How do non-awakend deal with spirits?, Is there something like magical bullets? Options

[Tarantula]

You're wrong. Fire spirits have the energy aura power, and as such, "A critter with Energy Aura continuously radiates an aura of damaging or negative energy, be it flame, intense cold, electricity, or something similar." p287.

[paws2sky]

You're wrong. Fire spirits have the energy aura power, and as such, "A critter with Energy Aura continuously radiates an aura of damaging or negative energy, be it flame, intense cold, electricity, or something similar." p287.

Oh, well... hell. I was thinking it was an at-will type power. Hrm... wonder what power I was thinking about then? Maybe something from an earlier edition...

[Tarantula]

Maybe elemental attack and/or engulf?

[paws2sky]

Probably engulf. Anyway, oops. My bad.

Still... it doesn't change the basic problem(?) that spirits are weird things that don't obey the laws of physics as we know them.

-paws

[Apathy]

Yeah, I've always wondered from a fluff perspective how I should describe the effect of the immunity to normal weapons power.

• You fire your predator at the spirit, but the bullets pass right through him with no apparent impact, and pock mark the concrete wall behind it.
• You fire your predator at the spirit, but the bullets richochet off it without doing damage.

[Synner667]

When the rules stated that only melee weapons can be used to affect Spirits...
...Pesticides enhanced damage to Bug Spirits, which infers that something similar could be developed for other Spirits.

I had a NPC mage who would make bullets enclosing a drop of blood, with a Spell locked onto it...
...To use a melee attack at range [kinda]

Very expensive, and only the one mage knew the Spell.


Apathy : Wouldn't the effect depend on the Spirit ??
Fire based Spirit would melt bullets, so negating the damage
Water based Spirits would just absorb bullets, so negating the damage [and just floating in the watery body
Etc...

[Sma]

They don't. They don't have natural immunities, either. Fire burns the fire spirit just as easily as any other spirit of its force but a high pressure hose won't hurt him any more than it would hurt a water spirit of the same force.

Water and Fire Spirits being the exception here since they're actually severy allergic to fire and water respectively.

[Johnny Jacks]

They don't. They don't have natural immunities, either. Fire burns the fire spirit just as easily as any other spirit of its force but a high pressure hose won't hurt him any more than it would hurt a water spirit of the same force.

Except that Fire Spirits have "Allergy (Water, Severe)".

[Moon-Hawk]

What would be the pay the creating mage asks for?

If you take tho Karma for Cash "rules" into consideration it would be at least 5000 Nuyen for the point of karma used up + that what the mage charges for himself...

Probably 7500 + ?

And of course, you're now walking around with a bullet with his astral signature on it, and you're probably going to do something extremely naughty with it. That's probably worth something to him.

Hmmm, in the old days of anchoring the anchoring mage took drain whenever the spell was used, rather than when it was made, so if you made 6 of these bullets and they were all fired in rapid succession a month later, the mage could be insta-killed by massive drain overflow while taking a bath at home. Is that still the case, or is drain taken when the anchored doohickey is made now, rather than when it's used?

[Dr Funfrock]

Moderate force spirits are awkward but not impossible. A force 4 spirit can go down before good shots from an Ares Predator (2 points of called shot.) From a Streetline special, you better be a very good shot, and called shot for +4 / -4. But then, even taking down a troll with a Streetline is hard.

If the Force gets much higher though, it really gets much harder for mundanes to overcome the hardened armor. (A high strength Troll boix will still make the Spirit very unhappy. An Adept PowerThrow Troll, or even PowerThrow Orc can probably get enough to matter. But remember that the Spirits defense has gone up as well when the force went up. And its soak.) Personally, for Force 6 spirits, I think you want called shots to overcome hardened armor, and compensated long bursts from a good gun to get enough damage to matter.
Advanced characters can probably come up with other choices. But magic (either Weapon's Focus and good melee, or actuall spell casting) is your friend when forces get higher.

And that is why God created Panther Cannons, my friend.

[Iota]

@ Moon-Hawk: the drain has to be resisted at creation so that shouldn`t be the problem

[Fortune]

Wards would be a problem for your clip of Magic Bullets.

[Kronk2]

you better be a very good shot, and called shot for +4 / -4.
JoelHalpern

What is there to pull a called shot at on a spirit? What I am getting at is where are you aiming to try and overcome its armor. My understanding is that its a universal coverage thing. Even if you shot it smack in the wedding veggies then it would still get its immunity to normal weps. So how does called shot help you in this situation?? this sounds to me like a strictly metagame solution to the problem. Which is what we get sometimes.

[Muspellsheimr]

Shooting someone with a sniper rifle and simultaneously hitting him with a manabolt would make assassination jobs where you only have one shot quite easy, though the pay has to be great to afford the bullets...

A little off-topic, but my current character uses a Barrette loaded with Capsul Rounds (Ringu). It's what she uses to assassinate dragons.

On-topic, I would have to double-check, but I do not believe most spirits have any special resistance to chem-tech, so...
Every character I have made that uses combat chemicals is incredibly powerful - on par with, sometimes even surpassing, magic. Expensive, yes, but extremely effective. Gets even worse when you combine chemtech & augmentation on a Mystic Adept assassin (yes, my aforementioned character). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/devil.gif)

What is there to pull a called shot at on a spirit? What I am getting at is where are you aiming to try and overcome its armor. My understanding is that its a universal coverage thing. Even if you shot it smack in the wedding veggies then it would still get its immunity to normal weps. So how does called shot help you in this situation?? this sounds to me like a strictly metagame solution to the problem. Which is what we get sometimes.

He was not talking about a Called Shot to bypass the armor, although by RAW, that is possible. He was talking about a Called Shot to increase damage, which in turn increases the chance of the spirit not automatically ignoring it.

[Dr Funfrock]

What is there to pull a called shot at on a spirit? What I am getting at is where are you aiming to try and overcome its armor. My understanding is that its a universal coverage thing. Even if you shot it smack in the wedding veggies then it would still get its immunity to normal weps. So how does called shot help you in this situation?? this sounds to me like a strictly metagame solution to the problem. Which is what we get sometimes.

Well for that matter, why add damage from net hits on your attack roll?

If you want an answer that covers the problems of accuracy, better weapons, APDS, or, hell, why Panthers do more damage to beings of pure magic than a punch in the face anyway, try this: It's all about belief. The weilder believes in their weapon, their ammunition, the accuracy of their shot, so it works. This isn't a conscious thing, and it's probably not even down to the individual or something. It's just that because they know they shot well, and they were using a Ruger loaded with EX-EX, that the spirit is going to really feel it. Kind of like an expansion on the whole attack of will thing.

It's either that, or just have to go with the idea that, whilst very resilient because of their unearthly nature, spirits still have physical bodies. A called shot would be aiming for the cracks between the hardened magma, or the burning white eyes, or the space where the soft wood can be seen beneath the bark, or whatever. You guess, and hope.

It's either that, or we end up playing Galaxy Quest:
"Try to aim for it's weak spots"
"It's a rock. It doesn't have any weak spots!"

[Cthulhudreams]

Or maybe spirits do have weakspots where they link back to their home meta dimension that if disrupted physically disrupt the mana connection to their home plan. And everyone who uses guns alot knows about them because its something you get told.

Who knows.

[Jaid]

manifested spirits are not made out of fire, or rock, or water, or whatever. they're made out of some wacky spirit-stuff that kinda looks like those substances when needed, and maybe even acts sort of like them. regardless, this physical form is actually there, and can apparently be damaged by the application of force. while it may not have weak spots like a human (ie the head doesn't contain a brain, there is no heart, etc) they could certainly have weak spots like a building or other complex object might. by carefully choosing where you place the bullet to hit a weaker spot (perhaps at a joint, perhaps just someplace where the spirit's mass isn't quite as concentrated, for example) you can inflict a greater amount of damage to the spirit's physical form than you could by just shooting it in a non-optimal location.

which, considering this spirit-stuff is apparently pretty sturdy, can be a very important tactic when dealing with spirits.

[K2that'sit]

Hello there my first post. Find a possession tradition and ask very nicely if they'll have a watcher spirt or better placed in your gun.

[Jaid]

Hello there my first post. Find a possession tradition and ask very nicely if they'll have a watcher spirt or better placed in your gun.

that might conceivably work if you were trying to club the spirit to death with your gun. it does absolutely nothing for the bullets i'm afraid though.

[K2that'sit]

alright then have them do the bullet

[last_of_the_grea...]

Well, specifically for dealing with water spirits, they have a severe allergy to jell-0 powder.

[Nefacio]

I dont see a really big deal to kill a spirit being a mundane, several ways to do great damage, and great damage will affect them. Your worst problem will be defending against their attacks, so better tell ur mage partner to keep his free action to protect using counterspelling, some powers dont use counterspelling but this is the same for awakened so you are not in disadvantage here.

If APDS bullets work for spirits, then its a bit easier.

[Fortune]

All AP is applicable to Spirits except for the AP bonus that is accumulated through automatic fire (ie. burst or full auto).

[Muspellsheimr]

BF/FA is a Damage Bonus, not Armor Penetration. But regardless, it still is not counted until after you determine if the attack does damage at all.

[Fortune]

Wasn't quite sure of the specifics at the time, and just wanted to make sure my comment about AP wasn't misunderstood. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)