I'm playing in my first Shadowrun campaign, and our group has been plagued by a lack of a Full Mage who can regularly make the meetings. Unfortunately, it seems that any target worth hitting in the SR universe is going to have magical security as well as physical. This would be okay if it were not for the overwhelming power of Elementals.

An enemy Full Mage almost ALWAYS has 6 big ass elementals shielding him and attacking our poor street sams, adepts, and shamans.

So, I've been looking through my SR3 book for SOME way to effectively combat Elementals without HAVING TO HAVE 6 OF OUR OWN... But there seems to be no other way.

It strikes me as rather unbalancing... I know elementals are expensive, so in theory they should be rather rare... But Corp Mages are not going to balk at a measly 1k per force.

So should we just fight fire with fire and get another Full Mage, or is there some other way?

Thanks

-Z

Laser weapons and flame throwers will pop elementals pretty easily, except for fire elementals in the latter case. A water cannon should work as well, as the difference between physical and stun damage matters little with spirits. If you have the cash, weapon foci for the groggies. Depending on your GM, cold-forged iron weapons might also work as a low-cost option (they constitute "elemental metal" as far as I'm concerned).

If you have a shaman, a spirit with the concealment power is your friend. The *best* way to fight elementals is to not have to.

Thanks for the info. Where did you read about lasers and iron swords being effective? We are only using the info that comes in the SR3 core book, and I don't recall seeing that.

I'm not sure how our GM would react to all of us suddenly sporting Flamethrowers and Lasers, but it'd be a laugh.

Anybody have thoughts on magical ways to deal with big groups of elementals without elementals of your own? A big battle with 6 elementals on either side REALLY slows down the action.

-Z

Well, you can have a shaman just keep whipping up nature spirits as the spirits get cacked.

And engage the elementals in battles of wills, if you have a high enough willpower.

Do some reconaisance work first and find out where the mage is. Use your decker or some other contact to find out where the mage works (his office in the complex, or wherever he does his regular rounds). Assuming you're going in with guns blazing (which really isn't the best way) shoot the mage first. No mage, no elementals -- pg. 113 of MitS says that spirits or elementals with a force greater than 6 generally become free spirits when the mage kacks out, and a bunch of free elementals can raise a lot of hell. Also, I can see there maybe being 6 elemental doing patrols around a fairly large compound. But not all in one place, and not all around the mage. A corp isn't going to skimp of the summoning materials, sure, but hiring a full mage is expensive as hell, and most complexes you run across shouldn't have a full mage. In the 'normal' shadowrun world, full mages are super rare, and you're much more likely to come across a sorcerer or a conjurer than a full mage. If you keep running into these full mages with packs of elementals, cook up a spell called 'slaughter elementals' -- area affect spell that deals deadly damage to elementals. At force 6, such a spell should have a drain of 4D, but if you make it exclusive and make it require a fetish, it's only got a drain of 2D. When you come across a group of elementals, -POW!-

Geek the mage first. All the elementals will be released, and probably leave then.

Lol.. I like the Slaughter Elementals option...

Battles of Wills don't usually work out for our boys... We're all first time Shadowrun players, so we probably could have done a better job during character creation.

I might have to mention to our GM about the rarity of Full Mages at typical installations, cuz they sure don't SEEM that rare...

Would the Magic in the Shadows book have the rules for creating a spell for slaying Elementals in particular? The GM has the book, but we really haven't gotten into it yet. Still getting the hang of the system.

Thanks a lot guys.

-Z

MitS has the full rules on spell creation, as well as the specific spell "Slaughter (Race/Species)" on pg. 140. You could either research the spell formula on your own, or buy the full version of slaughter elementals on the street for 12,000 (that includes the street index) with an availability of 6/7 days,
or the restricted version of the spell that I mentioned for a paltry 6,000 and an availability of 3/7 days.

A physad with killing hands is also good, particularly if he has distance strike , even better if he can astrally percieve. Killing hands bypasses an elemental's immunity to normal weapons.

Your GM is obviously just trying to make your PC's lives a living Hell. If the Mage is an Ork or a Troll, tell your GM he's full of it and that he couldn't have 6 Elementals because of the max Cha on those two races. If not, well, remind him of the rule.

If he continues to even after you mention how stupid and repetitive it is, there are several options I see.

• Slaughter Elemental as mentioned earlier
• Stop playing while he's GM
• Do something to completely avoid the Elementals every time, and make him roll for everything

If he is just throwing them at you because he likes them and he wants to kill you off, dump him as a GM, it isn't worth it.

There are other ways to geek entire parties besides 6 Elementals. Tell him to get original.

They can get pretty far away, actually - (CHA+WILL+Magic)x 10 Meters. So you'll have to be pretty far to be out of the area they can roam around in, probably farther than you can get and still be inside of the corp compound. I think others have said everything else useful, but I'll reiterate what I think are the most usefull:

Make sure your GM understands how rare full mages are and how expensive elementals are to have around (in terms of time and money - summoning 6 elementals of decent force is going to take at least two full workdays for the mage, probably more).

Physads, weapon foci, oh my! These things can kick elemental ass if in the right hands.

Elemental damage. Hard to prepare for in terms of every single type of elemental, but effective if you can pull it off.

Another good thing to do against elementals is to summon up a bunch of watchers and sick the little buggers on the elementals. They aren't really going to do much damage, but they can distract the elementals for a while and help in any of the above tactics. Ask your GM to show you the watcher thing in MitS (in the Sprits chapter).

Actually, this all comes down the the elemental vulnerabilities

Earth is vulnerable to air
Fire is vulnerable to water
Water is vulnerable to earth
Air is vulnerable to fire.

So find weapons that somehow fill those spots. It seem like cold steel would work wonderfully for the "earth" requirement.

If I'm not mistaking, by the rules elementals are not immune to their own element. A flamethrower is just as effective against a fire elemental as it is an earth elemental, though it's most effective against water elementals (since they have a Vulnerability to it).

Right.

That is true. However, some GM's have ruled the opposite.

eg. It's a house rule, so

And uh, how'd you come to that set of vulnerabilities moosegod?

In chinese Mythos, and other asian, mostly because they spread around... Iron pins were driven into demons and dragons to stop them from all magical ability, the pin disrupted their magical flow... Given that, I woud assume Iron a damned good weapon against creatures like demons, dragons, and oni...etc\

And moosegod's vunerablites and not unlike many old stories...and current vuners of elemental dragons in Exalted.

Works for me.

I thought it was:

Earth:Air
Fire:Water

Vice versa as well, obviously.

I should say, that was from memory. I don't have the book in front of me.

My vulnerabilities sound more like it, not because I said it, but because they make sense.

Fire evaporates water.
Water douses fire.

Between Earth and Air, it was just because Fire and Water are polar opposites anyways.

Ways to deal with elementals:

Banishment

Watcher dogpack

Weapons employing the opposing element

Weapon foci and a decent combat skill

Stay home

pg. 266 in SR3: Air vulnerable to Earth and vice verca, Fire vulnerable to Water and vice verca. Though it's true that a fire elemental can be hurt with a flamethrower by the canon rules (ie. elementals are -not- immune to their own element), I would say the canon rules are silly in this case.

Isn't there some sort of rule somewhere that says each time an elemental of the opposing nature kamikazes itself against the other elemental, both of their forces is reduced by the other's force?

I know I read it in SR2, but is it the same in 3?

If so, have your mage summon a whole truckload of Force 1 Elementals (or whatever he can handle safely and in a timely fashion) and start sending them to their premature demises.

Fastest way to lose 1 mil I've ever heard of...

Ok lets see...

"Light" and "metal" are both listed as elemental effects for the purpose of elemental manipulation spell design in magic in the shadows, with "Laser" being a spell listed in the Grimoire section of that same book. Additionally, the text for the "metal" elemental effect says that creatures vulnerable to iron would take more damage from the spell, which indicates, to me at least, that the spell does, in fact, produce iron. The description of Immunity to Normal Weapons states that its only half effective against elemental attacks, and, since those effects can be produced by elemental manipulation spells, theyre elemental.

As for the concealment power, this is operating under the assumption that the mage doesnt have all of these elementals floating around nearby in astral space, but, rather, would have to call them. If you can sneak by the mage, you sneak by the elementals. If the mage has these elementals already called... thats another story (most likely the story wherein your GM is trying to kill you).

Steel isnt really elemental metal, as it is refined, processed, and mixed with other stuff (carbon). At least, thats my particular ruling on it.

Apparently Dr. F is correct about the elementals being susceptible to their own element... I don't really like it though (they can move through their element unhindered, afterall, as per the movement power).

I'm still trying to figure out why the Shaman in the party can't help deal with them. Manabolts work wonders against Elementals.

And spiritbolts work even better.

No they don't. They work exactly the same against them. They just have an easier Drain.

Right. And they work better because of that.

No, they still work exactly the same. They are just easier to cast without causing yourself Drain. But Spiritbolt is a very specialized spell, whereas Manabolt is rather common, as it can affect a lot more than just Spirits.

I know. I was trying to say that Spiritbolt is better for killing spirits because it has less drain. But forget it.

I'd rather use Stunbolt/Stunball in most situations, myself. More versatile and same Drain... and against spirits, about the same effect.

I was just about to say that. Or even Spiritball, as you can cast it while the Adept is in melee with the Spirit without fear of friendly casualties.

Don't forget area-effect spells. They may be hard to resist the drain from but giveng a group of the spirits a TN penalty is a nice start. A spiritblast means your allys can be in there fighting and you can still be raining spiritual deth upon them.

I agree that laser weapons are effectively elemental light weapons, and that fire elementals are technically effected by flamethrowers under the rules (although the guard power may help against that).

Also: how do your people fight? Can't you just shoot past whatever elemental hoard there to shoot the mage?

Spiritbolt/ball, or manabolt/ball the mage.
If you have a caster.
If not, get grenades/grenade launchers. Kill the mage, the elementals go free.

Or you could just remind your GM that 6 elementals is 36000 nuyen of expense (assuming they're all force 6). best option I'd have would be to make a mage with a trauma damper and a high charisma (an elf with exceptional atribute). so, get yourself an army of watcher spirits, no risk of drain with trauma damper, and have them follow while you astrally project to the compound, and let them slaughter as many elementals as you can find (remember friends in melee modifiers). then leave. keep that up for a week. see how long they can afford to shell out thousands of nuyen to replace things that get wiped daily.

The best way to fight magic is with magic. If you have an adept, get him a weapon focus-- that's the best spirit-killing machine you can find.

Immunity to normal weapons doesn't cover the elemental vulnerabilities, or really odd weapons. Tasers (which do electrical damage), Water cannons, flamethrowers, and lasers, all do non-normal types of damage; toxic waste can also do a number on spirits, although I wouldn't want to handle that stuff. Any active focus used as a bludegoning device will also bypass the immunity (e.g., if you have an active sustaining focus in the form of a stick, you can hit spirits with it and hurt them normally. You just don't get any of the advantages of a weapon focus).

I'm curious about something. How does this vulnerability to air work for an earth elemental?

Street Samurai: "I breathe on the Materialized Earth Elemental."
GM (Rolls dice) "Oooh! Medium wound to the elemental."

Blast spells, mostly.

~J

there was an adept power in Brainscan that could be used, here. the monks during one scene were physads with a 'flaming fist' power--added elemental effects to their unarmed attacks. as i recall, reverse-engineering their stats gave that power a .5pp cost; you could as easily get blast, lightning, or any other elemental effect.

I like to use capsule rounds filled with 1) Air 2) Water 3) Earth. They count as elemental attack, and hopefully you have the right one loaded for a vulnerability. For some reason, I only face water elementals now.

Area effect mana based spell is nice, too. Can use from astral, effective against spirits, lower drain than physical spell. Manaball, Spiritblast, even Stunball, because you are usually only disrupting them anyway.