so we all know that bug spirits are effected by insecticide, but i'm wondering what other mundane weaknesses that spirits have that could be exploited. here's some questions:

1. what sort of damage would a Fichetti Pain Inducer do to a water elemental? i ask because its a microwave laser, and microwaves tend to effect water molecules more drasticaly than others. would this boil away the elemental? would it just piss it off?

2. what sort of damage would liquid nitrogen or liquid oxygen have on a fire elemental?

More exotic effects are probably up to the GM. At the very least, for #1, I'd probably rule that the Pain Inducer would bypass the Immunity to Normal Weapons of a spirit. In #2, I'd argue that the potential heat of the fire elemental would evaporate the liquid nitrogen or oxygen prior to contact.

Don't forget, though, that fire elementals have a natural weakness (in the form of a severe allergy) to water and vice versa.

1. A water elemental is not made of water. It's weakness to fire (also note that fire and heat are diffrent things) is more a metaphysical thing. Just like insecticides don't damage bug spirits by poisonig them, but harm them because they are used to kill insects.

2. It would freeze his manifested form if it does enough damage disrupting him, just like it would freeze anyone else. Maybe less, since they have armor. Nitrogen is not water.

Do not apply common sense to magic. It doesn't really work that way.

Actually, a Water Elemental probably is made of water. A Water Spirit, on the other hand, could be a variety of things. You're right, I probably shouldn't have assumed that the OP was using "elemental" in its technical form, but I did.

It looks like water, feels like water, smells like water but it is shadow-astral-goo stuff. Or something. I mean, if you think this trough, air elementals would be invisible and fire elementals would not be at all, since fire is a chemical reaktion not an element. That's why common sense takes a break in the magic chapter to return fully refreshed in the matrix chapter. To suffer a horrible stroke.

But bonafide belief does. Spirits are made of astral-stuff. I believe it went into that in Street Magic in the fluff.

This astral-stuff works like it does based on beliefs. A fire elemental has problems with water because metahumanity believes that water and fire are anti-thesis toward one another. Water puts out Fire and Fire boils Water. As such, Magic reflects that.

In SR2 I believe the Air and Earth Elementals had weaknesses toward each other as well.

Personally in the two cases mentioned...

I'd let the microwave thing do its trick because it's designed to agitate water and superheat it. It's not like you stand there looking at a water elemental and think / perceive unconsciously that it's an elemental made of astral-stuff that acts like water but isn't.

I'd rule the same for the liquid nitrogen. It'd work as it's supercold (not to mention non-flammable). It's out of the realm of mundane and into the realm of Tech so high it's magic. Now if you were spraying liquid Oxygen at a Fire Elemental, I'd have to ask if you had a death wish as the moment it turns back into a gas, it's HIGHLY flammable. Spraying something with a boiling point BELOW room temperature that happens to be extremely flammable while in a gaseous state at an object/critter that can burn through metal or concrete. Right. Good call there.

(Yes, I suppose you could extinguish a Fire elemental with liquid oxygen if you had enough to do it. Heck, you can do the same in real life with gasoline and a match. I don't think the elemental would be all that happy though.)

Now if you were taking a fire extinguisher and using it to put out the Fire Elemental, that makes sense and is a reasonable thing to try. I'd let it work. Basically, would you take that object to do something to correct a similar problem in real life? If so, then it should probably bypass ItNW. Fire extinguishers vs Fire spirits. Anti-coagulants vs Blood Spirits. Insecticides vs Insect spirits. Dessicants vs Water spirits. You get the idea.

Fire hose (spraying water) vs Water Elemental. Not so good.

Hahaha! I handn't thought of that! thanks for the responses.

actually, from a chemical point pf view, this isn't precisely correct. O2 itself doesn't burn, it just allows other things to burn better, hotter, faster. which in theory could kill the spirit since it's "lifeforce"/ fire gets biuurned up that much faster. But then that would assume that you could suffocate it by trapping it in a mana barrier the n dumping a bunch of sand on top of it.