Actually, with the Street Magic rules there is a Metal elemental effect category, it just doesn't come up very often given that it is so analogous with flechette and shrapnel, nor does it halve Impact armor (although it does have a heightened DV). Given the presence of wacky spells like Firewater I don't personally have much of a problem making a distinction between "magic" shrapnel and the mundane stuff from a grenade, either, so giving Earth spirits immunity to Sand and Metal spell effect damage wouldn't bother me thematically. Still, immunity to such spell effects would be just a fluff bonus most of the time since I wouldn't expect many magicians to keep such spells on hand in the first place. I'd probably go with weak to Acids (Rarely weaponized in my games to begin with, which is nice) and immune to Metal and Sand spells along with a bonus to resist knockdowns, a trait that isn't entirely useless on low Force spirits.

Oh, neat. Thanks for that heads up on Metal, Whipstitch. I assumed earth spirits were only immune to Hard Rock.

some stone dissolve very rapidly in acid wile other stone is highly resistant to it. It forget but I think it has to do with having iron oxide in the stone or not. So sedimentary rocks like sand stone often are dissolved but igneous stones are not.
(Some not very well done video of dissolving different types of rock.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB5wTbdfOxs

Ack, real-life science and logic! It burnss ussss! It burnss uss like ridiculous 'weaponized acid' in every game ever!

Well if you ever come up across a totally sand stone castle throwing acid at it would work in real life and fast too. It is eating at what binds the sand and pebbles together. But that is about the only thing it is good for fast dissolving.

Formic acid is another cool acid. It is know for being able to dissolve glass (though no quickly) but it is a very deadly contact poison that is absorbed through the skin.

Yeah, honestly, the reason why I suggest weak to acid has more to do with keeping the "rock, paper, scissors" game alive than it does with chemistry or logic. One could also make an argument that if you're really serious about assigning allergies then what spirits are weak against should be determined by the tradition as much as anything else. Unfortunately, that would require more work on the GM's part as well as a bit of guesswork on the part of NPCs and players when trying to pinpoint what would harm a given spirit. For example, if you go by the Wu Xing's Destructive Cycle as an inspiration it's Wood that destroys Earth, but such things are hardly common knowledge. Plus, wood is obviously a pretty common material and it seems perhaps a bit unfair to Earth Spirits, which are frankly already rather unpopular from a pure power gaming perspective. Living wood would be an interesting alternative-- breaking a potted plant over an Earth spirit and watching it overgrow the poor bastard would be ace.

I agree, the Shen/Ko cycles are a more flexible and satisfying elemental system, but what can you do? *shrug*

On the one hand it's cute if spirits follow the elemental rock paper scizzors of their own tradition. But indeed, it's a burden to the GM.

Then again, how many traditions will you usually face? Shamanic, Hermetic, Wuxing and maybe 3 others? Just enough to make that Arcana or Knowledge: Spirit Weaknesses skills valuable. The GM could just fill in the obscure traditions by the time somebody plays them. It'd be a way to emphasize the differences between the traditions.

I'm no phsyicistiologist, but I reckon it's not so much the metal in bullets that do the damage, so much as the kinetic impact. And when in doubt, break out the beef or ice bullets...

...thank you CSI.

It is in Street Magic.

EDIT: Aaak, I was a bit late on that one.

1) Where's the rule that says they can't accept slap patches and combat drugs? Accepting First Aid is gaining healing effects from the skill.

2) ItNW is specifically against Damage Resistance Tests (indirectly) - Immunity (Toxins) is for toxins, and Spirits do not have it.

I'm not sure. My games it was pretty much a different tradition each time. Although the Norse tradition and our homebrew Hmong tradition both got a hell of a workout, the people they were fighting, well, I remember everything from Shinto to Cree magicians coming up.

@Neraph
Well, it is said, that they do not have bodys. So actually poison is unable to affect them.
What should nerve gas do, if there are no nervs.

A car does also not have an immunity to poison. Should therefor VX blow up tanks?

As a matter of fact spirits are quite funny things. If they are able to function as a toster, they should be able to have a Form, which is immun to electricity....

If they materialize the have bodies, or how would they be able to slap you?

Of course it shouldn't but a) tanks are not alive b) we know how tanks are supposed to work IRL, we don't know how spirits are supposed to work IRL because there aren't any. So we can only use whatever is in the book. Since there is immunity to toxins and Spirits don't have it, logically they can't be immune.

Even if a spirit looks like a toaster and works like one, it shouldn't be immune to electricity. Real toasters aren't immune to electricity. If enough current goes through the wires they will fry.

Don't get him started, Irion.

I'm not going to say anything about the vehicles and toxins... that is something they messed up on.


However, the whole thing about spirits and "no bodies", "no nervous systems", etc to justify them not taking various forms of damage and other in game effects...

I'm assuming you're speaking of SM p 90, The Nature Of Spirits to gleam this information. It should be noted that this is in fact NOT RAW. It is however canon fluff. You can tell this because the passage in question is "In Character Speech", written by one Prof. Leonard Montenegro and posted by the Jackpoint user Ethernaut who even proceeds it with the statement that it isn't even 100% trustworthy. This is clearly not a rule section of the book, so therefor not RAW, but a good source of fluff.

If we start taking any in character sections and applying it to mechanics nothing stops me from say using UW p30:

"Well, there's public opinion and there's fact. Hackers today need to be more then just brains. You can't hide in a basement and do overwatch anymore. IC or a bad biofeedback filter used to be the worst thing a hacker came up against. Now, a hacker who doesn't know how to handle themselves in a fight - or at least how to duck - isn't going to last through the first run."
*Glitch

Imagine the mayhem if I took the parts I liked as RAW just cause it was in the book. "Oh, hacker... first fight is over and I don't see a rank in a combat skill or dodge skill. Well, the last line here clearly says you die. Too bad. Roll a new character."

Not saying that if your game want's to treat toxins and elementals or whatever as ineffectual towards spirits that you can't or shouldn't, just that it's all based on fluff and not RAW.

I think you mean Hydrofloric acid, as formic acid is used by ants.

Neither do cars.

Cars are also not specifically unaffected by drugs. Let the Jazz Car be born!

HF is the one that dissolves glass and is a contact poison, yes. Still, maybe *formic acid* could be made by a chem gland, and then you'd be Ant Man!

Cars have armor though, so you'd have to put the drug / toxin in a DMSO solution to affect them?

Does DMSO say it goes through vehicle armor? Two can play at the 'there's no rule!' game.

DMSO doesn't specifically say it DOESN'T go through vehicle armor, so...

Maybe the drug has to hit the engine, or "heart", of the vehicle or something to affect it

It says it goes through the skin, though, as an exclusive function. Hehe.

OOH! How about this: God knows how big the dose for a car is. ;D

It doesn't specifically say it CAN'T affect vehicles, just that the given prices and descriptions are for doses to affect metahumans. OBVIOUSLY the prices and dosage would have to be much higher to affect a vehicle

*edit* dang, your edit ninja skills were faster than mine. Need more cyber...

I daresay *prohibitively* higher. Mwa ha ha.

This line is bugging me, now:

Dosages for toxins vary considerably from substance to substance, and prices and descriptions given are for a standard dose effective against most metahuman physiology.

MOST metahuman physiology? Let a bit of wiggle room, there? What metahuman physiology are they leaving out?

Body 20 Trolls, Body 1 Humans, etc. Out of combat, you'd obviously tailor the dose to the person.

And thus a new skill, Anesthesiologist, was born

I think that's Artisan. Just kidding, it's a knowledge skill. Don't need it though, because you can just google their mass/etc. Yay, Matrix.

Doesn't have too. Aerosol the compound in question, and add DMSO. If the car has an air intake, it will get in.
Also there is nothing special about vehicle armor that I'm aware of which allow it to ignore the penetration effects of noxious agents.

What have I wrought...

Or rather, what have the game designers wrought that I have brought to light?

This is what life support and enviroseal are for.

Yes but do those systems say they protect the passengers or the car?

So if a spirit is possessing a vessel that is not immune to poisons and can use drugs, then the spirit can be hurt by poison and use drugs, but if it is a materialization spirit or in a body that is not hurt by poison, such as plasteel or dead wood, then it can't use drugs or be hurt by poison.

Mordinvan, that's not a very good solution. Aerosol is not the most useful vector.

Yay, Badmoodguy88! 'Problem' solved. Now do it for vehicles.

In other news, I can't decide if I'm glad or depressed that the writers knew their players were so stupid that they'd try using First Aid or getting 'ware on a Free Spirit PC. :/

Foresight, because some spirits can materialize to look human, so the basic reasoning is that if it looks human and acts human then it should be able to accept first aid and ware like a human. They mention in fluff that a spirit, regardless of looking like it is made of X, is actually not, so they just added this as crunch to reinforce that, which is good, because I've seen plenty of people that forget that a spirit isn't actually made of X.

Edit: oh, and no, the spirit can't be hurt by poison while it is possessing, but the body it is inhabiting can be hurt. The two tracks are separate, though the most common form of damage (bullets and blades) hurts both, so people sometimes forget that it isn't just 'what happens to one happens to the other.'

Like I said, "the writers knew their players were so stupid that they'd try". :/

@Karoline

Well, I guess they should have reinforced it a bit more. A manifesting spirit should not be able to work as an Toster. (Or at least should have to defend against the damage caused by electricity.)

People can also have the immunity quality.

Irion: unless it has Realistic Form (Toaster).

Fixed.

I really need to write up a possession spirit inhabiting a chicken vindaloo...

Well, realistic Form and mutable form are about one power point for a free spirit.
And transforming into a car with a lasercannon on top is just silly.

Correct, it has 0 ability to act as a toaster. The spirit has no metal coils to pass the electricity through to heat up to toast anything.

It could certainly look like a toaster, and if it was a fire spirit it could maybe use its energy aura to toast the bread, but a spirit could never actually operate like a toaster.

Again, unless with Realistic Form.

How do you figure that "no first aid" means "no drugs or toxins?" First Aid, Toxins, and Drugs are three separate things in the rules.

@Yerameyahu
And thats the annoying part.

Spirits should not be affected by drugs, most toxins etc.

@Yerameyahu
And thats the annoying part.

Spirits should not be affected by drugs, most toxins etc.

I assumed he meant this part: "Free spirits may not use cyberware, bioware, nanoware, transgenics, drugs, or anything else that requires an organic body."

Irion, I just meant that it could act as a toaster (toast bread). The power doesn't necessarily imply that a Realistic Form of something living would be affected by drugs/toxins: "A spirit that appears as a metahuman would have a heartbeat and a regular breathing rate."

Note that this is simply the appearance, "A spirit that appeared as an object mimics the object’s normal functionality […]". It's vague as to whether 'mimics normal functionality' means 'is affected by drugs/toxins', or if it simply means that it pretends to breath and 'pretends' to have a pulse, see?

Try to ignore Neraph, he always takes the anti-common-sense position. It's not a character flaw, it's an intellectual exercise.

Yeah, it does rather plainly say that Free Spirits cannot use "transgenics, drugs or anything that requires an organic body." But with that said, I'm not terribly sure whether that should be considered to include toxins, given the existence of things like pesticide allergies (although admittedly bug spirits are essentially inhabitation spirits) and toxic paranormal powers like Noxious Breath or Anaphylaxis. Further, they seem to largely be talking about things that would be beneficial to the spirit if they worked. So while I think it would make a certain amount of sense if Spirits are outright immune to most toxins, I could see how the devs may have refrained from going that far in order to leave open the possibility of anti-spirit Awakened toxins or spirit-on-spirit poisoning attacks. Thematically though I agree with the people that think it'd make sense if narcoject wasn't terribly effective against air spirits, but then, I'm not the one making the rules.