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Iota
Question:

How does a group of non-awakend characters deal with spirits attacking them? Since the spirits are immune to normal weapons it should be quite difficult.

Is there something like magically enhanced bullets for normal weapons? What would they cost?
Malicant
Option one: being good at dealing damage, i.e. having lot's of net hits.
Option two: Spirit Killer ammo, formally known as APDS.
Ancient History
There's Attack of Will, and certain magical preparations that can make a mundane character's life easier, and when all else fails there are unconventional weapons. Magic bullets, not so much.
Malicant
Of course Attack of Will is pointless agains spirits that you can't shoot with a regular gun.

WIL vs. Force x2 is not promising much success. Somewhere along gamedesign something weird happend to spirits. They can be easily shot, but if you try an Attack of Will, you better be a Master of Banishing.
bishop186
Don't forget Option Three: RUN YOU STUPID FRAGGER!

I could have sworn I recall some anti-magic armaments from Arsenal, though. I'll check into it.

Edit: with a casual browse I found Wyrd Mantis Essence, which is like insect spirit repellent. Unless they happen to be Mantis spirits, then all bets are off. Other than that, the Espirit Grenade hinders Astral sight. Other than that, nothing that I see.
CanRay
Spirits are one of the reasons that Melee weapons have made a major comeback in vogue. I mean, hell, the Swiss Army ordered "Swiss Army Swords"! (See Arsenal for details! I know one of the characters in my story wants one bad!).

I suggest something fireproof and doesn't conduct heat if you're going to be putting a beating on a Fire Elemental, however. nyahnyah.gif
Iota
Thx Malicant, could have come up with APDS myself, sometimes things are quite easy...

I actually was thinking about a scenario where the characters have only hold-out type pistols, so yeah, they would need a lot of net hits...

And running is no option wink.gif

Anyway, i liked the idea of magic bullets, delivering lets say a small manabolt on impact. Though they should be limited and extremely expensive....
toturi
Tai Chi. You must learn how to focus your Chi, grasshopper.
JoelHalpern
Moderate force spirits are awkward but not impossible. A force 4 spirit can go down before good shots from an Ares Predator (2 points of called shot.) From a Streetline special, you better be a very good shot, and called shot for +4 / -4. But then, even taking down a troll with a Streetline is hard.

If the Force gets much higher though, it really gets much harder for mundanes to overcome the hardened armor. (A high strength Troll boix will still make the Spirit very unhappy. An Adept PowerThrow Troll, or even PowerThrow Orc can probably get enough to matter. But remember that the Spirits defense has gone up as well when the force went up. And its soak.) Personally, for Force 6 spirits, I think you want called shots to overcome hardened armor, and compensated long bursts from a good gun to get enough damage to matter.
Advanced characters can probably come up with other choices. But magic (either Weapon's Focus and good melee, or actuall spell casting) is your friend when forces get higher.

Yours,
JoelHalpern
Blade
Big guns/grenades and a big dice pool (or a wide long burst) to make sure the spirit won't dodge.
For some spirits, you can exploit their weakness to bypass its armor.

SnS and Tazer's AP doesn't work according to Rob, and I'm still not sure about APDS and called shots.
Attack of Will is mostly useless, so is FAB.
Running away won't work since the spirits will be much faster than you (they can travel in the astral plane if needed). Your best bet is to use petite brume grenades to hide you and your aura while you run but even then the spirit will just have to get out of the smoke and search for you (which can be quick, especially in the astral plane).
hyzmarca
Magic bullets are possible, just absurdly expensive. If you can stand the idea of paying more for a bullet than you paid for the gun, probably several times more, then it can be done. All you need is a magician with the Anchoring metamagic and an offensive spell who is willing to make them for you.

bishop186
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Jun 4 2008, 07:30 AM) *
Magic bullets are possible, just absurdly expensive. If you can stand the idea of paying more for a bullet than you paid for the gun, probably several times more, then it can be done. All you need is a magician with the Anchoring metamagic and an offensive spell who is willing to make them for you.


Somewhat off topic: y'know, that'd be an interesting concept for a character; a mage that makes specialized, anchored bullets - perhaps kind of like Gene Starwind and his Caster Shells from Outlaw Star in their rarity and seriousness of expenditure. Hmm.... Thank you for that idea, hyz. grinbig.gif
Iota
Thx hyzmarca!

Hadn`t gone through street magic myself, yet.

Of course, it`s horrible expensive, but the effects!!!

Shooting someone with a sniper rifle and simultaneously hitting him with a manabolt would make assassination jobs where you only have one shot quite easy, though the pay has to be great to afford the bullets...
CanRay
Or, alternatively, a Match-Grade Bullet with an Area Effect spell anchored upon it to get everyone with a single shot.

Hell, get a Streetline Special round made with that, and suddenly you have some scary holdouts!
Iota
What would be the pay the creating mage asks for?

If you take tho Karma for Cash "rules" into consideration it would be at least 5000 Nuyen for the point of karma used up + that what the mage charges for himself...

Probably 7500 + ?
Hat
Can someone point me to the rules or reasoning behind why APDS ammo affects spirits?

Thanks.

With a sweep of his...

Hat
Blade
:shrug: Well it's magic...
Why would spirits get more damage from a heavy pistols than from a light pistol in the first place?
Wesley Street
QUOTE (Iota @ Jun 4 2008, 08:17 AM) *
How does a group of non-awakend characters deal with spirits attacking them? Since the spirits are immune to normal weapons it should be quite difficult.


I believe all spirits capable of engaging in combat have a natural weakness of some sort. So if you stumble on a fire spirit... hit him with a water hose! Woooosh!
Tarantula
APDS work because they are better and penetrating matter than a regular bullet. Materialized spirits (the only kind you can shoot) are made out of some kind of physical matter. Thus, the APDS goes deeper, and is more effective against the spirit.
paws2sky
QUOTE (Hat @ Jun 4 2008, 11:26 AM) *
Can someone point me to the rules or reasoning behind why APDS ammo affects spirits?
Thanks.
With a sweep of his...
Hat


No page references here, but...

Immunity to normal weapons gives hardened armor equal to Fx2 to a materialized spirit. If your base DV + net hits equals or exceeds the spirits Fx2 - AP, then you can do damage to them. Otherwise, the spirit ignores your attack.

Therefore, a Ruger Super Warhawk loaded with APDS (6P -6AP) is one of the best, concealable anti-spirit guns you can carry. With a single net success, you defeat a Force 6 spirit's immunity to normal weapons. The spirit still gets to resist the damage, but you still beat its immunity. And at Force 3, a spirit doesn't even get its immunity against that attack.

Okay, so the bit about the Ruger being the best, concealable anti-spirit gun is my own 2 nuyen.gif. Short-Barrel Shotguns work well too. rotate.gif Still, the image of a wild west gunslinger filling an approaching spirit with lead from his ass big hand cannon is just too cool. IMO, of course.

-paws
Wesley Street
That would make sense if it was an earth or plant spirit and a character was shooting chunks off of it. But fire spirits are made of... fire which is, in turn, made up of a chemical reaction of oxygen and some sort of superheated (and I assume "magical") fuel source. Shoot a burning log with a sniper rifle and the log isn't going to extinguish. But toss a big enough explosion at it and it will suck the oxygen away, extinguishing the fire. Ditto air spirits.

My interpretation of the hardened armor ruling on spirits is that it applies to weapons that would affect the equivalent mundane matter.

I hope Catalyst gives some sort of ruling on this in their Running Wild book because this stuff drives me nuts.
Tarantula
QUOTE (Wesley Street @ Jun 4 2008, 10:53 AM) *
That would make sense if it was an earth or plant spirit and a character was shooting chunks off of it. But fire spirits are made of... fire which is, in turn, made up of a chemical reaction of oxygen and some sort of superheated (and I assume "magical") fuel source. Shoot a burning log with a sniper rifle and the log isn't going to extinguish. But toss a big enough explosion at it and it will suck the oxygen away, extinguishing the fire. Ditto air spirits.

My interpretation of the hardened armor ruling on spirits is that it applies to weapons that would affect the equivalent mundane matter.

I hope Catalyst gives some sort of ruling on this in their Running Wild book because this stuff drives me nuts.


Fire spirits could just as easily be made of lava, or plasma, both of which have physical components which could have chunks shot off of them. Air spirits could be damaged by the air being seperated from their form, and thus reverting back to normal air, instead of being a part of the spirit, effectively shooting a "chunk" of air off it.

Spirits have hardened armor because they don't have organs, or anything like that, and as such, aren't as vulnerable to being shot/sliced/etc as creatures with organs/blood/etc.
paws2sky
Well, no not exactly. As I recall, a fire spirit doesn't actually burn anything unless it uses it Fire Aura power. Otherwise, its a construct of heat-less flame that doesn't consume oxygen or fuel or anything else.

I hate to say it, because it seems like a cop-out, but... its magic.

-paws
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Wesley Street @ Jun 4 2008, 12:34 PM) *
I believe all spirits capable of engaging in combat have a natural weakness of some sort. So if you stumble on a fire spirit... hit him with a water hose! Woooosh!


They don't. They don't have natural immunities, either. Fire burns the fire spirit just as easily as any other spirit of its force but a high pressure hose won't hurt him any more than it would hurt a water spirit of the same force.


If you want to anchor an area effect spell to a bullet either it must be a an indirect spell or it must be accompanied by a detection spell. Indirect is cheaper.

Actually, I had an idea for an absurdly expensive grenade in which each fragment contains an anchored area elemental spell. Thus every target in the blast radius becomes the epicenter of one or more elemental spells.

Edit: Fire spirits aren't made out of fire and air spirits aren't made out of air. It's where they live, not what they are.
Wesley Street
Well, there goes that idea out the window. smile.gif

It's just... does anyone else find it a bit... inelegant to treat a spirit like a drive-by victim? Probably just me. Oh well, I'll let this go.
Tarantula
You're wrong. Fire spirits have the energy aura power, and as such, "A critter with Energy Aura continuously radiates an aura of damaging or negative energy, be it flame, intense cold, electricity, or something similar." p287.
paws2sky
QUOTE (Tarantula @ Jun 4 2008, 12:11 PM) *
You're wrong. Fire spirits have the energy aura power, and as such, "A critter with Energy Aura continuously radiates an aura of damaging or negative energy, be it flame, intense cold, electricity, or something similar." p287.

Oh, well... hell. I was thinking it was an at-will type power. Hrm... wonder what power I was thinking about then? Maybe something from an earlier edition...
Tarantula
Maybe elemental attack and/or engulf?
paws2sky
Probably engulf. Anyway, oops. My bad.

Still... it doesn't change the basic problem(?) that spirits are weird things that don't obey the laws of physics as we know them.

-paws
Apathy
Yeah, I've always wondered from a fluff perspective how I should describe the effect of the immunity to normal weapons power.
  • You fire your predator at the spirit, but the bullets pass right through him with no apparent impact, and pock mark the concrete wall behind it.
  • You fire your predator at the spirit, but the bullets richochet off it without doing damage.
Synner667
When the rules stated that only melee weapons can be used to affect Spirits...
...Pesticides enhanced damage to Bug Spirits, which infers that something similar could be developed for other Spirits.

I had a NPC mage who would make bullets enclosing a drop of blood, with a Spell locked onto it...
...To use a melee attack at range [kinda]

Very expensive, and only the one mage knew the Spell.


Apathy : Wouldn't the effect depend on the Spirit ??
Fire based Spirit would melt bullets, so negating the damage
Water based Spirits would just absorb bullets, so negating the damage [and just floating in the watery body
Etc...
Sma
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Jun 4 2008, 07:04 PM) *
They don't. They don't have natural immunities, either. Fire burns the fire spirit just as easily as any other spirit of its force but a high pressure hose won't hurt him any more than it would hurt a water spirit of the same force.



Water and Fire Spirits being the exception here since they're actually severy allergic to fire and water respectively.
Johnny Jacks
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Jun 4 2008, 10:04 AM) *
They don't. They don't have natural immunities, either. Fire burns the fire spirit just as easily as any other spirit of its force but a high pressure hose won't hurt him any more than it would hurt a water spirit of the same force.


Except that Fire Spirits have "Allergy (Water, Severe)".
Moon-Hawk
QUOTE (Iota @ Jun 4 2008, 08:51 AM) *
What would be the pay the creating mage asks for?

If you take tho Karma for Cash "rules" into consideration it would be at least 5000 Nuyen for the point of karma used up + that what the mage charges for himself...

Probably 7500 + ?

And of course, you're now walking around with a bullet with his astral signature on it, and you're probably going to do something extremely naughty with it. That's probably worth something to him.

Hmmm, in the old days of anchoring the anchoring mage took drain whenever the spell was used, rather than when it was made, so if you made 6 of these bullets and they were all fired in rapid succession a month later, the mage could be insta-killed by massive drain overflow while taking a bath at home. Is that still the case, or is drain taken when the anchored doohickey is made now, rather than when it's used?
Dr Funfrock
QUOTE (JoelHalpern @ Jun 4 2008, 08:19 AM) *
Moderate force spirits are awkward but not impossible. A force 4 spirit can go down before good shots from an Ares Predator (2 points of called shot.) From a Streetline special, you better be a very good shot, and called shot for +4 / -4. But then, even taking down a troll with a Streetline is hard.

If the Force gets much higher though, it really gets much harder for mundanes to overcome the hardened armor. (A high strength Troll boix will still make the Spirit very unhappy. An Adept PowerThrow Troll, or even PowerThrow Orc can probably get enough to matter. But remember that the Spirits defense has gone up as well when the force went up. And its soak.) Personally, for Force 6 spirits, I think you want called shots to overcome hardened armor, and compensated long bursts from a good gun to get enough damage to matter.
Advanced characters can probably come up with other choices. But magic (either Weapon's Focus and good melee, or actuall spell casting) is your friend when forces get higher.


And that is why God created Panther Cannons, my friend.
Iota
@ Moon-Hawk: the drain has to be resisted at creation so that shouldn`t be the problem
Fortune
Wards would be a problem for your clip of Magic Bullets.
Kronk2
QUOTE (JoelHalpern @ Jun 4 2008, 08:19 AM) *
you better be a very good shot, and called shot for +4 / -4.
JoelHalpern



What is there to pull a called shot at on a spirit? What I am getting at is where are you aiming to try and overcome its armor. My understanding is that its a universal coverage thing. Even if you shot it smack in the wedding veggies then it would still get its immunity to normal weps. So how does called shot help you in this situation?? this sounds to me like a strictly metagame solution to the problem. Which is what we get sometimes.
Muspellsheimr
QUOTE (Iota @ Jun 4 2008, 06:39 AM) *
Shooting someone with a sniper rifle and simultaneously hitting him with a manabolt would make assassination jobs where you only have one shot quite easy, though the pay has to be great to afford the bullets...

A little off-topic, but my current character uses a Barrette loaded with Capsul Rounds (Ringu). It's what she uses to assassinate dragons.

On-topic, I would have to double-check, but I do not believe most spirits have any special resistance to chem-tech, so...
Every character I have made that uses combat chemicals is incredibly powerful - on par with, sometimes even surpassing, magic. Expensive, yes, but extremely effective. Gets even worse when you combine chemtech & augmentation on a Mystic Adept assassin (yes, my aforementioned character). devil.gif

QUOTE (Kronk2 @ Jun 4 2008, 05:00 PM) *
What is there to pull a called shot at on a spirit? What I am getting at is where are you aiming to try and overcome its armor. My understanding is that its a universal coverage thing. Even if you shot it smack in the wedding veggies then it would still get its immunity to normal weps. So how does called shot help you in this situation?? this sounds to me like a strictly metagame solution to the problem. Which is what we get sometimes.

He was not talking about a Called Shot to bypass the armor, although by RAW, that is possible. He was talking about a Called Shot to increase damage, which in turn increases the chance of the spirit not automatically ignoring it.
Dr Funfrock
QUOTE (Kronk2 @ Jun 4 2008, 07:00 PM) *
What is there to pull a called shot at on a spirit? What I am getting at is where are you aiming to try and overcome its armor. My understanding is that its a universal coverage thing. Even if you shot it smack in the wedding veggies then it would still get its immunity to normal weps. So how does called shot help you in this situation?? this sounds to me like a strictly metagame solution to the problem. Which is what we get sometimes.


Well for that matter, why add damage from net hits on your attack roll?

If you want an answer that covers the problems of accuracy, better weapons, APDS, or, hell, why Panthers do more damage to beings of pure magic than a punch in the face anyway, try this: It's all about belief. The weilder believes in their weapon, their ammunition, the accuracy of their shot, so it works. This isn't a conscious thing, and it's probably not even down to the individual or something. It's just that because they know they shot well, and they were using a Ruger loaded with EX-EX, that the spirit is going to really feel it. Kind of like an expansion on the whole attack of will thing.

It's either that, or just have to go with the idea that, whilst very resilient because of their unearthly nature, spirits still have physical bodies. A called shot would be aiming for the cracks between the hardened magma, or the burning white eyes, or the space where the soft wood can be seen beneath the bark, or whatever. You guess, and hope.

It's either that, or we end up playing Galaxy Quest:
"Try to aim for it's weak spots"
"It's a rock. It doesn't have any weak spots!"
Cthulhudreams
Or maybe spirits do have weakspots where they link back to their home meta dimension that if disrupted physically disrupt the mana connection to their home plan. And everyone who uses guns alot knows about them because its something you get told.

Who knows.
Jaid
manifested spirits are not made out of fire, or rock, or water, or whatever. they're made out of some wacky spirit-stuff that kinda looks like those substances when needed, and maybe even acts sort of like them. regardless, this physical form is actually there, and can apparently be damaged by the application of force. while it may not have weak spots like a human (ie the head doesn't contain a brain, there is no heart, etc) they could certainly have weak spots like a building or other complex object might. by carefully choosing where you place the bullet to hit a weaker spot (perhaps at a joint, perhaps just someplace where the spirit's mass isn't quite as concentrated, for example) you can inflict a greater amount of damage to the spirit's physical form than you could by just shooting it in a non-optimal location.

which, considering this spirit-stuff is apparently pretty sturdy, can be a very important tactic when dealing with spirits.
K2that'sit
Hello there my first post. Find a possession tradition and ask very nicely if they'll have a watcher spirt or better placed in your gun.
Jaid
QUOTE (K2that'sit @ Jun 4 2008, 09:16 PM) *
Hello there my first post. Find a possession tradition and ask very nicely if they'll have a watcher spirt or better placed in your gun.


that might conceivably work if you were trying to club the spirit to death with your gun. it does absolutely nothing for the bullets i'm afraid though.
K2that'sit
alright then have them do the bullet
last_of_the_great_mikeys
Well, specifically for dealing with water spirits, they have a severe allergy to jell-0 powder.
Nefacio
I dont see a really big deal to kill a spirit being a mundane, several ways to do great damage, and great damage will affect them. Your worst problem will be defending against their attacks, so better tell ur mage partner to keep his free action to protect using counterspelling, some powers dont use counterspelling but this is the same for awakened so you are not in disadvantage here.

If APDS bullets work for spirits, then its a bit easier.
Fortune
All AP is applicable to Spirits except for the AP bonus that is accumulated through automatic fire (ie. burst or full auto).
Muspellsheimr
BF/FA is a Damage Bonus, not Armor Penetration. But regardless, it still is not counted until after you determine if the attack does damage at all.
Fortune
Wasn't quite sure of the specifics at the time, and just wanted to make sure my comment about AP wasn't misunderstood. smile.gif
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