Got the idea while reading the "Gas Vent versus Suppressor" thread.






My first thought was "Hmmmm... magic? "

And since what followed after was completely off topic, so I've started a new thread.

I am curious about how magic can be used in combination with technology to make shots less noticeable or enhance the shots in other ways.



Is it possible to combine hush, silence, stealth, or critter power silence to nullify the sound? Is it possible to use it effectively?

1) Spirit in astral form + silence power 

I suppose letting a plant spirit use its silence power while following the bullet is out of the question, assuming it can even do such a thing while in astral form. It'd also defeat the whole purpose of subtlety. On the other hand, if you were taking out the only mage in the group, then the plant spirit can proceed to attacking the rest of the group. As far as they know, their group mage's head suddenly exploded and a plant spirit appeared. The ensuring chaos might allow the sniper a few more shots while they either fight or run away from the plant spirit. Seems like there might be limited application here.

2) Transparent gun + silence spell / Bow & Arrow + silence spell

Is it conceivable for someone to create a gun with a somewhat transparent barrel so that a mage can cast spells on the bullet? Would the mage be considered as maintaining LOS while the bullet's trajectory is within LOS? Even if it does work, I suppose there's still the problem with astral signature.


4) Screw subtlety. Gun + Anchoring + Offensive spell

Who cares about subtlety if the target isn't dead? Snipe him with a bullet anchored with a manaball to make sure he's really dead.

The difficulty of getting a powerful anchored spell aside and that you are probably better off just buying a few Ares Hemidall drone missiles... wait! What if we cast silence and improved invisibility on the missiles instead?






Anyway, I am just curious if there's any viable combination of gun and magic. These seems like they are only going to be good for some situations, but are still fun to think about. I am sure I misinterpreted a rule or two in my attempts above and there are probably other interesting combinations out there I don't know about. Would love to hear your thoughts. 




Lastly, a few questions 

Can you sustain a spell with ritual spellcasting?

How much would you have to pay for a mage to spend their karma on spells? 

Is it conceivable for a mage to be selling these magic bullets or anchoring/quickening service out there?

In both SR2 and SR 3 you could anchor a spell to a bullet (like a silence spell) but this required that the bullet was coated in oricalum (reminds me of Chris Rock's views on gun control). While functional it wasn't practical except for snipers and even then a person could have a button on with an anchored detect bullet and barrier spell on it.

i dont think SR2 rules required orichalcum, tho adding it would make things easier. SR3 introed a more simplified achoring system.

IIRC, you can only enchant a whole object, so no anchoring a spell to a car's tires - it's anchored to the whole car. This would also mean that if the car were taken apart, the spell should fail. For bullets this is important, because - other than black powder firearms - your enchanted ammo is going to come apart during firing well before reaching the target. However, arrow/bolts/missles and grenades should be able to have anchoring stick until close enough to go off (spell first, then it doesn't matter if the missle/grenade blows).

Magical bullets... not worth the karma to anchor a spell into them. Though no reason you couldn't.

Silent bullet... it's called subsonic ammunition, and use the stealth powers on the sniping position. Make up for the lack of damage w/ a good called shot for damage.

In order for the spirit to work... he has to be on the physical to start. In which case, he's nowhere near as fast as a speeding bullet. Also, you'd use concealment as a service, and spirit wouldn't need to travel with it. Silence is the wrong power and is pretty much strictly inferior to concealment.


Fireball bullet... it's called a willie pete grenade from your underbarrel launcher. (far scarier than a mages fireball too... NO DRAIN!)


One item which might be very scary... spirit uses movement power on a bullet and gets it going beyond hyperspeed to ludicrous speed. (easily noticed though by the plaid trails it leaves behind). How much of a damage increase if you get things up to relativistic velocities?

For those of you unfamiliar with the term--Willie Pete = White Phosphorous.

HappyDaze--How would you handle it if someone enchanted the bullet before pressing it? While I certainly agree with your interpretation, would you allow for someone with the necessary skills to enchant it before hand?

I think there's a little more than that... the anchored item has a link back to the mage which enchanted it.
If I was a mage and didn't know how it would be used... I think I'd be very scared of just making them and selling them for fear of having them used to frame me (or having my spell signature linked to a crime, etc.).


As far as the bullet goes... I don't see why not... the conditions when the spell goes off are set when cast. There's no reason the first condition can't be After being attached to a shell casing, when seperated from shell casing, detonate on impact.


Not really much different than the 'safety' on a contact fused grenade from a launcher... first safety... 'fused' by the high G of launch, then won't arm til 5m past the barrel (counts rotations)... after that it's a hot potato.

Also, what's nasty about Mr. Willie Pete is it's only a simple action to let him lose... so two per pass and no drain.

Could it be done? Possibly, much as characters get a spur enchanted as a weapon focus prior to implantation. Would I allow it? Yes. Would I encourage it? No, because I'd much rather see a hand-cast 'magic bullet' fired from an antique black powder weapon. But that's just me.


Are there any restrictions on how complex the conditions can be? If you're not careful, you get into the realm of 'smart' spells which is something that the SR spell rules frowns upon.

hi hi

You'd need an awful powerful spirit to push a bullet up to relativistic velocities. Not that bullets have listed movement rates, but lets take a look at an example:

We'll use a variant of .44 magnum. 450 m/s velocity, 22 grams. A force 17 spirit could the bullet up to 58,982,200 m/s and into the relativistic speed range. After some rough calculations (ye gods I hate imaginary numbers), thats about 9.14 kilotons of boom upon impact.

It is worth pointing out that a force 20 spirit would break the light speed barrier and send the bullet back in time.

Also, a force 6 spirit would propel the bullet to 28,800 m/s, which is about 2.1 kilograms of TNT, which is an extra 6 points of damage depending on how you round your fractions.

However, a force 10 spirit (which a starting character could theoretically summon by overcasting) would increase the bullet's speed to 460,800 m/s, giving enough boom to equal 558 kilograms of TNT. Thats a damage value of 94P

instead of enchanting a bullet, why not enchant the gun?
an anchoring focus with the attack spell of your choice with the condition that the trigger be pulled to cast.

hi hi

If I wanted a really silent bullet, I'd get a subsonic gyrojet round that has a liquid fuel motor, probably something like pure ethanol that burns clear too.

Also, there was a thread on magic weapons a while back, cant find it now though. But the premise was about using dual natured substances, FABII, biofiber, awakened ivy etc. as a component in a bullet or arrow. If you hit a spirit or astral form that isn't materialized with one, you could potentially ruin their day.

(so all I'd need to go back in time is a mage with a magic rating of 9 or 10, the ability to summon air elementals, and two points of edge to burn, I wonder when I should spring this on my GM)

Wouldn't that only speed the bullet up from 450*17 to 7650 m/s?


Still, it's conceivable that the damage can be increased. Unless the power only just increase the subject's speed without affecting kinetic energy and ignoring air resistance.







I am assuming that this is still meant for one shot. I guess you wouldn't enchant the gun because you want the spell to take effect where the bullet is and not where the gun is?




If you use concealment as a service to conceal the bullet, you wouldn't have to worry about astral signatures, right? Is there anyway to track someone whose gun, bullet, himself, and the spirit is concealed with concealment shooting at you from miles away?




I would agree that magic on the bullets might not be typically worth the karma/money. But since it might be useful in certain scenarios, it'll still be a good trick to have




Lastly, if the dual natured bullet works, they should really be more common. If the moss or other manatech alert you of any possible presence, switch to the bullet and start shooting  

I'll probably go look up that thread sometime. Thanks for letting me know.

Too bad for all of these calculations that increased speed from Movement shows no indications that it actually imparts extra energy on the target. You magically sped-up bullet hits no harder than normal just as your magically sped-up metahuman doesn't turn to paste from a trip & fall.

Question... What is all this talk about shell casings? Isnt' the default caseless except in revolvers.

Also it appears that Ice was using SR4 instead of SR4a to get that number siel.

If you want to be really quiet, use a weapon with an integral silencer, electronic firing, and subsonic ammo.

it doesnt have to be one shot unless they removed reusable anchors in sr4. have manabolt anchored to the gun, so that it shoots manabolt in the direction the gun is pointing when the trigger is pulled.

hi hi

Ok ok, that was totally my bad. For some reason I was thinking every point of force doubled the movement speed, which is clearly not the case. You know, I'm really quite relieved actually, even though it throws a wrench into what could have been a really cool run. There's just no way to reach relativistic speeds with the movement power. (well, a force 93,400 spirit maybe, but no *feasible* way.)

As for dual natured bullets, look at the rules for passing through mana barriers on page 194 of SR4A. Then look up the rules for capsule rounds on page 34 of Arsenal.

There isn't really a default. Both ammo types are in common use for both types of weapons. In this case, caseless ammo would be even harder to anchor something on since the entire outer surface is expended during firing, and it's even harder to imagine enchanting it first then 'encasing' the round in the caseless propellant.

It seems you would be better off saving your money and getting a laser weapon.

Er, how else would you do it?

The caseless propellant is more or less molded on, and causes no structural changes in the bullet.

Why would enchanting it first, then molding the propellant over it be a problem?




-karma

I have trouble viewing most runner teams as being able to home load their own caseless rounds. Of course, I also tend to think that the plasteel homonculus is unlikely to ever see use in my games for similar reasons, so take that as you will.

I've got one, and this is the closest thread I can find.

A player wants to make a modified weapon focus, one unaffected by mana. Except that while damage done with it counts as "magical" it gets none of the dicep ool bonuses, and provides AP equal to his initiate grade with a max of willpower (1 and 4, respectively. I'm not likely to let him get that far in my turn as GM.). I can't really see any problems with it as long as he forges it using the characters time, money, effort and bonds it for cost equal to the power focus; is there any reason not to that anyone can see? Any fluff things that blatantly scream "NO", since it's his will that provides the AP rather than mana?

Sounds fair to me, even a bit weak. The average effect of AP and bonus attack dice is the same: +1 damage per 3 dice. Attack pool bonus helps against dodge. AP helps against hardened armor, but as a weapon focus this one already bypasses spirit immunity to normal weapons, so it will mostly be useful to cut through drones. Can he make it in the shape of a can opener?

Why the limit with Initiate level and Willpower? Is it the maximum Force you can create according to Enchanting rules?

Area of Effect Silence, anyone? Why silence just the bullet/gun when you can silence the whole area?

Because I give out karma the way that man on the street with the sign does pamphlets. I don't mean to be playing this campaign long enoujgh for him to hit IG 4 and up, but there's a chance he will. I don't think a weirdo swinging a sword that invalidates any armour the opponent is wearing is a good idea, do you? And the limit is just.. well, because it needs something.

As I told before, I find an AP weapon focus weaker than a normal one. So I don't see any reason to gimp it anymore. There is already a limit to foci per RAW: they come with a given Force that will never increase. The only way to level it up is to get and bond another focus.

Your player has to go through the formula research and focus enchantment on top of that, so he's unlikely to do it often. And the threshold for the research test is quadratic, so high Forces should remain forever out of reach, especially with the SR4A decreasing dice pool rule.

I would say: just let him research and build his weapon focus, use all the rules for weapon foci except the Force is added to AP instead of dice pool, and everything should be easy and smooth.

If you want to get rid of the Force stat to get along with the fluff, you have to devise your own rules for research and bonding.

Or introduce him to the called shots portion of the rules... spend a free action. Reduce dicepool by 4 (the +4 the focus would give him) increase raw damage by +4 (unless you're trying to slice a tank in two... better than AP -12).

Really, nothing wrong w/ the idea outside that it should be more limited than an actual weapon focus. He has no arcana/enchanting skill to speak of. Maybe if he was a master talismonger/weaponsmith I could see him making some kickass blade better than a focus. But since he's a nub, limit him to an actual focus, or an inferior focus at best.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but aren't magical missile weapons the Holy Grail of magic... I seem to remember that Dunklezahn's Will left a boat load of money to the research team that could create such devices, especially ones that could be used by the mundane world...

Seems to me we need to actually get to that point before this topic has any real relevance...

Aren't they rather missile weapon foci?

The weapon itself maybe, but not the ammunition...

You are correct. "No magical bullets/magical ranged weapons" is a longstanding thing in Shadowrun.

hi hi

You could theoretically get a very large catapult and use it to launch a physical adept with killing hands at your foe...but I wouldn't recommend it except in emergency situations.

Almost every piece of Shadowrun art shows gun ejecting casings and I don't think caseless ammo will replace conventional for a long long time.

Here's what I know. Caseless cooks off at lower temperatures and can not be hand loaded by the majority of hobbyists. More importantly, marksmen will never accept caseless ammo over fine tuned hand loads simply because they'd have less control over what they're shooting.

Here's what I've heard. It's less accurate, the gun has to be more complicated, the manufacturing process is far more expensive and involved. I'd imagine misfires would be a bitch to extract as well.

I remember someone on a gun forum saying "We'll have phasers before they perfect caseless ammo."

He does have some points in enchanting as a background thing. And it's more the opposite to a standard weapon focus, with AP instead of added damage. Regardless, I let him have it. Seems to be okay thus far.