I'd consider possessing a mage who is going to channel you and go into combat to be dangerous. Thusly it would cost a service.

Yeah, but it takes damage whenever it is attacked, regardless of whether it is possessing someone or not. Astral Form isn't a dangerous service just because it could be attacked while on the Astral Plane. Materialization or Possession aren't dangerous just because they could be attacked while on the physical.

Take a spirit into a combat, that will probably end up costing you a service. But just letting it walk around with your shoes on is a style choice.

-Frank

Well, it isn't a matter of negotiating for more services, it's a matter of negotiating what is and is not a service.

The correct term is that it only wants to snuggle.

You should ammend it to note that de-possess would not take a service. Re-possessing would cost one, as well as metaplanar shortcut through the ward would cost a service. Thusly, it would cost you 0 service to lose the spirit and walk through the ward. 1 service for metaplanar shortcut, and 1 for possession enhancement.

What I don't get, is fire spirits have severe allergy to water, and water spirits have severe allergy to fire. Why don't any other spirits have allergies to things?

actually, now that i've seen it, i disagree with 10 in general.

for one thing, why would immunity to normal weapons stack? it's way more of a headache to have it stack, imo, because you have to decide on all the interactions. does a bullet slowed down by an armored jacket have a lesser chance of affecting a critter with immunity to normal weapons? what if we give them other forms of armor that are at the skin layer?

secondly, the rules don't really support immunity to normal weapons not being affected by AP modifiers at all. certainly, no normal weapon totally ignores the immunity per se (although sufficiently low immunity would be reduced to 0), but if it works just like hardened armor, then it should be affected like hardened armor. if i was running around in milspec armor, i think you'd be hard-pressed to find a GM who doesn't think it's affected by APDS.

that being said, *if* you're going to rule that way, you should make it clear that AP modifiers in the other direction also do not apply. thusly, sliverguns, shotguns, frag grenades, flechette rounds, and other similar weapons which have an AP penalty would be better against spirits, *if* you choose to use the rules Buster is proposing.

however, given this is supposed to be an FAQ, i think it should be made clear that the rulings found in #10 are not the way the rules work officially, but rather that it's simply one of several suggestions about how a ruling might be made.

No it's not, it's slightly crappier because it only defends against non-magical effects.

That is the only difference.

Seconded. Most definately.

I think what Buster is driving at is that Immunity to Normal Weapons acts like Hardened Armor in how it works **BUT** is NOT armor.

As such, AP wouldn't have any effect. AP can't penetrate armor that doesn't exist. Yes, it's semantics but it does make a twisted sort of sense. ITNW is a form of damage mitigation towards Normal Weapons that isn't armor but works (mechanically) like it is.

This makes sense from the standpoint of damage resolution as we already have rules on how to handle armors and combat. So why not make it work like armor on the backend but on the front end, it's not armor?

I think you need to read Frank's post again.

Many people will take that to mean that dual-natured creatures ARE astral percieving all the time. Which as written may not be right (and if keeping consitant with SR3 isnt).


They can interact and percieve (the astral) in the same way as a astral percieving mage.. however nothing says they also interact with the 'mundane' in the same way (penalties to mundane while astral percieving).

Note now where does it state the creature has armor or hardened armor. The critter has an 'Armor rating' equal to twice its Magic against that [iimmunity type] damage. This 'immunity armor' is treated as 'hardened protection', meaning that if the damage value does nto exceed the armor, then the attack automatically does no damage..


While I am open to both way, and personally thing spirits are powerful enough not to become too easy to kill, that the common interrepertation is fine (with me), but as written the critter does not have 'armor' and thus AP wouldn't necessarily apply...

It does have an 'Armor rating' that counts as 'hardened' protection, which is not a defined reference, though you are refered to to the 'hardened armo' power for reference, but that section never mentions AP modiferes.

Either way this is poor ambigious wording and could be taken either way.

immunity provides an armor rating, thus is armor... AP modifies armor, thus AP modifes immunity rating...

Immunity provides armor rating which is function like hardened armor, but is not 'armor' ... AP makes no mention of effecting 'immunity' .. thus AP has no effect on immunity...

Now if Immunity was simply worded as:

This provided '[Hardened] armor' equal to Magic*2 to the critter, against any attack that is not: magical, nor made of a substance the creature is vulnerable to.

There would be no debate.

However, when words 'like' , 'similiar', 'as if' come into play it implies that while similiar .. there is some difference, what exactly the difference is needs to be decided.

This is compounded with the use of similiar but not 'proper' terminology.

'Armor rating' is not 'Armor'
'Hardened' protection is not 'Hardened Armor'

Both sound similiar though, so was 'Armor' and 'Hardened Armor' meant, which would mean then to follow the full rules, or is using different terminology meant to help you understand the concept, but they intentionally do NOT use the previously defined words, to avoid giving (or taking) properties not intended.


RAW (haven't seen an errate that clarifies), it is ambigious and in the real of GM's domain.

Personally given the whole 'stream-line and simpfly approach' of SR4, I believe the intention is to allow AP to work, otherwise they need a while pile of new rules.

Even if you just reference the sentence from Hardened Armor that talks about stuff bouncing off if it doesn't penetrate, it still references AP working. Just saying, it doesn't seem very ambiguous to me.

Chris

Who says Immunity to Normal Weapons does NOT stack with normal armor?

Either INW is armor or it is not armor. You can't have it both ways.

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.