Tell me why it is not legal or possible.

This is a cop-out. Use the RAW to show me why this is not legal/possible. Just because it hasn't been done doesn't mean it can't be.

because

and

note that they can manifest, but not *materialize*

as they have no materialize power, you cannot replace that power with the possession power. therefore, watcher spirits cannot (in SR4) possess a bullet.

that being said, i'd let you do it with a regular spirit. it's a terrible deal though: you can either have the spirit possess the bullet (a service) and be shot at the enemy (effectively engaging in a single instance of astral combat), dealing damage once... or you can have the spirit attack the enemy until one of them dies or is disrupted. not a very hard choice, is it?

Without this optional rule, you can still do it with 'normal' summoned spirits - as you pointed out, and it can actually be a very effective use of a low Force Spirit. A Force 1 Spirit that can possess an arrow or shotgun shell can provide a very effective way for mundanes to engage Spirits.

That might be best against an astral target, but against a dual natured target - such as a materialized Spirit - you're just going to use the bullet's DV and enjoy the fact that you can safely ignore the Immunity to Normal Weapons.

Also, look at this.

Anything that can damage an astral form - in this case the effect of a 'critter power' - certainly would be considered magical.

That is not entirely correct, and is quite misleading in this case.

If the attacker is astral then they need Astral Combat, but a physical attacker - including a dual natured attacker - can and does still use standard attack Attribute + Skill combinations (Agility + Longarms in the case of a Spirit-possessed shotgun slug). This is also how an attack with a Weapon Foci is resolved if a physical attacker is fighting a Spirit, or how a dual natured creature fights with its natural weapons.

That is one of the listed options, but they also give another - presumably to be used in situations where the object is already given a DV. Like I said, I'd be all for an astral target ony taking F/2, but a manifest Spirit would be hit by the bullet and take the weapon's DV while the 'magic' of the bullet (Magic = Force) would knock down the Immunity to Normal Weapons and allow the bullet a real chance to inflict harm upon the Spirit.

And hitting something upside the head isn't a critter power. It won't bypass immunity to normal weapons any more than a physical punch from an astrally perceiving mage would.

OK, let's get technical. Natural Weapon quite clearly is a critter power. As a critter power, it is listed as ignoring Immunity to Natural Weapons. Guardian and Beast Spirits can gain Natural Weapon and Possession of objects still allows full use of all powers. Now if you 'fastball special' that possessed object it should retain the ability to be a magic weapon.

So, most mages aren't going to be able to provide even a full clip of these, assuming the GM allows it. It's a neat trick, but if the gun is firing bursts or FA, you're going to run out of such spirits awfully quickly.

Let's back up a moment here and check our sanity.

A manifest spirit cannot be attacked physically, at all, and does not possess Immunity to Normal Weapons (p.184, SR4). A materialized spirit can be attacked physically and does possess Immunity to Normal Weapons (p.289, SR4).

Now let me take a moment to explain why dual-natured bullets wouldn't work.

Possessed object vessels can be used to attack astral forms-and here they have an advantage over, say, a dagger enchanted as a power focus which cannot be used this way-following the rules for Astral Combat. A bullet, however, is not a weapon: it is ammunition. To use a bullet as a weapon you'd have to go up and hit the astral form with it.

Even if you are astrally perceiving, you can't hit purely astral targets with your dual-natured bullets, because astral combat uses the Astral Combat Skill and using firearms requires the requisite Combat Active Skill (Automatics, Exotic Ranged Weapon, Heavy weapons, Longarms, or Pistols). You could hit a dual-natured critter or materialized spirit with it, but the bullet would not bypass the Immunity to Normal Weapons because you would be attacking the spirit or critter solely on the physical plane (the only plane you could use your Combat Active Skill).

To illustrate this point, let us assume an adept and a materialized spirit are in combat. The adept, who is astrally perceiving, can choose to attack the spirit five ways: a straightforward physical attack (which does not bypass the spirit's Immunity to Normal Weapons) using a Combat Active Skill, a physical Attack of Will (p.94, SM, which does bypass Immunity to Normal Weapons) using a Combat Active Skill, a straightforward Astral Combat attack (bypass by going through the Astral) using the Astral Combat Skill, an astral Attack of Will (bypassing by going through the Astral /and/ being an Attack of Will), and a straightforward physical attack using a weapon focus, killing hands, or another adept power (bypass).

It should be evident that the adept must choose how to attack the spirit, and the way he attacks determines whether or not he bypasses the Immunity to Normal Weapons. An unarmed, dual-natured adept could only bypass damage reduction by attacking through the Astral. As stated previously, you cannot use firearms in astral combat, so dual-natured bullets are, to all intents and purposes, only as useful as regular ammunition, because you can only attack with them at range on the physical.

This is why it's best used with shotguns, sniper rifles, and bows.

OK.

Oops. You're right. I said manifested when I should have said materialized. My intention should have been obvious.

OK.

OK.

A bullet is still an object, and it is an object imparted with a DV when it is fired. No where is it written that an object possessed must be used as a melee weapoin/attack.

There could be an argument here, but I'm not really interested in affecting astral targets so much as dual natured targets, so I'm going to skip this for now.

Wrong. You attack with the object. The object is dual natured. It will ignore the Immunity just as ranged Natural Weapons would (yeah, look it up Natural Weapons can be ranged and would ignore ItNW as well).

Using this reasoning, the bullet should still be capable of doing Force/2 (round up) since that is one of its options - the one that seems most 'astral' of the two given. However, it could also be ruled that Possessed items fall into the smae category as Natural Weapons, Weapon Foci, and Killing Hands - allowing full weapon damage against such targets and bypassing their ItNW. The section on Possession with items is not well defined, but such a ruling is certaily possible.

Ahem, Killing Hands without using Astral Combat? Argument that Possessed objects can act in a similar manner...

Again, the RAW is not really specific on this. It could be ruled either way. My approach is no less valid than yours.

Wouldn't that be 1?

It /is/ however, specifically stated that no known ranged weapon works in astral combat.

Incorrect. If an unarmed but dual-natured critter attacks another dual-natured critter, it has to decide to attack on either the astral or the physical, and the nature of the choice can decide whether the attack is magical or not.

Aside from the fact that you completely ignored the example-I don't even know why you quoted it-as stated, you would need to attack a subject astrally with the bullet, which you cannot do because the astral combat rules don't allow you to use firearms on the Astral.

The given example was for subject /not/ using Killing Hands or the equivalent, because an unarmed dual-natured metahuman is the closest canon example to a dual-natured non-weapon focus weapon.

Except that the rules very specifically state no known ranged weapon-which would include firearms-can be used in astral combat.

You very clearly noted that a possessed object does not follow the usual rules for a dual natured object (you used the power focus in the form of a dagger). I would say that your equating it back to a 'normal' dual nature is an error on your part.

This is not necessary with either Killing Hands, Weapon Foci, or Natural Weapons. I contend that an attack with a possessed object falls into the same ruleset as those attack forms.

I'll make this plain. It isn't astral combat. It's normal combat with a weapon that is effectively magical - much like Killing Hands, Weapon Foci, and Natural Weapons.

As above - this is not astral combat it is a way to bypass Immunityto Normal Weapons.

Besides that, the key word is 'known'. Your line of thinking comes from SR4's BBB - which has been supplimented by Street Magic. Street Magic allows some strange shit that you couldn't do before it came out. Such techniqes were not 'known' at the time.

Of course, a critter can have Natual Weapons as a ranged attack (using the Exotic Ranged Weapon skill), and as a critter power it will ignore ItNW. It's quite possible that other ways to create such oddities - including my 'magic bullet' plan - can likewise bypass ItNW.

With a watcher it might be damged, but with more powerful spirits, your bullet is going to be very difficult to damage (add the Force to it's 'Body' or whatever it uses to resist damage + ItNW).

As for the 'screw the player' bit. Well, to each their own style. I woudn't do it like that, and my players would probably thank me for not being a dick.

Thank you. I would argue that the Spirit is incapable of movement when in possession of an object. As a bullet, it is being directed by the skill of the shooter.

BTW, while I will be allowing this as a possibility in my game, I will not be using the optional rule that grants Possession to Watchers. This means that it will have to be done with full-on summoned Spirits, so the payoff is considerable lessened.

So, let's accept for the moment that this is rules-lawyering. If that's the case, it really doesn't matter what other GMs have to say here. It only matters how you want to handle it in your home campaign.

If that's the case, then the next question is -- does it fit the fluff of the game world?

Grabbing SM, these are the listed Possession traditions:
Qabbalism, Witchcraft, and Voodoo.

Then, you need to look and see if it's appropriate for any of these traditions to do this. Case by case:

A Qabbalist? Absolutely not. They use golems, and they're not exactly into modern innovations. This would be completely out of character.

Witches? No, they're into the natural world. They, again, are focused on traditional mechanisms of magic. Possessing a bullet would be completely out of character for them.

Voudoun? If it's not a body, they're really not likely to possess it.

So, where's that leave it? Well, it doesn't seem to fit the game world and if it fit's the rules it's only through extensive rules lawyering.

Sounds to me like it's something you're welcome to do in your own campaign, but not something you should expect a lot of people to be accepting as a legitimate or appropriate game mechanic.

True. But now the mundane can sport a trusty one-shot provided by his buddy. Just place the (non-Watcher) bound Spirit on Remote Service and give it orders to destroy whatever it is fired against by leaving it's object after it is used. You could have it reenter the object afte the battle if you have sufficient services.

An enchanted bullet of the type you describe is not a weapon focus, nor a spell, nor an adept power, nor is it a critter power. It is a magical good that is subject to the Possession power of the spirit, but that power is applied to the object and not the entity with Immunity to Normal Weapons.

You're trying hard to make something that almost works, but it doesn't quite. Not without twisting the rules.

Your stereotyping of the traditions mentioned shows short-sightedness, but it's really quite pointless since you can freely create your own traditions - including Possession traditions - and it wouldn't be hard to make a Chaos Magic variant that possesses technological items with spirits rather than using Materializing Spirits.

That's right. Now you're catching on.

ItNW was written before Possession existed. I argue that possessed objects should be added to that list. This would not be the first time that something new has forced a revision of soething that came before.

Also, I contend that it's not my argumet that's obtuse, just you. Look for possibilities, not just ways to say 'no' to everything.

O, I'll give it a try from my viewpoint.

I have it use Unarmed Combat. It sounds as though AH would have it use Astral Combat.

I say yes.

It uses its physical attributes to try and break the barrier. I would say that it also uses any applicable skill, such as Unarmed Combat.

Ward is solid to them both.

Agreed, but most of these seem intuitive to me. I'm pretty comfortable with the magic rules (not so good with the matrix/technomancer rules) and even with pushing/modifying them.