I have a rule that my group uses that I think works. I'm not sure if there is anything written about this already. I wondered what people thought about it.
Basically AP for guns is based on techniques to penetrate the weave of armor or reduce it's ability to resist it or whatever. I was thinking that these would have no relevence for magic armor or barriers. They are more like force fields and only the force of the bullet should matter.
Therefore we ruled that AP doesn't factor in for magic BUT the rating of a weapon foci DOES count as AP against magic barriers. This way it makes mageblades all that much more useful.

magic being so largely based on belief, i assume the fact that everyone knows AP bullets penetrate armor has an effect on the magic, allowing the bullet to penetrate magical armor.

also, many descriptions of magical armor seem to indicate that they have some sort of physical presence. there is no reason this physical presence cannot react the same way as normal physical objects would with respect to armor penetrating attacks.

I know that the APDS rounds in my drone's sniper rifle made very short work of some insect spirits.

I wouldn't go with that personally, especially if you start getting mages that start racking on a few initiation grades and get higher magic. You get a mage PC with Force 10 armor, you'll want to rethink that AP penetration. The PC's will probably be thinking the same thing as soon as they run in to an opponent with Froce 10 armor and a sustaining focus.

That, and as Aaron alluded to indirectly this seems to make mundane weapons even more impotent vs. spirits.

Well mundane weapons are mostly useless for attacking spirits. That's why you need a mage on your team in the first place.

I think that if you pay for it then you should get it. Let the mages shine in their field. If you feel the need to keep your mage from getting too powerful then limit their access to powerful artificers and talismongers. I personally think that most would only be making force 3 or 4 items. The other thing that you could do is to limit the Magic just like any other attribute to 1.5 x racial max. Then use the optional rule of allowing Metamagic techniques be bought out of initiation once you have access to them from the first initiation.

The damage would still apply as normal. The problem I have about the AP and belief is that the mage doesn't know it's AP. If you want to get too much into the belief issue then you would have to include some sort of social mechanic where you could convince the magic user of something and therefore limit his magic. This just screws the magic users.

I think that the fact the armor spell only gives you the protection equal to the number of hits and is limited by the force means that a Force 10 Armor spell is likely not to actually be 10 pts of protection. This also means that they are taking a sustaining penalty. And it is easy to throw a flash bang and make the mage test for concentration. I increase the threshold on that test depending on whats going on. The other thing that is easy to do to mages is throw in smoke grenades - no LOS.

The major reason I wanted the weapon foci to work as AP was for the feel of the setting. I like the idea of magic users running around with swords. It makes it more fun to me.

Of course I also limit the number of foci a character uses by having them take +1 drain for every Magic rating in combined foci ratings they have to every spell they cast. They are just pulling too much extra mana.

it's not wether or not the mage knows it, or even the spirit. it's the simple fact that everyone (or at least, everyone who knows about armor piercing bullets) knows, by definition, that they pierce armor. the fact that so many people believe in their ability to pierce armor is going to overwhelm any beliefs the magician or spirit might have, because this isn't a local belief i'm talking about.

Despite everything, I like why you want to do it. I think it might end up being a problem, and weapon foci really are their own incentive. I say give it a shot , and see what you think. Maybe you'll decide that you like it for your game. It can be unbalancing, but hey, not everything is fair, right? I just think it'll have a bad effect on the mundane characters.

Yes but the mage using the armor spell doesn't know that you are packing AP ammo. That's what I'm trying to point out. He can't tell.

And no where I've seen does it say that your belief about a spell changes the spell. This is not Mage the Ascension. It is not a belief based game.

Armor is a physical manipulation that is stopping a physical object. It is described as a 'glowing field of magical energy'. You are not opposing it with your will so your beliefs could never have anything to do with it. (Maybe the bullet's beliefs maight come into play).

What I'm saying is that the AP is not magical. It is a trick of physics that when you shape a bullet this way with these materials then it will go through this other material easier. None of that applies to a force field like effect of an armor spell.

Now if you want to bring belief into then have a mage that created his own version of armor (maybe with some other special effect) but HE believes that AP would penetrate better because he thinks that way so THAT armor spell doesn't ignore AP.

I can see it your way as well. My group is actually using a different damage table that is divided by caliber so some of the rounds, especially rifle rounds do more then the book values. Actually they have alot more AP then the book most of the time. But the reason that there is a difference between penetration and damage is because they are two different factors. YES high velocity can increase the damage AND the penetration but it is already a part of the damage. Damage is the physical hit and penetration is what allows that physical hit to get past the armor in this system. Penetration doesn't add to the damage after the armor. If you have no armor then it doesn't apply at all. Therefore they are saying that the actual damage of the bullet is ONLY the damage. This means that if for some reason the AP was ignored it would only have damage. My view of force fields, which is how I understand the Armor spell, would ALWAYS ignore AP no matter what gaming system I am using. It would take an energy weapon (or in this case a magical weapon) to have any sort of AP.

Now in 3rd ed Immunity to normal weapons also ignored AP. I'm just bringing that forward.

Personally I like the magical AP part. I wouldn't allow too high a focus in my game anyway so it doesn't cause a problem. It only works against a magical barrier and not necessarily against a ward so it would only effect the mages against each other. I want to encourage mage against mage combat and discourage the automatic shoot the mage first syndrome. I guess one way of dealing with it is just have someone publish a version of armor that ignores AP. Maybe it raises the drain code by +1 but it would probably replace the standard version. In my opinion somebody eventually would.

My point was only about barrier type spells - not spirits. Personally I could see adding the hardening effect to armor spell as well. You would get a nice Neo type effect there too.

A house rule that I use is that even mundanes can attack spirits as long as they are using a melee weapon that they have had for a while (enough to get their energy on it). They roll willpower + weapon skill. In this case the spirit only has their essence in hardened armor not twice. The weapon's damage is based on will as well. It would be hard for them to attack a materialized spirit but not impossible this way. It only count for weapons that you are holding so no ranged weapons or thrown weapons.

Belief is unimportant in this matter. The armor spell creates a physical barrier which does obey certain physical laws. It can only take so much pressure before it fails, just normal armor.


Now, if we were dealing with a magical teflon coating that makes the bullet slip between kevlar fibers, that would be another story. It reasonably wouldn't hepd against an armor spell. The fact that magical teflon coating don't exist in SR or the real world makes that moo, like a cow's opinion.

The problem here is, that AP and DV both are based on varying aspects of a weapon.

A katana has a good DV because it has a sharp edge; a club does not get the same DV. Sharpness would have no meaning, though, since only the power of the blow would be important, not how sharp the weapon is. Monowhips are even more extreme.

Basically, if you want to go that way, you would have to give all weapons two damage values.

Bye
Thanee

Two damage values? Well I guess they already do - damage and penetration. (There are days when I miss the power part of damage codes in SR)

Garrowolf, I believe, is assuming that armor is a uniform field that applies force to objects moving perpendicular to the field. Rather than exerting a normal force against the projectile as a solid object would it exerts constant force as teh projectile move through the field, not unlike the force exerted on an electric charge as it moves though a magnetic field, or that two magnetic oles exert on one another. In this model the mass and velocity of the projectile would matter but the impact pressure would not because there would be no impact.

Of course, in this model a fist should pierce magical barriers far more easily than a bullet would.

Hmm, makes me thing of the forcefield/shields used in Dune, where they would stop high velocity attacks, but would allow gracefully slow knife attacks thru.

APDS worked perfectly on Immunity to normal weapons in 3rd. It was hollow points, explosives, flechettes, and autofire that didn't work so well. Imminity to normal weapons ignored modifications to the power of the atack but APDS did not modify the power, it modified the armor value of the target.
And the things that Immunity to Normal Weapons ignored were also ignored by Hardened armor.

And, of could, one should point out that Imunity to Normal WEapons is not the same as armor or a physical barrier.