So, im fiddling with a character concept...a good ol' fashioned paranormal hunter type...you know, goes after nasty stuff like ghouls, vampires, wendigos, devil rats, banshees, whatever happens to be infesting the place at the time. I did, however, want to make him a mundane. I know this puts him at a bit of a disadvantage(having magic when fighting this stuff is nice), but, well, i admit i sorta did a little overtime on his cyber, attributes, and skills to make him hang. Yeah, ive been playing alot of videogames lately.

As another seeming disadvantage, i made him mostly melee or throwing weapons; save for a small 1(+2) Pistols(Revolvers) skill.

What i'm curious about is how to go about getting weapons of materials that some nasties are allergic too. Im thinking about it, and with his knowledge skills pretty broad about this kind of thing, he knows that he's mundane, he's relying on his own skills, strength, and wits, and he's going to try to at least get somewhat of an edge here.

I was looking at Street Magic for the costs of Refined materials...with his pretty high Armorer skill, im wondering if it's feasable for him to make things like silver bullets, knives, gold bullets, or whatever else they might be allergic to? Im thinking Refined for these, since Radical seems to be used for magical things, and these are simply mundane weapons made out of different material. And im also trying to figure out just how much i can make out of one ''unit'' of, say, Refined Silver or Gold, or whatnot.

I probably won't give him a lot(a couple boxes total of Silver or Gold Bullets ''just in case'', a set of gold knuckles, a silver knife, and a staff works great against a wood allergy), but i think it would be pretty cool, and fit the character concept well.

Im wondering just how these allergies work. From what i understand, stuff with a Severe allergy simply has to come in contact with the material; much like a person in SR allergic to Gold(Moderate), if someone punches them with golden knuckles, will it affect them just as bad as if they were stabbed with a gold knife(same damage roll, to be fair)?

What about plating the weapons? I imagine a set of gold plated knuckles wouldn't be as expensive..as well as being more fight-worthy(gold being very soft of course). A silver knife im picturing maybe having no AP or maybe an AP Penalty vs. Armor; but i think a silver plated knife would affect something with an allergy just as well as a full silver knife.

Where plating might not work is bullets; im picturing the plating flaking mostly off of them when fired; so they bullet might have to be solid. However, the AP penalty might be harsh(+2 Silver and stuff of that ilk, +4 for Gold and other things as soft maybe?)

Not positive here, so i figured i'd see what you guys thought.

Of course, there might well be something in Arsenal about this, and since i havn't gotten it yet, i don't know.

There actually are silver bullets in arsenal(and you're spot on about AP modifier) and they also mention that there are small numbers of bullets, made from many materials that gritters are vulnerable to, for sale.

You might consider Projectile Weapons as a mainstay for the mundane paranormal hunter. A crossbow or a bow would give you some range. That would be useful not only for those critters that run away, but also for those where surprise is a key factor.

I agree with Ryu about the crossbow. You only want to get right in the face of a juiced up vampire as a last resort, and wooden shafted crossbow bolts and incendiary heads fired from that scoped recoil compensated crossbow with a smartlink-II sound just fit to ruin a vampire tea party. Also your character sounds pretty beef, so he shouldn't have a problem with the strength min for firing.

Do crossbows have a Strength minimum for firing (or even loading for that matter)?

I thought about that; but it's tough scraping for the points atm. I already blew a load of BPs on Skills, but then again, i might be able to get him at least an Archery(Spec) at 1(+2). With said external smartlink(and yeah, he's pretty beefed out, strength and agility wise), he should at least have a fair amount of dice to toss for if he needs some serious range.

The Revolver fit the old-fashioned concept i thought...but then again, i COULD ditch the Revovler for Archery instead, and make him totally low tech weaponry(though higher-tech in the bio and cyber. Hey, gotta have an edge somewhere).

And yeah, cyber on top of essence suckers...yeesh. I think i should take Negative Quality: Deathwish. Ahh well, i didn't necessarily want an easy time, i wanted a fun time. It's kinda fun to pull out a lower scale of gear now and again. Well, luckily he deals with all such ilk besides vampires, and he took a few contacts in the know as well. Gave him a high Occult knowledge, along with Magic Background, Paranormal Creatures, and the like, so i guess he'd know what to do in the situations.

Whoops Fortune, my mistake, I meant for re-loading. But I have no idea if there's still the strength min for that in SR4, although in SR3 there's a strength min, which funnily enough doesn't say that it's just for reloading the weapons.

The write-up on Projectile Weapons (in the Gear chapter) seems to only mention a Strength-related minimum in the actual (pull) bow section. No mention of Strength in any way in the little crossbow blurb.