Thanks for the quotes... Also, I never argues the fact that spells locked in an active foci when you project carry over... in fact, what I said was that you have equipment and metamagic techniques that allow you to do so, in which case, the default would be assumed to NOT allow that to occur UNLESS you had such equipment and/or metamagic techniques... It is an opinion based upon the text that is given... if you could do so all the time, tehre would be no real rason for the equipment or metamagic techjniques...

I have an alternate opinion thatn some of the rest of you , and I am okay with it... If you read it differently, That is okay with me, I am an adult and I can live with it...AS I told Falconer, i am not trying to convert anyone to my ideals, but you could also acknowledge that even if I disagree with you, the way that you play is also an interpretation of the rules and not a writ from on high... We can BOTH be right in this...

Sorry if I Pissed anyone off here... Enjoy...

Thank you for your participation Zurai... it has been most illuminating indeed...

Sorry...

I didn't read the 9 pages and I don't really introduce myself properly...

I've read this forum for a few weeks now and found very interesting stuff... (anybody who posts must say something like this, really rare are the people who say "your forum is sh** but I ask a question...")

So, I had a small question on S&S bullets.

If I shoot with a Predator IV, I have a -1 in AP.
The S&S halves (rounded up) the armor.
Which one comes first?

If the armor is 9 (or any x*2+1), no problem.
Ex: (9-1)/2=4
(9/2)-1=4

But for 8 (or any x*2)
(8-1)/2= 4
(8/2)-1=3

And there it makes a difference...

What is the right way?

Mathematically seen, you first halved and then you substract...

If the first poster follows the discussion, could he edit his first post in order to make a resumee of the answers???

Thanks!

Mathematically, take all your calculations, crumple them up, and throw them away SnS ammo completely replaces the weapon's damage code. Ignore the gun's base DV and AP, it automatically becomes 6S(e) -half when you load up SnS.

Well, it makes it all much easier... I hadn't realised the AP was part of the damage code...

Just ran into this tonight with my game. Player is packing Sn'S and is shooting at a force 6 spirit. As I understand it from everything above, the Spirits ItnW is halved to 6 rather than 12. So the player only needs one success (after subtracting any dodge attempts by the spirit) to hit the spirit and over come ItnW. The spirit still gets to resist the damage with its body plus half its impact armor. Why is ItnW even in the game any more if its just defaulting to Hardened Armor Rules? Am I missing something?

I also didn´t read the whole topic, but i overflew the first 2 pages. After checking the rules, i have to admit that Stick n Shock ammo IS quite usefull of getting rid of spirits. If you attack a spirit with a mundane attack, he gets the ITNW-benefits. This means he has a hardened armor of forcex2. Hardened armor can only be bypassed if your (modified) damage code exceeds the armor AND after you applied AP-modifiers. So if you shoot a spirit with a MP (burst mode) you do 7P damage, half impact armor plus your net successes. So the spirit really has to have some serious force, to prevent beeing shot.

This is what the RAW says, but i don´t think that it was in the developers intention to provide such a gimmick. This makes spirits quite vulnerable and a mage becomes obsolete if you deal with magical threats. I can see the SR-future with lot of mages, begging for beeing accepted to join a run "what? you want to come by? Ok, maybe you can do some counterspelling"...naaaa...doesn´t sound good.^^ Never forget, that even APDS-ammo doesn´t provide this "half armor rating" bonus. So SnS is the killer-ammo absolutely.

Did the "officials" already say something about this?

It does if the spirit is force 4 or less. Hell, a force 2 spirit gets no armor against ADPS.

It is about the fact that stick an shock provides bonuses that even outmatch military armor penetrating ammunition that is nearly impossible to get and highly illegal. There is no balance. I don´t like imbalance. Thats it.

SnS's armor penetrating bonuses are similar to Laser weaponry. Arguably, some of the most advanced weaponry in the game. In Comparison SnS is comparatively cheap, does not suffer from the drawbacks of limited range or issues with smoke and is not going to bring major smack down if you pull it out. Add to this that RAW states that its modified value, which means that SnS loaded into weaponry capable of burst or full auto are going to be able to bypass ItnW for any spirit one could reasonably expect to see in the game. I may be wrong on that last part and would love it if someone proved it, lol.

One thing I did see about my original post is, I said it is resisted with "Body", when it should be "Will'" as this is a stun attack.

My thought is that SnS as RAW has it is severally over powered, with no real flaws that I have read about. While I do not believe it totally negates mages, it does make spirits useless manifested, if any one on the other side is packing these rounds. For my game, I may have to do a house rule changing it from half impact to a AP of -4 to bring it more in line with other ammo.

Bonus damage from burst fire does not apply to the modified damage.

Otherwise you could full-auto a spirit to death with a machine pistol.

Most non-magical sources of Stun damage are still resisted by Body.

In SR2 or 3, they explained it so, that taser rounds overload the nervous system. Because spirits lack something like that, they were useless against them. Maybe we have to reanimate this view.

Exactly... That is my take on it as well. The SnS are more of a refined tool, without having some weakish mortal nervous system, they have what? 20.000 to 80.000 volts at pretty much no ampere? That is not real power.

If it were a lightning strike, or throwing the spirit into a relay-station, or shooting it with a laser (debatable too, since they have no major organs) or some other high-energy trick it would be ok. Don't cling so much to the written rules. A bit of thinking IS allowed. Just ask the first time you have an idea, short debate: GM says: NEVAAAR. And then it's decided.

The problem with removing SnS as a viable weapon against spirts is when the PLAYER owns the spirit. As soon as some PC summons a force 6 spirit, there is no force owned by mundanes (shy of heavy military weaponry) that can scratch it.

At my table, that is how we see it. SnS are pretty much worthless against any spirit.

A F6 spirit does bring quite a bit of attention just by its presence.

Yes it does. But how long does it take for the military to roll in with tanks?

Longer than it takes the players to do what they came to do and leave, and if not, then where is the military housing their tanks, 7-11?

I think that is what the mage intended it to be.^^ If he survives the drain...

Personally stick and shock, and the electrical damage rules have been on my mind a lot lately. It appears to be an ammo with no drawbacks that improves the damage of some pistols and the half armor thing is just rediculous. On top of that the rules about being at -2 dice pools even if you PASS the test, just seem rediculous for something with so little drawback. Why do people even need tasers if evidently the same technology can fit into any sort of bullet.

Nobody knows. Hopefully a developer is looking into this topic and putting this question on the next errata-list.

The drawback is its high cost compared to standard ammo. Of course, 1 shot of SnS tends to be more effective than a full auto narrow burst of standard ammo for only double* the cost.

*I made that up

So according to RAW ItnW is treated as Hardened Armor which reads that you compare the Modified Damage Value to the armor rating and if its lower you ignore the damage. So why would damage modifiers from full auto or a burst shot not count against ItnW? Don't get me wrong I am not argueing for it but simply seeking to understand the comment.

Page 142-143 SR4 (~144ish in SR4A I'd imagine)

"Note that this DV [from burst fire] does not apply when comparing the DV to the armor rating."

Thanks Draco18s. That at least removes on bit of sillyness. One other thing I saw eariler in the thread is the assertion that the value for SnS replaces the damage and AP code of the weapon it is loaded into. The discription in the anniversury book says only the damage code is replaced. Did they change something or was the earlier information wrong?

AP would have to replace as well, or else you would have to reconsile -2 AP and -half. There's only one gun that does both (that I am aware of) and only does it because it's intended to be fired at vehicles that have extensive amounts of armor designed to repel such an attack (aka Smart Armor, in the real world known as Ablative Armor or Reactive Armor).

Not to call anyone out in particular...

But the generalized... "it's a spirit, it doesn't have internal organs, blah blah blah". Yeah it's a spirit, and yes it's a different construct from flesh and blood. So while we're at it, lets throw out lasers from damaging it, since we all know you can't hurt ectoplasm. And why should bullets hurt... they're mundane items and should fly right through harmlessly. While we're at it, nothing non-magical at all should be able to hurt them... they've got IMMUNITY to normal weapons, not RESISTANCE to normal weapons. See the silliness of arbitrarily drawing that line, WITHOUT GIVING A REASON FOR WHERE YOU DRAW THE LINE.


Quite frankly, spirits have a lot of really powerful abilities. Lets see how well your mundane character is once that force 12 uses his fear power on you. Then shooting at him will be the last thing on your mind. (time to run... as you're looking at 12 against your 4 willpower). I normally play a mage and I see ZERO issues w/ SnS (outside of a little bit of silliness as it relates to cost, and the nerfing they did to gel in SR4a). If it was up to me, I'd probably only do this to change SnS (only replace the AP mod, don't change the damage code of the weapon... EG: 4S half, for light pistol, 5P for heavy pistol or SMG, 6P AR's, and big slow shotguns have stun bunny type rounds w/ a nice 8S.

And I'm not so much worried about a force 6 spirit. I'm worried about the force 8 or 9. (don't laugh... it's very easy to do out of chargen). They're rediculously hard to bind, but fairly easy to summon. If you're a mage, you have to be ready to take some drain from time to time, and remember to save edge for the drain soak now and then. Once you get edge involved, things can get silly. (and it's not all that silly to consider a PC mage w/ a magic of say 6 and 2 or 3 initiations under his belt... and 4 ranks in summoning, and say +2 from specialization or a mentor spirit; not even getting close to other bonuses such as foci here).

Because quite frankly... force6 can be done in with normal ammo w/ a good skill as well. (called shot for damage -4 dice, +4damage). AR goes to 10P AP-1. (w/ a narrow bust 12P for the soak). At that point even Ex or Ex-Ex only needs one net hit to damage as well.

As for those saying... but it's a spirit it doesn't have any vulnerabilities... I say BS. And I'm saying that as a mage... spirits are already really bloody powerfull. They're made up of magical energy and it only makes sense that there are some areas which are more fragile than others. Just because a vehicle only has one armor code... you wouldn't stop a player from making a called shot for the tires and using a different armor code. You're simply familiar w/ vehicles, and we all have to imagine what a spirit is.

Scenario: A force 12 Spirit of Man with Innate Spell casts Armor on itself.

Questions:
1.) Does the spirit now have 36 armor, 24 of which is considered Hardened?
2.) If this spirit is attacked with Stick 'N Shock ammo, what does the armor become?

I believe 1 is correct, and I believe that 2 would be 18 armor (total armor value halved due to Stick "N Shock quality) all of which is hardened armor. However, I can theoretically see an argument for it somehow becoming 18 armor, 12 of which is hardened (although I think it's far fetched and requires an odd distinction between the armor types.)

Personally i would seperate the discussion of the sillyness of SnS from the sillyness of spirits.

But I also allowed talismongers in my game to brew up some rediculously expensive oraculum laced anti spirit rounds that cut down spirits armor.

1 is partially correct. Innate spell is not automatic successes. The spirit must still cast the spell as an innate spell. It does not automatically get 12 hits. (since it will have 12 magic + 12 spellcasting skill dice... it will most likely only get 6-10 hits.

2. the armor is halfed... assuming 12 hits on the amror spell. It now has hardened armor 12, and a physical damage threshhold of 12. It would roll 12 armor dice to resist damage. Only use the higher rating of hardened or normal armor. Use the hardened to determine the immunity threshhold (if less don't bother rolling resistance its ignored).

12 body + 12 armor == 24 dice... enough to 4:1 trade down 6 points of damage outright. (remember you gotta make it past his 12 reaction pool to hit it in the first place too). If he rolls, he'll probably soak 6-10 on the roll.

Edit: Corrected because hardened armor completely lacks the stacking clause found w/ all other stacking armor sources.

I remember all the bitching when 4a came out with all the new object resistance thresholds. It made it hard for any non-twink mage to deal with mundane issues like cameras. Well it goes both ways, if you want mages to be able to deal with mundane things, the mundanes need ways to deal with the magical. It is easy to summon up powerful spirits, mundanes should have some recourse for defending themselves. And this is just a combat issue for spirits, spirits are stupidly powerful outside of combat on top of there awesomeness vs everything outside of stick and shock in combat.

If given the choice in any system I have ever played I play a mage type. And I really do not feel the need to make spirits more powerful than they already are.

In short, I agree with Falconer on this.

I find SnS to be more than a bit broken. I've seen them outperform almost every other ammo type in the game.

However, for those that feel that they are balanced, how about other elemental effects insted of electricity? How about 'popper' rounds that use sound or 'hot shot' bullets that do fire damage? Maybe 'chilly-willy' bullets doing cold damage...

These seem silly, but so too does a .22 round from a hold-out pistol that packs a debilitating electrical charge that's superior to just putting a solid slug in them from the same gun.

Sorry, but the tiny charge that can be transfered by something that is bullet-sized, is barely adequade to fizzle anything else than a "nervous system". If you lack one...no damage. That simple it is. You canno´t compare a level 6 lightning bolt with a f***ing shooting AA-battery.

Hell, a .50 BMG round might compare with a AA battery, but a hold-out round certainly doesn't. And that's part of the problem - SnS doesn't care what type of gun you're using. SnS from a hold-out is just as effective as SnS from a HMG. And that's just stupid. I might accept SnS as a shotgun-only ammo type, working with the smooth bore and large projectile size. OR, have the base DV for SnS be one-half (round up) of the weapon's normal DV. Yes, that does make purpose-built tasers more effective than heavy pistols firing SnS, and I consider that a good thing.

Actually just using the SnS rules but replacing the '6' with whatever number the weapon's normal DV has might do fine. This means a light pistol would do 4S(e) while a shotgun would do 7S(e). Easy enough fix...

It would be still half the armor rating what is ways to owerpowered. I wouldn´t allow it in my game.

Yeah, I pointed out a bit earlier that the real-world version that's fired from a shotgun doesn't do it's thing by overwhelming a body with electrical power, it drops people by generating a specific pulsed signal that locks up muscles.

To me, to affect a spirit with elemental effects would require raw power, not a low-amperage fancy signal.


-np

That would be the same like poisoning an spirit with narcoject. Simply senseless. But we will discuss this topic so long, until they solve it in an errata....unfortunately.

I previously outlined the problem SnS currently has. By having an AP of "minus half" it makes it excellent against a spirit, but also makes it crazy awesome against people.

My suggested fix was to change the rules just slightly:

1) SnS description:
Remove AP -half, replace with AP -2

2) Spirits:
ITNW does not apply to mundane elemental damage (except where non-sensical, such as flamethrowers against fire spirits)
If ITNW is bypassed a spirit has [Force] Hardened armor with which to resist, instead of [Force x 2].


These two changes make SnS still awesome against spirits, as designed and intended, but doesn't make them crazy awesome against people. As a side effect, Flamethrowers become awesome against spirits as well, and it's a short step to writing up stats for a water cannon (stun damage and knockdown vs. SnS's incapacitation or flamethrower's ignition).