Ok, so I finally decided to make up the idea I had for an elven bear shapeshifter mystic adept, Druidic tradition, and I have a few questions regarding their allergy/vulnerability to silver.

If I recall, Vulnerability means that the weapon harms them as a normal weapon would harm a normal person-i.e., this damage cannot be regenerated through their Regeneration power, but must be healed normally? I paged through RC a few times and I can't seem to find this.

Ok, so the Allergy. Now, a Shapeshifter's allergy to Silver would essentially be the same thing as a Human with severe allergy to silver-ie, contact with skin causes pain, +4 DV to weapons used. Does Alleviate Allergy help a Shapeshifter? If he cast it on himself and sustained it in a combat with someone wielding, say, a silver knife, and got enough hits to knock it to Mild, would it be treated as Mild for the duration of the spell? Or does this spell not work on things with an inate allergy(like vampires to wood?)

Now, as for the damage. What about damage and armor? Say a human takes a stab at him with a silver knife. Average dude, say strength 3. Normal knife damage would be 3P, but it would be 7P vs. my shifter, since he's got the Allergy. But...he's wearing Impact Armor(Armor Jacket 8/6, with Mystic Armor 1, and 1/3 worth of PPP with FFBA2), for a final impact armor of 11. If the human manages to hit, but only does 1 net hit, it has an effective DV of 4 to a human-8 to my guy...but it's not enough to penetrate his armor, and the damage is still Stun. Even if the knife had a point of AP, it would still be Stun. Does he take the extra Stun damage from the attack(tries to knock down (8 stun, basically, with his armor + body roll), or does the silver actually have to contact his skin for the extra damage to kick in, and thus he'd only be rolling against the base knife damage? I know severe allergies are severe, but I don't know if, say, thwacking a silver stick against his armor jacket would cause him a Severe reaction. It might, but it doesn't say ''being anywhere near'' the allergen, but in the BBB, it does say ''contact.''

I think that's all for now. I recall that a metahuman shifter keeps things like vision or whatnot, but doesn't stack the stat abilities, so I'm ok there.

The Vulnerability weakness was, unfortunately, accidentally left out of RC (oops). It basically means that they can't regenerate damage from that substance even if you use Alleviate Allergy on them (which does work for critter allergies.)

As for armor et al., it is indeed a case of "the silver part has to touch you." No touchy-da (in this case, no armor penetration), no extra damage.

Good to know what the Vulnerability does. We have been waiting a while, & still have not seen a write-up. I assume it will be included in the errata, but any chance we can get it posted here while waiting on errata?

Ok, so the damage can't be regenerated, even under Alleviate Allergy. Got that. But...does Alleviate Allergy still lower the allergy?

Example: My guy casts Alleviate Allergy on himself, reducing it to Mild, and sustains it.

The guy mentioned manages to nail him(say he's only wearing his leather jacket), with said silver knife. Mild allergies don't add damage. The dude stabbing him rolls the 1 net success or whatnot. Would he be rolling against the base knife, due to his Allergy being Mild now, say taking the damage down to 1...but that 1 damage can't be regenerated, and must heal like anyone else-OR does alleviate allergy just not work at all on someone with Vulnerability?

BTW: ''Can't Regenerate'' I also assume means they can heal the allergy damage like a normal person would heal a wound, at least, as long as all the offending material was removed?(the bullet, etc.)

The only difference between an Allergy quality & Allergy critter weakness is that the weakness is mandatory, the quality is optional. They function identically.

In other words, yes. Alleviate Allergy works normally, as well as the Allergen Immunization genetics.

In regards to a shifter, the Vulnerability would work normally, the Allergy at whatever you manage to reduce it down to. If you remove the allergy entirely, you still cannot regenerate damage from a silver weapon, but you suffer no other negative effects.

so . . vampire with good enough alleviate allergy against sunlight . . daywalker?

I suppose if it's in a sustaining focus, it would work, judging by that we know now-yeah, Alleviate Allergy works on the allergy part, just not the regenerating part. (and the vampire was able to use such foci, magician, mystic adept.)

But make sure it's high enough Force that it can't be dispelled easily. While grounding is gone, foci can still be dispelled as far as I know.

Now, if the vampire mage was Initiated with Quickening it could be harder(but it's not impossible to dispel a quickened spell.)

Just make sure you're inside if it gets dispelled.

Then again, if I were a vampire, if I had to choose one...I might take Alleviate: Wood. What with Wood being freaking everywhere, at least I can get out of the sun. It would suck to walk into some old fashioned building, vampire in a tank top and shorts.

''Have a seat on the bench.''

''Erm...I'd rather not...''

or have a shroud/shadow spell ready . . would that work?
i'm a vampire, standinth in the middle of the valley of death, high noon, nothing between me and the sun . . and i'm feeling cool, because i'm standing in . . what? my own shadow? oO

Wood is not common in Shadowrun - it's not even that common outside of private use currently.

Vampires only have a moderate allergy to sunlight, so they will never actually take damage from being in the sun. Also, they cannot regenerate while exposed to their allergy, but 2 hits on an Alleviate spell means they do not have the allergy at all, & thus regenerate normally.

One thing that you might not have noticed about vamps is that while they cannot regenerate when exposed to wood or sunlight, they also cannot die when exposed to wood or sunlight.

The allergen prevents them from making a regeneration test, but the rules for regeneration clearly state that the character is not dead until he makes a regeneration test, no matter how severe his wounds. You can actually save the life of a severely wounded vamp by staking him before the CT is over and then giving him medical treatment later.
(This is actually pretty good, because it lets you simulate all of those vampire movies which start with some idiot finding Dracula staked in his coffin and the first thing he does is pull the stake out like a moron.)

While that does appear to be correct under RAW, I suspect most to all GMs would rule it as the creature functionally not possessing Regeneration when exposed to the allergen, & thus die normally.

Vampire with Improved Invisibility at force 1 = daywalker. It bends light around you; who cares if the threshhold is only 1 success to resist, you can walk around in daylight.

VERY clever. I like you person.

everybody likes hyz, even if he has to point out every single flaw in most of my posts <.< . .

This is quite clever. Hell, you could use it against the PCs, even. They fight a vamp...who stakes himself, and if none of the PCs have knowledge of such(knowledge roll or something), they think he commits suicide...only to have his cronies revive him.

Except that most groups I've run with have been the sort to put several bullets through the brainpan of vampires and shifters once they're down.

Doesn't matter, with this.

Until he is allowed to make a Regeneration test, he does not die.
As long as he remains staked, he cannot make the Regeneration test (& thus remains alive, regardless of how much damage he has taken).

As long as he remains alive, medical aid can be administered, allowing the very real possibility of revival even before the stake is removed.

So, to kill such a character, you must either ensure they are not exposed to an allergen & take sufficient damage to kill them regardless of their regeneration test, or destroy their body utterly.


As I said previously, however, I doubt many GMs, if any at all, will follow the RAW in this instance, instead ruling that while exposed to an allergen, the creature looses the Regeneration power entirely.

weight it down with something and throw it into the ocean where it is REALLY deep . . either there will be something that can swalow and digest it as a whole or it won't do anything because of the lack of air, which makes vampires go sleepy time . . or burn it, that's allways been good for getting rid of such things

And once the overflow gets up into the high double digits, they're not likely to be regenerating enough to continue to survive, even with medical attention.

Hmm.

Except they'd get (by RAW) normal healing tests, wouldn't they...

Heh. Heh. Heh.

Not sure even SR medicine can put your brain back together after someone has put a couple heavy pistol rounds through it.

it can, more or less . . of course, you would not be yourself personality wise anymore, some senses and memories might be missing/messed up, but generally, the probability of surviving that is not all that low with fast enough medical/magical help . . headshot into overflow damage would mean your brain is leaking out . . now stabilize and then treat the wound. replace whatever is needed with bio/cyber and/or heal him up with magic

The problem is 2-3 heavy pistol rounds means the back 1/2 of your skull is most likely missing, and the kinetic energy imparted by the pistol has likely voided your skull. If you're lucky you'll have a functional brain stem, but the rest of your brain will either be destroyed dude to the shock wave made when a high speed bullet passes though a liquid medium, or simply kicked out the backside of your skull. I don't see there being enough matter, let alone enough living matter to allow you to be 'repaired' with any degree of success.
You've have to do something cheesy, like get possessed by a great form plant spirit, and have it put you back together, cause 'magic' is the only way I could explain getting a functional brain back in your skull which looked anything like your old one.

Heal spell. Nuff said.

I don't think it regenerate missing organs.

As long as you're not dead, it heals you, so yeah, why not?

Magic don't work like, if it doesn't say the spell does it, then the spell doesn't do it. Besides, invisibility would only bend the visible spectrum of light, there is a lot of radiation from the sun that would still hit you.

Sure is. The only question is which part of it are vampires allergic to? If they are not allergic to any given frequency or combination of frequencies, as those could be artificially simulated, but are in fact allergic to some 'supernatural' aspect of it, then making a manna shield against it should work just fine.

somewhere in the history of Shadowrun there was once a description of IMPROVED INVISIBILITY that said it would actively bend the light around the spells target . . so no light hitting the vampire, because it's diverted . . and thus no negative consequences . . you know, aside for the simple fact, that you need light to hit your eyes so you can see . . ok, you could circumvent that with spells or other such means . .
hrm . . full body suit with ruthenium-polymers tha looks like every-day clothing, including gloves and a full head mask like one that is used in motorcycles or skiing or something like that?
or hell, simply have a full-body body-painting . . technically, as long as the pain stays on, the PAINT gets hit and not your body . . then just add really good shades and voila?

Well, in the example of "2-3 heavy pistol rounds means the back 1/2 of your skull is most likely missing", it should be noted you do not regenerate head or spine wounds. So, even if you are allowing the vaguely 'technically' correct assumption that said vampire gets one last regen attempt once his allergy is lifted... he still doesn't.

Ohh god, then we have blade vampires where they can get around it with sunscreen.

Maybe I just play too much V:tR, but I believe a racial weakness is a key component of a race and shouldn't be very easy to circumvent.

*shrugs*
it's a technicality . . if you have a GM that lets such things fly with an:"i did not know it could do that", then it is your given right to be as rules-lawyerish as you want . . if he doesn't . . well, good try anyway *snickers*

I take it this means if one had an appropriate "Alleviate Vulnerability" spell, the above would not apply in the same vein that an Allergy would be rendered irrelevant to someone that had the appropriate Alleviate Allergy spell on them?

I can be a jerk of a rules lawyer but at the same time, if I find something that exploitative, I'll use it just to make the GM call foul.

When that happens, I will show and explain how what I'm doing is within RAW as well as cite modern media examples of the very same functions. Then offer a compromise that preserves the spirit of what I did and close the smart-assery.

It also need matter to regenerate (no strange nuclear syntesis, quantistical drek, or phisics anomalies, you can't create matter from nothing), bricks to build new tissues; if chop it and keep the resulting parts separed for enough it IS giong to die. Failing that try explosives (sub-tactical nuke is probably the bare minimum), molecular destruction (plasma furnace, particle accellerator, put it on a rocket and fire it on the sun), convince it to commit suicide (naked brackhaven photo), use it as a living vessel for an allay spirit, allay with it (not the best thing with infecteds but 'shifters could do), quickened turn to goo and use it (along clay plasteel, whatever) to make angels statues for presepes (the more the better) and send them all over the globe, keep casting death touch until you bring it more than twice it body over the overflow treshold, have Lowfyr eat it, starve it to death, and if you tryed all this and still lives hire AH as consulentant, he will know what to do.

"I love the smell of despairing GM's in the evening!"
yeah, one of the most fun parts of shadowrun is still making other players and GM go corsseyed and groan when they see the newest abomination i started up . . i make them sweat with the possibilities of one hyper power gamer character, then i concede and play another character that is BY FAR not as bad . . but still comparatively high power to usual starting characters ^^

I'd just say "Nay." and wait until you create an actual character