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NightHaunter
Ok I may have missed it but, does the SR4 rulebook contain the rules for fighting spirits with the force of your personality to avoid, their immunity?

I know the rules from 3rd ed, and it is mentioned in 4th. But I can't find any official new rules for them.

Thanks for your book scouring in advance.
Signal
I can't either.

But I went over the rules for engaging spirits with "mundane" weaponry and I realized that spirits are a lot more vulnerable now. Once you find a weapon big enough to penetrate their hardened "spirit armor", they can be significantly damaged. Remember: Everyone now has to roll a target number of 5 or more in order to take less damage from a hit.

To further illustrate my point, imagine a Force 5 spirit: You need to have a weapon with a Damage Value of at least 10 or better to penetrate it or else it does no damage at all. And that's easy enough: A good toss of high-explosive grenade (10P damage -2AP) or even a shot from a Ruger Super Warhawk loaded with High Ex Explosive (8P damage -4AP, which reduces the spirit's armor to 6) ought to do the trick.
Edward
I didn’t think AP would apply, its not armour, its immunity to normal weapons.

Edward
Azralon
QUOTE (Signal @ Mar 30 2006, 10:49 AM)
To further illustrate my point, imagine a Force 5 spirit: You need to have a weapon with a Damage Value of at least 10 or better to penetrate it or else it does no damage at all.

Actually the weapon's base damage doesn't need to be a 10. The attack is harmless only if (base damage) + (net hits) is equal to or less than 10.

QUOTE (SR4 page 288 "Immunity")
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.

QUOTE (SR4 page 288 "Hardened 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.


The more accurate your shots are the higher the modified DV, and the more likely you are to punch through those same protections.... so you could theoretically damage a spirit with even a BB gun if you were skilled and/or lucky enough.

So while I can see the conceptual problems with APDS punching through spiritual protections, the literal wording suggests that it should work. I suppose one could chalk it up to a subtle "force of personality" attack, where the shooter is convinced that shooting something in the eye with APDS hurts it more and therefore it becomes mystically true.

In any event, that's the RAW.
Signal
QUOTE (Edward)
I didn’t think AP would apply, its not armour, its immunity to normal weapons.

Yes, but "immunity to normal weapons" is basically defined as "hardened armor" (see Azralon's quotes from the rulebook above).
Signal
QUOTE (Azralon @ Mar 30 2006, 11:25 AM)
Actually the weapon's base damage doesn't need to be a 10.  The attack is harmless only if (base damage) + (net hits) is equal to or less than 10.

I know. When I actually typed that out, I was in a hurry since I had to get to class. Also it was for the sake of simplicity. Thanks for setting the record straight, though. rotate.gif

I personally don't have a problem with spirits being more vulnerable these days. If I'm recalling the rules for spirits from previous editions correctly, the ones with even a decent Force rating were basically unkillable against anything short of an assault cannon. That means that you always needed a mage or adept in your crew to deal with spirits.

This caused me two problems as a GM: When the players had a conjurer and their opponents didn't have much in the way of magical protection, or when the NPCs had a conjurer and the Shadowrunners didn't have any mages. Conflicts became incredibly one-sided with almost no hope of the tables being turned. This new change balances things out, in my humble opinion. cyber.gif
Codethulhu
The awakened world, p. 184

QUOTE

                  ASTRAL COMBAT
Attack                              Damage
Magician                            Charisma / 2 (Round up)
Magician w/weapon focus    By weapon type
Spirit                                  Force / 2 (round up)
Watcher Spirit                    1


Is this the one we're looking for? Seems to me that if you engage it in astral combat, you still use your Cha to bypass their hardened armor
Azralon
Codethulhu (great name BTW), NightHaunter is apparently talking about a mundane's capacity to damage a spirit through its Immunity to Normal Weapons. In previous editions, a mundane could roll Charisma (without Combat Pool) to replace his/her melee skill when attacking a spirit.

With regards to engaging a spirit in astral combat: If you can legitimately enter astral combat, you have to be astrally active. If you're astrally active then you ignore the spirit's Immunity to Normal Weapons because you are in fact not using a "normal" weapon. smile.gif
Jaid
just get yourself a troll archer and spirits will never be a problem again.

forget about those silly toys you call "assault cannons" nyahnyah.gif
NightHaunter
QUOTE (Azralon)
Codethulhu (great name BTW), NightHaunter is apparently talking about a mundane's capacity to damage a spirit through its Immunity to Normal Weapons. In previous editions, a mundane could roll Charisma (without Combat Pool) to replace his/her melee skill when attacking a spirit.

With regards to engaging a spirit in astral combat: If you can legitimately enter astral combat, you have to be astrally active. If you're astrally active then you ignore the spirit's Immunity to Normal Weapons because you are in fact not using a "normal" weapon. smile.gif

Thanks for clariflying my point.
I'm only asking because it came up in my last session.
However the ork player thought about it for a second and decided he'ed be better off shooting it.
I'm assuming it has been "left out" of the 4th Ed rules at the moment then.

I'm looking at rolling willpower and charisma for the attack, with a base damge of zero (i.e. net successes only!).
Aaron
I don't have the rules right in front of me, but I recently did up the cheat sheet for astral combat, so I might actually have this right.

If you are astrally projecting, it's just like melee combat, only you use your astral Agilty (i.e. Logic) and your Astral Combat to make the attack. Your damage is based on your astral Strength (i.e. Charisma).

If you are astrally perceiving or dual-natured, you use your normal melee skill plus your Willpower. Again, the damage is based on your Charisma.

This Charisma-based damage, I imagine, would be the force-of-personality attack.

If you are not in astral space even a little bit, you're stuck attacking the spirit's "meat" body and its immunities.
NightHaunter
That was the call I made 2 sundays ago for simplicity.
But I was just curious as to whether I missed something or whether there were some house rules floating around.
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE
I'm assuming it has been "left out" of the 4th Ed rules at the moment then.

Are you telling me there is no more grounding either? silly.gif
Azralon
There is no explicit mention of grounding in SR4. Personally I'd prefer if it were left out completely.

However, one could seem to reasonably put together a case for its continued existence. Something along the lines of:

* Spells can affect only those targets on the same plane as the caster.
* Dual entities are considered to be on both planes at once.
* Physical spells cannot affect purely astral targets.

So if you were astral and cast Fireball on a dual target, your target could be affected (it's a Physical spell affecting a physically-active target and the target is astrally active at the same time you are).

At this point, things get vague. Fireball creates real physical flame; so its spread would logically engulf the area of the physical world around the dual target, right? That's the "grounding" effect that we all know and love/hate?

However, the RAW says that you can't affect a target that isn't on the same plane as you are. This seems to say that even though you've created physical flame, the flame won't affect anything in its radius that isn't also dual. The mundanes in the fireball effect will just stand around unharmed in the middle of this non-burning real fire, apparently?

So, yeah, there's some continued debate over the existence of grounding.
Apathy
QUOTE (Azralon @ Mar 31 2006, 02:53 PM)
There is no explicit mention of grounding in SR4.  Personally I'd prefer if it were left out completely.

However, one could seem to reasonably put together a case for its continued existence.  Something along the lines of:

*  Spells can affect only those targets on the same plane as the caster.
*  Dual entities are considered to be on both planes at once.
*  Physical spells cannot affect purely astral targets.

So if you were astral and cast Fireball on a dual target, your target could be affected (it's a Physical spell affecting a physically-active target and the target is astrally active at the same time you are).

At this point, things get vague.  Fireball creates real physical flame; so its spread would logically engulf the area of the physical world around the dual target, right?  That's the "grounding" effect that we all know and love/hate?

However, the RAW says that you can't affect a target that isn't on the same plane as you are.  This seems to say that even though you've created physical flame, the flame won't affect anything in its radius that isn't also dual.  The mundanes in the fireball effect will just stand around unharmed in the middle of this non-burning real fire, apparently?

So, yeah, there's some continued debate over the existence of grounding.

I thought that when casting on the astral plane at an astral target, you had to use a mana spell (not a physical one)? As a dual entity, it's on both planes at once, but you can only target the astral portion if your only in astral (i.e. projecting).
Azralon
QUOTE (Apathy @ Mar 31 2006, 04:06 PM)
As a dual entity, it's on both planes at once, but you can only target the astral portion if your only in astral (i.e. projecting).

That could be a good point; lemme go get my book out for a re-read.

Okay, it says:

QUOTE (SR4 p173)
A magician in the physical world can only cast spells on targets that are in the physical world. Similarly, a magician in astral space can only cast spells on targets that have an astral form (though the auras of things in the physical world can be seen, auras alone cannot be targeted). An astrally perceiving (or otherwise dual natured) magician can cast spells on a target in either the physical world or in astral space. An astral target can only be affected by mana spells—even if the magician is in the physical world astrally perceiving—as it has no physical presence.


Then there's the bit under the Astral Space section that mentions a dual being is considered to be active on both planes. So by extension a pure-astral caster can put the whammy on a dual target.

QUOTE (SR4 p195)
Only mana spells can affect astral forms. Either type of spell may be used in the physical world, but mana spells cannot affect non-living targets.


That's what we've got on that.
Apathy
QUOTE (Azralon @ Mar 31 2006, 03:12 PM)
QUOTE (Apathy @ Mar 31 2006, 04:06 PM)
As a dual entity, it's on both planes at once, but you can only target the astral portion if your only in astral (i.e. projecting).

That could be a good point; lemme go get my book out for a re-read.

Okay, it says:

QUOTE (SR4 p173)
A magician in the physical world can only cast spells on targets that are in the physical world. Similarly, a magician in astral space can only cast spells on targets that have an astral form (though the auras of things in the physical world can be seen, auras alone cannot be targeted). An astrally perceiving (or otherwise dual natured) magician can cast spells on a target in either the physical world or in astral space. An astral target can only be affected by mana spells—even if the magician is in the physical world astrally perceiving—as it has no physical presence.


Then there's the bit under the Astral Space section that mentions a dual being is considered to be active on both planes. So by extension a pure-astral caster can put the whammy on a dual target.

QUOTE (SR4 p195)
Only mana spells can affect astral forms. Either type of spell may be used in the physical world, but mana spells cannot affect non-living targets.


That's what we've got on that.

The way I read this, dual natured entities (i.e. manifest spirits) may be present on both planes, but are only targets (from the perspective of the mage) on the plane that they share with the caster. So, if I'm a projecting mage (i.e. astral only) then the spirit is only a valid target on the astral plane, even though it exists on both planes. Since it's an astral-only target, I should only be able to effect it with mana spells.

If on the other hand, I was there physically, and only astrally percieving for targeting purposes, then I could target it with either mana or physical spells.

Would you agree?

[edit]By extension, I'd also say that an astral (un-manifested) spirit could not perform any of its physical powers (like engulf) on a mage that was astrally percieving (and therefore dual natured) without mainfesting itself.
GrinderTheTroll
QUOTE (GrinderTheTroll)
QUOTE
I'm assuming it has been "left out" of the 4th Ed rules at the moment then.

Are you telling me there is no more grounding either? silly.gif

Sorry if my comment was misleading. It was my attempt at being a smart-ass.

SR3 removed grounding (SR1-2 mechanic) but was hard to spot since SR3 made no mention it had been removed in the new version.

Much like SR4, it is what it is. If it's not mentioned or implied in some way, it doesn't exist. I've learned to read new versions as "stand alone" instead of comparing old to new.

There is no grounding. wobble.gif
Azralon
QUOTE (GrinderTheTroll)
There is no grounding.

Yay!
hobgoblin
ouch, grounding. while a fun concept, it was not worth the effort most of the time (alltho it was a very effective way of limiting foci use)...

hmm, funny thing. i read over the text on spirit combat. and there is some fluff about "force of personality", but no real rules for it...
Apathy
QUOTE (hobgoblin @ Mar 31 2006, 03:58 PM)
ouch, grounding. while a fun concept, it was not worth the effort most of the time (alltho it was a very effective way of limiting foci use)...

hmm, funny thing. i read over the text on spirit combat. and there is some fluff about "force of personality", but no real rules for it...

the big impact of grounding in my SR2 games was the mage exploding (and taking out the whole team) whenever he tried to astrally percieve. eek.gif
fool
I may explode, but only my teammates die.
It's noce having a body of 11
Glyph
One of the loopholes in grounding (which was even mentioned in one of the magic books!) was that a mage could summon a very low-force spirit, go astral, zip over to where the targets were, have the spirit manifest, then use grounding to blast a spell through the spirit to affect the targets. Sure, you just blew up your spirit, but you also blasted everyone else - grounding made mundanes utterly defenseless against that tactic.
NightHaunter
Out of curiosity.
I am right in assuming that an astrally projecting magic user can manifest to affect things in the physical world, aren't I.
I will probably allow it any way, but it would be nice if it was cannon.
hobgoblin
they can manifest yes, but manifesting isnt the same as the materializing that a spirit can do.

when a astraly projecting magican manifests, only living beings can see and hear him. he is basicly a kind of ghost, with not ability to affect the physical world in any way...

i know the diffrence the hard way, i belived they where one and the same at one time...
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