[X] My Assistant

[JurneeJakes]

So after going back to SR3, we came across a Spirit with Immunity to Normal Weapons, and tried finding the rules for using Willpower with a melee weapon to get around it. Only SR3 seems to be the only edition that doesn't have such a mechanic. Was it left out on purpose? By accident? Why was it in SR2, and vaguely in SR4-5?

[freudqo]

SR3, p. 188, in "Physical Form", first paragraph on the right.

Basically: you replace willpower and spirit's force for your combat skills, the only modifier that applies is the reach of your weapon, you do (charisma)M stun damages. No combat pool for the protagonists.

[JurneeJakes]

Damn, I must have gone through that a dozen times and didn't pick up on it. Thanks, man!

[freudqo]

You're welcome.

I'd say it's quite well hidden actually, and remember looking for it the same way you did. One could say that it's quite peculiar to put it in "Physical Form", while the next paragraph is entitled "spirit combat".

So don't forger to take your whip next time you go spirit hunting. And to take this drug I don't remember that gives you +1 Willpower.

[faustaff]

Yeah, I remember while we were running through Super Tuesday fighting a spirit above a crowded Kingdome with only my whip and convictions. Fun times.

[Kliko]

Or an AK with a bayonet... works wonders

[ Spoiler ]

increasing Charisma with Novacoke...

[freudqo]

Would someone allow a shape changed elephant to use a whip with his trunk (or an AK with bayonet), in order to get this +3 reach if you are human?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Ummm... No.

[Cochise]

Would someone allow a shape changed elephant to use a whip with his trunk (or an AK with bayonet), in order to get this +3 reach if you are human?

I'll put it this way: If you happen to have a magician around that successfully manages to transform either himself or one of his human team mates into an elephant - particularly beating the required success threshold - in order to have that elephant use a whip with a +3 reach for either a melee attack or even a Willpower based attack against a spirit then I as GM would certainly let you do that ... and then simply ask you why the mage wasted his time with something fancy like that instead of simply blasting that spirit to pieces!?

I'd even point out that a reach of +3 is subject to diminishing returns against a spirit because of the good old 6=7 TN dilemma and your own TN never being able to be lower than 2 => With a base TN of 4 that reach +3 will rarely come into play and once it does you usually have already won the engagement anyway.

The Willpower based attack against spirits has such narrow application in SR3 that I'm not quite certain why people even bother with it unless it's an act of desperation or their character represents a very specific archetype setup: mundane face or decker character with both high Charisma and Willpower plus a basic melee skill that will sufficiently explain why he's carrying the damned melee weapon in the first place ... the other archetypes usually have means of dealing with spirits that are far more effective and that includes the guy who wields an assault rifle but is stupid enough to go for a Willpower attack with the attached bayonet in anything else but true desperation (like running out of ammo).

[freudqo]

Unfortunately, the elephant is the only +1 reach animal from critters that could hold a whip. One might argue for a gorilla or an orangutan, but it would be up to the GM. And one could also argue that Critters allow for animals whose attribute are half the average. So you could possibly have a 8/3 body little shape changed elephant (not that the threshold remains quite high).

My group had problems recently with multiple powerful spirits in a BC of 3. Attack of will kind of saved the day.

You're right about reach. My group has always applied that you can spread the point as you like, so with +3, you can put your opponent at TN 6 and yourself at TN 3. Rereading SR3, I don't think it is valid. Though I'll keep it. AND, some spirits can have reach anyway.

About your last example, shooting a regular assault rifle will never let you kill a force 5 spirit. Even with EX-EX ammo.

[Cochise]

Unfortunately, the elephant is the only +1 reach animal from critters that could hold a whip. One might argue for a gorilla or an orangutan, but it would be up to the GM.

Regardless of what Critter you're talking: A magician who is good enough to shapechange a normal human into either one of these animals with enough successes for both the cast and the drain will literally "obliterate" a spirit with a normal stun or mana bolt.

And one could also argue that Critters allow for animals whose attribute are half the average.

Okay, let's forget that the shapechange spells only explicitly references the use of the values given in Critters without reference to the 2d6 size variation table where you'd need a snake eyes roll to get 50% size reduction (1 in 36 chance) and let's assume that the magician is free to set the size to 50% at will:
Once you "argue" like that I as GM would take the "liberty" of saying that you also lose 50% of the reach bonus (rounded down) because all given stats are reduced by 50%.

My group had problems recently with multiple powerful spirits in a BC of 3. Attack of will kind of saved the day.

Act of desperation after being "unprepared"?

About your last example, shooting a regular assault rifle will never let you kill a force 5 spirit. Even with EX-EX ammo.

It certainly will. The "Immunity to normal weapons" power in SR3 has a distinct difference when compared to hardened or vehicular armor:

The immunity power gives the critter the equivalent of an Armor Rating equal to twice its Essence for resisting damage from the thing against which it has immunity. In addition, if the Power of the damage does not exceed twice the creature's Essence, it automatically has no effect [..]

Where hardened armor and vehicular armor explicitly demand the base damage code of the weapon to exceed their rating before damage occurs, Immunity only requires the attack's power to exceed said rating.

=> Modification to an attack's Power by burst or full automatic fire on ranged attacks are working against the Immunity Power just as Power increases created by net successes a melee expert can create.

=> A standard assault rifle in SR3 is capable of successfully harming spirits up to Force 8 with a 10 bullet full auto burst even with standard ammunition. While such a Force 8 spirit will have a (seemingly) low TN for Damage Resistance at only 2 a well built samurai is still rather likely to at least force a L to M wound on his initial attack and then start to wear down the spirit in consecutive attacks. Add the fact that a spirit cannot attack during the Combat Turn in which it materializes and things get seriously unfavorable for the spirit. A Force 5 spirit can be "slowly" gunned down via successes with normal burst fire from an assault rifle. Make bursts with more bullets and you're likely to kill it off instantly.

Add the specialty ammo types Ex and ExEx and your assault rifle will be able to harm Force 9 spirits should you deem them as not being "armor piercing" ammo types that are rendered into "standard" ammunition.

And just to be clear: Beating a Force 8 spirit in an attack of Will hasn't really better odds unless we're once again talking about very special character setups ... setups so specialized that one could still raise the question why you're trying to jump through loops there instead of directly going for the "spirit buster" type of character like a spellcaster with mana bolt / mana ball, a melee adept with Killing Hands, the pole-arm wielding melee troll (including his adept version) or a conjuring expert that lays waste with his own army of spirits.

[freudqo]

Regardless of what Critter you're talking: A magician who is good enough to shapechange a normal human into either one of these animals with enough successes for both the cast and the drain will literally "obliterate" a spirit with a normal stun or mana bolt.

Just to be clear, my post about the elephant was kind of a joke. And even the dwarf elephant is a joke. Though, when thinking about it, a body 5 beginning magician could probably pull it out on a regular basis with a fetish. That's something like 6 five on his dice roll, with a 3M drain (or much less if you make it caster only etc.). Good to remember.

Shape change asks you to use critters' statistics in p 19 of critters. The Critters Statistics entry specifies quite clearly that those statistics can vary by 50% up or down (You might even get as low as a body 7/3 elephant rounding fraction down, since it says half attributes, accessible at start by body 4 magician!). The use of the 2D6 table is only a suggestion for GM who want to randomly generate different sized critters. If you know what you want, no need to roll. Nowhere does shape change say that the specimen has to be typical. Says normal by opposition to awakened.

On the other hand, the same entry clearly states that you get the reach bonus whatever the size. Truly, I don't see what, by the book could forbid me to shape change in a dwarf elephant. Especially obnoxious PC could even argue that the critter could have -50% body and +50% quickness and strength (that last case would be pointless, damage remain the same). That might make for an very obnoxious PC for some GMs.

If one followed your interpretation, you can never transform anyone in a frog because its statistics are not on p19 of critters table, which would be sad. Or into a velociraptor.

Act of desperation after being "unprepared"?

Well, shit happens. It probably depends on table, but running into high force spirit in high background count is not that improbable running the shadows. You're indeed very right about auto fire being able to damage powerful spirits quite well. I don't know why I thought it worked as hardened stuff. So I admit that assault rifle are quite a nice way to respond, I was wrong about that, sorry !

It was not an act of desperation though. With reach 2, you are matched only by (reachless) spirits whose force is 3 times your willpower (or do you consider that the "no combat pool" only applies to his damage resistance ?) if there are no other modifiers. Not everyone has spells or auto fire capable guns. In the precise situation, it was the best thing to do.

I can't count the number of PC who had willpower above 4 or 5 and who liked to will this easily concealable expandable staff.

[Cochise]

On the other hand, the same entry clearly states that you get the reach bonus whatever the size.

Actually, it doesn't (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) There's no explicit entry saying that.

Truly, I don't see what, by the book could forbid me to shape change in a dwarf elephant.

I nowhere stated anything like that, did I?
I started off with saying that I'd have no general objections but would question the magician's (and its player's) sanity of trying such a stunt instead of going for a better and easier solution.

If one followed your interpretation, you can never transform anyone in a frog because its statistics are not on p19 of critters table, which would be sad. Or into a velociraptor.

You're not following "my interpretation" there at all, since I nowhere made such an interpretation. But strictly speaking: Yes, since there are no "RAW" stats on non-awakened frogs or velociraptors there's technically no "RAW" based way of shapechanging into either one. That must always occur on house rule level where the GM / group has agreed upon (average) stats for not listed animals.

With reach 2, you are matched only by (reachless) spirits whose force is 3 times your willpower (or do you consider that the "no combat pool" only applies to his damage resistance ?) if there are no other modifiers.

See, the problem lies with the scenario as a whole. Someone who is wielding weaponry that grants him reaches of 2 and higher usually also is an advanced melee fighter whom's melee weapon skill is at least as high or higher than his Willpower stat and STR values to deal with the Immunity part - either directly though the weapon or via successes that stage the power. The majority of reach 2 weaponry comes with S base Damage level so a fallback to (CHA) M is actually counter productive regardless of armor effects created by the Immunity power because it requires the spirit to produce 2 more successes in order to go unharmed. A whip is pretty much the only melee weapon that would trade its L base Damage to M and that only works well enough if you happen to have a reasonable CHA attribute because the the lack of Combat Pool access will severly hamper the chances of getting larger number of successes for staging.

As far as your math concerning Force vs. Willpower is concerned I'd say that your numbers are slightly off.

Not everyone has spells or auto fire capable guns.

Which particular kind of archetype and setup are you talking about there?
In over 16 years I rarely saw group compositions and scenarios where really nobody had suitable weaponry or tools for engaging a materialized spirit. And those characters who really lacked such means usually had better things to do than trying to engage a spirit in a Willpower attack.

I can't count the number of PC who had willpower above 4 or 5 and who liked to will this easily concealable expandable staff.

So you're saying that all those characters had generally rather low polearms / staff skills when compared to their Willpower. In addition to that they alos had rather low STR that disallowed them to bypass the Immunity restrictions but at the same time had rather high CHA attribute values of 4+?! Subsequently they carried their telescopic staff for the odd chance of meeting a spirit that they could engage with a Willpower attack?

I guess we have come full circle concerning my initial comment about Willpower attacks having such a narrow application that I wonder why people would waste their time with gear for that while leaving the general impression that the character in question has no real reasons for carrying such a weapon in the first place but does so because the player knows that he can beat certain scenarios through game mechanics. At that point the gearing becomes a matter of "metagaming" to such a degree that I'm not too sure about that being beneficial to the overall game experience. But hey, to each their own.

[freudqo]

Actually, it doesn't (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) There's no explicit entry saying that.

"Even in the largest and smallest specimens, Essence, Reach, Attack Type, Movement Multiplier and Damage Modifiers remain the same, though the powers of individual creatures sometimes vary."

Critters, p18. I'm not a native english speaker, so maybe there's something I don't get, but can you explain then?

I nowhere stated anything like that, did I?

No, but you said that you wouldn't grant the character a reach bonus, which could be considered mean considering the Player plays by the book, couldn't it?

And yes, "your interpretation" is that you should conform to the statistics table on p19. That's pretty clear in your post. There are rules for critter statistics, is all.

See, the problem lies with the scenario as a whole. Someone who is wielding weaponry that grants him reaches of 2 and higher usually also is an advanced melee fighter whom's melee weapon skill is at least as high or higher than his Willpower stat and STR values to deal with the Immunity part - either directly though the weapon or via successes that stage the power.

And here is maybe a bit of discrepancy. The majority of reach 2 weapons I saw in my game is the concealable telescoping staff, that most non melee oriented people choose for their melee weapon, just in case. Hence why I see it as a valid option for a lot of characters. I never meant that they carry this staff around only for spirits.

But okay, in the end, I might have sounded too much like I'm making a real case for dealing with spirits mostly with willpower, which I don't actually really want to. But to tell the truth, we're 3 GMs, and 2 of us recently independently came up with situations where attack of will was one of the best solutions for some characters. Sure, in my game, they went for a lot of grenades in confined space (which makes me feel stupid because it means I knew and applied the rules for hardened != immunity 2 months ago), and I had actually arranged for them to get hold of an assault cannon in case they didn't dare for it. But I recognize it could make me a little biased here in saying it's a valid option.

[sk8bcn]

Which particular kind of archetype and setup are you talking about there?
In over 16 years I rarely saw group compositions and scenarios where really nobody had suitable weaponry or tools for engaging a materialized spirit. And those characters who really lacked such means usually had better things to do than trying to engage a spirit in a Willpower attack.

Might happen in a surprise attack with splitted teams.

But well, that was not the subject of my post.

Say I ve got a 9M weapon with APDS bullets. A Force 6 spirit would get 6 armor vs me, right? And a force 9 spirit would be immune, right? With Ex-Bullets, would you say he's not immune anymore?

[freudqo]

Might happen in a surprise attack with splitted teams.

But well, that was not the subject of my post.

Say I ve got a 9M weapon with APDS bullets. A Force 6 spirit would get 6 armor vs me, right? And a force 9 spirit would be immune, right? With Ex-Bullets, would you say he's not immune anymore?

Nope, force 6 gets 12 armor. Force 9 gets 18. You're talking something like force 3 and 5. And indeed, Ex-ex would count, since it's the power of the damage that is counted, not the base power or the unmodified power or anything else. The attack does 11M with Ex-Ex, you bypass the armor 10 of a force 10 spirit.

APDS doesn't count against spirits.

[Kliko]

At my tables the APDS always counted against spirits, but YMMV.

[freudqo]

At my tables the APDS always counted against spirits, but YMMV.

APDS, AVM, and
other armor-piercing ammunitions are treated
as normal ammunition against creatures
with this power

That house rule makes APDS even more fancy than they already deserve, IMO (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) !

[Cochise]

"Even in the largest and smallest specimens, Essence, Reach, Attack Type, Movement Multiplier and Damage Modifiers remain the same, though the powers of individual creatures sometimes vary."

Critters, p18. I'm not a native english speaker, so maybe there's something I don't get, but can you explain then?

Oh come on, don't go that unnecessary "no native speaker" route there. So yes, you found a section that says something that might indicate what you think ... and it's even a very good one ... if it weren't for the last part of the sentence that puts everything back out of whack because it uses "powers" instead of "Powers" so nobody can nail it to "(Critter) Powers" by terminology.

No, but you said that you wouldn't grant the character a reach bonus, which could be considered mean considering the Player plays by the book, couldn't it?

Let's just say that I'd be that "mean" within my rights as a GM if someone really were to try to be as "obnoxious" (your words, remember?) to try and argue for a magician having the liberty of setting arbitrary stat values for "dwarf elephants" to get his way. And I be supported in that "meanness" by a whole set of rules and even including the sentence you just provided as a reason for maintaining Reach on the smallest specimen ... simply by considering Reach a subset of that animals "powers" (as opposed to "Powers") and no part of "RAW" actually disallowing me doing that.

And yes, "your interpretation" is that you should conform to the statistics table on p19. That's pretty clear in your post. There are rules for critter statistics, is all.

I suggest that you stop putting words in my mouth, because we're getting awfully close to ad hominem territory there. It wasn't "my interpretation". I only commented on the shapechange spell's spell description and what it references and the things that it doesn't reference. That comment nowhere made any claims of the kind you are suggesting now.

And here is maybe a bit of discrepancy. The majority of reach 2 weapons I saw in my game is the concealable telescoping staff, that most non melee oriented people choose for their melee weapon, just in case. Hence why I see it as a valid option for a lot of characters. I never meant that they carry this staff around only for spirits.

So we're talking non representative samples of characters defaulting to something that isn't necessarily plausible from the character's perspective. Once it even becomes a recurring pattern for different characters, we're straight in metagaming territory where I as GM get bored with the respective players rather sooner than later. ~shrug~

[Cochise]

Say I ve got a 9M weapon with APDS bullets. A Force 6 spirit would get 6 armor vs me, right?

As already mentioned, APDS - by RAW - does not affect the "Immunity against normal weapon" power. So a Force 6 spirit with his 12 points of "immune" armor cannot be harmed with a 9M heavy pistol.

With Ex-Bullets, would you say he's not immune anymore?

Ex and ExEx in a 9M heavy pistol cannot successfully pierce the "immunity" armor of a Force 6 spirit. However, ExEx will make the difference for a 9M heavy pistol against a Force 5 spirit as long as your GM doesn't regard Ex and ExEx as being a form of "other armor-piercing ammunitions". Since SR3 lacks a clear definition of "armor-piercing ammunition" he could interpret Ex and ExEx as such and thus treat those ammo types like "standard" against spirits ... just as he could deem those ammo types as a representation of an "elemental" attack that cuts the Immunity in half.

[freudqo]

Oh come on, don't go that unnecessary "no native speaker" route there. So yes, you found a section that says something that might indicate what you think ... and it's even a very good one ... if it weren't for the last part of the sentence that puts everything back out of whack because it uses "powers" instead of "Powers" so nobody can nail it to "(Critter) Powers" by terminology.

Errr. I didn't find A section. I read the very first paragraph of the section on critters statistics. That's all. The one that says a critters statistics can change without reach being affected. I seriously couldn't understand what would make you make such a bold statement as "There's no explicit entry saying that [about reach]" while there's exactly an explicit entry saying that in the first paragraph of "Critters Statistics".

The one that indeed says that if the GM wants, he can change whatever stats, including reach, damage, and the like if he wants. ([EDIT]: This sentence is probably wrong, see next post [\EDIT]). That's indeed an important point to say that the GM actually tells you what happens in the game. But going from the sentence to the part where the GM decides to alter the stats of the critter one shape changed following strictly what's written in the book is quite a huge step that would actually make for a very obnoxious GM too. That would make for a nice gaming table ^^.

The shapechange spell refers to critter statistics on p19 of critters. The physical attributes can change by the rules, the reach can't. Is all. And if you didn't mean to say that you should conform strictly and exclusively to those precise statistics, well, then I apologize to make such a deduction from your post, I actually understood it should be an obvious obstacle for shapechange to allow changing into different creatures than the "typical" one. You were just quoting for the fun of quoting I guess. Sorry again. Cheers.

[freudqo]

Amazingly enough, Powers with a P is seldom used in the book to qualify Critters' magical powers, so I really don't get why they would use a big P to nail it to whatever you like. They might indeed have said "magical powers". Why they would do that, I don't know, since it's pretty obvious they're refering to critter powers. I don't recall to hear about reach, or damages, or movement multiplier as "powers". Given the number of time they use the word "power" alone to refer to magical powers, given the theme of the book, which are actual paranormal critters, given the huge number of alternative words they could have used to say that individual "raw powers" vary, the use of plural etc. it's a bit strange to think that it refers here to "raw power" in order just to unsay what they just said about attributes, reach, damage, movement modifier and the like…

Shall we really understand that sentence to say "Individual attributes is bound between -50% and +50% of the average we give here, reach, movement modifier, damage never change, except that finally let's not care about it and just put the statistics you want" ? Hey GM, your player shouldn't be ready for this reaction 20 and body 20/20 dog that will kill them, so unleash it! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Kliko]

Damn, your right. I missed that!

Ah well, more applications for AK's with bayonets!
Now I'm picturing high willpower grunts charging spirits with "friends in melee" rules... that should work fairly well!

[Cochise]

Amazingly enough, Powers with a P is seldom used in the book to qualify Critters' magical powers, so I really don't get why they would use a big P to nail it to whatever you like.

The key element there is that SR in general uses capitalized vocabulary whenever it refers to things that have a systematic / game mechanical relevance. So it's usually a "Damage Resistance Test" instead of a "damage resistance test", "Reach" instead of "reach", "Movement Rate" instead of "movement rate", "Power Points" for adepts instead of "power points" and so on. Now the various supernatural abilities and traits that critters have are commonly referred to as "(Critter) Powers" or the individual (capitalized) power like "Regeneration" within rule texts to make them clearly identifiable. But the use of such capital letters has sometimes been missed in certain texts and in some cases that creates "loopholes" and some unexpected side effects as far as "RAW" is concerned.

The Critter booklet is one of the cases where you see a larger number of such instances of words not being capitalized and the sentence you provided as "proof" is pretty obviously one of them. It isn't hard to get the idea that whoever wrote that sentence wanted to express that critters (awakened and non-awakened alike, where the latter usually don't even have "Powers") do retain game mechanic features like "Reach" regardless of their respective size variation but at the same time that their "(Critter) Powers" may vary from individual to individual. Now even if you ignore the basic stupidity of the idea of fixed "Reach" values over a very broad spectrum of individuals of the same species for the sake of the rules being "easy to use" (mainly for the GM) the text would have required the use of proper terminology in order to make it "foolproof".

Had the author used "Powers" in that particular sentence your "proof" would have been perfect for what you wanted to show ... but with the non-capitalized version the sentence lacks the explicit semantic reference to "(Critter) Powers" and subsequently the second part of the sentence is open to individual interpretation and the "Reach" part becomes subject to GM's discretion - who interestingly enough is the main "target" for those rules in the first place.

=> If - as you suggested yourself - a player really becomes as "obnoxious" to turn a situation into a contest of who is the better "rules lawyer" at my table he'll learn a rather simple lesson: Been there done that ... Whatever idea you come up with where you try to "win by mechanics" it's rather likely that I have come up with that idea on my own - in some cases right after the respective rule material was published - and I have the ability to pretty much "rules lawyer" you into oblivion. If a player insists on pushing such a fight I'll simply show him the door because no matter how "good" I am at things like that: I simply don't get enjoyment from it as part of a group interaction.

They might indeed have said "magical powers". Why they would do that, I don't know, since it's pretty obvious they're refering to critter powers. I don't recall to hear about reach, or damages, or movement multiplier as "powers". Given the number of time they use the word "power" alone to refer to magical powers, given the theme of the book, which are actual paranormal critters, given the huge number of alternative words they could have used to say that individual "raw powers" vary, the use of plural etc. it's a bit strange to think that it refers here to "raw power" in order just to unsay what they just said about attributes, reach, damage, movement modifier and the like…

Let's just say that I just proved you wrong in terms of "rules lawyering".

Shall we really understand that sentence to say "Individual attributes is bound between -50% and +50% of the average we give here, reach, movement modifier, damage never change, except that finally let's not care about it and just put the statistics you want" ? Hey GM, your player shouldn't be ready for this reaction 20 and body 20/20 dog that will kill them, so unleash it! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Luckily I didn't suggest anything like that at all either. So your attempt at being "funny" there with a combination of a false dilemma, a rhetorical question and some hyperbole was a wasted effort. Just as I suggested that you avoid going ad hominem I'd suggest that you refrain from further attempts like that. That's also a playing field where I have "been there done that".

[freudqo]

The Critter booklet is one of the cases where you see a larger number of such instances of words not being capitalized and the sentence you provided as "proof" is pretty obviously one of them.

Yeah, one of those cases, such as the BBB or MitS, where in most instances, adept powers are referred to as uncapitalized "power" or "powers" without anyone ever questioning the troll's reach. The capital is essentially used for powers when quoting individual powers such as attribute boost Power. Asking to shape change in a smaller individual with same reach would be playing by the rules. Ruling that reach diminishes in small individuals wouldn't.

The only thing that could prevent it would be a literal reading of the sentence "Use the critter statistics given on p. 19 of Critters", which is superseded by this one "Shapechange changes a voluntary target into a normal critter, chosen by the caster", and is probably just here to point out where to find typical critters stats in a different book. Is all. No lack of capitalization will ever be a valid argument to say that reach could be considered as a power.

Now, I don't care about what you think about metagaming, how you'd care about boring players, just in case. Thanks for the corrections on reach and immunity power, though. I'll leave you to your scanning of logical fallacies and stuff. Cheers.