I'm glad others saw the rules the same way I did. If Frank hadn't said the other interpretation was how the authors actually intended it since the beginning, I would never have believed it. After playing SR4 for 4 months now, I shouldn't be shocked at poor craftsmanship, but this takes the cake.

Not all Armor stacks. I believe that in each instance where Armor does stack, it is specifically mentioned as doing so.

Cyberlimb armor doesn't say it stacks, but Synner insists that it not only stacks with body armor, but it also stacks with itself. 2 cyberlimbs each with 3 armor gives you +6 armor over and above what your armor jacket gives you.

I'm glad you agree with me that you were wrong about no armor stacks unless specifically saying so.

"Cleared up rather quickly by Synner" -- ROFL. How many YEARS has it been since the book was published and the errata still doesn't list that clarification?

That's my actual name.

And on AP: The game does not distinguish between weaponry which has higher AP because it is "sharper" or "denser", or "faster" or just "hitting harder". Weapon AP is built into the weapon damage codes and is a game balance concern more than a "realism" concern. In the world of Shadowrun, there have been spirits running around in plain view for nearly 60 years - that's as long as the AK-47 has been around. Does it strike as in any way weird that whatever it is that 21st century weaponsmiths do takes spiritual defenses into account?

Various editions have tried various restrictions on what did and did not have an effect when you put ammunition into your gun. In first edition you didn't change weapon power, but you did change staging so everyone used Explosive ammo. In 2nd edition you didn't change power but you did change damage code so you used Flechette. In 3rd edition you were basically looking at the target dropping your power down to about 2 anyway, so you were mostly concerned about getting lots of hits (thus meaning that you actually used tracers, oddly enough). And now in 4th edition you apply all the mods and the primary concern is the Armor, so you use APDS. None of these is really "bad design", but based on the huge power-up that ItNW got in 4th edition it would be a bad idea from a game balance standpoint to push people back to using Explosives or Flechettes like in previous editions.

As for combining Hardened and normal Armor: At no time do armors reduce incoming power. They give you extra damage resistance dice. If you have 8 points of Hardened Armor and 8 points of regular armor and are hit by a 9P attack, then the Hardened armor does not completely stop the attack, and the regular Armor does not downgrade the attack from lethal to stun. But both give you +8 dice to your damage resistance test, which is a lot. Also, AP applies towards each set of Armor/Hardened Armor separately as per the rules, reducing both the DV that they have a special effect against and the amount of bonus damage resistance dice they add.

-Frank

That's an awesome idea. Armor Piercing Discarding Sabot ammo doesn't have to be made out of merely mundane armor piercing materials like steel jackets. It could be made out of alchemically purified radical depleted uranium (I call it "Munchkinbanium") which not only gives it armor piercing qualities towards body armor but also against Immunity to Normal Weapons paracritters like spirits and vampires. I added both points to 10a and 10b.

A bit OT, but the munchkin player in my group suggested a 'magical taser' - the kind with wires still running from target to user. Any absolute (as opposed to 'the tech makes it harder') reason why this can't be made into a weapon focus?

Heh. I remember that section well, I wrote it.

That was to underscore a point in Shadowrun about how magical items work. Barring the (now defunct) Spell Lock, no magic item has been able to be "active" when it ceases touching the aura of a bonded owner. But while that keeps you from firing dual natured arrows, that doesn't keep you from harming a spirit who is materialised or is possessing something.

Nor in fact, does it keep you from affecting the Astral or its inhabitants. If you dump a bunch of uranium on the ground, you'll punch up the background count and that will seriously kill low force spirits. Back in the old editions, Immunity to Normal Weapons specifically only counted half strength against weapons which were "elemental" in nature. And while that brought up big arguments about whether an inanimate carbon rod counted as an element or not - it did establish clearly that in canon there are attacks which are simply less concerned about ItNW than others.

In 4th edition that text has been dropped, but "elemental damage" halves armor across the board so that's basically still on the table.

-Frank

Does anyone have a page number for that, I'll add it to #10 under shock weapons?

What part of the rules is vague on this?
335, sr4, Cyberlimb Enhancements, "The bonus to the enhanced value equals the rating of the enhancement."
149, sr4, Armor and Encumbrance, "Note that some armor items, like helmets and shields, provide a modifier to the worn armor rating and so do not count as stacked armor."

Cyberlimb armor provides a modifier to armor equal to the rating of its enhancement. I still fail to see where this is ambiguous.

If you look in Street Magic and the SR4 core book at the various elemental damage effects you will see that pretty much all of them are AP -half.

Not all of them of course, there is one with the effect as flechettes for instance, so it has identical power and ap mods.

Vehicle Armor is Hardened Armor, which is effectively the exact same thing as ItNW.

actually, vehicle armor is normal armor.

it's just a quirk of the fact that vehicles have no stun track that the end result is the same as it would be if the vehicle had hardened armor, provided the vehicle is being attacked with a weapon that deals P damage. a weapon that deals S damage will never harm a vehicle, no matter what the DV, whereas a spirit can be affected.

as far as long-term binding a channeled spirit... sure. ten seconds later, you run into a ward, the spirit is disrupted, security is alerted, and you've just lost a bunch. boy, that sure was worth it.

also, when a spirit possesses someone, the augmented max of the combined being is, iirc, (attribute + spirit's force) * 1.5

so that will definitely be able to go higher than the original metahuman's augmented max, and probably the spirit's too.

Hence the word 'effectively', although I put it in the wrong place.

But you are correct.

use the driving skill whenever you would call for an athletics skill group test if it were a metahuman, imo.

Um, I couldn't find a rule that says APDS halves hardened armor anywhere in the BBB or in this thread. Did you mean elemental attacks? (e.g. S-N-S)
I would be very pleased if someone could verify this rule, as it is completely different from how I have been playing. Thanks.

This thread, page 4, post 14 (Frank).

Fixed typo, thanks for the catch Narse.

Or this thread. Thanks.

I haven't found a page that explicitly states this, but I've always assumed it to be true. I would expect the only thing that would block "beneficial" magic that the target actually wanted would be something like the Magic Resistance positive quality that forces a resistance against all magic both desired and un-desired.

If anyone has a page number that says one way or the other, I'll post it.

nope.

Along those same lines. Under Channeling it states "and the magician is unable to tap the possessing spirit's powers without expending a service"

What exactly does 'tap' mean?

For instance:
A mage doesn't have channeling. He summons a spirit with Elemental Attack to blast a dozen targets at range. It only requires one service to have the spirit use the power as many times as required to blast the ranged targets.

Same mage with Channeling need to 'tap' the Elemental Attack to blast some ranged targets. Does the mage expend a service to 'tap' the power for as long as the possession last? Or does the mage need to use a service for each individual time the power is used?

If he needs to expend a service for each individual use of the power, Channeling seems kinda useless.

basically, my opinion is that it isn't GM call any more than normal (that is, it's GM's call if they want to houserule it in, but the same can be said for any non-standard rule). also, you said that channeling doesn't prevent the spirit from using it's powers.... this is not quite true. technically, the magician isn't expending a service to have the spirit do anything, but is rather spending the service to be able to "tap the posessing spirit's powers", and it therefore costs the magician an action to use said powers. additionally, while not channeled a spirit could just decide to use it's powers when it wants, even if not explicitly commanded (so, for example, it can guard itself should an enemy spirit decide to give it an accident).