Lightning Bolt and its derivatives all deal electricity damage, and are indirect combat spells with a damage type "P". Since they are indirect, they already are resisted with Body + half Impact armor. So does the electricity damage component make it stun damage resisted with Body + 1/4 Impact armor? Or is it Physical damage resisted with Body + half Impact armor, with the additional rules and penalties from electricity damage applied to the spell?

IIRC, it's P resisted by 1/2 Impact, but I go with S resisted by 1/2 Impact. Essentially, I remove any blanket damage and AP from indirects and just go with whatever the specific elemental effect says. The Drain resistance for S damage I only apply to direct combat spells.

I'm with the last sentence, "...Physical damage resisted with Body + half Impact armor, with the additional rules and penalties from electricity damage applied to the spell." Same for all the elemental effects.

Thats the one, except sound that negates all armor.

Thats the one, except sound that negates all armor.

Yep -seconded. Lightening Bolt is quite nice, actually. Still better off with Direct Combat spells most of the time, but Elemental Effects offer a some good circumstantial advantages. I personally like Blast for the knockdown. There's nothing quite like seeing an Elf PC flying through the air from a dwarf Elementalist's "Boom" spell.

It's all about sonic damage; everyone (except certain few adepts/street sammies) resists only with Willpower. Pwned.

Not for stealth scenarios, though, you must admit. Just what is the threshold for hearing a noise loud enough to knock someone unconcious, I wonder?

(Nah, just kidding. Sonic is great though I rule it can't effect drones, etc.).

a sonic indirect spell sounds like a saser to me...

that, or a blue hedgehog projectile...

Why not. the rapids changes in air pressure from sound in a very real thing, if since it ignores armor it can skip straight to those delicate electronics.

Anyways, in my campaigns I let their be two different versions of lightning bolt, one that does stun damage, one that does physical. I do rule that it only ignores half their armor however.

Makes sense. One is high in voltage, the other in amperage.

If the changes in air pressure were sufficient to damage a vehicle then it wouldn't be doing Stun damage to people. "Electronics" aren't actually that delicate. Yes - if you put a scratch across a circuit board then you'll damage it I imagine, but you can probably shake a microchip a lot harder and longer than you could a person without them getting damaged. There are effects where you can damage something by hitting it at a precise frequency causing it to vibrate itself to the point of damage, but that's got to be a specific targetted effect like the Shatter [object] spell, surely.

Also, a character is allowed defensive armour for things like ear plugs. There's no way we're talking about the same sort of sounds here. I'm not even sure what sort of sound you could generate that would damage a car and still be called "sound" and not an explosion.

Anyway, that's my reasoning. Indirect Combat spells can be great in the right circumstances. Which is one of the reasons I didn't like the nerfing of Direct Combat spells to make the two groups "closer in power."

talking about sound & such....

you guys really need to watch mythbusters

like say adam in a F/A-18?