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emo samurai
How does it work in SR4? I didn't see anything for spirits having it in SR4. If they don't, then that really pisses me off.
Brahm
It is in there, just read all the power descriptions.

Post Script It pisses off a lot more people that it is still in there. cool.gif
Angelstandings
QUOTE (emo samurai)
How does it work in SR4? I didn't see anything for spirits having it in SR4. If they don't, then that really pisses me off.

Spirit immunity is hidden under the Materialization:


Materialization
Type: P • Action: Complex • Range: Self • Duration: Sustained
Certain astral critters are capable of projecting themselves
into the material world, thus allowing them to interact with
physical beings. When materialized, critters may aff ect physical
targets. Additionally, materialized critters gain Immunity
to Normal Weapons.


Which leads us too:

Immunity
Type: P • Action: Auto • Range: Self • Duration: Always
A critter with Immunity has an enhanced resistance to a
certain type of attack or affl iction. The critter gains an “Armor
rating” equal to twice its Magic against that damage. This
Immunity Armor is treated as “hardened” protection
(see
Hardened Armor above), meaning that if the Damage Value
does not exceed the Armor, then the attack automatically
does no damage.
Immunity to Age: Some beings possess immunity to aging.
Th ese beings neither age nor suff er the eff ects of aging.
Immunity to Normal Weapons: Th is immunity applies
to all weapons that are not magical (weapon foci, spells, adept
or critter powers). If the critter has the Allergy weakness, then
the Immunity does not apply against non-magical attacks
made using the allergen.


And finally:

Hardened Armor
Type: P • Action: Auto • Range: Self • Duration: Always
Hardened Armor is even tougher than normal armor.
If the modified Damage Value of an attack does not exceed
the Armor rating (modified by Armor Penetration), then it
bounces harmlessly off the critter; don’t even bother to make
a Damage Resistance Test. Otherwise, Hardened Armor provides
both Ballistic and Impact armor equal to its rating.

TinkerGnome
It's not too terribly bad. A predator with ExEx can damage a force 5 spirit easily.
Brahm
It gets ugly quickly after that though. You need a sniper rifle or Elephant gun loaded with APDS or ExEx, a Panther XXL, or rockets to get to a Force 7 spirit.
emo samurai
Cool. That means my mundane players are going to be completely useless against the force 12 toxic spirit that I'll throw at them.
Brahm
QUOTE (emo samurai @ Feb 1 2006, 05:29 PM)
Cool. That means my mundane players are going to be completely useless against the force 12 toxic spirit that I'll throw at them.

The awakened ones aren't going to be much more helpful either if you play that toxic spirit full out.
emo samurai
They'll be 500 BP, and the adept will have a force 10 dikoted katana weapon focus with maxed out skill with specialization and improved skill 6. He'll probaly slice the thing open with one cut.
Brahm
I see why people pointed you towards Rifts. That is crazy stuff.

EDIT By crazy I mean well out past canon crazy.
TinkerGnome
QUOTE (emo samurai)
Cool. That means my mundane players are going to be completely useless against the force 12 toxic spirit that I'll throw at them.

A good mage has a fair shot at banishing it, but other than that F12 is just beyond the pale as a fair challenge.
Brahm
QUOTE (TinkerGnome)
QUOTE (emo samurai @ Feb 1 2006, 06:29 PM)
Cool. That means my mundane players are going to be completely useless against the force 12 toxic spirit that I'll throw at them.

A good mage has a fair shot at banishing it, but other than that F12 is just beyond the pale as a fair challenge.

Surviving the banishing attempt could be difficult.
FrankTrollman
Actually, Force 12 will drop any magician impudent enough to try to banish it. DV on the attempt is 2 per hit the Toxic gets (and it's rolling 12 dice + Toxic Background and can add in Edge).

Immunity to Normal Weapons on a Toxic Spirit doesn't apply to weapon foci, mana bolts, or distilled water. So a character with a water cannon or a mana bolt is going to chew right through it. A massive weapon focus is actually going to bounce off, however, as it has a Reaction of 14 and an Unarmed Combat of 12 - that's 26 defense dice. Even a Force 6 Wepaon Focus can't land a punch against it.

-Frank
TinkerGnome
On average, you'd be having to deal with 8DV of drain. There's nothing that says it becomes physical at a certain point, so that's good. Unfortunately, it's only about 50/50 that it'll work at all and even then it's subject to the GM's interpretation of how you banish naturally manifesting spirits (assuming it is one).
Brahm
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
Immunity to Normal Weapons on a Toxic Spirit doesn't apply to weapon foci, mana bolts, or distilled water. So a character with a water cannon or a mana bolt is going to chew right through it. A massive weapon focus is actually going to bounce off, however, as it has a Reaction of 14 and an Unarmed Combat of 12 - that's 26 defense dice. Even a Force 6 Wepaon Focus can't land a punch against it.

Silly rabbit, rules are for kids. Apparently you missed his reference to a Force 10 Weapon Focus and 6 Improved Skill dice. Crazilicious! cool.gif
Brahm
QUOTE (TinkerGnome @ Feb 1 2006, 06:01 PM)
On average, you'd be having to deal with 8DV of drain.  There's nothing that says it becomes physical at a certain point, so that's good.  Unfortunately, it's only about 50/50 that it'll work at all and even then it's subject to the GM's interpretation of how you banish naturally manifesting spirits (assuming it is one).

You deal with an average, and that is only an average, drain of 8DV up until the spirit uses one of their twelve points of Edge. Then the mages head likely implodes.

But maybe not if the mage has 9 Edge, a Force 12 Power Focus, 5 Grades, and Centering. That could help tip the balance a bit.
stevebugge
Conversely that makes force 1-3 spirits fairly manageable for the average shadowrunner.

With conjuring materials having availability of Forcex2 and cost of Forcex1500 chances of seeing many Spirits of rating greater than 6 is probably low, considering that for Force 4 Conjuring materials one would need 8 hits on a Negotiation + Charisma Extended test with a 2 day interval, and then once the material becomes available it will cost 6000. For Force 5 it becomes 10 hits and 7500, and Force 6 12 and 9000. At rating 7 the Interval jumps to a week, because the final cost goes over 10000 (10500 in this case) and now needs 14 hits, meaning a Force 7 Spirit is a pretty serious investment. This is before all the difficulty in summoning and binding a Force 7.

So in short the likelihood of a Security mage being given a budget and Salary that allows for 10500 NuYen to be spent to acquire materials for a force 7 spirit, multiplied several times to ensure a successful conjuring, plus the cost of a summoning focus (force x 15k!) strong enough to give the mage a reasonable chance of success, at every corp facility is pretty low.
TinkerGnome
Well, I did say a good mage and a fair chance. With edge in the picture, it's probably something like a 1/3 or 1/4 chance of success for the mage (assuming he's throwing about 18 dice including edge). The adept isn't really much better off, though. That spirit has a minimum of 24 reaction dice to throw against his melee attacks (if not 36) and plenty of edge to use against him as well.
Azralon
QUOTE (emo samurai @ Feb 1 2006, 06:29 PM)
force 12 toxic spirit

I suspect that part is the actual issue. Even your 500 BP people that you've been talking about running for are going to have trouble with a "mere" Force 8.

And yes, while a 400 BP magician straight from chargen can theoretically toss out a Force 12 spirit, it's going to be really friggin' hard to pull off. This is why:

That spirit is rolling 12 dice against the magician's Magic + Conjuring to oppose the summoning. The magician needs to make at least one net hit over the spirit, or it won't even show up (drain still needs to be soaked even if it doesn't).

Since it's a Force 12 spirit, then the mage needs to have a Magic 6 (legal in chargen). To give them even odds against the spirit, they'll need to have Conjuring 6. To give them somewhat favorable odds, they'll want to Specialize in a particular spirit and/or maybe have mentor spirit bonuses.

At this point they'll be throwing 14 dice versus the spirit's 12 to summon. Doubtless you'll want them to use "bad guy Edge" to make sure the spirit shows up, maybe with an extra service or two.

Realize for a moment how many BPs you'll have had to spend on this summoner. Add in some relevant foci for extra expense. It's certainly possible to create this powerful one-trick pony, but you need to ask yourself if it's also desirable.

Note that the spirit will, on average, generate 4 hits on its roll to oppose its summoning. This means that on average it'll be offering 8P drain for the mage to soak on his/her Willpower + (Charisma if shaman, Logic if hermetic) soak roll. The summoner will almost certainly take a good chunk of that; probably about 5P, Edge notwithstanding.

So in order to summon up that bigass Force 12 toxic, your bad guy has effectively taken damage equivalent to a gunshot wound from a pistol. And that's after twinking him out and maybe spending some Edge too. He might want to reconsider his tactics if he's going to be doing that sort of thing often.

Something else to consider: What happens when that spirit rolls, say, 9 hits on its opposed roll during the summoning? It'll be tough for the summoner to match that with Magic + Conjuring, sure, so he might not even get a spirit to show up for his trouble.

But the nasty part is that he's going to have to soak 18P drain now. I'd hate to be a big bad archvillain trying to create a massive Weapon of Ultimate Doom just to have it blow up in my face before anyone else sees it.
FrankTrollman
QUOTE (stevebugge)
With conjuring materials having availability of Forcex2 and cost of Forcex1500 chances of seeing many Spirits of rating greater than 6 is probably low,

Conjuring Materials have a cost of 500 nuyen.gif x Rating, not 1500 times rating. The text is accurate, the original table in the equipment section has a typo.

But regardless, while you aren't going to see many bound spirits over Force 5, an unbound spirit is just as bad. You don't have to be very special to successfully summon an unbound Force 7 spirit.

-Frank
Brahm
QUOTE (TinkerGnome @ Feb 1 2006, 06:19 PM)
Well, I did say a good mage and a fair chance.  With edge in the picture, it's probably something like a 1/3 or 1/4 chance of success for the mage (assuming he's throwing about 18 dice including edge).  The adept isn't really much better off, though.  That spirit has a minimum of 24 reaction dice to throw against his melee attacks (if not 36) and plenty of edge to use against him as well.

The Adept he describes is going to have over 30 dice before Edge. Skill + Improved Skill + Specialization + Weapon Focus = 6+6+2+10=24 dice. Add to that probably a 7th Skill point, and then his Agility. Oh, and Reach too for the sword.
FrankTrollman
Improved Ability is actually capped at +3, so I assume he meant Blades of 6 and Improved Ability. We are looking at maybe 28 dice, including agility and reach.

Sure, that might get a hit (again, not if the spirit uses an Edge to avoid the lightsaber attack), but it won't kill it in one blow or anything.

-Frank
stevebugge
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
QUOTE (stevebugge @ Feb 1 2006, 06:16 PM)
With conjuring materials having availability of Forcex2 and cost of Forcex1500 chances of seeing many Spirits of rating greater than 6 is probably low,

Conjuring Materials have a cost of 500 nuyen.gif x Rating, not 1500 times rating. The text is accurate, the original table in the equipment section has a typo.

But regardless, while you aren't going to see many bound spirits over Force 5, an unbound spirit is just as bad. You don't have to be very special to successfully summon an unbound Force 7 spirit.

-Frank

Yeah that typo makes Force 7 sprits probably 67% more likely to occur wink.gif

Sounds like a weather forecast doesn't it?

Forecast for tonight's Shadowrun:

Maglocks, giving way to monitored cameras further in to the facility. Security Guards will be active and there is a 67% chance of Force 7 Spirits. We recommend you stay home.
Brahm
QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Feb 1 2006, 06:52 PM)
Improved Ability is actually capped at +3, so I assume he meant Blades of 6 and Improved Ability. We are looking at maybe 28 dice, including agility and reach.

Sure, that might get a hit (again, not if the spirit uses an Edge to avoid the lightsaber attack), but it won't kill it in one blow or anything.

-Frank

Silly rabbit. I'm pretty sure he ment Improved Ability 6, judging from the Force 10 focus.
emo samurai
This spirit will be in my Champion of Japanese Economic Superiority session. The Red Samurai in the group will sacrifice a large amount of blood to their group's mage in order to power the summoning; they'll be the only Red Samurai who've developed the metamagic and because of this will be set to guard their economic champion.
Taki
QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Feb 1 2006, 06:30 PM)
Conjuring Materials have a cost of 500 nuyen.gif x Rating, not 1500 times rating. The text is accurate, the original table in the equipment section has a typo.

From the errata v1.3 I read :

QUOTE
p. 340 Magical Supplies Table
Change “Conjuring Materials” to “Spirit Binding Materials” and change the Cost to Force x 500¥.


I thought it mean that conjuring didn't need any material (I don't find any trace of it in the conjuring rules, no trace of any price for it -given the errata) - and that binding only need material to be operated.

Am I wrong ?
Synner
Summoning doesn't require materials, Binding does.
stevebugge
QUOTE (Synner)
Summoning doesn't require materials, Binding does.

That certainly changes the economics of magic a bit.
Glyph
QUOTE (emo samurai)
They'll be 500 BP, and the adept will have a force 10 dikoted katana weapon focus with maxed out skill with specialization and improved skill 6. He'll probaly slice the thing open with one cut.

Not really. A Force: 12 spirit will usually have a Reaction of 14 or better, and also has the Dodge skill at a rating equal to Force (if you look at the spirits, you will see that they all have this skill). So that's 26 dice to roll versus the adept's 25 dice (assuming 7 skill + 2 specialization + 6 Improved Ability + 10 from the weapon Focus), just to see if the adept even hits it at all. After that, the spirit has a Body of 12 or so to roll to resist any remaining damage, and the spirit will also have an Edge of 12, which is enough that it can spend Edge points fairly indescriminately. Force 12 is bad news all around.
emo samurai
Gorammit.
Brahm
QUOTE (Glyph @ Feb 3 2006, 02:03 AM)
QUOTE (emo samurai)
They'll be 500 BP, and the adept will have a force 10 dikoted katana weapon focus with maxed out skill with specialization and improved skill 6. He'll probaly slice the thing open with one cut.

Not really. A Force: 12 spirit will usually have a Reaction of 14 or better, and also has the Dodge skill at a rating equal to Force (if you look at the spirits, you will see that they all have this skill). So that's 26 dice to roll versus the adept's 25 dice (assuming 7 skill + 2 specialization + 6 Improved Ability + 10 from the weapon Focus), just to see if the adept even hits it at all. After that, the spirit has a Body of 12 or so to roll to resist any remaining damage, and the spirit will also have an Edge of 12, which is enough that it can spend Edge points fairly indescriminately. Force 12 is bad news all around.

See my earlier post. You missed Agility from the adepts dice pool. Betting dice to donuts a combat specialized adept is going to have a better than average Agility.

It is still going to be horse race if the Spirit manages to get the first attack in on the adept, which will be situational dependant, and if the GM plays the spirit as highly agressive and uses Edge liberally.
Glyph
Yeah, you're right. An adept like that (which would break the erratta and char-gen Availability rules, but this is a higher-than-normal-powered campaign) would have an edge in dice for attacking and defending, while the spirit would have better Body, higher initiative, and more Edge.

That assumes the spirit will go toe to toe with the adept, though, instead of using its powers and the ability to shift in and out of astral space to its advantage.

The biggest problem with high Force spirits, from a GMing perspective, is that they can make the mundane characters feel totally useless.
emo samurai
Well, one of the players will have a rocket launcher, and the other players will be a shaman, a mage, a troll with the aforementioned rocked launcher, a technomancer, and a sniper/military rigger. The troll with the rocket launcher could take pot shots at the spirit, the mages could just powerball it to death, and the sniper/military rigger will probably use a tank's cannon or a chopper's missiles. The technomancer will be in VR 90% of the time, so she won't give a damn. Besides, the players will be fighting Red Samurai and power-fisting drone power armors, so they'll be busy if they screw up.
Critias
I really, really, don't understand why you're trying to call your game "Shadowrun," and run it with this system.
emo samurai
Because I like the whole setting. It's very detailed and semi-plausible.
Critias
So use the setting, but run it with something else.

Emo, there are very experienced Shadowrun players who are trying and trying to explain to you that the system just doesn't work at the power level you're trying to crank it up towards. The game isn't meant to be played that way, the rules aren't geared towards supporting it. It's not a superhero game. The basic mechanic is aimed at a fairly gritty, street level game.

We're trying to tell you this because we think you'll have more fun, and your players will have more fun, using some other system. Use the setting all you want. But the mechanic just probably isn't gonna work for you very well.
DireRadiant
Maybe it's a plot for the latest Karl Kombat Mage movie.
emo samurai
Should I use a different system because of the lethality inherent in it that doesn't mesh well with huge imbalances of power?
TinkerGnome
I love Karl Kombat Mage. I wish someone would do some episodes in Flash or the like. That'd be incredibly cool.

Is it still around in 2070 as anything other than reruns, I wonder?
emo samurai
What's Karl Kombat Mage?
Brahm
QUOTE (emo samurai)
Should I use a different system because of the lethality inherent in it that doesn't mesh well with huge imbalances of power?

Screwdrivers make lousy hammers. The right tool for the right job.

Lethality is part of it. As you ramp up the power level it becomes more and more so that the first attack is the last attack. This is good in SR usually because it discourages turtle characters that bring down the rain of destruction on the PCs around them. But if your whole game moves upscale? It comes down to who shoots first.

But it isn't just that.
FrankTrollman
QUOTE (emo samurai)
Should I use a different system because of the lethality inherent in it that doesn't mesh well with huge imbalances of power?

I actually disagree that the game doesn't work at the level you're cranking it up to. But what it does do is work pretty differently from the way it normally does. That means a lot of advice you'd get about how things work won't be appropriate.

Shadowrun is a game that is trapped in a future/modern setting with an advanced (if crumbling) social infrastructure. That means that if someone gets up and takes on society head-on like an anime character, they will die. For all practical purposes, society as a whole has unlimited firepower. They can hire security guards faster than you can kill them. They have Thor Shots and nuclear bombs.

Traditionally characters in Shadowrun respond by putting force at a point, running away, and hiding a lot. It's like King Kong, as long as you keep to the jungle and the fringes you can fight the man all you want - you're an 8 meter ape for goodness sake. But if you take it to the empire state building, you'll get cut down. And that equation doesn't change much if you're a 4 meter ape or a 20 meter ape (though of course, the size of the dinosaurs you can beat up in the jungle will change).

So in Shadowrun, ramping up power past a certain point is actually kind of pointless. The characters still won't be able to fight Imperial Japan in open battle, but they'll be able to defeat just about anything in personal combat. To a very real degree adding more power makes the game feel more limited, as the number of meaningful threats goes down. Smaller things (like angry drunken gang bangers) lose meaning and the really big things (like corps and nations) remain out of reach.

You can do it. You can even make the game work (with careful tweaking). But ultimately there aren't any CR 14 monsters in Shadowrun to fight. This isn't D&D where there are monster books filled with stuff to populate the next dungeon level with. This is more like the real world, where the power of an average civillian is barely noticeable, but the power of India is a billion times that and defeating it is actually unthinkable for an individual.

-Frank
Ophis
QUOTE (TinkerGnome)
I love Karl Kombat Mage. I wish someone would do some episodes in Flash or the like. That'd be incredibly cool.

Is it still around in 2070 as anything other than reruns, I wonder?

There is a Kombat Mage TNG (the next generation I guess) mentioned as popularising one of the SMGs.
Karl lives on, sort of.
TinkerGnome
QUOTE (emo samurai)
What's Karl Kombat Mage?

What's Karl Kombatmage? Simply the best movie of '63 and one of the best trid series of the '50s (well, provided you understand German or can get ahold of a translated bootlet). Geeze, chummer, I thought everyone knew that.
stevebugge
QUOTE (emo samurai @ Feb 3 2006, 09:46 AM)
What's Karl Kombat Mage?

It is/was a popular Trid Show referenced (usually in derisive fashion) to address what the average citizen knows about magic or combat or shadowrunners. In SR2 source books heavy on shadowtalk and where the writing style was usually presented in a more in character format references to 2050's pop culture were fairly frequent.
TinkerGnome
It also appears in advertisements in SOTA: 2063 and the SSG.

I believe I once played a mage who got most of his knowledge of magic from watching Karl. Lotta fun, that.
Angelstandings
Well, here's my take on emo's version of shadowrun:

I started playing Shadowrun back in 1993 as a sophomore in highschool.

Atleast, we thought we were playing Shadowrun. By that I mean if you're able to buy unlimited essence with Karma, and had unlimited resources for gear, then we were playing Shadowrun.

So I guess we weren't playing Shadowrun at all, huh? The games sure as hell weren't street level. We were basically shock troops... the game was all about combat.

But, we sure had a lot of fun. And when we called each other up to play this game, did we say, "Hey, want to come over and play MunckinRun?" No... we called it Shadowrun.

It's only as we got older that we appreciated the toned down, street level games. I don't know why, but realism became much more important as we matured. Some of us became rules lawyers, while others cared more about the intent behind the words. But everyone cares about balance, now. In the above example, if something was obviously overpowered we wouldn't cringe at it... instead we'd say: "That's awsome! I want two!" When now it gets hit with the nerf stick mighty quickly.

So... Emo... more power to you... play it however you want as long as your players come back for more. Make shadowrun into a drinking game where if you spend edge or get hit you take a shot, or where the PCs team has a pet cybered great dragon -- whatever makes it fun for you.

Just keep in mind that everyone else isn't playing the same game you are. wink.gif
Churl Beck
No reason to discourage emo from playing SR. On the other hand, it is at least ironic that he says he likes the setting, but then he mutates it beyond recognition. upsidedown.gif
Brahm
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
You can do it. You can even make the game work (with careful tweaking).

Possible. But his chances of having the game work are a lot higher if plays the game a bit closer to the power level that it was intended to be. But work is a subjective thing.

Maybe he just needs to get the munchkin phase out of his system. A lot of gamers go through that, and many even have a total blast doing it. A few even like to stay there. The former you can play in SR fine, but don't expect too much useful help from DSF. Because the help you'll get isn't what you are looking for. If you are the later I'd feel it would be a diservice for me to not recommend you check out something that better fits that power level.
Azralon
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
I actually disagree that the game doesn't work at the level you're cranking it up to. But what it does do is work pretty differently from the way it normally does. That means a lot of advice you'd get about how things work won't be appropriate.

I found Frank's lengthy post to be wonderfully insightful. The King Kong metaphor in particular was nice.

My one criticism/confusion comes from another thread, where it was stated:

QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
I personally think this is a bad idea, but only because the closer you push SR4 (or any edition of Shadowrun) to epic, the less well it functions.


For the record, I agree with the idea that the closer to "epic" SR gets, the more the standard dynamic breaks down. Why work for Johnsons when you would get rich quicker robbing banks? Why work at all when you could all be uber-Facemen and make millions buying & selling commodities?

Shadowrunners typically "need" that lean, hungry-wolf edge to give them motivation to operate on street level. The streets are a target-rich environment, but not a financially-rich one. Once you start weekly Lofwyr raids then you should probably retire the characters and chargen up a different batch of newbies.
emo samurai
It'll still be an extraction run; it'll just involve crazy good toxic spirits and mobile power fisters if they screw up. Each one could take on two or three Red Samurai; the party as a whole could not take on 50. I'm balancing the run to be more Ocean's 11 than Warhammer 40k, contrary to much of the fear I'm picking up.
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