While shadow running last night, my runner group had to sneak into a facility that was guarded by both astral mages and red samurai. It would have been easy to hide from one or the other, but not both at the same time. This situation brought up the point that it is extremely hard to stealth kill astral mages when they project in groups because weapon foci are melee only and engaging them in astral combat or mana bolting them is fairly conspicuous. Someone, I don't remember who, suggested that one make a single arrow or bullet into a weapon focus so that it would be dual natured, and therefore able to shoot astral mages (though, since it is not a melee attack, the focus' rating wouldn't add to the attack). If this does work it would be very expensive, seeing as each bullet would cost several thousand nuyen, and one would have to make said bullets out of tungsten or depleated uranium so that the bullet would not deform upon impact and therefore be recoverable using an implanted RFID tag.

My question is, would a weapon focus bullet/arrow work?

yes and no.

you could whack a spirit with the bullet or jab them with an arrow, provided it is in your hand.

you could not fire the bullet at an astral entity and expect it to have any effect, however.

for the record, *groups* of astral projecting mages is quite ridiculous. groups of spirits (especially watchers) is much closer to reasonable, but even that is a bit weird. more likely, you will have either a few watchers or maybe 1-2 actual spirits patrolling something unless it is someplace where you just don't go. ever.

in any case, if you want to take out groups of astral enemies, i can assure that an astral bullet is no more subtle than mana bolt. if for some reason these enemies are dumb enough to be close to each other, a simple mana ball (or stun ball) will do fine. if not, you can try multicasting spells, though the drain can get a little ugly on that.

There are a lot of threads on this topic if you search a bit. I'd use the rules for possessed spirits. Possess the bullet and it can hit the mage with a DV of at least the spirit's force. There are also a number of spirit power that would be very useful for a bullet. First Energy Aura. If the bullet lodge inside a corporial target you could have it keep on doing damage resisted only by body. Also many spirits can get psychokinesics, this could be used to return the bullet to you. Do pending on liberal you GM is you might feasibly be able get the long term task "Possess the bullet chambered in this gun". After the round is fired the spirit returns to the shooter at astral speeds. This set up isn't fool proof, but it has a very good return on your money. That said think enchanted ammo is totally sweet. I'd much rather see a version of caster shells from outlaw star than this, but that's just not how SR magic works. Still this option will take a karma point per force of the spirit per year, and can get you into trouble with wards and such, but


Question, what do people think the "going rate" for karma is? presumably you can pay people for a long term task and an anchored heal spell (much better than doc wagon). What do you think a chunk of soul goes for on the open market?

Weapon Foci are melee wapons. Always have been, always will.
Someone more rooted in the art of quotation may give you some canonical, nitty-gritty rules or in-verse metaphysical reasoning, but since basically forever, they just are.
I guess there has to be some sort of connet´ction between the adept's aura and the focus, same way that a magician can't draw from a power focus he keeps in his drawer at home.
So no weapon focus bullets. No arrows, either. Not even throwing knives, and they are about as personal as it gets with thrown weapons.
If you're feeling real rules-lawery, you might even restrict an adept from getting the focus' boni when he throws his magic katana across the room (if he's, you know, into that...

edit: damn, you people are fast...

Ranged weapon foci have been brought up in other threads. The general consensus is that if it leaves your hands then it cannot be a weapon focus.
So others and myself came up with two ways to make it work:
The Taser with the cords behind it and the grapple gun.

Both would require the whole package to be enchanted as the weapon focus meaning if the line snaps or anything then it is worthless. Expensive.... but could be good. Grapple gun would give you the ability to reach out and touch someone at 75 meters!

This is VERY left field/houserules territory and violates the whole H2H weapons only thing... but the arguement was that it has to be in your hand to make the mojo work so technically these weapons are still in your hand.

You can do whatever you want with your game however.

Don't forget that bonding cost is based on reach, with 1 point of reach being about 1 meter, give or take. Karma cost for bonding that grapple gun would be 78*Force.

How about this: build a high-rating ward around a large drone (they're around a cubic meter), and then have it drive through the places spirits occupy. This also has the advantage of being able to knock down lesser astral barriers.

Well based on that... can I get extra dice = to the range I am from my target since I get a reach advantage?

I've tried as hard as i can to figure out a way to create magic bullets within the rules. so far i haven't figure it out yet. the best i've figured out is a bow/xbow firing a bolt/arrow loaded with FAB II.

I always liked the Quickened/Anchored bullet with Slay Spirit put into it, myself.

For what you intend to do? Short answer no, long answer..... no. I wonder about power throw combining with a weapon foci. Now would that be a viable option? Me thinks combining a power with another kind of power is an option.... although you would have to retrieve your weapon I guess would be the more annoying part of throwing a foci in the first place.

Unless the weapon involves rope or chain - a bullwhip, length of chain or a kusari-gama as examples.

The basic rule for a weapon focus is physical contact - the magic must be channeled through a physical medium in order for the "weapon focus" to engage.

-Siege

wanna hunt really big?
harpoon weapon focus!
the ship kind used to hunt whales and the such . . well, with leviathans and the such you're probably gonna need it o.O

anchored spells are so last decade.



now theres an idea! the only question is, what are you gonna do with that air spirit once you've harpooned it?

drag it down into a small enchanted container . . if i can'T have my proton accelerator, i will play an ahab style ghostbuster *g*

No NO No NO. There are no magical range weapons in SR. This is not the game which shall not be named. Magical Range Weapons cause cancer.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

well, yes . . if you use active radios in your orichalcum then it will cause cancers . . and lobsters if you don't look out

I had actually brought up a spirit possessing a ranged weapon at another time durring the same session, though the weapon in question was an atomic bomb and the spirit was a nuclear fire spirit.

Is there any way to make a normal bullet double natured? An awakened mineral maybe, or hollow points filled with dual natured lichen or moss (like the awakened plants that are used in magical security) and sealed off with wax? Even if awakened plant matter isn't very hard, its still going to hurt when its moving at several hundred mph when fired from a sniper rifle.

As a side note, hollow points filled with poison or weaponized nantites and sealed with wax are a great delivery system. They both hurt by themself and carry a nasty payload.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=22309

You should check out this other topic. We've been covering pretty much the same ground in there.

Swordfish MustardBall!!

i don't follow?

It was a saying that was popular on some of the threads here awhile back. As it had not been used in a long time I thought I would have a flash back.