so, if a spirit is materializing to fight, the ghoul fights him in the physical plane and has to deal with the body of force +4? also, if they overcome the ITNW then the spirit has no armor?

Yes, materialized the spirit are dual-natured and so follow the rule that they combat other dual-natured beings with their physical stats. The comment about Charisma being used for "most" damage makes it unclear as to what the damage is meant to be calculated with, but I'd suggest that the highest of either Charisma or Strength is fine (or one or the other as long as you're consistent in your own game). And yes, the Spirit has no armor if you overcome Immunity to Natural Weapons. There might be Spirits with the Armor critter power, but I know of none.

If the Spirit can fight the ghouls in the astral, it might want to do that. It'll have the advantage in mobility (to get positional bonuses from high ground and physical objects that will still block the ghouls) and a higher base Astral Combat dicepool (Force x 2). If the magician wants to help a bit, he can always throw in some expendable watchers to give a numbers advantage to his side.

I assume that you mean 'if you bypass ItNW' because if you just overcome it through high DV and/or AP it still gets the bonus dice to its resistance test.

Yes, and if you note we're talking about ghouls here, who are bypassing it with natural dual natured attacks, not bullets.

Chill, yo.

He was mentioning it because the statement might be taken out of context to mean something it does not. If I had a dollar for every time someone referenced a thread on dumpshock in that kind of way, I could buy a new car.

Are you certain that any critterpower ignore ItNW?
I mean a dog bite is a critter power as well and that seems a bit weird.

I wouldn't say that. I would however point out that dual natured beings are magical, therefore their natural attacks (such as claws and bites) are not "normal" weapons.

Only Critter Powers backed by Magic, or in this case, Astral Combat performed by a dual natured creature. Natural Weapon on a dual natured creature can be used for this purpose (as indicated in SR4A, page 296) but this doesn't allow for non-dual natured Natural Weapon attacks to bypass ItNW.

Ah ok, thanks a lot you two.

Hmmm....what I would probably do in a situation like this where the Mage is conjuring spirits to help take care of mooks is to let the mage do it and keep everything simple.

Say he conjures up a force 3 spirit, the spirit can take out 3 mooks before the rest kill it. A force 6 spirit takes out 6 mooks before the rest kill it.

To take out any more mooks than the one spirit can by itself then the mage has to do more summoning which will take up his actions and give him drain.

What I would probably rule if the spirit takes out all the mooks and only the BBEG is left is have the remainder of the spirits force total be given to the BBEG as damage boxes.

For example: the mage conjures up a force 6 spirit and sends it to attack everyone in a room. There are 4 mooks and the BBEG in the room. The spirit does it's thing and takes out the 4 mooks. It then attacks the BBEG and does 2 boxes of damage to it before the BBEG kills the spirit and then has to deal with the PC's.

This lets the spirit be useful in the encounter but doesn't totally hose what you might have planned.

Just some thoughts.

It's simple enough, but it doesn't work.

A Force 3 spirit is about a match for one or two mooks. However, a force 6 spirit effectively had hardened armor 12, which will bounce just about every smallarm out there. Against mooks armed with pistols, that Force 6 Spirit is going to be invulnerable. Heck, it's not going to be stopped by anything short of more magic or heavy weaponry.

Is this changed in SR4A? In which case this is a much needed clarification that I'd welcome. Currently the book says (BBB pg. 288):



As it stands now the book is vague on the subject. I think it's reasonable to claim that this includes only "magical" critter powers, or critter powers in general. Either is justifiable with the current text.

This is from the initial description of Critter Powers (SR4A, page 292):

Of course, it's still the GM's call when it's not obvious.

I've been doing this for a while (lucky bastard as I am), so in 4th ed I have a few general rules I follow.
1. Lower force spirits (1-3) I consider to be the grunts of the spirit world, and my experience GMing shows me that they are not game breaking at all, and aside from the pet factor (taking time from other players while the mage manages their pets), I don't see them as a problem.
2. Higher force spirits (4-6) I treat as much more individually motivated, and unless the player does some serious role play or actions to appease the spirit (or intimidate it), I almost always use the spirit's edge when resisting the summoning / binding. I dropped 20 boxes of Stun Drain on a player that was trying to bind a rating 5 spirit with exploding sixes.
3. Be fair! I use the same rules for my NPC's as I use for the players. I KO'd a major NPC of mine when she tried to to summon a Force 8 Guardian spirit.
I am on the side that mages should be powerful, especially for how many BP (or Karma if you will) it takes to build one. But, my Shadowrun world has always had the maxim "Geek the Mage!".
As far as ghouls go, being Dual Natured will not bypass the Spirits's Immunity to Normal Weapon's and I'll give you a very good example why.
A Phys ad with Astral Sight merely makes them dual natured (and will allow them to take Astral Combat), but they still need Killing Hands to bypass the immunity to normal weapons.
Ghouls can not attempt astral combat unless they have the skill (no default for it)
What Ghouls would do is hide. And if they can't get away from the rampaging spirit they would swarm it while others would flee. Not likely a Ghoul even with 4 buddies could get a decent enough hit (they would need 9 net hits to affect it), a swarm of ghouls using edge have a chance in theory.
Honestly, if you have three plus players anything less than 5 ghouls are not going to pose a real threat anyway unless they get the drop on them. What is nasty is that unless the Mage has Masking, and some ghouls get past the spirit, they can assense who the "real" threat is. I've seen what a pack of ghouls do to a mage if they get too close, and it isn't nice.
Last rule, you are the GM, if you were planning on using 6 ghouls, and your mage smokes them in one round leaving the rest of the players to twiddle their thumbs, add more! One of my players' favorite moments in one of my games:
Player Chris, playing a combat mage using Stun Ball, "How many gangers are there?"
Me,"You gonna stop and count them?"
Chris, "Can I just guestimate?"
Me,"Sure"
Chris," OK how many?"
Me, "Enough."
My players cracked up. It meant that I would provide enough fodder for all of them to get involved and provide a challenge. I wasn't going to let the mage cast one spell and wipe all of them out (Especially back in 3rd Ed, talk about pwnage!)

So you're saying that a non-manifesting spirit (even force 1) can beat the shit out of a ghoul from the astral plane and the ghoul can't do didly squat about it?

The reason an Adept needs Killing Hands is because without their unarmed strike is Stun damage.

By the RAW (SR4 not sure if they changed/clarified in SR4A), yes. Look up killing hands(P188). Also look up Astral Combat(p.184). You need Astral Combat to affect a fully astral entity. As written, the Ghoul in the BBB would at best be annoyed by a Force 1 spirit from the astral, but without the skill Astral Combat they couldn't do crap about it. I guess they could do attacks of will out of Street Magic as they are still active on the astral plane. I'd have to look to be sure if it works only on materialized spirits or not. Even more unfair for the ghouls, the astrally projecting mage that zorks the ghouls with mana spells. Even if a GM allowed them to use their physical bodies to attack the mage can stay well out of range to attack. If the GM wants to beef up ghouls, add in a magically active one. Spells are generally the spirits worst nightmare.
There is a logic of allowing dual natured entities from using their physical attacks against astral entities but that's not how it is written. Either way though, their claws are still normal weapons. Nothing about them are magical in nature. Plus there is a problem of allowing them to attack as normal. If you allow dual natured entities to attack entirely astral ones, what do you use to determine damage?. The physical strength of the ghoul has no more affect on the astral as does a bullet. Do you use their awesome Charisma attribute like you would if they were astrally projecting? Plus, a spirit only gains immunity to normal weapons when materialized. If you allow the ghoul to interact an astral entity and do their normal damage, a pack of them will seriously jack up a force 6 spirit. A force 6 spirit will be forced to materialize just to get that edge of immunity to normal weapons and they shouldn't have to. All dual natured does is give you the ability to interact with both planes. If you can cast spells, you can use mana based ones on the astral plane. If you have astral combat, you can do astral combat and do Charisma Damage, or an adept can use their Killing Hands damage instead of Charisma in Astral Combat. If you can't do either all you can do is enjoy the trip, dude.
I use the fact they are dual natured to counter the fact their physical sight sucks, and thus make them harder to sneak by.
Other than that, being a ghoul sucks.

My earlier quotes from the S4A book indicate that this is how it's written. Note specifically the text in the SR4A description of the Natural Weapon power which states both that the attack can be done and what the damage is supposed to be.

IME, I've seen such a houserule break up a game as the magician players (2 of them) pretty much told the GM he could go fuck himself. The GM was kicked out of the game, one of the other players (me) took over as GM, and we all went on to have fun. Their position - and one I agree with - is that spirits are intended to be a tool of the magician. Deliberately screwing with that is just plain old dickery.

Don't have SR4A yet (I need paper books, and I don't want to pay twice . ) SO if they clarify that, cool. I was going by what I know from SR4 BBB. As far as the spirit thing goes, I've got 5 + players. If I sit and allow the mage to summon / bind / use four or more force 5 spirits the other players are going to be bored out of their minds as he or she mooks the crap out of everything. I HAVE to make it tough to pull that kind of power into the game or they'll do it every time. I ain't going to say you have to do it that way, but it is a way to limit spirits in your game if you are having a particularly tough time dealing with them. Spirits have edge. Why would they not use it to avoid being yanked from their home metaplanes? My mage certainly can add edge to his considerably larger pool to assure that they can pull them into this world. All my players are adults in their 40's plus so we though the 20 boxes was pretty funny (he spent edge and managed to resist enough to stay conscious), so no one got butt hurt over it. I ain't going to say I'm not a dick, cause I am. Thankfully I weave interesting enough plots together to keep em coming back for more .

This can happen with drones just as easily and with any character type. In earlier editions, it also happened whenever a character picked up followers and/or a gang during character gen.

True that. Shooting a drone out of the sky causes the rigger some serious financial palpitations (especially if its all modded out), but the spirit comes back in a month if bound. I just take the line that spirits are Sapient, thus are more than just tools. Like I said, I apply the same rules to my NPC's. I allow the other players to roll for the spirits I try and summon, so I've definitely gotten a taste of my own medicine.

Cool, I see. That is a clarification from SR4 BBB. It seems that the dual natured critter / thing would still need Astral Combat to attack a purely astral entity, or has that changed as well?
I agree with you that it still wouldn't bypass immunity to normal weapons though.

Actually, I see the lack of astral combat skills on ghouls to be an oversight. Ghouls are dual natured, which means that they interact with the astral 24/7/365. Astral combat should be a 'must have' for a dual natured creature. For ghouls, I take the BBB basic stats for 'mook' ghouls, and give them astral combat skill based on their 'age' as a ghoul. If they've been a ghoul for one month or more, they have Astral combat at 1. After six months it goes up to a 2. After one year they have astral combat at 3.

Think about it. You're a dual natured snack in a world full of free spirit predators. Wouldn't *you* learn how to protect yourself?

So, it would be fully plausible (at least, by my reasoning), for a spirit to get taken down by a gang of ghouls. It would also be fair if you then put in the normal amount of ghouls, and have them attack the PCs as planned. They'll not know the difference, and you won't be unfair ... as long as you made the encounter fair to begin with.

Just as a note, I have less worries about high powered spirits in my games because I use my: "Begone, Puny Mortal!" house rule. This rule states: Spirits gain 1 automatic success on their resistance test when resisting summoning and binding for every point their force exceeds the magicians magic rating. Only magic loss by essence loss modifies the magician's magic rating, all other magic gains/losses do not apply. These automatic successes do not increase the drain of summoning or binding.

Which means that a force 12 spirit being summoned by *ANY* magician with rating 6 (even if they have power foci) has 6 free successes to resist summoning and binding. The result of this rule is that 'superspirits' aren't that much of a problem.

If we throw a Humble look into the Runner's Companion we will notice something that might clarify that. It's in the section about Infected and their magic rating. Once their magic drops to 0, they lose all their powers, except Natural Weapon and Improved Senses. No GM call needed, claws are not magical, not even those of Dual Natured critters. Well, houserules can remedy that, of course.

But then the critter is dual-natured, so they are hitting an astral body with their astral body at the same time as they hit the material world with their meat. To me that seems like it would bypass "normal" weapons there as long as it was physically part of the critter.
Then again, reading through this has made me think of those with astral perception-and thus become dual natured. So maybe it wouldnt work that way, since i wouldnt allow a mundane with the astral sight knack to bypass the immunity with their fists.
I really need to go think about this a bit more

Has there been a "word of god/Synner" about Stun damage against spirit? I would be surprised that they take any - they're not living creatures to begin with. Do they even have a stun condition monitor?
I would think they work like constructs or undead in D&D...

I didn't read any farther than about here. Then I laughed.

Yes, it's flat out stated in Street Magic that spirits have both a stun and physical track, and are disrupted if either track is filled. The tricky bit is that most spirits have a physical track that is a different size when materialized. IIRC, in the anniversary edition, they finally get around to saying that, yes, spirits with the innate spell power take drain too (but always stun, since they now officially can't overcast.)

Just thought I'd pop in and say that it's stupid to assume that ghouls (and other dual natured beings) don't have Astral Combat.

The critter entry on dragons doesn't give them Unarmed Combat either, I guess they have to default with THEIR BLOODY CLAWS.

And Water Spirits don't have Swimming even with a listed swim speed...

NO it's not, as spirits aren't tolls their sentiend beings and should act as such.

All spirits have 3-d movement at the listed speed...it's just that if they have "running" "flying" or "swimming" skills, they can elect to use the sprinting rules for that type of movement.

That's one view. Some traditions have different views. The same applies to Sprites, btw.

Besides, just being sentient doesn't mean that the spirit can't be fanatically loyal to the summoner. There doesn't need to be any 'negotiating' with the spirit - that's handled through the Conjuration skills used for summoning and binding. Simply put, the metahuman social skills just don't apply the same way - these are alien beings. If the summoner rolls well, the spirit is happy, why the fuck would the spirit use Edge to resist what is, for it, a perfectly natural state (being summoned and/or bound by a magician)? Only if the GM assigns it a metahuman aversion to service - by being a dick. Free spirits are an exception, but then most spirits don't become Free even when given the oppoirtunity - because their natural state of sevitude is just fine for them.

And it doens't seem odd that Water spirits can't do this while swimming?

*shrug* not horribly so - they get the movement power, so swim-sprinting on top of it seems a bit excessive.

Air spirits potentially have to at least compete with jets and helicopters, after all, but boats and subs really don't relatively move all that fast.

[quote name='HappyDaze' date='Mar 25 2009, 03:33 PM' post='787748'If the summoner rolls well, the spirit is happy, why the fuck would the spirit use Edge to resist what is, for it, a perfectly natural state (being summoned and/or bound by a magician)? Only if the GM assigns it a metahuman aversion to service - by being a dick. Free spirits are an exception, but then most spirits don't become Free even when given the oppoirtunity - because their natural state of sevitude is just fine for them.
[/quote]

Servitude isn't the natural state for spirits, not really. What it is is that they allow themselves to be summoned much the same way that ShadowRunners get hired by Johnsons: spirits get "paid" in mana (that's why the mage takes drain: the spirit sucking out its payment) so that it can grow larger and becomes a Force N+1 sometime in the future.

Spirits wouldn't resist summon/bind with Edge anymore than the PCs should be using edge on Diplomacy rolls to get more money: there's a point at which the Johnson says, "nope, not paying you that much, scram." For a spirit it's basically "I'd like N mana to offer you my services" and the mage diplomacies him down. If the spirit wins the contest it's akin to the spirit going, "You can't offer me enough for the jobs you'll be having me do" (high force spirits will basically be looking down on the mage going, "Puny mortal").

Looking at the topic, and I realize we got away from it a bit, so I'm gonna try and steer us back. The original post had a GM that was having trouble dealing with spirits in their game. Determining whether or not the ghoul can attack back or not won't help him much if the GM decides that the opposition next time should be a dozen or so gang bangers without magical support.
To clarify my position a bit, I have no problem with spirits / sprites / drones / agents etc in my game. I have enough experience to realize just how powerful that higher force spirits can be, so I make them a bit riskier to summon / bind them. A mage with time to prepare usually doesn't have to worry about it anyway (mine usually use down time to do it, resting between summonings / bindings to rest off the drain).
One other bit of advice I can give is to not overlook attacks of will from Street Magic.
Spirits, even bound ones can be difficult to manage (if GM's allow it) applying a -2 dice modifier to the mage as if they were sustaining spells.
If in the end the spirits are still running amok and you find they are ruining the fun of the other players and yourself, just have a talk with the player and see if they are opposed to toning them down a bit, or using them for utility instead (like extra dice, sustaining spells, etc). If that would be "ruining" his or her fun, try creating a story out of it. You could spread rumors in the magical community of a powerful free spirit taking his vengeance out on those that enslave it's kind. Viola, take the "problem", and create a run out of it.
Just some more ideas.

We'll have to disagree. However, do note that summoned/bound spirits are the default type addressed in the rules and fluff and that Free spirits are noted as an exception to the norm for spirits. This hints towards my position.

Clearly then, spirits living on their home plane are not in their natural state.

Sure they are. However there they are doing whatever alien metaplanar things that they do. And it really doesn't matter at all since those places are rarely the focus of Shadowrun aside from the odd astral quest here and there. When in the 'regular' astral and in the material world, their natural state is to be in servitude to magicians.

Adding to the tangent, but I like this quote, kinda sounds like a MCT Thaumaturge giving his dissertation to newly minted Company Wage Mages.

And back to how ghouls and other dual-natureds would deal with spirits...
I have found a reason that ghouls should be able to affect spirits. I was looking at the entry for the dracoform in the runners companion and this is what it says:

Ghouls=Dual natured + Natural weapon=true
So since spirits are also dual natured when manifesting, i dont think they would get their immunity

I believe I said something to that point a page or two ago.... And if I didn't I wanted to say that a page or two ago.

To borrow a term from the British, "Spot-on."

You might have....i just got my head confused as the thread went on and i now know what i think again

astral perceiving creatures to take him down or more spirits yourself. Or just try some interupts tie him up keep him busy.

You know, we do not generally have this issue in our games... and here is why...

For those ubiquitous spirits (Force 3 or less) we generally go about our summoning as normal... The Mage/Shaman characters summon their 1 Unbound spirit for the encounter and play continues as normal... Now, we have found that spirits of Force 3 or less are very useful, but are not overly powerful, and we tend to only have 1 or 2 Mage characters at any given time... so 2 spirits "Unbound" on the board max for our side...

Here is the kicker though...anytime (whether immediate or outside of combat) we attempt to summon spirits of higher Force, the GM allows the Spirit to expend on of its Edge POints... Perfectly within his right to do so, as these tend to be the more powerful spirits, and are somewhat harder to control... On occassion one of the mages even attempts to summon one as powerful as Force 6 or More (VERY RARE INDEED)... After the Mage attempted to summon the Force 5 Spirit of Man (Who immediately proceeded to resist the summonin, as normal), well... Lets Just say the summoning was unsuccessful and the Mage had to soak 20 Boxes of Stun (Magic rating was a 6, the spirit succeeded with 10 successes to resist, and the mage netted a measly -4 Net for the summoning)... After going almost unconscious and when he took the remaining 8 points of damage, well, everyone else understood why you do these things outside of combat...

Now, on occassion, we have had to do such things in combat due to the opposition that we faced, and they became some of the most exciting occurrences in the game, resulting in great stories that we still talk about from time to time (like when the Necromancer was eaten by the Ghouls)... But they are exceptions to the rule, not the standard response by our Spellcasters.

With all of the Mages that filter through our campaign over the years, we have yet to actually have a "problem" with mages summoning powerful spirits...

Kudos, BTW, to TeOdio forall the awesome crunchy bits regarding the campaign...

My Two Cents

Solutions to game mechanics issues via changing the underlying game rules are fairly easy to come up with. Somehow I fail to see how this suggests that the game rules or the mechanics are not broken.

Exactly what underlying rules have been changed?

Roll Summoning + Magic vs. the Spirit's Force (Either of which can now add Edge)... Summoning Drain to the Summoner is equal to Spirits Hitsx2
If summoner attains more net hits than the spirit, it is summoned and owes the summoner Net Hits in Services...

Pretty straight forward to me... and note... No change to the RAW 9See pages 179 - 180 of the BBB)

Another option was have it go free, if the PC went unconcious due to deadly damage. It could still be freindly to the PC and may even become a contact, it just won't be at his beck and call.