I'm working with an idea but need some outside input.

I'm looking to have some NPC gang bangers conjure a small Earth Elemental and use it to materialize in front of a moving delivery truck to stop/wreck the truck. I figure if my F-150 took considerable damage from a small deer at 55 MPH then a delivery truck hitting a statue at 35-45 MPH would disable the vehicle.

But the question is: How much does an Earth Elemental weigh? Is it the same as an equal mass of stone when materialized or is it just as much as an equivalent Body of a metahuman? If a delivery truck strikes a force 4 Earth Elemental (Body 8) at 35 MPH is it the same as striking a Troll at 35 MPH, or worse?

Thanks in advance for your opinions/insights.

I'd say it's like hitting solid rock.

Because Spirits of Earth are not always the same (some appearing as trees, others stone or dirt, etc), I would go off the spirit's Body (use the collision rules).

Doesn't it depend what the elemental is made out of? Pick a substance: concrete, earth, granite etc and look up it's weight on the net? Then just guess-timate how big your earth elemental is going to be and you have a rough idea of his weight.

Why not have the earth spirit just Engulf the truck? The spirit doesn't have to use its own body in an Engulf, it can use its associated terrain to do it (SR4, p. 287). So just have it wrap the road around the truck. That should have some effect... especially the bit about, "Engulfed victims can't move."

Peter

Because spirits are not made out of anything physical - when materializing, they create their bodies with some form of supernatural force.

oops

I think using the collision rules is easiest, although engulfing the truck with the spirit power is a better use of the spirit.

I say this because a spirit, regardless of its form, is made of supernatural spirit stuff. The nice thing about the spirit rules in SR4 is that they are the broadly same for all traditions, so you don't need different stats for brown skinned ancestor earth spirits summoned by a shaman or earth elementals in the form of golems or whirling debris summoned by hermetics.