Is it time for me to bring up the fact that Spirits do not have a stated Immunity to Toxins?

FIGHTIN' GHOSTS WITH PEPPER PUNCH DOOT DOOT DO DO DOOO!

Oh, also vehicles. They have no toxin resistance either..

Ooooooh FIGHTIN' CARS WITH PEPPER PUNCH DOOT DOOT DO DO DOOO!

Unless its a magical toxin, the get ITNW against it like everything else-

Cars are immune to stun. Two shots with P4MO is effective, though.


No they do not. Toxins work off of a Toxin Resistance Test, not a Damage Resistance Test. ItNW would work against the capsule round or dart, but not the toxin it carries.

As Written.

Ah the absurdity of RAW...guess those toxins work on drones too...well the non-stun damage portion of the affects anyway.

Can drones catch VITAS?

Sometimes I wonder if the definition of "totally ridiculous" is different for me than for some people.

Toxins working on spirits? On cars? Bullets that can "shock" a spirit?

Geeze, just because elemental effects can halve ItNW, that does not mean SnS can.

And no, a spirit can not be made nauseous with a sonic attack!

Common sense and maybe some previous edition sense is really needed sometimes.

Why? Stick-n-Shock rounds are an elemental effect - that's why they're listed as dealing Electricity damage.

I don´t want to warm up the old quarrel again, but SnS-ammo overloads the nervous system with a low voltage charge. Do spirits have a nervous system? Common sense is the magic word.

That's why you take the -2 to all actions and have a chance to drop unconscious - the electricity damage is a seperate matter. I wonder, would a Spirit struck by lightning in your game just laugh about it also?

If it's such an issue, simply make spirits immune to the -2 and the Test or Drop.

I didn't read all the other posts so....

In my game, I have it take 1 minute per force point to summon a spirit. I don't like the speed of it either, and much prefer it to be something they have to pre-plan, at least to a degree. If the samuraii or anyone else has to pre-plan on certain gear ans such, then the mages should a similar limitation. IMO.

As for when a spirit will use Edge or not to resist summoning, I thought of something I might implement: Whenever a mage/shaman tries to summon a spirit with a higher force than the summoners Charisma, it will use Edge to resist. It give some more importance to Charisma, and aren't possession-based traditions linked to Charisma anyway? If so, it sort of makes sense then. (To me.)

QFT.

That indeed is an old quarrel. Here's the old answer:

Now, this could simply mean that they react to damage with pain (wound mods). Or, it could mean that they take taser damage as flesh. Either is equally valid; pick the one you prefer for your game, but the default is that they take damage as normal.

In 3 IP the street sam anyone else will have already filled the fleeing ganger with 30 rounds of ammo. 60 nuyen. No Drain.

No, Stick N Shock delivers an Elemental effect if it hits. It is not a magical lightning bullet that is shooting sparks as it sits in the gun chamber. A Stick N Shock round must first penetrate (Just like a taser) to deliver a shock. Yes, the electrical shock is an elemental effect but I seriously cannot believe that a dart (And that is pretty much what it is, a dart with a mini-capacitor in it) could penetrate hardened armor to deliver the shock in the first place.

Again, HARDENED armor. To me, this means that it is as tough as steel. Can you shoot a dart into a tank? Hell no!! So what would make you believe that you can shoot a dart into something with armor so tough it is supposed to bounce bullets off it.

SnS ammo was something that was poorly thought out and probably added because it kicked off someone's kewl button. The stuff is sort of impossible by the laws of physics, is explained poor enough as to cause confusion on what damage it causes and what it can be used on, and just creates more problems than it is worth.. So I do what all other editions of Shadowrun have done, not included it.

No SnS..... Hmmmm, still looks and plays like Shadowrun to me. Carry on people....

That's a house rule that you're free to impose, Darkeus.

Your dang right. Actually, that isn't even a house rule. It is totally a "Yeah, that does not exist" thing.

Trust me, Shadowrun plays much better when you ignore some of the silly stuff they threw in with 4th edition.

Stick N Shock is just worthless. There are two ways to fight spirits, with magic or with Attacks of Will. That is how it has always been in Shadowrun and that is how it should be.

Let us not play the house rule thing. I am sure pretty much no one runs Shadowrun by RAW. We all use House rules in one way or another. Well, except for Cain maybe....

True, but it's generally helpful to keep in mind which is which =)

(SNS magically vanished from my table about two weeks after 4th came out; we haven't missed it)

What's the problem? When you make a gross change to the default rules, it's a house rule. No one said that was a dirty word.

Yeah, I know. "For the spirit of debate" and all that jazz.

But I think I am also commenting on Rules as Intended. I just can't think that the authors had killing spirits in mind when they made this ammo. Let alone it affecting something with the armor of at least a SWAT van!

Sorry, sometimes it is used as a dirty word around here as if house rules have no merit. Sometimes house rules are MUCH better than the crazy rules that come with the game.

I wasn't trying to be uppity or confrontational though. Sorry if it was taken that way.

We use SnS as listed in the Books, as Elemental Damage, and have yet to have any problems whatsoever... And no, it is not the default ammunition of our team...
Just sayin'

Oh, and SnS actually effects those in Military Grade Armor just as it does a Spirit... you still have/get to resist the damage, but with 1/2 your armor...

I've always interpreted the spirit's ItNW as sort of the opposite of the kind of Hardened armor you see on a tank.

Spirits are made of ectoplasm. You shoot a bullet at ectoplasm, and it passes right through insignificantly.
The idea is that you have to cause a significant enough disturbance to the endoplasmic form to disrupt it, hence "Disrupted" is the term for a spirit who has been all blowed up.

Does this interpretation mean that armor piercing from APDS is nonsense? Well yeah, but whatevs.
Does this interpretation mean that having to overcome armor resistance before FA fire adds increased effect is nonsense? Also yes.


On a related note, here's a tasty question for the masses.

Blast damage. An elemental effect from Street Magic. Resisted with half impact armor. Super knockdown effect.
High Explosives. Actual explosion as seen in Physics. AP-2. Can't hit the broad side of a barn usually.

How is that fair? How the hell doesn't an HE grenade do blast damage?


Magic is dumb.
I'm going to go blow up a bunch of cars using Whitestar now...

On the plus side an HE Grenade is 'Force 10'? : P

Only in 1m radius, it get worse fast, unlike an area effect spell.
also it's all too possible for it to go of between your legs, even if you got a critical success.

I thought I was running Shadowrun by RAW until someone brought up that god damn "spirits can't materialize" bullshit. Then I realized I was running by RAI like it or not.

Training wheels off.



Isn't that literally impossible? Scatter is 1d6 Meters -2 Per Net Hit. Critical Success = 4 Net Hits. 1d6 - 8 = always 0. Hence, no scatter. Hence, grenade goes where you want on a net hit?

Unless you're referencing the rules for Throwing Back Grenades (which when I think about them makes me wonder why there are no rules for COOKING grenades).

its 1d6m -1 per net hit, so a critical succes leaves a possibility for it to come 2m back toward you and if you where trowing it inside a room from the door, that might very well in your ass.
Even worse for aerodynamic grenades that are 2d6m -2 per net hit, those have a potential for 4m scatter on a critical success.
To say noting about grenade launcher 3d6 -2 per net hit.

SnS ammo is, if i am informed correctly, nothing else than a battery with a needle on top. Correct me if i am wrong. So it (of course) delivers electrical damage, but is it comparable with a lightning bolt? The charge is only sufficient to zapp a nervous system if you bypass the skin. For me that means that the charge is SO LOW, that it wouldn´t even harm unarmored people if there wasn´t the needle. Besides the fact that spirits have hardened armor, they lack the nervous system and the charge of a battery doesn´t qualify for an "elemental attack", just because the RAW tells you to check them to explain the side effects. This is why i would say: common sense makes many things much easier. You have to agree, that if we accept this argumentation, we would HAVE to accept that spirits can be deafened by noise without ears or disrupted by venomous attacks. Does it work by RAW? Yes. Does it make sense? No.

Nope, thats why it's stun damage instead of physical.

The samurai doesn't have to resist Drain every time he draws a weapon.

A) Whether magicians of a given tradition summon materializing or possessing spirits has nothing to do with their drain stat. Between SR4A, Street Magic, and Digital Grimoire, there are eight Charisma-linked materialization traditions, and five non-Charisma-linked possession traditions.

B)This constitutes an indirect nerf on magicians belonging to non-Charisma-linked traditions, by increasing their already high multiple-attribute dependency: all magicians need Willpower, a second Drain stat, and of course Magic. By effectively requiring conjurers of non-Charisma-linked traditions to also have high Charisma, you're placing an undue burden on those characters which is not shared by magicians of Charisma-linked traditions.

Well, they *do* need Charisma to increase the number of spirits they can have at once, anyway, right?

Depends on whether you want or need an army of spirits at your beck and call (which raises its own set of problems anyway).

That's the important part. For whatever reason, the way the game is designed to be played allows this. If you want to change anything without honestly knowing why those particular rules are there you run the risk of unintentionally damaging game balance.


Hrmm... Electrical elemental damage is listed as Stun in the BBB, and the added element rule in Street Magic is also listed as being stun. Lightningbolt and Ball Lightning are specifically created not following the rules that they've laid out, and with no reason. If you get Elemental Aura (Electricity) or Elemental Wall (Electricity) those will be Stun, not Physical.

It should be noted that the base property of a taser is the same base property of a lightning bolt or a wall socket or a car battery or a defibrilator (spelling?). It's all simply an application of electrons in varying quantities, similar to a candle, a fire in a fireplace, a bonfire, a grassfire, and a housefire. Same thing, different quantities. Saying a lightning bolt (not the spell) would affect a spirit but not a taser is like saying that a housefire will affect a person but not a shirt being on fire, because a shirt being on fire is obviously a lesser amount of fire.

It should also be noted that Stick-n-Shock rounds specifically mention that they're adhesive, not pronged. They do not require penetration into the skin to function, just being stuck to an object.

Okey thats just fraking stupid(the book, not you), being hit by a lightning causes stun damage, but being hit with a firehose causes physical damage.

Now this raises intresting questions, like does elemental strike electrisity turn adepts physical damage dealing attack into on that deals only stun damage?
How about elemental aura spell that has both fire and electrical effect, does it do stun or physical damage?

1) Yes. But the Lightning spells from BBB are still physical. By the rules in Street Magic they should have an extra +2 Drain Value on each.

2) These things have come up frequently at my table. The best way to do it is kinda like Availability - stack all the damages and elemental effects but take the highest damage code (stun or physical). Also, don't let Killing Hands overwrite Elemental Strike. Trust me. You don't want an adept using a physical damage version of Sonic Elemental Strike.

It makes no sense that adding an electricity around my fists stops them from making physical damage.

Or does it simply make too much sense?

Obviously there are some interactions between different rules that were either not balanced or not considered. The GM should simply rule on the side of less munchkinry and move on.

Considering that changing my elemental strike power into fire or acid or cold or water keeps my damage as physical, i don't really see the balance issue of allowing the electrisity to do the same.

Um. The balance issue would be the discrepancy, Max. 'Balance issue' doesn't *just* mean 'nerfing your choice'.

Well, electricity damage listed in Street Magic says it is stun. That's why it makes sense - because the rules explicitly tell you that's what it does. Otherwise, why would stun batons and SnS rounds deal stun?

EDIT: Lightningbolt and Ball Lightning are the only electricity effects in the game that deal physical instead of stun damage - and without even a reason why. Even the other magic electricity damage effects are stun.

But im still hitting them with my fist that do physical damage, addiding electricity in the mix shouldn't make the punch hit weaker then with out the electrisity.

Yeah, I noticed the goofiness of electric damage always being stun as well, and it treats all kinds of electricity the same with the exception of spells.

The rules on electricity in SR4A also state though that the GM can modify the resistance test with electricity damage based on other factors such as lack of grounding and extra conductivity. I don't see why that can't change the type of damage the character resists from stun to physical if warranted, such as with high amperage rather then just high voltage.

Conversely, if you wanted to make an electrical source deadly you could just ensure the damage is enough that it has a high potential to overflow into physical from stun. Like grabbing both sides of a high voltage transformer could deal 30S(e).

Hit 'em with that brown noise and make 'em poop their insides out!

It is the same reason that you cannot hit an opponent with a Shock Glove and Bone Lacing effects simultaneously... You must choose the Electricity damage (with ITS own effects) or the Physical Damage from the Punch (With ITS own Effects)... stacking them would be abusive...

I could have SWORN that for standard grenades it was 1d6 - 2 per net hit.

Edit: Probably because it is! p. 145 SR4, "Scatter Table" sidebar...


etc. (Rockets REALLY suck.)

Dumb Question: What is "BBB"?

There is no reason you should be throwing a grenade to *land* 2m from you, crazy. If you're complaining about that, no one can help you. Otherwise, yes, the scatter rules are sticky in some places. Just use airburst only.

Airburst everything and house rule rockets from uselessness.

SR4A changed scatter rules.

BBB is Big Black Book, another term for the core rulebook (it's big, it's black, and it's a book). The term originated with the 3rd edition IIRC, because it's bigger and blacker than the 4th ed one.

Elemental strike power doesn't have any kind of damage code of it own so there's no stacking of different "effects"
Also Shock gloves/hand and touch spells are pretty much the only thinks in the game that disallows the damage stacking.


If you throwing in grenades to clear a room, its very likely that you dont have more then 2m distance to the point your throwing.

However, Elemental Damage uses the Damage code of the Element that you are using, so if you choose Smoke, Electricity, Sound (The rest are Physical Damage) it is gong to be Stun Damage, regardless of whether you have Killing Hands activated (Which is a prerequisite of having the Elemental Strike anyways) or not...

Nope. I'll grant that perhaps you were exaggerating, but there's simply no reason to throw a *grenade* 2m. Survival instinct error.