Okay so I've got Street Magic and am planning on sending my players up against a Roach Hive in the NYC Sewers. However, the rules concurning Insect Spirits confuse me, so I've got some questions.

Three kinds:
Flesh form - The Hybrid Form, part man, part roach. Has stats equal to base characters stats plus force? Does not have immunity to natural weapons or the other spirit powers besides natural weapon I would assume and the roaches natural +2 to damage resist. Dual natured.

True Form - Giant Roach form. Has stats as listed in the book for a spirit of its type and force. All powers listed in book, including immunity to natural weapons. Dual Natured, but cannot astrally project or um un-manifest?

Good Merge - Person with insect spirit manifested inside. Not sure what stats should be, or what powers it has. Not necessarily dual natured and can astrally project?

Basicaly, do I have this stuff right? It also seems to me that none of them are vulnerable to evanescence since they are bound in human forms, and only the true form can be banished. Is this right or am I crazy?

Lastly, and advice in running these? My players are going in their cold but probably pretty well armed. I wanted to challenge them pretty severely, but not scare them so bad they head for the hills. My current plan was to throw several hybrid forms at them first, then one or two true forms as they get deeper in, then finally the shaman plus one or two true forms as back-up. No queen this time around.

A good merge mantid spirit may also show up, but primarily only as an NPC.

That's nearly the 3rd edition nomenclature.

The Flesh Form are the people with bug spirits in them. They keep their memories and have aura masking.

The Hybrid Form are the human/bug things.

The True Form looks just like a big bug and it acts just like a materializing spirit - it can near teleport through the astral and materialize elsewhere.

Thanks for the quick reply. So my assumptions on there stats/power for the different forms are correct, except that the True Form spirits can manafest/go astral just like a normal spirit? That the part I'm really not clear on. Its not obvious to me which forms get which stats. Especialy for the good merger (keeps all its old stats maybe?) and the Hybrid (which I'm assuming has old stats+force). I'm also unsure which one have and don't have immunity to natural weapons.

Hmm all good. Its becoming clearer to me now. Apparently they did away with potency (or whatever the mechanic was for increasing an insect Shaman's force) in 4th as well. Thats okay though because as GM I really don't feel the need for any mechanic to justify my saying 'he's a powerful insect shaman and has a higher magic rating.'

Well I ran some inspect spirits tonight, and I thought they were pretty good opposition. The hybrid form spirits were actually fairly good as some cannon fodder. The Roach spirits were tough enough to hang around a couple rounds, and strong enough to were them down a bit.

The true form spirits were very nasty. In fact a bit to nasty. I went ahead and ignored there immunity to normal weapons power or otherwise my players would have had a very hard time hurting them with anything. As it was the proved considerably challenging. I also probably overestimated them and should have sent only 1 not 2 force 5 soldier roach spirits at them plus a fairly powerful roach mage.

Dude, all spirits, possessed people, and inhabited forms have Immunity to Normal Weapons. Do not bring pistols to a spirit fight. Hell, for higher force spirits don't bring machine guns(stupid burst fire not adding to check for armor penetration). Need a mage, an adept with a weapon focus or something.

Chris

Spirits and mid-level hardened armor are one of several reasons why I rather wish they had divided up the firearm skills and their applicable weapon types up differently. A house rule I commonly used the handful of times I've gmed was to divide the group up into side arms (Pistols, holdouts, tasers & machine pistols), small arms (smgs, assault rifles, shotguns, rifles) and heavy weapons (unchanged). Is that a realistic division based on how the weapons are actually operated? Hell no! It's as arbitrary as any design decision can be. But it worked pretty damn well in the game world; when I tossed a Force 5 & 6 Spirits at my team they sent the spirits packing with a couple Remington 990s and some Ex-Ex they kept in the van and it also prevented everyone from just dogpiling onto automatics skill for both power AND concealability in a single skill. In the games I played prior to that a lot of the times players would just end up flailing uselessly at spirits with machine pistols while waiting for the mage to save their ass (I don't let stick & shock cut hardened armor in half).

Do you then throw all three skills (side arms, small arms, and heavy weapons) into the one Firearms Group?

Yep. The players are certainly getting a good a deal that way, but I think it is balanced out a bit by the fact that under this setup you essentially -need- to take either side arms or a ridiculous palming pool if you want to pack a weapon that's remotely concealable. Besides, a character can only fire so many weapons at once, and giving players the opportunity to bring the right tool for the right job often just means I have an extra shot at nailing them for trying to sneak a Ingram White Knight into a shopping mall.

max,
In Street magic on pg. 100 there is a sidebar dealing with true forms, hybrid and flesh forms. for Hybrids and Flesh Forms it does say that they get the Immunity to Normal Weapons power but at the cost of being locked into the real word. No dematerilization. Flesh forms also get the Masking and Realit Form power as well. However of the two only the Hybrid form gets to add its force rating to its vessel stats.