hi hi

In a recent shadowrun game, there was a scene that involved combat against a mage and his elemental spirits. Everything was running smoothly until an air elemental got into combat with a roto-drone. This is when combat came to a screeching halt as we frantically tried to find appropriate rules that would govern the attack and defense.

For your consideration:

What happens when a drone moving 50 meters per turn is engulfed by an air spirit? Is there a crash test or is the pair considered moving relatively the same speed? How does a drone even attempt to break free of engulf, as most drones possess no strength attribute? Do the rotors on a roto-drone count as movement (albeit non-linear)?

What about larger vehicles with huge body numbers?

I'm sorry, but you just put a bag of holding into a portable hole. Everyone dies as the universe implodes.
(One of these days I'll see a D&D villain who's got a bag of holding suspended over a portable hole screaming, "I'm going to drop it! Don't come a step closer or I'll implode all of creation!")

"Air Engulf: Th e victim resists Stun as if from an inhalation-
vector toxin attack (see p. 244). Armor does not protect
against this attack, but other protective gear might (see the
Toxin Protection table, p. 245). If the victim passes out from
Stun damage, he will continue to take damage, with the Stun
damage overfl owing into Physical damage as normal."

Drones don't have stun.

Drones don't breathe.

Air Spirits have a walk/run flight speed of 15/75

Standard Roto Drones have a walk run of 10/25

Air Spirits also have Movement Power.

The Air spirit can easily keep up with the roto drone to employ it's Touch Engulf power. Not that Engulf will be much use. Direct attack or a an Optional Power of Elemental Aura would be more useful.

What would "Elemental Aura: Air" do?

As the Air spirit's elemental attack tends to be lightning, I'd figure the Aura would be electricity.

Or, on a lighter note, make it Elemental Aura: Methane, and have everyone near it start gagging on supernatural fart gas.

My mistake, AIr SPirits get Energy Aura, which would give +4 DV to melee attacks.

Elemental Effects are in Street Magic. P. 164

For Air, as options you could go with Blast, which does Physical Damage versus Impact. or Sound which does Stun versus no armor.

Now onto other answers.

Crash test? Probably no need when engulfed.

Breaking free, it's a Magic + Body versus Strength + Body. Drone has no explicit Strength Attribute. Oh no! Quit playing SR4... well, you can either choose simply roll Body, or I would assume Body + Body(Subsitituting for Strength.) An alternative I would look at would be Spirit magic + (SPirit Run/5) versus Drone Body + (Drone Run/5) but that's just my idea.

Not sure how rotors count as movement, but it does bring up the thought of what happens to the spirit with the rotors, and while you might think it would get hurt, you could also go with rotors covered with ectoplasm.

hi hi

Well, drones frequently substitute their own stats in place of regular player stats, like pilot in place of agility. I wasn't sure if I was missing something, but I guess not. I would think a vehicle with a more powerful engine would have an easier time getting away, but eh... *shrug*

As for damage, I thought the poison gas counted as a secondary effect in addition to physical damage. If that's not the case, then the drone might need to be retroactively less damaged. The book says it is a secondary effect, but it doesn't say how it is different from the primary effect.

Drones use Body in place of Strength for any appropriate tests (somewhere in Arsenal, I think)

The primary effect of Engulf is Damage & prevention of movement. The type of damage (Physical, Stun, Elemental, etc) is inappropriately included in the Secondary Effect section.


In other words, for the Air spirit engulfing the drone, the Opposed Test to break free would be Magic + Body vs. Body + Body. Until the drone breaks free, it cannot take movement actions, but does not simply jam up & fall. The Air spirit cannot damage a drone through Engulf, as drones do not suffer Stun damage (& even if they did, they are immune to Toxins).

When in doubt use their pilot rating for a stat. Air engulf (both the primary and secondary effects) would be useless against a drone. It is one of those times that Magic and Tech don't effect each other.

Page 102, under the header of Attacking with Mechanical Limbs.

EDIT: It should also be noted that if you take Elemental Aura (Electricity), all damage that spirit does with Elemental Aura active is stun damage, as Electricity damage is stun.

The Accident power would be so much more appropriate against Drones... forces a Crash Test with a negative modifer equal to the spirit's Magic (Force)...

And as we all know, Drones and Vehicles don't take Stun...

Take a peek at the secondary effects of electrical attacks on drones in the combat section. p. 163 SR4A or p. 154 SR4
Skip to the last paragraph in the electricity section.

Secondary Effects aside, They still DO NOT take stun damage... and generally, vehicles with a high enough body/armor don't tend to worry about the secondary effects...

So I stand by my previous posts... Accident is MUCH more useful as a spirit power against vehicles than is Elemantal or Energy Aura (Electricity), and with no need to roll any dice whatsoever on the spirit's part...

A crash test isn't necessarily a big deal for a drone either.

Anyway, this thread was spirit versus drones, and most drones are only body 3 or less. So a force 3 spirit on any successful touch attack will automatically create a situation of Drone Body + Armor versus Spirit Agility + Unarmed test. Which for an Air Spirit F3 is Agility 6 (F+3) + Unarmed 3 versus Body 3 Impact 2, or 9 versus 5 dice to see if the drone simply stops functioning for a minimum of two turns. Somewhat catastrophic for a rotodrone.

Obviously with larger vehicles and armors the scale changes the situation a bit, where for normal driving vehicles the Accident is probably more effective.

As with most cases there are many different options and you need to choose between them depending on the situation and style.

hi hi

Thanks for the help on the arsenal ruling, that clears stuff up quite a bit.

The stuff about secondary damage is still a little vague. It says the critter using engulf automatically inflicts a DV equal to its magic well before it says anything about secondary effects, which might lead some GMs to believe that that primary damage is just plain ol physical damage with no qualifiers.

What the elemental ended up doing eventually was flying straight towards the ground as fast as it could, then let go of the drone right before it hit. (thankfully the drone had armor mods and wasn't reduced to a pile of scrap)

Unlike Earth and Water engulf, Fire and Air engulf IMO does not "capture" the target. The spirit needs to follow the movement of the target to maintain the engulf power. So an Air elemental couldn't fly towards the ground and let go of the drone at the last second.

Engulf by itself doesn't have secondary elemental effects. Another power being used such as Energy Aura would need to be active.

Energy Aura is always on IIRC.

Drones, drones...

Body + Armor....

Highest value: 13 (Steel Lynx).
The roto-drone in question: 5.

So a roto-drone has 5 dice to get 3 hits. And even if it does it takes a -2 to all actions for 2 + Net Attack Hits rounds.

hi hi

I didn't see anything in the rules that states that fire and air elementals engulfing a target act any different. As far as I can see, the target is immobilized no matter what element it is.

For an extra ¥1800, the drone was modded with 9 armor (body x 3 max) so it wasn't completely helpless.

However, the same rotodrone with a Pilot of 3 and a Maneuver of 3 against the Air SPirit of Force 3 has only 3 dice to accumulate successes (dependant upon situation anywhere from 2-4 successes nedded) to avoid a catastrophic Crash... and they can not expend edge...

I am going to go with Accident... now a piloted drone may be a different case, but Drone vs. Spirit usually is a loss for the Drone in MOST CASES... there are always exceptions...