Hi again

Now, before any says anything, I did use the search function and I don't see any threads that tackle these questions specifically.

The rules for Stick-N-Shock ammo read:



Now while nowhere does it say it uses Electricity damage, my interpretation is that is what is meant.

Ergo, if we refer to the rules on Electricity damage....


So my questions are as follows:
1) A single bullet of S-n-S shot from an Ares Predator does 6S, ignores half Impact armor and the target still has to make a Body+Willpower test?
2) Does a burst of S-n-S ammo up the DV from 6S to 9S (assuming the existing weapon's damage value is changed accordingly)?
3) Why is Stick-n-Shock regarded as awesome for slaying spirits? I understand they disappear when their stun track is full, but I've read a lot of people arguing that it bypasses spirit armor entirely. That's not my reading of how it works at all.

Thanks

- J.

1. Correct replaces damage code irregardless.

2. Actually 6S -> 8S for a narrow burst (1st round, each additional round then increases damage). A lot of people go for wide bursts instead though.

3. Because it halves armor. Spirits have immunity to normal weapons (ItNW). So if you have a force 5 spirit in front of you, if you can't do at least 11 points mundane damage in an attack... it bounces and does nothing. Translation. at this point you need either really good skills to take intentional dice pool penalties for increased damage (IE: called shot for damage). Weapons/armor which reduce armor or increase damage. Hence people tend to resort to the most costly ammo's when they show up (APDS, SnS, ExEx...). The 1 net hit you need to hit something means SnS can handle anything force 6 or less no problem.


This can lead to a bit of wierdness too... you might be better off firing the shotgun w/ it's +2d/+5ap penalty flechettes. The +5 armor only adds soak dice to him, but can push you over that minimum damage threshhold.

EDIT: scooped

AP modifies the actual armor rating. as such, flechette is absolutely terrible for spirit-slaying... it does 2 points more of damage, but adds 5 to the spirit's armor, meaning the attack is much more likely to just bounce off.

Jaid:
You need to read the exact rules here...

I quote...
Immunity: ... The critter gains an "Armor rating" equal to twice it's twice it's Magic against that damage. This Immunity Armor is treated as "hardened" protection (...), meaning that if the Damage Value does not exceed the Armor, then the attack automatically does no damage.

It specifically ONLY refers to the armor granted from 2x Magic as hardened. It then defines the effect hardened.

Lets put this another way... lets say I had a possessed devil rat w/ mystic armor 1, force 3 spirit. (I don't care how, just an example)
It has 6 points of HARDENED armor, and 1 point of normal armor... hitting it w/ flechette's +2DV/+5AP... means it effectively has 6hardened, 6normal armor against the attack. Now if that's a light pistol firing that w/ base 4P damage... now we're up to 6.. 7 w/ the first net hit. Yes the critter is likely to resist more damage... but it beats doing no damage. (remember critter has it's reaction boosted and gets a size mod (arsenal optional rule) plus visibility if the GM is feeling nasty, attacker in melee... etc. ... so it can be a hard sucker to hit).

ItNW is not 'armor' per se... it's only treated as hardened armor, which is seperate from normal armor.

So yes, normally the +5AP roughly balances the +2DV... but in this case, since there's a damage threhhold involved it unquestionally raises the average damage compared to firing plain old brass. (this can do damage on only 1net hit, the other needs 3 net hits)

I'm not arguing this is the best course of action, just making the point that it's counter-intuitive but it works.

Damage code for S'n'S: "6S(e)".

The "(e)" indicates that it uses the Electricity rules. You got it right without knowing this, but it's useful to actually know that the "(e)" code means that it uses the Electricity rules.

actually, i have read the exact rules here.


(bolding added for emphasis)

(bolding added for emphasis)
what armor is being increased? against a spirit, you are only dealing with one kind of armor, and that is the hardened armor which is effectively granted by the spirit's manifestation power. there isn't even another kind of armor to modify, in this case. so it improves the rating of the spirit's hardened armor, because there is no other kind of armor it could possibly be applied against. you *might* have some wiggle room for spirits with multiple kinds of armor, but even then it's questionable at best.

flechette ammo has it's uses. spirit-killing is not one of them.

zomg, interesting point! If hardened armor is distinct from normal armor, does that mean a spirit is considered unarmored for flechette purposes?

...

To answer my own question, no it doesn't Hardened armor is still armor... It just doesn't become more hardened based on a positive AP mod. At least it doesn't for spirits, since it specifies the "Immunity Armor" and not armor in general, implying that they are distinct. For vehicles though, I'm not so sure, and I'm too lazy to check the books right now I actually like flechette being good against spirits, it makes cinematic sense. Still not as good as SnS, but not worthless like I initially thought.

vehicles don't have hardened armor. they just don't have a stun track, so stun damage gets applied to nothing at all.

and hardened armor is still armor, whether it comes from a spirit power or not. if you alter the rating of the armor, which the positive AP on flechette does, then there is only one rating to modify. so yes, it does effect the spirit's hardened armor power, and yes, it does increase it by 5.

Your opponent in this argument already backed up his argument with a direct quote. If you want to be taken seriously, you might consider doing the same. Simply stating that you're right doesn't help you win the argument.

Well Falconer also makes the really bizarre and confusing ruling from that quote.
As he's sayong that S&S ammo is good as it AP mod halves the hardened armor and fletchette is good as it AP mod doesn't raise the hardened armor.
He can't have it both ways, either neither of those AP modifiers apply to spirits hardened armor or both do.

i just provided 2 of them. let's go over this step by step, shall we?

1) is hardened armor armor? yes.
2) does it have a rating? yes.
3) does flechetter ammo have an AP modifier? yes.
4) does the AP modifier change the armor rating of whatever the ammunition is shot at? yes.

if the AP of flechette ammo is +5, and it goes up against armor (hardened or otherwise) then the armor rating is treated as being 5 higher. in the case of hardened armor, this means you need a DV 5 points higher to do any damage at all, but that doesn't change how it works. it still works just like any other AP modifier, and it changes the *actual rating* of the armor, just like it would for any other armor. you don't just get +5 armor from nowhere, the rating of the armor the ammunition is attempting to penetrate is modified. it isn't a separate entity unto itself. it simply modifies armor ratings. nothing more, nothing less.

[edit] link added. [/edit]

Larme:
Nothing of the sort... this isn't an argument. It's a discussion on a grey area of the rules.


Max: No my position is quite consistent... when determining armor, add it all up (all different types). If it's increased by AP, only normal armor is added. If it's reduced by AP then reduce the armor starting w/ basic armor. I think it's a fairly KISS way of looking at things, and for making resolving things simple. I don't think AP can or should 'shade' it's increase/decrease to reflect special armor rules. It's internally consistent, and I believe a well balanced way of handling things.

Otherwise, you need to determine which gets preferential treatment. If you do have multiple types of armor... which gets prefernential treatment.
Since it's a mundane attack, it makes sense to me, that it increases/decreases a mundane armor rating before it affects a magical special property.
If it were magical... then ItNW would be moot.


Jaid:
I don't buy it Jaid... it's too easy to get both normal and immunity armor. And how does armor rating reflect multiple sources of armor. It's not answered, which to me means it's a GM's call until they clarify it. And from that aspect, I reject your interpretation because spirits are pretty powerfull already and I don't mind giving mundanes more options (besides SnS) to deal with them.


Possession tradition mage is a prime example... he's wearing his normal body armor... plus gains immunity armor. You hit him with APDS which gets reduced first his normal or his immunity armor? I'd suggest it's his basic armor. But I'd love to hear your position here.

Not only that, but the Immunity section is fairly clear... only the 2x Magic armor is treated as hardened armor. (it uses the specific term 'this')


I hold there's effectively Armor, built out of subtypes of armor (base, +base stacking, magical, immunity...). Which simply get added together to determine the phys/stun threshhold. I hold that AP mods simply add base armor, or subtract armor value (starting with basic armor, ending w/ immunity). Vehicles have an additional immunity which is that they can't take stun (which makes their armor look hardened even if it isn't).


Your assertion is that the AP mod morphs magically to whatever type of armor the creature has. I hold that the 'armor rating' in the AP section can only deal w/ a generalized 'armor' which is already a generalized sum of different types.


Quite frankly, high force spirits are already dangerous enough. I don't see any reason to penalize someone for using flechette (which I find fairly pointless, as it's really expensive 5x costlier than basic even more expensive than APDS). And as Larme puts it, stylistically there's a long history of using shotguns against the 'zombie' hordes (wow another use of possession tradition spirits) which your interpretation makes a really bad pick.

But... By this logic, then the AP modifiers of ammunition NEVER adjust the Threshold for ITNW... Thus SNS would Not work as everyone assumes... As you have said... It either ALL applies or None of it applies to the ITNW...

I Actually like this outcome... This works for me...

"i don't like it" is a perfectly valid answer for your game. it has absolutely nothing to do with how the rules are supposed to work though.

as far as which armor it modifies, i personally would rule that it simply modifies the overall pool, but should it matter what any individual armor rating within that pool is, treat it as being modified by the full AP value. but this is still beside the point. what happens if the spirit only has hardened armor? there is no other armor rating to modify.

as for the zombie horde, that would be best represented by ghouls. SR spirits make terrible zombies, because zombies (as represented in most movies) do not have any kind of armor at all, let alone hardened armor, and come in hordes... whereas about the best any SR magician is going to get will be 16 (elf, metagenic improvement, genetic optimisation, for 10 max natural charisma, boosted by 5 in some way, plus 1 non-bound spirit). not much of a zombie horde if you ask me.

and quite frankly, if we're going to go with thematics, i prefer my way: AP modifiers change armor ratings. because it's a hell of a lot more thematically appropriate to use fire (which lowers armor) than it is to use a shotgun (which raises armor). given it makes no sense that fire/electricity/acid/whatever is *more* effective because it lowers armor if shotguns are more effective even though they improve armor, i'm going to stick with the mob with pitchforks (attacks of will) and torches (fire damage, -half AP), thanks

[edit] And my assertion is that AP modifiers modify armor rating. it doesn't morph, magically or otherwise, it modifies. given that the books explicity say that AP modifies armor rating, i'm not particularly inclined to go with your interpretation of the rules that AP *doesn't* modify armor rating. [/edit]

Zombie hordes can be done with spirits. IME, the best way for the cheap horde zombie is to use watchers along with the Corps Cadavers and Living Dolls optional rule from Street Magic, page 95. A corpse Cadaver is going to have the dead body's physical attributes at +1 along with ItNW at a mere 2 points of effect. Great for hordes if you only send them in a few at a time.

No. I don't follow your logical jump here. The Immunity section specifically says to treat the Immunity Armor (sic) as Hardened armor, it then references the vehicle section in the (...) I didn't type out. As such, negative AP mods would reduce it. I just hold that they'd reduce normal armor first (if present). And if positive would never modify the hardened armor threshhold only add resistance dice to the damage soak test and make it possible to do stun damage on a lethal attack, if you exceed the hardened rating but not the hardened + armor rating.


Edit:
I just looked at 4A (was looking at my paper book)... which argues a bit more in Jaids direction.
Hardened Armor is added as a critter power... and there it just says add the AP to it. So looks like 4A settles that portion of the argument.

However, book still doesn't tell me how to deal w/ multiple sources of armor (hardened and regular).

We could look at the actual rules, instead of making shit up.


Once again, looking at the actual rules instead of talking out your ass



Flechette has the advantage of targeting Impact armor, which is almost universally 2 points lower than Impact, making it more of a +2/+3, which is ok.

Rules for Stacking armor


Also, the rules for Hardened Armor- Read them, and maybe you will not look like a total idiot.



The gorram rules say that you take AP into account for hardened armor.

Another option to consider here:

A drake in dracoform with the adept power Mystic Armor.

4/4 Hardened + 2/2 Normal

What happens when shot with flechetes?

Matsci:
You wrote that between my other post... I already corrected myself on 4A... you're just being insulting w/ no cause. In fact, you'll note that I pulled up 4A text and noted explicitly where I had something wrong before I even saw your post. (I don't have to be right... I'm discussing because I'm trying to understand the rules better).


Stacking armor is all nice and good...


In fact, your reading does bring up something which does look interesting here.
Mystic armor(adept) states explicitly that it stacks... that it counts ballistic, impact, and astral
Mystic Armor(critter... why the hell they give it the same name.. call it astral armor or something else please as it's evidently astral only and not protection from meat attacks and gives no benefit to ballistic or impact),

ItNW does not say so... so it looks like a situation where only the higher rating would apply. Much to the lament of possession munchkins everywhere.


Which leads me to believe is something has 8 points hardened, 10 points impact... gets hit ... then it's 15 points impact armor.. even though it'd probably much rather have 13 points hardened armor.

Or here's another fun one... build a wicker man to house your possession spirit (severe allergy: fire). Immunity power only says non magical attacks... so despite the fire vulnerability... pulling a flamer on it doesn't help much against it's ItNW.

I was not referring to the Mystic Armor (critter power) specifically. A drake still has 4/4 hardened ballistic/impact armor in the physical plane of existence. The example takes that and adds 2 ranks of the Mystic Armor adept power for 2/2 more normal ballistic/impact.

Shoot the example with flechetes.

11 armor and if the damage is under 11 it does stun, under 4 it does nothing?

That is, the +5AP is added to the 2/2 giving us 4 + 2 + 5 = 11, of which 4 is hardened.

11 armor anything under 11, but above 9 deals stun, anything less is ignored?

That is, the +5AP is added to the 4/4 giving us 4 + 5 + 2 = 11, of which 9 is hardened.

Or as the OP states that it adds 5 dice, such that....no, this doesn't work:

That is, 4 + 2 = 6, anything above deals physical, but you get 5 more dice to resist (counted by RAW, somewhere under the rules for AP).

directly following the rules above, the drake would have a soak pool of 11 dice (natural armor stacks with normal for 6 dice, +5 for AP modifier). you then compare the DV vs each armor rating. if it is below 10 (note that you compare to hardened armor value modified by AP) you deal no damage. if you deal 10 or 11, it deals stun damage (compare rating of armor + AP modifier to determine if it's stun or not). if it deals more than 11, it is physical damage, and he gets 11 dice to resist the damage.

Yep... AP Modifies Armor Rating, Even the ITNW variety... A shame... *shakes head* but then again, that was how we always used it... I just despise the SNS effects vs ITNW is all (and I refuse to use SNS against spirits because of this belief)... can't do much about it though ... *Shrugs*

Thanks for being non-lazy Rules disputes can often be easily solved by opening the book. In response to Jaid, I wasn't telling you to break down your argument piece by piece. I was telling you that unless you give us a quote or a page cite, your argument doesn't prove jack. You should thank Matsci for carrying your weight and looking it up for you (although you probably won't because he wasn't very nice about it).

Regarding stacking however, I do not believe that stacking rules apply to ItNW. Here's why: "If a character is wearing more than one piece of armor at a time, only the highest value (for either Ballistic or Impact) applies." That specifically talks about wearing armor. It does not refer to other, non-worn types of armor. Immunity to normal weapons is not worn, it is a critter power. Innate sources of armor like that are outside the coverage of this rule, which is limited to worn armor only.

And you did so after he had already provided quotes & page reference. Try not to be a moron.

and also did so *again* after i told you i had provided references earlier, and even added in a link to said post (which was only a couple of posts above anyways) in case you were too lazy to scroll up.

you not noticing the proof i provided does not count as me not providing proof.

"If the critter has the Allergy weakness, then the Immunity does not apply to non-magical attacks using the allergen." p.295, SR4A

also, fire also halves armor. so it does quite a bit even if that were not true.

Back when he was still Line Developer, Rob Boyle answered an e-mail asking if Stick'n'Shock was effective against spirit's ItNW. He said that it wasn't since the spirit's armor isn't exactly an armor to start with. Since it didn't make it in SR4A or the FAQ, it isn't exactly canon, but that's the closest I've ever seen to an official statement on that topic. If you're interested, you might be able to find the thread with the search function.

P. 288 of the BBB states (SR not SR4A - I don't own that):
Emphasis mine.

Don't forget AP, we have to consider AP:


I don't know how some people think that Stick-n-shock bypasses all armor or doesn't work at all. To assume S-n-S doesn't apply means you have to be selectively ignore all the rules on how AP and Electricity damage are applied.

The rules seems quite clear.

1) You apply the half AP effect of Stick-n-Shock to the spirit's armor, meaning that it is at the Force rating instead of Force x2.
2) If the Force of the spirit is greater than 6, then no Damage Resistance.
3) If they did take damage, the struck target must make a Body + Willpower (3) Test. Either way, facing -2 dice pool modifier.
I interpret that S-n-S doesn't work if they are above Force 6 due to the wording on Hardened armor.

Sure that doesn't mean Stick-n-shock is uber against spirits but anything that halves HARDENED armor is still pretty damn awesome. At least if its force 6 or less. Oh well there is the AZ-150 Stun baton for anything up to force 8...

- J.

Oops, sorry I fail.

first off, rob boyle said he didn't like electricity working that way, not that it doesn't work that way.

secondly, nothing indicates that net hits do not stage up SnS damage. therefore, it works just like everything else.

I agree, if Rob wants spirits to be next to invincible against mundanes, that's how he can play it in HIS game. But per RAW, spirits get messed up by electricity, fire, and everything like that which halves armor. And that's what I'm sticking with.

Quite frankly... that's my biggest issue in this whole thing. Spirits and relative power. (NOTE: I'm normally the party mage by default... we need one and I tend to pick last to fill in the 'we need this' role).

It's not too hard to pull a big one out of your hat... especially if you take a metamagic like centering to help w/ the drain (you can get drain up into the 20's if you really think about it w/ a focus, metamagic, and augmented stats). And I don't like seeing them be some kind of an 'i win' button once the force numbers start racking up.

What I don't like about SnS is it's straight damage and doesn't care if it's a machine pistol or a heavy machine gun (you'd think you could fit a bigger cap in bigger rounds like say a shotgun firing a 'stun bunny' round). Why I don't mind it is it's one of the FEW legit ammo types... game doesn't have many good ones and some of the balanced interesting ones like gel just got reamed for no good reason.

What I do like about SnS is it's one of the few good ways for mundanes to handle spirits, or ludicrous armor ratings. I think the bigger problem is the electricity secondary effect can get outright silly. Defiance EX shocker... never leave home w/o it!


Overall, AP half seems a little overpowered, until I stop and think how easy it is to work up an armor rating of 20 or even 30 dice. And that's just impressions mind you. I kind of wonder if the game would be better if it was a little less granular and even 1 point of armor was a big deal only scaling up to say 10 or so (reflecting that most metas only have 9 to 11 boxes). There's not a lot of room at the low end for high level fixed AP mods, but at the high end... ap half can easily be 10+. Maybe they need more rounds w/ varying percentage of AP's... like replace each point of AP with 10%... EG: APDS -40%, Exex, -10%. A little bit more math, but it might work better given how often armor ratings can swing from close to nothing to so much, that pretty much nothing won't stage down to stun (and you stand a good chance of soaking most of the damage even from a direct 'nade' or rocket hit).

Increased granularity is a problem in a system with only d6's. You're always limited to addition and subtraction more or less, when you start doing percentages it starts to slow down the game for very little benefit. A percentage AP mod wouldn't make sense, either. Say your ammo can penetrate 3" of steel. Now you're trying to shoot through 6" of steel, and 9" of steel. It can still only penetrate 3", it's not some dedicated percentage of the steel. Your system would have ammo pierce more the more armor was there, and that just doesn't make sense. At least, it doesn't make sense for conventional ammo. For elemental damage it makes more sense, we're not saying that the more armor you wear the more effective it is, we're simply saying that all armor is half as effective as normal. That might actually be consistent with how electricity and fire work IRL. But bullets pierce a certain amount of armor, then they're done, it doesn't scale based on what they hit.

You know, there's a whole separate question here: is mundane electrical damage a "normal weapon"? If the electricity is a magically spawned elemental effect, it's still mana duplicating electricity. But if it's "normal" wouldn't the electrical value ALSO have to exceed the spirit's force (since the round halves impact)? Just me throwing out an idea that's been bothering me for a while about the whole bloody SnS vs. Spirits debate.
Same thing applies to fire and so on: can a spirit walk through a curtain of flame if the fire's base DV < Spirit's Force?

There might be a quick and dirty solution to the combination of Hardened and non Hardened armors.

Apart from exceptions, you may only wear 1 piece of armor, so you will always wear only 1 piece that does not say it can stack with others. Just call this your main armor. Your armor is hardened iff your main armor is.

I haven't really thought about the balance of it, though.

Yes. Sadly

Sadly? I'm delighted! In all these discussions, only once (above) have I seen mention that the DV of the SnS has to exceed the Spirit's force or it's wasted! I think the whole idea is nonsense. You only need to get up to DV 11 to hurt a Force 5 spirit (lowest level at which SnS will work now). A Heavy Pistol is DV 5, Pen -1. So as few as 5 net hits (yes, I said few) would theoretically do the trick without special ammo. I have always believed spirits should be exotic, special and relatively tough - not magical drones. If a force 6+ spirit materializes, it shouldn't he a hum-drum occurance. And a clip full of taser rounds shouldn't make it puff into mana-bunnies.

You lost me.

SnS only works on up to about Force 7, maybe 8, depending on your dice pools.

Anything 5 and under you can take care of with regular ammo.

it's an assumed fact if you're discussing the spirit's hardened armor being halved, and this being a useful thing, that the spirit is indeed assumed to have hardened armor in the first place. since the only source of hardened armor the spirit even has is from immunity to normal weapons, it would be a moot point to discuss how the spirit's hardened armor interacts with stick-n-shock rounds if the electrical damage did not count as normal damage.

that being said, magically created fire/electricity/etc is apparently different, btw, as it bypasses immunity to normal weapons. as do critter powers (just throw an angry cat at them... in a pinch, a cat that wasn't angry until you threw it at a spirit will do, since officially natural weapon bypasses ItNW)

also, stick-n-shock can deal with higher force, it just requires more net hits. if you want to go up to force 9 with ease, the defiance ex-shocker is the best (readily available and non-forbidden) choice. if you can go completely nuts, of course, then you want to get yourself a gauss rifle. which has the handy added feature of being able to damage just about everything.

My latest character is not summoning focused and I can reliably summon a force 8 spirit. Its not even hard. Without stick and shock 1/2ing the armor I'd walk over anything that didn't have magical support or really heavy weapons. In a game a player summoning exotic is cool, summoning indestructible juggernauts of destruction is not.

People who aren't mages occasioanlly want to play too.

That was what I meant by mana duplicating an element but still being mana.


Wasn't there an earlier thread (that didn't reach a consensus) about whether taser-type rounds damage could actually be staged up or not? One side said "limited peak discharge" while the other said "Taser to the pills FTW!" IIRC. I personally fall into the first set and so does my current group.

And your comment about the cat (excellent point, incidentally) brings me back to the question of if Fire/Electricity in their primal forms are "natural". If so, then the SnS really WOULD be a spirit killer, because it WOULDN'T get the ItNW at all, and only have HALF it's force for armor.

Summoning Force 8 spirits is "easy"? And you can do it "reliably" on the fly? How many hits does the spirit get on the summoning test? How much drain do you usually wind up taking? Force 8 for a starting runner should be HUGE. If you're pulling them off routinely without drain and they aren't your focus, you've GOT to be higher level, and by a good margin.
A force 8 spirit will usually on average force you to resist Drain 6, and with maxed stats and a +2 Power focus, you could expect to take 1-2S damage. If summoning isn't your focus, you probably would have skill 4 or less, and 6+2 magic, 12 dice. That's an average of 4 hits vs the spirit's average of just under 3, so you usually are trading 1 service off a Force 8 spirit for 2 stun damage? And that's "not even hard"? Sorry, I guess my definition of "hard" is different. If I am taking ANY drain damage, it means my character is working for it. That's the point. As a player, we can determine that's no big deal, it's just stun. To the CHARACTER it's a blistering migraine headache. And if you're overcasting to get the spirit, it's even worse, because now those points are actual damage - as bad as being shot with a light pistol while wearing light body armor.
"Easy" for a non-focused starting mage is drain stats both at 5, and a magic of 6 power focus not above a 2. That means to "guarantee" no drain on average my best spirit is going to be force 5. Normal weapons can take them down. And my summoning test will give me (probably, if my CHA is at 5 as well) 2 services.
I understand what you're trying to say, but spirits just aren't as easy as some people make them out to be, or I just take the whole thing a lot more seriously from an in-character perspective. To really summon force 8 spirits "easily" you would need to be able to get your drain resistance up to 24 so you could afford to "buy" the hits, or at least 18. How you do THAT without huge mojo fetishes and high level initation is beyond me. By that point, your stats are high enough that the summoning test is a breeze anyhow.
Again: if I can't do it without normally taking drain, it's not "easy".

The biggest problem with summoning force 8 spirits is that eventually the GM roll 6 or more hits and you'll have to resist 12P damage without armor and probably just explode. Your maximum realistic drainpool is 5 + 5 + 3 (stat, stat + summoning focus) so you could literally die right there with a poor soak roll.

It's a 9% chance of taking 10P damage, so how good exactly is your soak pool?

I wouldn't really call that maximum realistic drainpool, not for logic traditions anyway, considering the relative cheapness of Cerepral Booster.

Obviously there's no reason to mention that you can't stage up electricity damage, since it's not explicitly stated in the books. Not that anyone would listen even if it was. It only has a specific amount (rating of say... 6) of electricity stored in it. By rolling your dice, you can't make there be more electricity.

"Immunity to Normal Weapons: This immunity applies to all weapons that are not magical" If you really think your SnS ammo is magical, i think we have bigger issues.

Even if you think that you can shoot your SnS round 'better' to do more damage (you can't), your sammy doesn't know where the 'waek spots' on a spirit are anyway (it doesn't have any as the form it takes is meaningless and they all look different depending on how they were summoned).

And sure, it'll take out force 1 or 2 spirits easily. I mean, not in 1 shot or anything, but easily enough. But then again, so would a troll with a flyswatter.

Also: *agrees that Force 8 spirits are not easy to summon*
Also Also: Does everyone who plays a 4th mage take a power focus? They're mentioned alot, so I was just curious.

Someone's never peed on an electric fence.

Or licked a 9V battery.

Electric fences have much more electric potential than one SnS round. Licking a 9volt battery shows a good example of non-conductive armor rules. Hell, if you even wanted to say they do a bit extra damage to water elementals, or anyone covered in water, I'd be fine with that.

Funny story though, I did once sit on an (unlabeled) electric fence. But no, i haven't peed on one as I'm not an idiot. Either way, that is simply saying that piss is a conductor, not that SnS rounds do more damage because you rolled more successes.

Since I am his GM, I can answer this from my side.

0. Charisma 7 folks. Elves, over powered and abusive from this GMs point of view.
1. I kick his hoop 2 out of three attempts. His mage takes 1-4 boxes of damage, after Resisting Drain. The Medic then patches up the damage (/me shakes an angry fist in the air).
2. They rarely summon on the fly, why would anyone want to? They summon before they go somewhere. Often the medic is standing next to a medic drone just outside the circle. Just in case things get nasty. They bind during any downtime and the usually only bind Force 5. On the fly, they would just (ab)use Edge
3. Last sessions I got 4 successes out of 8 dice, three times in a row? or was it four Killfist? I got 5 on the poor human shark shaman, dude folded like Origami.
4. Due to his elven nature and charisma based school, he has 12 dice against drain. He may also have one of those foci but I thought in SR4A they no longer applied to drain. I could be wrong. However on 12 dice, he routinely gets 4 successes. That should not shock anyone. All he needs to do is lower damage to 4 boxes, the skill rating of First Aid possessed by the medic.

For Sprites its worse. Not only can the medic wipe off Level boxes but the mages can then heal whatever is left. The only limit on Sprite Summoning is what will kill you. This makes our Troll TM a giant battery for Fading damage, but his Rating 9 Crack sprites are something to behold.