magic bullet' is only effective when the astral form is restrained somehow, either by it's physical form as a DN critter or materialised spirit or some other means, as a pure astral form can dodge bullets quite easily, but something having limited effectiveness is not now, nor shall it ever be a reason it CAN'T be done, only that perhaps it shouldn't be done.

I for one think, that putting aside rules (which I believe support my view regardless) or setting (which I don't think is an issue in this case), that if the drawbacks balance or exceed the benefits, why not let a player do it? Hell, we haven't even gotten into the idea that simply carrying gear that is DN is a liability when dealing with spirits, yet. A particularly bastardly GM could have an astral spirit grab your physical gun by the DN ammo and beat your physical head in with it, without actually leaving the astral.

[mfb]

[Kagetenshi]

Not actually true--the brick wall will generally be rougher and less yielding (or just rougher), and thus will probably cause more damage.

~J

[mfb]

yeah, but you see what i mean--if the wall is harder than your fist, then it doesn't generally matter how much harder it is. make it an iron wall and a steel wall, instead of brick vs iron.