That's where APDS or other special ammo comes into play. Also, flamethrowers suddenly have a new purpose

For spirits, I think a good house rule set is:
a) half (so just Force, not Force x2) the Immunity to Normal Weapons benefit, or at least the hardness threshold
b) make SnS not get around the above, since it's been reduced
c) have any spirit with Force of higher than 6 spend edge on the summoning roll; the mage is overcasting so this can quickly turn into 8+ physical damage.

I think these things would make Force 4-5 spirits easier for non-Awakened to deal with, and would cut down on oversummoning - not trying to eliminate it, but to make it a dangerous and risky thing that a mage only uses when he absolutely needs it, which I think is the point of the rule.

We have a couple of houserules regarding spirits. Each spirit has a severe allergy to two things. It's a fairly guarded secret between traditions and requires a high knowledge threshold to figure out.

Each spirit is allergic to something that is the opposite concept of that spirit. Fire - water, Plant - fire, Water - lightening, etc.
Each spirit is is also allergic to something tradition-specific. Shamanic traditions are allergic to dead bone, Chaos traditions are allergic to prisms, and hermetic traditions are allergic to silver.

If you have a character with high spirit knowledge and high assensing, spirits are chump change. Personally I would say that these things would negate the spirit's hardened armor, and it reduces the spirit's armor by half (before applying AP mods) when it rolls damage from the attack. There might be something like a -2 modifier for the residual stinging pain from an attack, too.

God not to get into another thread about this but you guys really need to give it a break with spirits and your houserules for them. For most uses they're just magical drones.

I have to agree with this. It's pretty much accepted and "polite" that a 5 Magic shaman Summoning an F5 or lower and possibly an F6 spirit will face a straight up roll. But the SM suggestion above is pretty valid...a spirit that powerful isn't going to lay over for a puny 5 Magic shaman.

Although on that subject, out of all the attributes a spirit has, I wish their Edge was based on 1/2 Force.

Our house rule is summoned spirits share Magician's edge (after summoning/binding is completed).

Personally I miss the days when edge/karma was for metahumans and dragons.

This is why its a rules pitfall GMs have to look out for. If you need to have specialty ammo, stick and shock, flamethrowers, or a mage etc on your sec forces to deal with spirits you need to know about this in advance. Not after your PCs walk all over your opposition. And if they do walk over your opposition you need to know the the rules that will help you get out of the problem.

Potential fixes
APDS
Stick and shock
Lasers, flamethrowers.
Background count(which can be its own problem if used incorrectly, or with astral hazing it being in the hands of the PCS)
Your own mage(stun bolt is the spirit slayer)
Table rules on how spirits act in the ambiguous areas of the rules. Like they can use edge to resist, have a table rule on how often they do so. Table rule son how narrowly or broadly a spirit interprets orders for the purpose of a service. And does this change when they are summoned vs when they are bound?

Yeah the 2 different table rules styles I have seen on this are hard limits on when they use edge and soft limits.

The hard limits are like your anything above 6, TJs tables rule(too lazy to spell his full forum name) its anything above 3 I think.
The soft limit I have seen fairly often is anything above your magic.

The basic premise for both is there is a point where a spirit really does not want to be summoned because it is too powerful or too smart. Hard limits seem to say anyone above an X mental stat or power is too smart to want to be someones servant. Soft limit ones seem to say a spirit does not want to be summoned by someone who is weaker than themselves, they should be the master in the relationship not the servant. Now the rules flat out say most spirits do not like being bound and it turns a somewhat equal relationship into one of pure servitude, so I can see lowering both the hard and soft limits in both cases for binding. I'd say by half in both cases if I were to do this.

Shinobi Killfist had it right... In our games, Any spirits Force 4 or above spend Edge to resist both the summoning and the binding attempts...

Nothing else is changed... you would not believe how much that encourages characters from trying to summon anything above Force 6... In fact, the average Force of spirits in our games is Force 4-5... which is not too bad at all...

Keep the Faith

That is one of the optional rules tweaks on pg. 31 of Street Magic.

Weird to me. Edge is not used enough by spirits in my experience for this to be an issue so I am surprised it is as an optional rule. Personally I think too many spirit powers work out to rolling x2 force. Even low force spirits with fear and a maybe a couple other powers I am not thinking of have a virtual walk all over the opponent power because of this. x2 force vs a single stat resist, and not extra defenses like counterspelling.

Which brings me to another look out for it as a GM issue.

Fear. This thing lasts what force combat turns, not passes, but turns. It is virtually impossible to resist, and there is no normal solid defense for it.(taking the guts quality helps a bit but not much). It looks coo on paper, but expect dissatisfied players if they get taken out of entire combats in the first pass even semi-frequently due to this power. Also get ready to deal with it on the other end. It pretty much does not matter who or what the opposition is(outside maybe dragons or really high force spirits) this one power will take one of them out of the entire fight and once you start dealing with great forms it takes groups out of the fight.

While not expressly stated to work against magical fear some drugs can counter fear in general, so I'd consider stocking up on this with biomonitors and autoinjectors if it becomes an issue. I can't remember the drug though.

Fear is an awesome power, I like options that have the team or team members run away and survive when the alternative is death. If the team is smart enough they can overcome it.

Care to share how with the rest of class.

Fear gives the GM the option to do the Team has been defeated yet survive scenario which is so hard to achieve with the fight or die attitudes a lot of PCs have.

I believe the sharing request came from 'if the team is smart enough they can overcome it.'

yeah, should have shortened the quote to include only that, but i thought that would be obvious.

Well assuming it is normal spirit level fear, you should be able to overcome it because you are a team. And while 2 party members will be removed from the fight every combat turn, the remaining members should be able to deal with the spirit. Now if its a great form spirit, its just a TPK waiting to happen unless the spirit fears you and walks away. How I normally see it is group fear power, use the next 6 combat passes to beat the party to death with no resistance, refresh the group fear on pass 7 if needed.(for a force 4 great form)

Fear should have created a pool of hits that the player gets to resist against every pass, cumulatively. When you finally build up enough hits to break free you are immune to a fear of that force or less for force CTs. Still takes people out for a couple passes, but does not remove them totally from the fight.

Why do you think you get to "beat the party to death with no resistance"? The spell just says you run in the opposite direction, not that you become an idiot.

Players can still take actions while moving and it even makes sense fluff wise, if you're scared out of your mind running away while spraying full auto or dropping grenades, etc. is just "more effective running away". Think of horror movies, the characters are just getting the fuck away from those zombies or whatever that have them terrified but (well, the protagonists at least) don't suddenly become morons who stop shooting the zombies. Fear is an awesome ability for splitting up groups or forcing people to leave their superior positions and/or cover, and not just the person affected, the non-feared team members will pull out so they can still support the feared ones as well. Who again, stop running when they break LoS with the spirit. It's a great tactical tool.

I think you guys are making assumptions about Fear from other tabletop or computer RPGs where Fear is complete "crowd control", and the target just takes a beating. The rules entry in Shadowrun clearly just dictates how you use the movement every turn and it says absolutely nothing about what you do with your complex actions. IMO players continue fighting that spirit just as hard as before, except they won't willingly engage it. Once the spirit is "out of sight or a safe distance away" the players won't on their own volition face it, but if the spirit brings itself back into LoS, well then it gets shot again as you retreat again.

Fear kinda does imply that you become an idiot. That is, you act suboptimally out of instinct. That's not to say you don't shoot or dodge, but it certainly weakens you.

What complex actions, doesn't running away requier simple action per IP?

I would say that depends heavily on your training. Fear implies a tendency towards instinctive reactions and rexflexes rather than deliberate thought, but if your training incorporates combat and self-defense drills, it would be fair to assume they'd kick in. Your wouldn't develop rational responses, tailored to the situation, but you'd still use basic drills and emergency procedures, most of which would happen subconsciously, anyway.

Something akin to this.
Or this.

Sure, but *still* that's a weakening versus your normal response.

Oh, sure, no argument there. But it doesn't automatically turn you into an idiot. You still react "appropriately" to the situation.

A -2 penalty on attacks while under the effects of Fear might be appropriate.

Or -2 to everything, as per Disorientation, etc. Or, everything not related to escape, that kind of thing. It just depends on your group and your GM, I guess.

Fear vs. Combat Monster quality. What wins? Magic or mental illness?

Running actually costs you no Actions... it is a movement option...
However, Sprinting does cost you a Simple Action...

I'd say that even a Combat Monster can get scared. Give him a +2 resistance or something? Unless you think it's more like Berserk, which (to me) is mindless and fearless. Fearlessness (and the related painlessness) is the whole point of berserkers, after all.

Yeah but i at least would requier people to print away from fear.

And a tankard or Hurlg.

What? And not allow the PCs to have some creativity?

As pointed out, the power requires you to remove yourself form LOS to a "safe" spot. It does not say you cannot act. While you might go with the Feared PC not being able to act against the Spirit, there are usually other targets. There are ways to continue to support your team.

Team mage gets feared and starts running away.... hmm, what could the mage do while running away? What could they if they got to a "safe" spot and then acted?

Dronomancer get's feared and runs away screaming at his drones to "Kill it kill it kill it...."

The team can help the Feared PC to get away and feel safe sooner, so they can then help them with teamwork on the Wi + Cha test to come back and help.

Feared PC running away screaming for backup and calling favors from some heavy hitter friends.

The face can convince the enemy spirit that "That innocent bystander over there is part of team..." after all, it won;t get the innocent bystander killed will it?

Why?

Cuz they're scared. It's his interpretation.

I would do the same, though I would also require the party scream "It's a guh-guh-guh-guh-guh-GHOST!", 'Zoiks!', or 'Ruh roh!'

That's not fear, though. That's panic.

I didn't say he was right. But that's the answer to your question.

Beginning to run (instead of sprinting) is a Free Action. Source is p.148 SR4A:

A free action does not cost you your simple or complex action... but point taken...

This was asked earlier: the drug that makes you immune to fear is Guts, on pgs. 74-75 of Arsenal. It has drawbacks, though.

Not really. I was asking WHY he made that decision

Does that answer your question?

It does. Thank you =)

It also heavily implies you are not shooting behind your back, not dropping grenades etc. But I can see letter of the rule fans allowing it.

It in no way implies that, running away does not involve as a necessary circumstance foregoing all other notions of defense. Furthermore since you were complaining about how overpowered it was to have a spell completely incapacitate someone for (Force) turns I'm not sure why you'd defend an interpretation that in your own words results in broken gameplay.

It's a little much to say 'it in no way implies that'. It says "overwhelming terror" and "race in panic". I'm not saying it *definitely* means no other actions, either. It is ambiguous and up to the GM. Possibly you could require composure tests to see if you can shoot back, etc.

It depends on the group and the game. Panicked, overwhelmingly-terrified gunfire isn't known for being effective, for example. There's no call to claim that your interpretation is 100% correct, in any case.

Yea I admit it definitely impairs you, heh. I'm just saying by RAW it just dictates what you do with your movement and the rest is up to the players and GMs to add to. If you want to force a sprint, sure, if you say that terrified people drop their weapons, ok. But all those things are just your own personal additions and it's silly to then gripe about how overpowered it is.

Personally I think most any action is fine with some penalty slapped on, it's definitely realistic and there's even a term for this kind of gunfire, right? Panic fire.

Right. I think this is a great place for groups and GMs to invent things. We discussed options earlier in the thread, like -2 all, etc.

Back to spirits for a second... Where exactly does it say they have immunity to normal weapons? When I look up the spirits in the base book I don't see immunity listed under any of them for powers or optional powers, and when I look up immunity itself, there's nothing that says "All spirits have this ability." In SM I found a line about it under will attacks, but still nothing to the effect of "all spirits have this ability."

I know it was in previous editions, but sometimes the 4th books are hard to navigate so I wanted to see that section for myself.

Pg. 296, SR4A