Yes the drone operates independently of the spirit. If there is a button though that they can push it they can fire a rocket. Also the drone benefits from the stats the spirit grants it, and also gives it hardened armor. If the drone operates independently of the spirit it means that the drone gets an action and the spirit gets an action.

Drones don't really have attributes other than Body and Armor though. Your Houngan can burn Edge to beseech Ogun himself and have him possess the UCAS's mightiest MBT Drone... and it'll still only roll Pilot+Targeting. Seriously, the nasty possessed drone I sicced on my players was only that nasty because I broke a bunch of rules to make it so, since Spirits are explicitly intended to have difficulty controlling complex mechanisms.

True, but the other benefits a spirit gives more then makes up for it. Adding seven extra body to a body one fly-spy is pretty evil.

Uh, that'd require a Force 7 Spirit. Of course the result is going to be pretty evil. It's a freakin' Force 7 Spirit! If you summon a Force 7 Spirit and don't accomplish something impressive you're taking an awful risky course of action for no good reason. I'd still argue what you're doing in that case is an utter waste of time because Spirits add their Force not their total attributes to their vessel's totals. It's still a good deal for the Flyspy since it'll actually get to be durable for once, but for the player's purposes you've just nerfed a perfectly good Spirit for nothing. The entire idea is worthless unless you've got a subject that absolutely want to protect or is strong enough to be worth empowering to begin with, in which case you may very well be better off having a seperate Materialized Spirit acting on its own along side the subject. Besides, possessed beings share any damage taken, so feel free to pop on over to the astral and manabolt the crap out of the Spirit/Drone, killing both the Spirit and doing tremendous harm to Big Nasty the tragically dual-natured battle tank.

Man, I'm starting to think I should challenge Saint Jude for the position of Patron Saint of Lost Causes.

What if the mage puts a high-Force Spirit into the drone, and the rigger uses high Gunnery skill to aim the guns of the possessed drone? Of what if the mage happens to have a high Gunnery skill, directly or by skillwires?

You have a drone with a bunch of extra armor and a gigantic weakness in the form of being dual-natured that can still be banished and hacked. Look, you guys are starting to get to the point where you're saying "So, if I have multiple skilled people collaborating on a project that combines high technology and powerful magic I can accomplish crazy shit?". To which the obvious answer is this: "Of course. The corps can do it too, except they have more guys to throw at any problems plus the facilities to build bigger and badder drones with. Welcome to Shadowrun."

if the drone is dual-natured . . are the attacks going to hurt astral thingies too? O.o
if so, possessed drone with an LMG and dual natured attack shooing down ghosts seems kinda evil *g*

No, that'd be stupid. Ranged attacks are non-existant on the astral and they've always been pretty clear that making mundane projectiles magical is a no go. It's a lot like how a Guardian Spirit with the Heavy Weapons skill still has to beat his opponent's Immunity to Normal Weapons when attempting to gun down another Spirit.

Only if the bullets are weapon foci, or whatever the hell thing you have to do. If you shoot a gun while astrally perceiving, do the bullets become ghost bullets?

No. You can't make weapon foci bullets or firearms either. The best you can do with ranged weapons is to Attune to the item through metamagic, and that still won't render it a magical weapon-- the change is actually in the Adept, not the weapon.

..Revolution: First off welcome to DS.

Next, welcome to the Brotherhood of Mage Bait Mundanes. Yeah, those two spells, particularly Manabolt are nastier than a Panther cannon. Been on the receiving end of only a Force 5 Manabolt cast by a mage with an MA of 5, and it still wasn't very pretty, my pathetic 3 WP dice against a DV of 10. Even a "God Roll" (all hits)_ would have left my character down 7 boxes while the mage had the benefit of Armour, dodge, and any other protective spells in his repertoire to counter her Warhawks.

My advice, carry really big guns (and Grenades if possible), and hold true to the sacred Mundane axiom: Geek the Mage first.

By the way, am I the only one who has always been annoyed by the impossible magical arrow on SR3 companion cover?

Argh! It's not impossible! It is a bow-shaped specific spell focus for a powerbolt. It helps the mage on the cover cast powerbolt repeatedly without taking as much drain, if I'm recalling SR3 specific spell foci correctly.
At least, that's always been my assumption.

Hoo, that's an interesting theory!
I never thought of it like that.

Impossible. Panther Cannons tear through almost all material, and if you hit somebody, he's totally owned. Also, normally, you'd use Edge to survive manabolts. You don't survive assault cannon hits. You 'evade' them.

Powerbolt coelesces at the target, rather than traveling from the mage to the target. To fit the motif it would be better as a bow-shaped specific spell focus for an indirect elemental effect spell of your choice.

Granted!
Although if you really wanted it to be a powerbolt it could still work that way, the glowing arrow thingy is just whatever it is you're noticing when you're detecting spellcasting. Fluff varies by tradition, after all. You're right, though.

So, fellow Dumpshockers, think tank time.. how do we keep the direct spells viable, and yet bring the elemental indirects up to par?

Sorry, I was responding to the question you had already answered while I was typing, or something like that. Now, a dual-natured Dikoted Trollbow, on the other hand ...

The elemental spells are useful because of their secondary effects *and* can't they also hit things the caster doesn't see? Or am I way off with that one?

You apply appropriate cover and visibility modifiers. An elemental AoE spell becomes a lot more interesting when you can aim that 18 dicepool at the ceiling above or the wall behind that target whose enjoying full cover modifiers.

We leave them just the way they are. Each has its own individual good and bad points, and messing with the balance will throw that off.

On the other hand you could also just use mage sight goggles and have virtually no one in full cover.
For the drone you could just make a special ghost vessel one that doesn't have any electronics at all and only works really when possessed by a spirit, then it would be able to use weapons and stuff as well.

A Spirit cannot have the Gunnery skill unless it's an Ally spirit who got it as an optional Skill from their creator (Gunnery is a Vehicle Skill, not a Combat skill), in which case you need a Mage who knows Gunnery and Ally Conjuring, which is kinda unlikely but still possible. Otherwise the best you can do is to make something like a plasteel homunculi and possess it with either a Guardian Spirit that knows how to use Heavy Weapons or else by adding a Spirit that is so high Force that it can default to Agility and still hit its targets, which is rather unlikely. Whether you can create a homunculi that's eligible for having a vehicle weapon mount is another issue entirely and basically falls under the realm of a GM creating problems for himself rather than an issue with the RAW. So in most cases you can't make a ghost attack chopper that fires missiles any better than a normal attack chopper, it would just gain some durability and Spirit Powers. Which is pretty good; the Movement, Guard and Accident powers all rock and expensive vehicles represent sizeable investments. It's just not necessarily all that much more effective than having a Materialized Spirit flying shotgun with the attack chopper while handling its own biz.

<--THIS
I don't know if that is within the Ett for Dumpshock. I still like the answer.


Besides I thought the question was about the balance between non spell casters and spellcasters. Imagine how wrong I was and then to find out the balance was between spirit wrapped drones against Elemental spells...

yo, chummer.. I'll take 6 spirit wraps with extra sauce to go. And a Large soykaf, Wakarimasu-ka?

Fixed.

...not so much with top of the line hardened military grade armour. particularly when its worn by a troll. Now in the case of a manabolt all that armour means jack and he may just as well be in his skivvies.

...and yes, against Panther cannon you can dive for cover and only give up an IP. You can't evade a manabolt, and chances are that mage can sling more hurt your way than you have edge to counter it, especially if he has multiple IPs himself (as most mages I have come across do).

i agree that direct spells are too strong, even a top of the line mage himself only gets like 12 dice to resist a manabolt whereas an average sammy can have about 14 dice to dodge and then another 14 to withstand the damage.
It should at least be allowed to roll body+counterspelling as a second roll to withstand the damage or base damage would have to be lowered significantly or drain has to go up.

There ain't no hardened military grade armour for anybody. Hardened isn't an option for personal armour at all, it exists only for vehicles and as specific critter power. Even trolls will be knocked down at least unconscious by assault cannons, and heavily wounded normaly. If an assault cannon can't wound it, the person is sitting IN a superheavy-shielded tank, and then magic won't do squat.

Actually since your aura doesn't extend that far past your body why couldn't you evade it by ducking behind cover?

My alternate view was its a phys add with improved ability archery viewed in the astral.

Still don't think so, no. Mages are very powerful in general, but they're meant to be, considering all their other abilities in SR4 (spirits, spells, more abilities for initiates...).

Mostly, when the (1 IP) Bear Shaman that one of my players runs pops up in combat, I don't worry about her Powerbolt, I worry about her Force 5 Air Spirit with Elemental Aura. The first time it showed up, it wiped out a six man mercenary team all on its own, without a scratch. The second time, it kept the enemy physad busy until the Hacker could gun her down with a hacked drone. Later in that encounter, the Shaman used her Powerbolt to attack two gangers (in subsequent rounds) for a net result of 6 damage each, which I don't find overpowered.

So, to bring a bit of coherence back into my post: for my game, direct combat spells have yet to be a serious problem. I haven't even thrown a caster at them yet, and the encounters are still challenging. As long as the GM runs his NPCs reasonably clever, it's always possible to challenge the PCs.

Any mage who does not pick up a R4 sustaining health focus needs their brain examined. Your friend is being kind in the fact that he/she is deciding not to give his/her shaman 4 IPs. The evil thing is the spirit and the drone play off of each other (that is if you take the possession tradition.) Arsenal allows you to mod drones and therefore gives a better vessel for the spirit to be in. Anyways case in point. Spirits rock the awesome (it's like bringing another person into the fight and if you care to use some bound spirits 2-5 people,) and mages are no slouches themselves either.

There is a very very good reason why you always want to geek the mage first in a firefight considering what they can bring to a fight.

*edit* The mage in my group possesses himself and then uses his r4 sustaining focus to give himself 4 IP's. He generally has an init of 20-25. 2nd place is generally the rigger in hotsim with 18. *edit*

Damn amateurs, they always forget hearing and smell.

Stuff like that doesn't exactly grow on trees. 40.000 is a lot of money.
Anyone waving around foci/money like that would attract unwanted attention very fast.
Most gang mages will kill for power like that.

Which is all fine, except that you need time to boost yourself up.
Most combats are decided in the first IP, so if he's caught unprepared he's out of luck.

An important thing to remember is that passing wards becomes annoying or downright dangerous.
One security measure I had in a previous game was an elevator that passed through a warded area.
If the ward is broken by the sustained spells you have just alerted the security mage

Concealment covers all Perception tests.

But you're right, I'm sorry.


A wujen using a Plant Spirit with Silence would do better.

You can't teamwork your body rolls. You can countermagic.

I still agree that there is an issue, but teamwork on countermagic can get ugly too.

Really? Semiauto Alphas with APDS are effectively min DV 12 if they hit, and they are more typically about 15 before they use edge or burst fire. If they can't hit with the aphas for some reason use HE grenades, which are effectively DV 13. Spirits of non-insane power levels don't tend to last more than an IP or two in combats I've seen. Unless they are fighting a street gang or some other group of mooks.

The burstfire DV bonus isn't counted for the purposes of evaluating whether an attack beats Armor or not, kzt. Still, those are some mighty weak mercenaries; 10 hardened armor isn't that much. It's effectively only a single point heavier than what a standard Steel Lynx packs, for example. I've seen a 3 man mook squad accompanied by a Steel Lynx squish a Spirit like that in a single round. Two net hits with a 475 nuyen Defiance T-250 shotgun loaded with regular ammo is enough to penetrate that kind of armor. Toss in APDS or Ex-Ex and they go down pretty quick vs. enough attacks whittling away at their defense pool (which is why drone backup is always ideal for security teams; even the cheapest drone sprays out a lotta bullets).

That's why I didn't include the burst fire in the based DV min of 12. It does add to the damage they have to soak. On average, a well trained guy can kill a force 5 air spirit in less than a single IP with an alpha and APDS. IIRC, 5+5+2 dice, tight burst, average of 4 hits, spirit gets 1&2/3rds hits (2) and takes Dv15 rolling 15 dice for 5 hits, takes 10P. Poof.

Wha? It's an Alpha with APDS has a damage code of 6DV+hits w/ -5AP. So, yeah, it does penetrate armor quite well, I guess it just threw me how you were saying it. I assumed you were talking about bursts since you threw everything out in one lump sum DV, which didn't really add up.

Anyway, yeah, Air Spirits are quite mean since they get such ridiculous raw reaction totals, but 5 mercs firing 10 times a pass or so should be threatening some damage here due to sheer attrition and the -1 die per previous defense penalty. Basically, its options are use full defense and only have a single attack per round to start trying to deal some damage or have two attacks per round and basically guaranteeing that the last 2 mercs will be laying some serious hurt provided they have a few weapons better than a heavy pistol. They can be hitting well before that too if they've got basic accessories like slings/shockpads and foregrips (a whopping 60 nuyen worth of mods mods ) so they can start using wide short bursts to cut down on the dodge pool even further.

I don't assume APDS in a standard merc pack. APDS is supposed to be hard to find. Not that I think a group of mercs shouldn't be able to handle a force 5 spirit, just that I would not be giving them APDs unless they were some seriously well funded mercs.

In my games people usually pack APDS, Stick 'n' Shock or carry weapons more deadly than heavy pistols if they know they're dealing with shadowrunners or big metas like trolls and ork gangers. It's a setting with Spirits, paracritters,hardened combat drones, affordable body armor and effective combat drugs, after all, so I figure the general trend away from smaller caliber rounds will only be exagerrated in the 2070s.

Our characters, after startup, tended to just carry APDS in long arms. (Not that we used long arms very often - but we had them.) You don't go through that much in SR firefights, it's terribly effective, and it doesn't explode and kill you. It just isn't that hard to get a hold of, once you decide to do it. The other 8 mags might not have had APDS, but the one in the rifle did. We also had stocks of AV rockets and similar that we dragged out when needed, though that was rare. Dragon hunting was the only time I remember.

...there was in 3rd ed Canon Companion (P. 51)


...I don't think you can dodge a Direct Combat spell with Reaction like you can a bullet or other projectile as there is no targeting test involved. The spell just hits you because "it's magic" (ugh). Otherwise the Short One wouldn't have taken those nine boxes of P damage from the troll mage who didn't even get a scratch when she unloaded her Warhawks into him on the previous IP.

Never quite understood all the hate for elemental spells. If all you're looking for is sheer damage output, then they're not the best. If, on the other hand, you actually take a look at the rules for the elemental effects, and think tactically, you start to see how incredibly versatile elemental spells are.

Use ice spells to make cars slip or slow movement down a corridor behind you.
Throw smoke blasts to blind your enemies.
Use lightning to completely incapacitate a target, regardless of whether you actually do enough damage to kill, thanks to the Shock penalties.
Keep a water blast handy for that time when someone hires a local street gang to lob a molotov through the window of your apartment (Did this to a party once. One player asked "So does anyone have a fire extinguisher?". Cue the tumbleweed orchestra.)
Or just lob fireballs to set people on fire. Yes, it's higher drain, but they're on fucking fire! You know, with the burning, and the screaming, and the ammo cooking off... also the burning. I say it again, because wound penalties aren't worth nearly so much as simply forcing them to stop, drop, and roll.

I know, but we're talking about SR 4th edition rules here, and hardened combat armour got retconned out of the game.
At least for now (and I hope it stays so. Hardened should be for vehicles, putting you inside a real power-armour, like a gundam or a battlemech, whatever).
So, everybody not driving a superubertank getting hit by an assault cannon simply dies, or goes unconscious, at best.

doesn't cyber-zombie stuff count as hardened armor?
or the Cybork armor?

The CyberZombie stuff is immunity to normal weapons, which indeed counts as hardened armor. And it does not matter if Cyborgs (or any other vehicle) have hardenend armor. They simply lack the stun track to convert damage to if it is below armor rating. Which makes any vehicle armor hardened.

Hardenend armor is really weird in SR4, but what the hell...

I have no idea what the cybork armour is (unless you mean cyborg ), but for Cyberzombies, yes, and that's because of their unnatural aura that is generated by magic. And Cyberzombies aren't your regular enemy of the mill anyway... Well, they shouldn't, nor would be fighting a bunch of Great Dragons regularely.
Even so, a hit by an Assault Cannon automatically penetrate that Hardened Armour-Field. That -5 Armour Penetration sure helps.