So I'm sitting here, planning out the next adventure for my "trapped in Bug City" campaign, and this question pops into my mind:

can the various Infected (ghouls, dzoo-no-qua, etcetera) be used as host metahumans for the insect spirits' Inhabitation power?

The only thing I can think of that would preclude it is the fact that all Infected are dual-natured, and I'm not sure how that interacts with Inhabitation.

Yes, they're all fair game.

There's mention of a Toxic Insect Shaman Wendigo in the part about Bug City . .

Yes, but she's a shaman who summons bug spirits, not someone who's had a bug installed in her.

Ancient History's response settles the question, though. Thanks!

Who might be a blood magician as well.

Great! Just when I thought I had a handle on the bug problem.

now imagine that one investing himself with a queen . .

I don't think that insect shamans can invest themselves, it's easier that the queen choses that the shaman is no longer needed and uses him/her as a host.

Also the Foul One is rumored to be female.

ah, yes, i forgot about not being able to invest themselves with spirits . .
as for being female<racist>they all look the same to me</racist> *g*

Yeah, I did too.

As an aside -- does it seem that insect spirits got a significant boost in power between editions? I took a bunch of average-stat humans invested with Force 4 roach spirits, wearing leathers (2/2). Nothing outre, nothing over the top... and these things still roll 19 dice on damage resistance tests!

You haven't seen the illustration, have you?

i skimmed over the book, only when i read toxic, insect shaman and wendige on close proximity i did read a bit closer . . but i did not look at the pictures . .

So the insect spirit Inhabits the wendigo, and uses blood magic to become even more uber.
The PCs manage to kill it anyways.
They take a deep breath and shift into post-boss-kill mode; looking around, taking off armor to bandage wounds, etc.
Then the master shedim, which has been waiting for just this moment, moves into the now-available body.

"Why me?"

Stick&Shock works wonder against spirits, they ignore half of all the armor value bringing the hardened armor from 8 to 4 and the total armor from 10 to 5, which means that the roach (I suppose a worker) go from 19 to 14, now the S&S have a fixed base damage value of 6S(e) ad the net hits and the roach must resist 7 or more points of stun damagewhich means that it needs a number of successes equal to half (for a single net hit, more hit higher the percentage) of the dp with an everage probability of one tird (not very likely), add the damage boost from brust-fire, called shots, etc you can dispose the spirit quickly.
As a side note, the roach gets 19 dices while wearing lether in it true form (which disreguards completely completely the attributes of the host as the body gets destroyed, also why would a spirit wear lether?), if it's an hybrid form it should have the base physical attributes of the host boosted by the spirit's force (what is it the base body attribute? 2 or 3 dices?), if it is a flesh form it should have the attributes of the host, plus immunity from normal weapons, the +2 bonus of roach spirits and the lether.

Yes, bugs have become a lot more powerful since SR2.
Flesh-form spirits (those who are now referred to as hybrids) used to have worse attributes than the host and one or two relatively mediocre powers (Venom and Enhanced Senses most of the time, IIRC).
SR4 hybrids, on the other hand, get -often significant- stat boosts, a whole bunch of -often awesome- powers and the fact that every hive can call upon 5 different spirit types with a variable selection of powers means that you can build up a really versatile opposition.
Plus, hybrid form gives you full control over the host's 'ware.

Combine that with the possibility to quickly infect hosts and you have a potential nightmare scenario.
For strain II and III, you just need some body fluid samples to do that, for the others, you need an appropriate carrier to drain and infect the hosts- oh, wait, there was something...

Anybody here who is already picturing maneating, mindraping, regenerating roaches with mottled tufts of white fur sticking out between their carapace?

Actually, I ruled that S&S doesn't reduce the spirits' armor value. "Half Impact armor" is meant to reflect the fact that Stick & Shock works by shooting electricity into the target -- as long as the electrodes punch through the physical armor & make contact with flesh, the target gets shocked.

The spirit's "Immunity to Normal Weapons" power functions, in game terms, AS armor, but it isn't actual physical armor. Stick & Shock is a normal weapon, and electricity doesn't really do anything special to spirits (not being magical in nature), so... there's really no reason to knock half the armor off.



The Hybrid Form spirit (which these were) possesses Immunity to Normal Weapons. So, human with base body of 3, which gets boosted to 7 by the Force of the spirit. Immunity to Normal Weapons gives effective armor of 8/8, combined with leather for 10/10. 10 + 7 + 2 for roach spirits = 19.

The Foul One? To make it worse it could be an hybrid form nymph and later becoming a mother spirit.

Yes, and it's scaring the bejeezus out of -me-. My players will run gibbering in fear.

AH I have a question, can insect spirits use medical clones as hosts?

Conceivably, though most such clones wouldn't be particularly viable flesh-forms.

Actually, how I envisioned it was a small battery with a gel tip is shot through the air. The gel tip sticks to the armor and activates the electrical charge. The target only gets 1/2 Impact because their armor is against their skin, and their armor just got a healthy dose of "Plugged Into A Socket", or electricity.

Why shouldn't a primal force (electricity) be allowed to damage a spirit so effectively? All that is is human ingenuity being able to shape and control (moderately) the forces of nature. And, by your logic, why would an Indirect Combat spell that deals elemental damage affect the target? Yes, the effect is created through magic, but is non-magical istelf. For example, magic is used to spark the fire, but afterwards the fire is a real fire.

Don't get upset with players because they're clever.

My group is currently mage-hunting (cashing in on the 1 million bounties for Blood Mages and Toxic Shaman), toting licensed SnS guns. Makes my head hurt, but it's legal and clever, so I just make things more difficult. More spirits, higher forces, cover, ect.

Does SR4 make any distinction between elemental and normal damage? I don't think SnS, Flamethrowers, etc, are, in SR4, more effective than a bullet or a tossed rock against spirits.

Immunity from normal weapons adds an armor rating equal to two times the magic attribute of the spirit/critter to the damage resistance tests made against damage inflicted by non magical weapons, so if the the spirit is hit with an active weapon focus (even a lowly force 1) the IfNW do not apply and the spirit must resist the damage with only its body attribute, if hit by a S&S (which aren't magical) it gains the benefits of IfNW (for a force 4 spirit it's (8/8 hardened armor); however the S&S inflict elettrical elemental damage, which happens to be resisted with Body + 1/2 impact armor (round up) + non conductivity rating (plus the +2 specific for roaches spirits).
So in the end your force 4 roach hybrid form wearing lether resist the damage with:
7 (Body: 3 human base + 4 spirit force) + 1/2 x 8 (armor from IfNW) + 1/2 x 2 (lether) + 2 (roach bonus) = 7 + 4 + 1 + 2 = 14

Elemental Effect i think halves Armor, and Immunity to Normal Weapons doubles armor, so they get back to normal Armor(maho?@.@). Then Apply AP if there is more than - half and then apply successes and see if you get above their armor with the damage and THEN factor in things like burst-fire and fully automatic fire . .

Hm. I thought that was the case in SR3 but NOT in SR4.

In SR3, you compared the base damage of the weapon to the armor. In SR4 you just compare "modified DV" to the armor, without limitations on what can modify the DV. Or am I misreading that?

They are the trown rock is resisted with the full armor rating (which happens to be hardened so if the modified damage isn't greater than the modified armor it does nothing) while most type of elemental damage are resised with half (round up) of the impact armor (and halving that hardened armor is a big help for avoiding that the damage is voided).

The best weapon against spirits is the Ares Screech Sonic Rifle (Arsenal, p.39 description, p.41 table), it inflicts sonic damage, which happens to ignore completely the armor, and as weapon is unrestricted (ironicaly the peak discharge batteries that it uses to store the required energy are forbidden).

nope, as far as i remember, brust and auto still does not factor in to things like overcoming hardened armor . .
it's still impossible to kill someone with a usual gatling gun when he's armored with hardened ballistic armor equal to the base damage of the minigun . . now if you add in something, for example ammunition, that makes damage actually RISE ABOVE his armor . . then the full effect of automatic fire will kill him dead on the spot . .

at least, that's my udnerstanding of the rules, so use with caution . .

No you're not misreading, you are missing the very first phrase at p.143 of the BBB

Net hits count too.

*snaps finger*
ah, yes, not just hits, but NET Hits . . i forget that distinction time and time again . . but otherwise, i think i was pretty much spot on yes?
Also, the Gauss-Rifle is good for killing all sorts of things, starting with trolls, going up to Wendigo and Dzoo Noo Qua, then to Spirits and finally to bigger Critters like smaller Dragons . .

Another pretty bad Question, that i guess the Answer to will be a resounding:"NO!" . .
Can you take Shedim as Contacts?
if so, it would allow things likethis
GM:"you're dead!"
P1: "I don't think so Tim! I rise and shine again!"

Why? Whats wrong with some smartlinked shedim? (runs for cover)
Also a great dragon ca be killed easily (provided you can bypass all the magical dreck that it puts up for its own protection) when it takes metahuman form, when in its natural form some results can be obtained with an Aztechonology Itzcòatl Gauss Cannon (Arsenal p.123-124), or better MANY of them; failing that there is always the Thor Shot, nuclear weapons, orbital bovine bombardment, drop bear, nanoweapons and if all of this failes trow a photo of Nadja Daviar (naked) at it and run while it's distracted.

I've /actually/ got ItNW figured out.


Force 2 Spirit:
Hardened Armor 4, Body 2
Light Pistol (4DV) with three successes to shoot.
The pistol does damage. The Spirit rolls 6 dice to soak.

Force 4 Spirit:
Hardened Armor 8, Body 4
Heavy Pistol (5DV-1ap) with three successes to shoot.
No body roll. The pistol does not harm him.

Force 5 Spirit:
Hardened Armor 10, Body 5
Medium Machine Gun (6DV-2ap) short narrow burst with five successes to shoot.
Machine Gun does Adjusted 13DV against the Spirit's body roll of 13. Note that if it had been a Force 6 Spirit, it would not have needed a roll.

Force 6 Spirit:
Hardened Armor 12, Body 6
Submachine Gun (5DV-5ap for AP Rounds) full narrow burst (+9DV) with 4 successes to shoot.
No damage.
5+4successes does not meet or beat HA-12, and so the bullets, each considered a DV9, bounce off the hardened armor. Only the modified DV applies to hardened armor for the initial comparison. Bursts are added later.

IfNW is hardened armor, and hardened armor works like this:
if Base damage + net hits > hardened Armor - AP the critter takes damage, if Base damage + net hits <= hardened Armor - AP the critter doesn't take any damage
so a force 4 spirit shot with a Predator (regular rounds) takes three net hits to be harmed (5+3 > 8-1).
Damage bonus from multiple (for exemple burst fire) doesn't count (it must be the single bullet to bypass the IfNW)

Actually, 5DV + 3 Net hits > 8 HA - 1ap, so spirit takes 8p damage, soaked with 11 dice.


Actually 5DV + 4 Net hits > 12 HA - 5 AP, so the spirit takes 18p damage, soaked with 13 dice (Average damage of 14p to his 11 box physical track, Ouch!).

Quite some time back, a year or so ago, I remember Synner posted his take on the interaction between S&S and ItNW.

IIRC, Flesh Form insects in SR3 did not have Vulnerability/Allergies to Insecticides. Can someone refresh my memory, do Flesh Forms lose the Allergy to Insecticides in SR4?

Ah, now I remember why I thought putting an Insect Spirit(even if Flesh Form) into an Infected was a stupid idea. Flesh Form insects retain their Allergies. So if you were to put a Flesh Form into an Infected that had Regeneration all that would go down the toilet because someone brought KE IV.

AH I've got another question:
Can a cyberzombie be inhabited?
If so what happens?

he starts to patrol the metaplanes to keep the enemy back

LOL.

I thought Burnout was already by definition possessed? I don't think you can be possessed by multiple spirits now can you? Not without expelling the first....

- J.

Tricky. Technically, yes. A flesh-form inhabited cyberzombie (besides being a real monster) is in a bad place, however, since all of the restrictions of cybermancy (Magic 1, Dual Nature, Astral Hazing, Madness and Despair, etc.) would still apply - and of course, the flesh form wouldn't have access to a lot of cyberware, including the Invoked Memory Stimulator. So picture an already-nasty insubstantial spirit locked into a decaying and nigh-indestructible material body and slowly (or quickly) going mad...

I was always partial to playing Khorne-themed armies personally....

With that in mind, a blood spirit possessing a cyberzombie would be terrifying....

- J.

Shouldn't inhabitation bypass some of those limitations? (after all it isn't a soul trapped in a unnatural state)
And I was more interested into hybrid forms.
I was thinking about a retro-mission explaining why Ares used a nuclear bomb in Chicago:
Queen spirit inhabited nosferatu cyberzombie hybridform

never quite made that connection somehow but now that you mention it O.o
well, most of the 40k stuff should more or less be doable with SR4 rules again *grins*

n/m

It could be interesting to do, maybe some fan-made tactical game online for combat exercise (Ok I admit it, I haven't the foggiest idea how WarHammer works, but it could be interesting).

it works.
don't ask me how, it's frigging complicated, even with only some quick-start rules.

By the way (in an out of topic way for the matter), speaking of cyberzombies made me reread the cybermancy chapter of Augmentations, and at the very begin there's FastJack that tells about thinking of the Hatchetman and shrugging; this remindes me that I know nothing of him (or of Matador for the matter), I've heard their names a few times and I would like to learn more about them. I know that it's old material but, can anyone give lecture me in this Ancient History topic?

Cybertechnology had the first book on cyberzombies, written from the account of Hatchetman who was one of the first.
He likened the condition to being in a trance like state permanently, where forgetting to eat/sleep/ or even remember who you are resulted in a collapse and medics swarming all over him. He describes the IMS in painstaking detail and how it spontaneously triggers memories of his life, out of nowhere. It really highlights the disconnect between who he was and what he's become.

Having said that, the technology as presented in Augmentation is a lot more advanced (15+ years on) and a lot more functional. Cyberzombie jobs can and do go wrong (as evidenced by the difficult mechanics required to become one and the number of negative qualities) but they can be fully functional beings just loaded to the gills with implants.

At least, this is my interpretation based on my reading of Augmentation. I often wondered if the tech has really come that far or if it was just the lack of emphasis on the details of what its actually like to be a cyberzombie in 2070...

- J.

Nobody really knows all that much about Hatchet aside from the Cyber-Zombie bit.
Same for Matador, aside from his Hobby of touring the world doing zoolgy or whatever.

Matador was a mercenary, shows up in Fields of Fire giving the run down on being a mercenary and tools of the trade. Picador, his lutienent (suspected of being his lover as well) informs us in Shadows of North America (?) that Matador was geeked (sniper?), likely betrayed, and she's looking for revenge. Search here with his name and Synner as the poster and you should get the whole story somewhere...

Hatchetman shows up in the SR1 Street Samurai Catalog, as a somewhat professional shadowposter. Cybertechnology establishes that he was an old school pro - he gives a lot of newbie advice, because he's pissed that he had to work with such amateurs: resulting in his near total decimation. A corporation that he worked for regularlly, Fuchi?, gave him the option, and then rebuilt him using cybermancy, and he continues to update shadowland on his degradation from that point, to his death.