Here are some ideas I came up with for some house rules on anti-magic protection for mundane opponents of magic-wielding runner teams and for players who want to play mundanes.


Anti-magic weapons, armor, and gear:

• Shock weapons -- Shock weapons can bypass Immunity to Normal Weapons and can therefore be highly effective against spirits. Stick-n-shock ammo can be created for small arms like pistols and SMGs. (note: this is not necessarily a house rule, but the RAW is not clear on these points)
• Spirit bullets -- a spirit bullet is a normal bullet that has been possessed by a specially formulated spirit (usually a watcher spirit). Due to it's dual nature, the spirit bullet can impact mana barriers and magical armor at full effect. A spirit bullet does full damage against creatures with Immunity to Normal Weapons and can damage Wards. The possessing spirit has some measure of control over the flight of the bullet, so add it's Force to the dice pool for the ranged attack test.
• Enchanted laser weapons -- Before Frank Trollman wandered off to become a doctor, he mentioned that lasers could theoretically be an enchanted ranged weapon because it technically fits within the logic of the game universe. The light beam is still connected to the emitter the whole time it is fired, therefore it could be enchanted the same as a melee weapon. The enchanted laser weapon can't be used by true mundanes, but it could be used by adepts or spirit servants of mundanes. For example, you could have a spirit possess the enchanted laser weapon and a mundane could be given command over the spirit.
• Particle beam weapons -- using pseudoscientific mumbojumbo from the Ghostbusters movie, spirits are composed of a negative energy that can be disrupted by positive energy weapons. Very expensive and highly experimental, proton particle beam weapons are "pure mundane" weapons that require no magical help to create or deploy.
• Symbiotes -- Augmentation introduces genetically engineered living organisms that can be implanted in a humanoid host. Since the symbiote is a living creature, technically it can manipulate and generate magical energy. Symbiotes have been created that give it's host the ability to wield enchanted weapons (such as the enchanted laser weapon mentioned above) or produce a Magical Guard effect.
• Anti-magic coating -- Lunargent (alchemically purified radical silver) has been found to have powerful antimagical properties. Weapons (including ammo) coated in lunargent bypasses Immunity to Normal Weapons as well as magical barriers such as the Physical Barrier and Armor spells. Also, armor and dermal sheathing composed of a layer of lunargent reduces the Force of spells and magical powers (such as spirit Influence) by 1/2 the impact rating of the armor.
• Radioactive talisman -- radioactive materials produce not only radiation background counts, but also magical background counts. Carrying around radioactive materials creates a portable background count area extending out in a rating * 10 meter radius that disrupts spells and spirits (but not spells or spirits from toxic radiation traditions). Long exposure to a "radioactive talisman" requires frequent trips to a medical facility for treatment for cancer and other autoimmunity disorders.

Ideas/Suggestions/Tweaks/Clarifications?

Devil Rat-apults

Just fling high-velocity dual natured creatures at those pesky spirits!

Replace Lunargent with tinfoil, and it's a go! (Grabs his helmet.)

LOL, that's awesome. Alchemically purified radical tinfoil is also called "mithril" depending on your copyright jurisdiction.

I don't know what kind of crazy magicians or poorly equipped shadowrunners you have in your game, but in both the one I GM and the one I play in the mages stay in the back and support the rest of the team, counterspelling etc. when there is an opposing mage I will sometimes stunbolt or manabolt the crap out of the spirit because that IS the easiest way to kill it. If you make all these spirit killer weapons then you need to kill the enchanting material prices because you make their use outside of spell effect batteries close to nil. A good sniper rifle can rip a force 7 or below spirit to shreds already with decent ammo. S&S reduces their armors by half so INW 12 becomes 6 which is easy to pass already with any standard pistol.

And guns kill the hell out of mages that aren't sustaining christmas trees, suffering huge sustaining penalties, or using the "my ally sustains them all" method. And there are mundane ways around all those already.

Sorry, I just don't understand the need for this stuff.

Chris

I'm usually the first to pipe in against 'anti-magic' stuff, but I think in this case Buster might have a good idea buried in his original post.

Symbiotes.

These additions to the Shadowrun world could conceivably be used to provide some kind of counterspelling bonus.

I agree, Fortune. Perhaps a genetically altered FAB variety which could provide some magic resistance either as per the quality or the adept power......

I'm just gonna laugh and y'all are gonna have to trust me.

Mundane method vs. magic-weilding characters can be found in Shadowrun Fourth Edition, in the Street Gear chapter, under the headings "anything that you can use to kill people."

AH: If I even remotely understand what you're getting at, I hate you. In the most pleasant way. I feel "ignoring large sections of upcoming books" coming on.

Minor modmin note: Members don't "own" or control their threads on here. If posts truly don't belong in a thread, or if someone is really being disruptive/breaking forum rules, the staff will handle it.

Personally I just tailor the number and strength of magical opponents the PCs cross based on the PC team's make-up. If there isn't any magic on the team, and the PCs don't actively seek it out in the game, and I don't hear any different, then I run on the premise that the players aren't particularly interested in the magical bits of SR.

SR is big enough to play that way and still have lots to do.

P.S. But I understand some people would rather the psuedo-magic turned up rather than the magic turned down. Just saying there is another side to the equation to keep magic PCs/NPCs from running ruckshod.

We just have to understand that the mages got their boost with Street Magic. Arsenal is where we get guns, lots of guns.

...lots of really BIG guns

(...at least I hope...)

I'm expecting a bunch of other things in Arsenal besides just guns. But that's the next book I'd look in for street sams to get a leg up on killing stuff.

#1 is valid, and my PCs generally have several elemental effect weapons on hand (tasers, flame-throwers and the like) specifically for that purpose.

#2 doesn't work. Astral bodies effectively have 0 mass. All you'd be doing is basically forcing the spirit into astral combat with the item in question, similar to the rules for foci going through wards. Generally that means the spirit loses.

#3 You have to be physically connected to your weapon, so that doesn't work. Nor do enchanted flashlights. A taser could work, however, since it's on a cord.

#4 Wrong story, sorry Spirits aren't made of negative energy.

#5 Symbiotes have potential. Make a symbiotic version of FAB. Then you're effectively dual-natured, although continuous use would probably kill the symbiotes over time.

#6 I believe traditionally it's cold iron. Shadowrun has never said anything on the topic either way, however. There's nothing to confirm or deny such a theory.

#7 Radioactive 'talisman' would work, but it would either be too weak or run out of power relatively quickly. Remember, the way radioactive materials work is by losing their radioactivity. If you get something powerful enough to seriously increase the background count, it's either very large or very fresh. Regardless, it'll play havoc with the attacker (stock up on potassium iodide).

So some good ideas, some... not Sorry. I did a very high-level, , 5th age Shadowrun game where a character, in order to fight a super-high level spirit (imagine Twist fighting Spider) set off a few dirty bombs in the area.

I was trying to be constructive, I was just saying there are alot of ways to accomplish what you were going for already in place. Anyway, unless I have a specific idea to add I'll step back because apparently me and Buster don't get along that well. I always seem to offend on accident.

Chris

Large calibre lead rounds, with a solid radioactive core might work, the lead would protect from the radiation till the round hit and the lead expanded. Of course this would have to be in really high calibre rounds to have any effect.

The spirit bullet idea is ok, but you would probably only end up doing force damage against other spirits, and the spirits would not be happy being summoned to do this . . .

... also called *un*depleted uranium rounds. Ever since the first Gulf War, there's been evidence about side effects of the current use of Depleted Uranium in high-density armor-piercing ammo. (Mainly used for 20mm-30mm autocannon and 105mm tank cannon; not so much in personal arms, in real life.) But irradiating yourself to defend against magic seems like a high price to pay. Irradiating the spirit/paracritter that you're fighting, well, maybe if you're fighting at long range. Or if you're nuking Chicago.

Does the Fichetti Pain Inducer have any effect on materialized spirits? what about various paracritters? I'm guessing the squirt gun and gas grenades have no effect on materialized spirits, since they don't have biochemistry as such. What about on critters with altered biochemistry, eg vampires and ghouls? (Vampires pass out when suffocated; presumably they need oxygen to keep moving, and thus are burning chemical calories as well as needing to "feed" on Essence.)

Flamethrower vs. water elementals. Fire extinguisher vs. fire elementals. Does a giant fan disrupt an air elemental? does enough heat take it from "vapor" state to "plasma" state (fire)?

Most PC teams include a mage, and many NPC opponent teams include mages, but it would be good flavor to have "what site security uses for paracritter defence when their mage gets sick".

I've heard californium is radioactive too. . .

The radiation is minor alpha, so it won't go through you skin. DU is primarily a toxic heavy metal, it's about as radioactive as granite. The metal is a poison, like lead or arsenic. Don't eat, breath the dust or get it injected into your body in a finely divided form.

The SR3 rules (not sure if SR4 changed it) specifies that damage is double against the opposing element, but you can still burn a fire elemental, drown a water elemental, etc. What makes life interesting is that earth elementals are opposed to air, so it's reasonable to assume that compressed air or powerful fans may actually cause some minor damage against them. Similarly, air elementals are opposed to earth, so throwing rocks at them could be argued as being an effective attack. The trick is to say that throwing rocks at an air elemental is an earth elemental attack, then note that an elemental attack negates immunity to normal weapons and use said rocks against everything else.