I'd balk too, because the firing selection change is not compatible with "unusual loading mechanisms or exotic ammunition". I'd be uncertain if it'd apply to that particular taser because of the detail of it trailing wires from the darts.

Personally, I'd probably allow it, but I'd make sure to keep that much electrical damage in check by making those wires actually have consequences. Tangles and snags on glitches, unfavorable environments (the sprinkler system goes off when your team accidentally trips an alarm), possibly modify the reloading speed, or maybe just have particularly mean enemies take a hit that pisses them off more than it hurts them and they just yank on the wires to disarm you or drag you to their feet.

~Umidori

The misconception here is Burst fire itself, which calls for a single attack roll and do augment Base Damage instead of having multiple base damage done depending on the number of bullets hitting a target. I'll easily guess it was done on purpose to keep things simple : imagine making 3, 6 or 10 attack rolls, then defense and damage resistance tests for each Bullet ... That can't be good for gameplay, thus the easy +1DV/-1 Recoil per bullet added, and the fact that a standard 9mm round, even if it is fired as 3, 6 or 10 rounds, won't do a dent on some things (either magical hardened armor or a tank's armor).

It's not even a physics issue by the way, nor common sense, considering it's ... magic Spirits are just from another world and less susceptible to our damaging sources (even more so for Dragon if you go look, it's base armor is Hardened). You could even say that bullets go through the Spirit if the damage is too low, rather than the bullets miserably splat on it. Can't really be "correctly" explained, but it's better than having total immunity from normal stuff, which in turn makes them way too powerful, like they need it ...

If you shoot through a Barrier, you use number of bullets x 2 as DV (not the base damage of the weapon) as a side note

Really, by what rules? If the flechette ammo doesen't affect the ItNW hardened armor, then neither would APDS, Electrical damage and most other things mentioned here.

Also, spirits generally have no armor unless possessing.

Immunity to normal Weapons works as ForceX2=Armor.
If you do not cross that treshhold, you simply don't do any damage.
If you cross it just by one, you do the full ammount of damage.
ItnW comes first, THEN comes the ammo armor modificator.
Thus, Stick and Shock halves the ItnW down to ForceX1.
And then you do the normal Damage, if the Damage is above Force.

Yep, Flechette type ammo works very poorly vs Hardened Armor, exactly like APDS fares superbly well against it (+2DV/+5AP vs +0DV/-4AP)
The hardened armor form a Force 6 Spirit becomes 12+5=17 Hardened Armor vs Flechette ammo, when it is 12-4=8 vs APDS ammo (and 6 vs a Half Impact type Attack)

I would not allow a called shot against a materialized spirit for extra damage or armor bypass as it has no discernible weakness for extra damage. I figure the skill of the shooter is enough to count towards attacks of will. Possession or inhabitation I would allow a called shot as the spirit still takes in some of the weaknesses of its host.

Attacks of will cannot be made with a ranged attack. If skill (which equates to good bullet placement) works then a called shot (which equates to risky but superior bullet placement) would work. If a magic entity materialized into the form of a physical being has any susceptibility to bullets - and it does - then it can certainly have areas more susceptible than others.

This is poor logic. Spirits are creatures of magic, they are still creatures.
They have unconventional anatomies but they still have magical anatomies.
Are you telling me spirits have nothing akin to a CKS system, no potential points of vulnerability?
That the magic doesn't somehow 'circulate' through them.

It is purely an invention/view of some players who don't think through the ramifications of this position that spirits have no vulnerabilities that a skilled mundane can exploit.


Called shot to bypass armor yeah, I agree the entire spirit has the immunity and there is nowhere to bypass. But shooting a spirit in the 'head' is still a viable tactic. Or for the magical... why couldn't an adept 'rip' it's magical 'heart' out w/ an unarmed strike.

Even things like ItNW doesn't mean necessarily that the spirit blocks the attacks like superman w/ the bullets bouncing off it... it could also mean that like a ghostly figure weak attacks pass through non-critical portions of the spirit harmlessly and the spirit reforms around it. (apt description for say a spirit of air... while a spirit of earth probably is more like superman).

Called shot works : you have to shoot the red glowing thing. If you can't see it, it probably means that it'll only show it before attacking.

How would you aim at a floating ball of fire to find a weakness on it?

Where is a potential weakness in a miniature cyclone?

A mound of earth is shambling towards you, where would a shotgun blasst do the most damage?

I am too favoring this view. No Weakness spot / Vital zone or an Armor to bypass for those things.
But they need to be able to be hit by Mundane in some ways, thus the -AP / Half Impact stuff working on the Hardened Armor.
And yes, Called Shots attacks (+DV or Bypass Armor options) do not work on Materialized Spirits. I don't really care if it's RAW or not for that matter, their descriptions being obvious enough to not work in that case : they do not have vulnerable points visible to a metahuman shooter, nor do they have an identifiable armor (ItnW is a Power granting an Immunity, treated as a Hardened Armor, not a physical worn armor).

As mentioned above, how or where can you ID a spot on something you don't know or understand ? (a ball of flames, a mound of shambling earth, a tornado, moving waters, ...)
You need to know what is vulnerable in the thing you are shooting at, like in the example a human's head or a vehicle's tires.
You're free to accept anything anyway as a GM, so no worries

It's easy... your party mage tells you where to shoot. Why else does he have assensing? The spirit tends to shield a certain area of itself more than others. Where is the spirits 'head' or where does the spirit see things from. (or is it now impossible to surprise a spirit too and they have 360 degree vision at all times and can see from any portion of their anatomy).

Again, I reject this view... it's a spirit it has no weak points (or I don't have the imagination needed to contrive some). Not everyone has SnS or APDS available.

The effects of not allowing this on game balance, ESPECIALLY for high/very high force levels are pretty bad. Seriously, speaking as a mage, having an army of moderately high force spirits on call, plus summoning on the fly is very nasty. Once you get to really high force levels ammo alone is not enough, not by a long shot. (remember as their force goes up so does their dodge/reaction pools).

What does say a slightly better guard loaded w/ basic ammo or say Ex ammo and a heavy pistol do... run (spirit is faster)...

Fully automatic weapons, typically fired from a HVAR or Minigun with AV rounds seem to do the trick nicely. I've seen several shedim, including a Force 6 Master Shedim disposed of this way. Can't recall if I've seen a higher Force spirit dispatched however. We just finished the Ghost Cartels adventure where the big spirits appear in track 2. My PCs ran away and didn't even try to deal with them.

I question the S-n-S rule that Immunity to Normal Weapons doesn't apply to those rounds. It's an absurd stretch.

- J.

Force 6 isn't that high... we regularly seem to run into force 8+ around here.

APDS + needing 6 or more hits is not that easy unless edge is flowing like candy.

Not only that, there are times you cannot smuggle in your AR's or even SMG's (which would need 2 more hits than AR's).


If you enter house rules territory...
Also, some tables use house rules for things like SnS... I'm rather fond of SnS only does 3S in holdout, 4S in light pistol/MP, 5S in heavy/SMG, 6S in AR, and 8S in shotguns (large slugs should be good for something).

Just because a spirit doesn't have the same weak spots as a human doesn't mean they don't have weak spots at all. I'm sure there's some sort of difference to hitting in the center or near the edge. The optimal place to rippling its energy matrix or something like that.

In general: if it can be damaged, there are going to be spots where it can be damaged more than on other spots.

For a sammy, it's just made of magicstuffs.
Even if there are weak spots, how do you know what they are if you're not Awakened to analyze that on the fly when spirits of no two mages even look the same?

Honestly, I don't see the issue with making called shots against spirits or just about anything else. If they were immune to called shots the rules should say so. The description of the materialization power would have been a great place. Spirits are not illustrated as homogeneous blobs of magical goo. Nor are they described that way. Even the ones that ARE globs of goo have a funny habit of having things like eyes, mouths, teeth, arms, etc. I doubt they are appearing that way for our benefit. It stands to reason that a spirit probably has places it doesn't want to get hit, even if they aren't the same places as on you or me. If different parts of the materialized form look different I should be able to tell which part is which and then aim where the spirit doesn't want to be hit. That is know as a called shot. Even a mundane can learn where to aim, or be directed by his/her awakened buddies.

Ok, let's look at it another way.

When I shoot at a metahuman my damage increases due to net hits on my attack. Presumably the extra damage is because I hit him/her in a vital location or at least a location that has less armor. Called shots follow the same logic, except I loose dice at the front end to (typically) do more damage (usually the better choice) or ignore armor (usually the worse choice). Either way I'm increasing my damage by hitting you where it hurts the most. That's the fluff justification for the game mechanic.

Ok, let's assume that spirits are homogeneous blobs of magical goo with no weak points, hit locations, or vitals. Why do extra attack hits increase damage? Shouldn't I do the same damage regardless of where I hit? In fact, by this logic, why do net hits help to overcome INW? Shouldn't the only thing that matters be weather you hit the target or not and what you hit with? Of course, the RAW say that net hits do increase damage and that they do help overcome INW. What is the fluff justification for the game mechanic, again assuming spirits are singular blobs of homogeneous magic goo?

Knowledge?
Just because you're not a mage doesn't mean it's completely unknowable. Spirits tend to follow a symbolic logic; a spirit with a humanesque form will likely have his weak spots located similarly. For a blob of rock it's a matter of looking for fault lines, etc. - but in general, things you might know or deduce.

And sure, you could require Arcana for that perhaps - but do you require Medicine to place called shots on a human?

The history of knowledge on how to kill a human dates back thousands of years, and all humans have the same physiology. What about spirits? Less than half a century, and they are all different.

I'm not so convinced by the "he's just a sammie, he doesn't know anything about spirits" route of argument. If you need to Assense a spirit to be able to aim for the weak spots, then you should treat mages as just as cluelss until they actually spend actions to do the Assensing. Also, aiming for weak spots is a general principle; you can aim for weak spots on drones too. Or should non-techies be penalized for that too?


In order to stay consistent and simple, I prefer to think that skill with firearms also includes the ability to determine which parts of any target are good for bonus points.

Logically? Knowing something's weak spot is difficult in unfamiliar targets (see George Orwell's "Shooting An Elephant").

For purposes of simplicity and fun in a game? Rules apply evenly across the board except where specifically stated not to.

~Umidori

One could make a similar argument about tanks, planes, and cars. They have existed for about 100 years as of 2010 or over 150 years as of 2070. Every one is cosmetically different. They even have vitals in different locations. Yet the rules make it clear they can suffer from called shots. Do you think a character should need a knowledge skill to make a called shot against vehicles? Isn't a knowledge of where to hit something so it hurts included in your weapon skill already?

Consider drones - they'll have existed for about as long as spirits and show a similar amount of variation. Every single drone model is not only cosmetically different but has its vital spots in different places. Should character all need knowledge - drones to get a called shot bonus? How about a brand new drone that was just released? Would it be immune because its a new model? Would you grant called shot immunity to a custom, one of a kind, drone?

What about physiological differences between humans and trolls?

No, I like the across-the-board standard to just use the firearms skill.

Vehicles, Drones and Metahumans are actually easy. We know that happens when we shoot something in an obvious limb, eye and head, regardless if they are Trolls, dogs, elves or cows.

Ditto for vehicles as they use propulsion techniques known to us. We know to look for camera lenses, wheels, tyres, legs and joints. We aim for exhausts, rotor blades and fuel tanks.

Some sensors like radars might be internal and cannot be targeted and thus not damaged.

Spirits are different since they have no anatomy, they are magic * stuff * or energy or flying sparkles. Their form does not follow physical function of a possible real world counterpart or have an anatomy connected to it. A spirit with the form of a motorcycle will not explode if you hit it in the fueltank with an explosive round.

Shooting it in a “leg” might wound it and it might appear to have a limp but you might just have been lucky to harm it.

Using the regular weapon rules for aiming might very well be that you just aim a bit more careful but using called shot to ignore armor just isn’t possible.

In the end it’s all about the GM and what game he/she plays. If the spirit looks like a knight it might intentionally gimp itself since the representation of armor also includes the weakness that lack of armor means nor armor in certain locations.

We also have the fun situation about invisible spirits.

Spirit form: Invisible Man
Right, we now have an invisible man manifested on the physical plane.
Is it gamebreaking? Does it have mass? Would rain go straight through it or would it form an outline?
it would be able to wear clothes, armor, carry guns, drive vehicles etc.

They still all have the same vitals, same as drones - you know, sensor suites, engines, propulsion systems, etc.
With a spirit there's no telling if he sees you with what looks as eyes or something else entirely, he doesn't really need those wings of his to fly, and he can as well be a floating burning wheel or a stone sphere. What are the weak spots on those, how do you tell?

I approach spirits like this:
Form follows function. The form that spirits take is highly symbolic and tied to Tradition. The vulnerable spots are mostly in the same places as they would be in whatever natural object the spirit's appearance relates to most.

The appearance of spirits isn't totally random; it's just highly varied. But there is some sort of internal logic to it.

Also, spirits aren't just homogeneous blobs of energy; they're matrices of mana, and have more and less important spots in those matrices.

Indeed, I second the point about spirits being tradition tied.

If a shaman summons a bear spirit, it not only takes the form of a bear but also the traits of such. If you shoot a bear in the face, it hurts it a lot more than a meatshot to the leg. Same for the spirit.

After all, water spirits have allergies to fire. Why? If they're magical blobs, fire shouldn't affect them anymore than anything else. Except it does because of the spirit following traditional forms and behaviors, even if those don't make logical sense.

If you are willing to accept that you can hurt spirits by force of will alone, it makes sense that your expecting a shot to a perceived weak point would do more damage as well (even though, by RAW, ranged attacks cannot be attacks of will, but whatever).

~Umidori

Breaking from the Called shot debate for a moment; I house-ruled that all spirits have an inherent vulnerability specific to their tradition. All vulnerabilities are to materials that are not exactly common, but not typically extremely rare or highly expensive either. Though getting weapons crafted out of, or ammunition tipped with it may be more costly though.

Anyhow, I'm using Vulnerability from Running Wild, so +2DV when using it and it bypasses immunity.

As far as knowing what material to use, legwork can usually get that info. Also, the team's mage can make an assensing test to learn what tradition the spirit is (I use 2 hits to know a tradition that is the mage is familiar with such as his own, 3 otherwise), and with 5 or more hits the mage can know the vulnerability itself.

In my game some LoneStar cops could potentially carry silver (Hermetic) and/or bone (Shamanism) tipped bullets as they are the most common traditions, but it's not standard issue and only 1 in 6 shell out the money themselves usually.

I think it gives mundanes who do their homework a sporting chance.

My group is currently considering a house rule for this problem. As we see it, attacking a spirit or anything with hardened armor comes down to using an automatic weapon and blasting away until you get enough hits to damage it. At this point you obliterate whatever your shooting at because the automatic fire damage modifiers come into play.

Consider changing hardened armor to be used in this way:

Each point of hardened armor provides one automatic success on a damage resistance test.

Keeps combat moving and it's simple and still effective. Automatic fire isn't quite as devistating but still effective.

Muspellsheimr likes to house rule it that way... he also reduces the amount of hardened armor things get by half to keep it in check and proper balance IIRC.


Your point about automatic weapons ONLY works if they're using wide bursts to eliminate their reaction pools so that the target can't reduce the net hits increasing base DV... (and generally most GM's I've played with do not allow called shot for damage (trying to hit something important) AND wide bursts (spray and pray) on the same attack). If you're doing fully automatic NARROW bursts... then the +2/+5/+9 DV doesn't help bypass hardened armor. (if the first spitwad doesn't work, then his 9 buddies right after him won't do much either).


Overall, I don't like the house rule as much as the current rule. Think of it this way... when you hit a modern armored vehicle what happens... generally the shot bounces off harmlessly, or it's critically effective doing a lot of damage if not outright killing the target. Hardened armor currently works exactly like that... Something has 12 points hardened... well most attacks bounce harmlessly off, however when something actually does hit hard enough it's pretty nasty and normally leaves the target crippled or dead... as 12 points armor at one 'soak' per 3 dice still means that about 8 points of damage will go through when it does happen.

Overall, I like the 'feel' of the grittier it either works or it doesn't. Other games like Heavy Gear use it very effectively as well in their more hard-core sci-fi settings as well. While just automatically reducing damage by X feels like a lot more of a DnD'ism to me. Especially when dealing w/ things like possession spirits... where you auto-soak X... but still have a lot of normal armor and increased body to soak off the remainder.

I do the same thing, though I don't normallly assign a single alergen for the entire group of spirits (neccessarily). As example of where I likely would would be a Fairie Wicca caster. Her (or his) spirits likely have Alergy: Cold Iron (or something similar).

A Ruger Super Warhawk with EX-Explosive ammo does a fine job of dealing with spirits up to Force 6 if memory serves. APDS and AV ammo does an even better job, especially if you consider the Immunity to be a Barrier.

That aside, one house rule I've been tinkering with is completely redoing Immunity to Normal Weapons. I hate how mundanes are totally screwed most of the time, especially since fiction involving mundane paranormal hunters is so popular. I was going to start off with the premise that the Immunity was instead to Mundane Weapons. Standard bullets, swords, maces, and even bare fists wouldn't do much to them unless they were ridiculously powerful. But if you made a weapon out of some kind of pure, natural material and practiced the proper rituals in preparing it, you'd have something that would work, though it wouldn't be as high quality as the more technologically advanced weaponry would.

With that principle in mind, I looked to Silver Bullets and ran from there. I was planning on allowing characters to create or buy weapons that were prepared in such a manner using refined or radical materials, but doing so implied a +2 AP modifier under most circumstances and would have their damage code lowered on a glitch (or something similar). So a sword made of refined iron would bypass the Immunity to Mundane Weapons whereas, say, a Vibro Sword would not, but the Vibro Sword would be far and away more effective on normal targets. They'd also be extremely expensive, though not nearly as much as a Weapon Focus would be. I'd also experiment with the idea of allowing some radicals to be particularly effective, such as orichalcum.

Obviously I never got around to solidifying the idea or anything, but it's something to think about if you, too, are frustrated with the default rules. Spirits are powerful enough without having to have free reign in destroying normal people without worry of consequence.

In D&D I've occasionally used monsters with immunity to crafted weapons. Sticks and stones work fine, but significant processing invoked the immunity. The players had a tough time with those monsters. I suppose there's something to be said for letting weapons with a very low Object Resistance, or perhaps made from Reagents, be effective against spirits (the mana in them flows strongly enough, perhaps.)