Well but the Jail is being run by SAFECRIME Inc. Keeping UCAS safe from career criminals.

You're in their jail, with no records, and they're not getting paid for you.
So they do one of 4 things
1) they let you out.
(*giggle*snort*laugh*)
2) they give you to a nice psychopath as a playtoy
3) they kill you (bullet, strangulation, what ever)
4) they put you into their underground arena blood sport, until you die.

Yep, so you'd better have a sin, or you're screwed. With a sin, it could be some kind of processing error after being picked up for drunk driving, if you're sinless, you don't have the right to even make that case.

I'm all for some limitations on SnS ammo. Not staging damage for net hits as an example. That aside, it's already an expensive ammo and for most targets it's just as simple to kill them via lead poisoning. Otherwise the proposed changes merely further propogate the arms race of player v GM. If your group doesn't have a mage and you have a F10 spirit sent at you, I would worry WAY less about it and worry way more about A: your GM being a possible dick and B: you have a mage that can throw around a F10 spirit, because this means they can also sling F10 stunbolts.

I just don't allow elemental effects to bypass ItNW the way they can mundane armor. So many of the physical limitations of the metahuman body and bodyarmor do not actually apply to spirits, like for example, spirits are not actually made out of matter, they don't have vital organs, they don't have nervous systems, or physiologioes to be poisoned, etc.

That's what the rule actually says anyway, these guys just get "creative" in how they read it.

And for that reason sound wouldn't help disrupt that water or earth spirit? Water won't douse that fire spirit? Fire won't burn that beast spirit? Well hell then, why bother having a mage pick up elemental spells at all? In fact, lets extrapolate this further then.


Mystic Armor grants additional B/I armor. Do you halve it by elemental effects? After all, it's magical. It may not possess ItNW but it doesn't possess the "physical limitations of the metahuman body and bodyarmor" because it isn't "actually made out of matter".

/devil's advocate

The Allergy weakness specifically says that ITNW is ignored when being attacked by the allergen (i.e. water on a fire spirit). And the Sonic Rifle totally ignoring ITNW and making a spirit nauseous is so goddamn stupid I can't believe many of you advocate it with a straight face. They don't even have ears.

I actually have been tempted to interpret mystic armor this way. And make it unable to be reduced by called shots.

But the fact is they arent depandant of those even when playing RAW, i posted a small list back there with force and what weapons easily kill them, unless their uber spirits(force 10 and up)
a gun slinger can kill them easy peacy and S&S isn't even close to best option for doing that, infact it just doesn't work on force 7+(unless you have awesome shooting dicepool).

It just baffels me how many people are cooking up needless nerfs for ITNW and S&S.
ITNW really isn't a problem except for uber spirits, but those should be really hard to kill.
And S&S really isn't nearly as good as some people here advertise it beign.

My current gm just banned anything that makes me cackle like a psychotic maniac as I figure out ways to use it in new and unusual manners to totaly surprise folks... usually in lethal manners.

What can I say... I once had to explain how to use a paperclip as a weapon

I still don't get this... no matter how many times I hear it. Prior to VR 2.0 sure, but after? I mean 4.0 still has the matrix map, they just call them nodes now rather than hosts.

I just ban everything between the introduction and the index.

That was actually more in response to a phys ad using elemental fists to emulate sonic or a mage dropping a sonic attack spell.

But I ask you honsetly: Why wouldn't a flame thrower, electrical discharge weapon, [something that shoots acid], bypass the ItNW even without the allergy? If a mage throws a fireball at a spirit of man he gets 1/2 impact against is like anyone else. Why wouldn't a man portable flame thrower have the same effect? The magic actually created a physical fire. I fail to find a coherence in your rulings.

It's still magical fire, you resist it with Reaction + Counterspelling.

Indirect combat spells are treated like ranged combat attacks; the caster makes a Magic + spellcasting success test versus the target's reaction. If the spell hits, the target resists with Body + HALF IMPACT armor (+counterspelling, if available).

Elemental effects: many indirect combat spells utilize damaging elemental energies such as fire damage, electrical damage, etc (see Special Types of Damage, p. 154). These spells are resisted by only half the impact armor rating (round up), as noted.

You were saying? This means the book treats a magical fire spell exactly the same as a flame thrower.

And that is where the rules kind of go meh....

Ironically in 3rd edition Shadowrun, elemental effects halved the hardened armor of Immunity to Normal Weapons. So in 3rd edition, flamethrowers would halve a spirits Immunity to Normal Weapons hardened armor.

Rules are kinda like clothes. If you don't like the way they fit into your game, talk to your players or your gm, depending on which side of the table you're sitting on, and tailor them to fit. If people played rpg's strictly RAW, they'd rack up insanity points faster trying that than catching Cthulu stepping out of the shower reenacting a full frontal scene from Boogie Nights.

If its something the spirit is stated as to be alergic to then possibly, otherwise, no.


Nice summary, glad I didn't have to explain it.

Oh man, I'm going to have to post up a demo for the 6th World's favorite Reality Show, Mike Irwin: Ghost Puncher, aren't I?

[Mike Irwin is a trained and dedicated karate-man. His LUDICROUS PUNCHES are not to be attempted at home.]

In today's episode of Mike Irwin: Ghost Puncher, Mike is traveling to the highest levels of the ACHE where the batshit-crazy Matrix entity, Deus, tortured and slaughtered thousands in wacky experiments! Not a good place folks! Let's join the action, already in progress, with everyone's favorite Orkish punch-up artist MIKE IRWIN!

"Hiya gents! Mike Irwin here! I'm on the 210th floor of what used to be the Renraku Arcology here in beautiful Downtown Seattle. Now this site was the home of many powerful mages who were all liquidated immediately upon Deus' takeover of the Arcology, so there's an awful lot of energy here. Not as much negative energy as elsewhere in the ACHE, but the energy here is extremely powerful [background count of 2 aspected to the Spirit.] Let's see if we can stir something up, eh?"

"OY! Ghosts! Come out and take ya medicine!"

"Cor blimey, that's a big one. Looks like a Force 10 at least! I'm gonna go punch the life out of it.
[musical cue]

Prelim: mike uses Elemental Strike [sound] for -full AP DV P->S. Background Count negates: Attribute Boost [strength], Commanding Voice, Combat Sense (1), and Penetrating Strike (4)

Pass 1 - Initiative: (Spirit - 29) vs (Mike - ADRENALINE SURGE)
Mike - Uses a free action to call the spirit a sissy. Holds his other actions.
Spirit - Materializes in front of Mike with a complex action. Uses a free action to make a rude gesture.
Mike - Uses a complex action to beat the tar out of the spirit. 5 net hits! Lucky lad! DV = 16S -full AP Spirit soaks 4 Damage, taking 12S. Yikes! It tacks on Edge. 3 more hits, damage is down to 9S, he's still in there. Mike takes Interrupt action to use Finishing Move, immediately making another attack on the Spirit. 3 net hits! The wary Spirit has no intention of taking any more of these LUDICROUS PUNCHES. It uses Edge to re-roll misses, reducing the net hits below 1. He's made it to the 2nd pass, folks!

Pass 2 - Initiative: Ok the spirit wins. Not a contest.
Spirit - Enraged by the fact that this piss-ant Australian just nearly disrupted him in a single deft move, the Spirit attempts to turn the tables by puffing up and using its Fear power. 7 net hits! Mike would be in real trouble now if Spirits weren't so predictable. Naturally he took a handful of Guts before he came up here. He is a professional Ghost Puncher, after all.
Mike - Still reeling from that biffed Finishing Move takes a free action to sarcastically pretend to be scared of the Spirit. It's really quite funny.

Pass 3 - Initiative: Spirit -"Wait, we're having a 3rd pass?" Mike - "Yip."
Mike - Swings again at the Spirit. Deciding that maybe it's time he spent some Edge to connect he spends a point for a re-roll. The spirit returns in kind. 2 net hits! This Ghost can't catch a break! 13S damage gets soaked to 9S. Spirit spends 4th point of Edge to try and survive. Soaks 6 more to bring total down to 3S. How about those exploding 6s, folks? Mr. Ghost still has 3 points left in his damage track.

Pass 4 - Initiative: Spirit - "Oh come on!" Mike - "I spent Edge. Get with the tempo, mate."
Mike - Not frelling around, pulls the same trick as last time. Blimey! 12 hits! The Spirit can not afford to be hit again, so it throws its Edge up front, bypassing the 20DP cap and going on a full dodge with 40 dice (after wound modifiers and previous attack penalties.) 11 hits!? Mike pulls 1 net hit! Soaking 12S, and using a 6th point of Edge, Mr. Ghost scores only 6 hits. 6S is enough to do it. Mike has just whalloped an effective Force 12 Spirit of Man in 3 seconds flat with only half his regular Magic rating!

Well folks, that just goes to show that with a bit of luck (well lots of luck,) proper planning, and aggressive action a 400bp Bio-Physad can KO a massive Ghost before it has the chance to figure out what's happening. See you next time on The Ghost Puncher!

Under standard RAW that's not true. Once you are processed you have a criminal SIN. you are in their records, and they are getting paid for you.

Except that with the 10 Point version of Erased, that Criminal Sin disappears after 24 hours... so now, you are in a prison with absolutely no records of why you are there...

Anyways...

Eh, sound affecting spirits like that is pretty meh too. I would not allow full AP deduction. Half just like any other elemental effect.

hey Max, not to go over a super dead topic again, but could you find your list from before or just throw a few ideas out re:ItNW and say, disrupting a force 6 spirit? Thanks.

Also, this super-powerful spirit from the example must be missing his super high LOG and INT:-)

My current GM is banning the infected in his future games.

Why?

I play an effective mage.


Yeah, I dont get it either.

yay! this subject again! Can't we all just admit that there's legitimate reason for argument here, and we're going to disagree about it?

MEH?! Sounds like some 4th ed sillyness...

You don't resist a flame thrower with counterspelling, gee I wonder what the difference between the two could possibly be. Also it's Reaction + Counterspelling to dodge not Body + Armor + Counterspelling to resist, it doesn't really matter for this argument's sake but just FYI.

It is what it is... You May not like it, but there you go...

Wasn't the discussion 4 pages ago about how Fear is an "I Win" button for Ghosts and Draculas?
Also, Mr. Irwin's production team is very good at counterspelling.

Force six you say:
If you have a high enought dice pool(around 18) to get 3 nethits any heavypistol loaded with APDS works.
If not Ruger Super Warhawk loaded with same only needs the one nethit reguired to hit.
As does a shotgun loaded with APDS
Assault rifle loaded with APDS needs 2 nethits.
PJSS shooting both barrels needs 2 nethits, using standart ammo adding EX-EX or APDS drops that to 1 nethit while shooting only one barrel.

Thats few ideas for you, mostly all that comes in the firearms section after assault rifles work nicely.

First off, APDS rounds aren't issued to normal guards.

Secondly, you're still arguing that ItNW is apparently easy to bypass which was MY point. Your point was that removing the hardening was a nerf to spirits. Apparently you've thought about it and remembered that the hardening isn't that big a deal?

Everybody talks rules, nobody talks response. If your three mundane guards in the scenario encounter a runner team and are attacked by not only spells, but a spirit, what do you think they're gonna do? Call for backup! "Jesus fragging christ, send help! These guys have us pinned down, they got a spellslinger and there's A FRAGGING GHOST! SEND S.W.A.T., DAMMIT! NOW!!!" After that its a matter of falling back, staying alive and issueing a lockdown on the facility.

Just popped up:
STR24 Cyclops well versed in anything STR related under SR3.
And no, the STR23 Giant is not allowed either <.<

I think you have some misunderstandings about the mechanics of SnS.

For example an assault rifle with APDS has 6DV/-5AP. SnS ammo does 6DV/-(spirit force)AP, so equal at force 5 and better for higher force spirits.

Shotguns with APDS are 1 point closer to SnS in terms of penetrating high force spirits, but you're still much better off with an Automatic with SnS that lets you pump up the DV with more bullets so you take it down, or wide bursting if you're worried about not hitting it.

Not to mention that APDS has 16F availibility...

Burst doesn't help at over coming armor, so your much better of just getting bigger guns if your against spirit higher then force 6.
Up to force 6 you dont neccesary need S&S (if you can use atleast a heavy pistol) and after that S&S doesn't work anymore(too slow damagecode) and you just need bigger guns.

That wasn't what I said. I said that burst allowed you to actually kill the spirit AFTER you penetrated the hardening. Even if your APDS shotgun defeats hardening, a force 7 spirit is still going to have close to 20 dice to soak your measly 7+hits DV.



SnS works fine against high spirits, didn't you see the numbers above?

An example vs a force 7 spirit which has 14 armor.

Shotgun with APDS has a 7DV/-5AP code. That's 7+hits DV that has to beat 14-5=9 armor, so you need 3 net hits to penetrate.

A SnS round has 6DV/-half AP. That's 6+hits DV to beat 14/2=7 armor, so it needs 2 net hits to penetrate.

So it is easier to penetrate with SnS.

Once you penetrate, the shotgun is up 1 DV but facing 2 more points of armor, which gives a small advantage to the shotgun.

However, if we were firing a long narrow burst with the SnS, that would give +5DV, so now the SnS burst does 4 more DV and faces 2 less armor than your shotgun APDS. And that's on top of easier penetration. Even a shot burst would be 1 more DV and 2 less armor.

Automatics with SnS beats shotgun APDS hands down.

That why i succested the douple barreled shotgun agains force 7 spirits in my original list up there earlier.

The biggest fallacy in this is, that shotguns can have BF and FA modes too

And really after force 7 S&S starts to need an absurdly high amount of hits to work, as opposed to for example barret with APDS that needs only the 1 nethit to damage a force 9 spirit.
After force 9 its pretty much down to gausrifle thats good up to force 13-15.
Well missile/rocket launcher and mortars with right ammo work too.

The point being force 6+ spirits should be murder to anyone not prepared to deal with them. John Q security guard should expect the same result vs a force 6 spirit as they would against a decent street sam, or a pack of steel lynx, to either hide and call for backup, or to wind up in a pine box.

FA-modded shotguns with mooks managing long burst recoil? Please.



SnS only needs 1 extra hit per extra force, unlike your APDS shotgun which needs 2, and was already behind at force 7. And you can "buy" that extra hit with 1 attack dice with called shots. SnS is still a better option and only gets more ahead as force increases.

And yes, obviously there are even better options. An 18F availibility sniper rifle that costs 9k firing 16F ammo is better than a machine pistol firing SnS, sure. But grunts are more likely to have magical support than carry gear like that. And if the players start throwing around force 9 spirits, I guess they're entitled to walk over the grunts.

Obviously. I am not advocating that a simple grunt can easily take down a force 6 spirit that is used wisely. I am saying that because RAW SnS ammo lets even John Q security guard overcome a force 6 spirit's hardened armor, spirits are not nerfed in any way by my house rule that removes the hardened armor.

There are 2 things I don't want: a) that everyone has to carry SnS to counter spirits. b) that anything short of very unsubtle armor or vehicles can just stand in front af squad of grunts with pistols and not die. I'm am happy that the player can use the spirit intelligently to take out the guards, but having the spirit invulnerable so he can just summon it and order it to take them out head on, that really isn't fun for anyone, neither me nor the mage nor the other players.

QFT. Also, see my sig. This is my only house rule. I remind my players that this is an RPG where we are ALL trying to have fun (myself as GM included), not a computer simulation that you are trying to break.

In case Synner'a/Scratch's views on stacking multipliers match the current official view....

"Bad math" is disallowed. 80% of 80% is 64%, not 60%.

Actually, it's more evilgm than that... there's no record that you ARE there. Plus, I hope you get sameday medical results from your labwork or you may have issues there too.

The quality is pretty specific that the information wiped is negative, so you'll still get your lab work.

Unless it's positive for that disease you went in to test for...

You're kidding me, right? You're telling me that direct quotes from the 4th Ed book are wrong? Please post proof of your statement. Thanks.

Unless you like your arguments to be completely baseless.

Just a note: If you're throwing a Spirit at a bunch of Mundanes, have some roleplaying involved to find a supposed weakness to the Spirit. IE There is a discarded text nearby used to summon the spirit and they have to decipher it while it pummels on their friends.
Otherwise, Pick another adventure.

For the game I'm running I made character creation be based off of just the main book, with exceptions made if people asked me and explained why they wanted it. Obviously "Gimme a Cyber Skull cus I want to be all cyberlimbs" isn't going to get you anywhere.

I saw Overcasting Mystic Adepts earlier... Anyone else have people arguing with you that they can cast at full magic (Magic for casting + magic for adepts) without it being physical? granted it doesn't say it exactly in the books but as per the FAQ on the site, "for the example above, a mystic adept with Magic 6 with 2 points devoted to Magic skills and 4 points to adept powers, the maximum Force he can cast at is 4, and anything over Force 2 is Physical Drain. His adept powers are limited to rating 4 or lower. "

That is one of the many totally wrong answers in the FAQ, the book clearly states you use full magic to determine max force and max level of adapt powers.
Only think you dont use full magic rating is determining how many dice you get from magic to using skill(sorcery,summoning) and powers.

It wasn't SR, but one of the best times I've had as a GM was with a character that took Amnesia and Haunted and said, "Please surprise me." The player had a real good time with it as well. Some players don't take to surprises well, but this guy was just pleased as punch when I threw things at him out of his unremembered past.

Where?

Edit: Rather, PM me where. Slightly off topic. I've seen no direct reference to Full magic related to max force. In reference to the mystic Adept.