I want to ban SnS in my games, but it seems to be the go-to method for spirit killing when your mage isn't available to do so. What other ways would you suggest mundanes kill spirits? I'm looking for house rules as well as RAW techniques.

I use the following houserule: ItNW armor is equal to 1.5 * spirit Force (not double as RAW), rounded down, and gives auto-hits as well as adding to any other sources of armor (replacing the normal "ping ping SPLAT" rule, but only for spirits and other creatures with ItNW).

Maybe a weakness for every spirit type? I can see going after fire spirits with water cannons; what about using frost to kill plants?

IMHO especially with your house rules APDS is the ammo of choice versus spirits. Sniper rifle with APDS = ItNWN (Immunity to Normal What Now?). Assuming that with your house rule (now that we're not discussing RAW) the AP would also cut through the auto-hits.

APDS is pretty hard to get, though. What else works? Grenades, I suppose... *thinks*

If we're houseruling things anyways, I still think the idea of the Attacks of Will has promise; it's just too weak in its current form.

I agree on both points. How would you fix it?

Hm... APDS is good. Availibility is no problem anymore (per RAW i mean), it just needs a few days and you got it. (Really... extended tests are just plain weird. We need to make them Threshold/base time again).

For "fixing" attacks of will. Choose one of these:

1. Attacks are made with Will+Essence (or magic). Representing your ability to shun the intruders on YOUR plane of existance. The more you are connected with the real self, the more you can dish out.

2. Allow mundanes to learn "banishing" and make attacks with Will+Banishing. Representing your knowledge of the essence of spirits and ability to take it apart.

3. Alter the whole mechanic and make it some kind of extended struggle. Pitting maybe your magic, edge or essence against the force of the spirit.

I like the Will + Essence bit; the trouble is, runners tend to be either cybered or magical. The magical can kill spirits with spells (magicians & mystic adepts) or weapon foci (adepts & mystic adepts). The cybered don't generally have a whole lot of Essence.

Excessive kinetic force always works. This of course depends on your game. A F4 spirit is pretty powerful against “normal” guns with damage around 4-6 and when you go towards F5+ then you really start to need hardware.

Anything with lots of damage and a little AP will do the trick.

Elephant rifle with Ex-Ex is at 10P AP-2 and would take down most spirits, especially if it is modified to SA mode to fire two shots in a single IP.

Eishiro Hatamoto II as an extra underbarrel pistol loaded with a Shock Lock round will do 8P AP-2.

Even a Slivergun is useful since it is all based upon the damage of the weapon to counter immunity. 8P is damn good for a pistol and you can use BF, sure the +5 armour can be annoying in the end but they will not be immune.

Elemental Weapon Damage 6 Spirits

Trickier and depending on what the GM classifies as an opposing element and the fact that some opposing elements are impossible to have as a mundane weapon.

I think making spirits harder to summon (F*2, making summoning drain the same as that for binding) should also help. Do you think this is excessive?

get a flamethrower or an ares redline laser, but done brag about it.

SNS rounds might be bad, but what's keeping your PCs from packing tasers? 6 to 8S(e) with half AP is SCARY good, even with crappy range and ammo cap. They're also pretty concealable, street legal, and cheap.



I actually like the idea of mundane characters not being prohibited from taking certain magic-linked skills. There should be limitations, though. Countering by mundanes would be limited to a personal effect, banishing would work as normal (not that amazing in the first place), and binding/summoning could probably be used by mundanes to help a friendly caster. Most other magical skills are only useful to awakened folks or require having certain abilities.

Well flamethrowers against Water spirits and Plant spirits should be good, and maybe watercannon against Fire and Earth.

I cant think of any weakness for the Air though and add man and beast into the mix make it more tricky for weaknesses.


I kind of like the idea of some old guy whos seen it all and been to hell and back, walks in and takes out a spirt with little trouble mostly due to packing the right ammo for the right spirt.

You don't even need opposing elements. A flamethrower is a good weapon against all spirits, by RAW even fire spirits. While they don't bypass the immunity it still is a 8P AP -half weapon. Of course against water spirits they are especially destructive (12P, no immunity)

@opposing elements: Thematically this might work, but not necessarily mechanically, because not all "elements" may be weaponized equally well. While breathing heavily at an earth spirit might give mundanes a bit of a chance against such a spirit, throwing rocks at an air spirit of equal force is much more effective, and the flamethrower against water spirits is the most devastating.

The AP route to get past ItNW always seemed cheesy to me, even though I see the need from a game balance perspective. I'm pondering the following:

- Delete SnS; for long-range Stun, use needleguns or something. Close-range you've got tasers. There's no need for something that's better than either of those.
- ItNW reduces nonmagical damage by it's rating (F*2), and AP doesn't factor into this in any way.
- Spirits of F4-6 use Edge to resist summoning and binding, making them rarer and not so attractive for mages to spam as mooks. With an Appeasement ceremony this can be prevented, but that takes time and money.
- Spirits of F7+ always use edge to resist summoning and binding.
- All spirits have an Allergy to something.

As you can guess, I'd like Spirits of F6 to be relatively badass, not mid-range. F3 spirits should be useful, but they're not too impossible to destroy.

What about the Ares Thunderstruck Gauss Rifle with the errata-addendum? -half Armor, AP -4 and 9P Damage should be enough for almost every spirit (Force < 12 following the standard rules) I can imagine.

The houserule that started it all.
Houserule upon houserule to rebalance the first IMHO. You should ask yourself if all those rules actually add anything to your game. Unless something is completely broken I like to keep it simple i.e. no houserules.

Except for some especially effective Powers Force 3 spirits are pretty mediocre. 6 dice for most tests isn't that great.
This weapon is not widely available and pretty illegal, so it is not an option for many mundaes, but if you can get it, then it is great.

That's what I do in my current campaign. It avoids having mages easily summoning spirits who are just better than them in nearly everything.

I have to say that in previous editions, elementals having an opposing element weakness was useful. But anytime my runners went up against a high Force Spirit (6+), they pulled out the heavy weapons. I'm not talking a bigger pistol or rifle. They pulled out the autocannons, missiles, etc.

They followed the idea that if 1 pound of C12 is good for hardened objects, 10 pounds must be great.

Bringing extra kinetic force to a fight was never a bad idea if you expected hardened resistance. Then again, many of my players' heavy cyber monsters could hit physically with 9+ DV (if they had been made under SR4 rules but with SR2 guidelines for stat caps and such).

Thing is a lot of the spirit issues have come up since stats got a hard cap. Under SR2, you could exceed racial maximums if you paid a large price in Good Karma and/or had a lot of cyber. Doing so made tough spirits manageable for mundanes even though they were still dangerous.

Under SR4, you cannot exceed those limits which had a collateral effect of making tough spirits exceedingly dangerous.

Some of the rules changes in SR4 have caused these very problems we are discussing.

The way to deal with Spirits for Mundanes. Bigger Guns.

I would expect regular security guards to switch to burst fire. Short Burst, and then Long Burst if available on the guns they're packing. If possible, the guards pull back to a hardened point with a mounted Machinegun or mini-chain gun. HRT shows up with assault canon, heavy machine guns, assault rifles with FA mods.

+3/+5/+9 DV from Short, Long, and Full Auto narrows would go a long way towards dealing with spirits and ITNW.

Drones showing up with back mounted Light Machine Guns, packing ex-ex.

A security Guard, packing an Ingram Smartgun X, with ex ammo.
DV=5P+1P+9P(full auto)=15dv.
Lets assume your average trained mook.
Agi: 3
Firearms: 2 spec (submachineguns) +2
Smart Gun: +2
(TacNet?) anywhere from 0-3 would not be unrealistic in a Spyder controlled facility.

Attack DP: 3+2+2+2 = 9
Recoil: 9-3 = 6
Final attack DP: 3
He's using Edge: lets call it 3. (I would argue a human guard might have 4)
Now he's got 6 dice with exploding 6's

Against even a Force 6 spirit, that's even odds of hitting it. And if the Spirit goes on Full Defense instead. Sure, he's not going to hit it. But who gives a damn, it's on full defense. We're trading Lead for staying alive until the big boys show up with enough firepower (or mages) to take care of the problem.

Rocket Launchers with 14P Frag Loads. Specially created 'choke points' with High Explosive booby traps.

Mundanes have options. It's called being prepared. And in a world where Spirits summoned by shadowrunners are a real concern. They really would be.

Following on what Sabs just said: My mundane runners never have a problem with spirits. If anything I feel like buffing ItNW. The street sam in the group wouldn't be caught dead packing 'regular' ammo. He's got a couple of custom handcannons that, with APDS, tear a Force 6 spirit to shreds in a couple shots.

I acknowledge that if your runners are brand new or you are just plain running a 'street' campaign where APDS is hard to get, then spirits can be a problem. For professionals, I just don't see where all the controversy comes from.

The OP was about how to remove SnS without spirits getting out of control.

So, if you accept the premise that SnS will be deleted (and if you don't, then why do you post in this topic), what comes next?

Personally, I feel the SnS workaround to ItNW is cheesy and I'd like to get rid of that; it doesn't sit with the way I feel ItNW should work. But will just deleting SnS make spirits overpowered?

AFAIK you do not add BF/FA modifiers to the damage code when calculating against the hardened armor rules. If you face a F4 spirit then you need to gain a damage above FX2 with Base Damage Code+Ammo Modifiers.

In those situations you are better off with packing a heavy singular punch than using a BF/FA weapon.

No.


Who are we worried about? The low-level security mooks? I guess spirits are a bit overpowered compared to them, but so are heavily armed and armored shadowrunners.

For professional shadowrunners? Spirits aren't overpowered at all, imo.

I haven't had to make a judgment call on SnS in my game because the PCs don't feel like they need to use it against spirits. If I was required to make a judgment call I'd say that SnS does not work against spirits. They don't have a nervous system to shock.

There are plenty of mundane ways to deal with Spirits.
If you're the security expert hired to design a facility that can withstand up to X threat level, and you didn't consider spirits of X threat level. You're not doing your job. Shadowrun has spirits, spirits are hard to kill, and dangerous.

Where is your own spirits with guardian. Where are your drone mounted hard points with firepower. Where is your choke point corridor with directional claymores in the walls. Where are your wards.

I've been going with Summerstorm's second idea for now, allowing Banishing for mundanes for the sole purpose of Attacks of Will.

Totally agree on these points.

If the facility is high security they will have thought of spirits. If the facility is not high security then your entire team is overpowered compared to the security anyway. Spirits are just the icing on the kick-ass cake.

You can always take out spirits by ramming them with a car, van, or bus. (Dresden did this against a plant spirit in the parking lot of a WalMart).

Satchel charges 1-4 kgs of explosives with a decent rating can take down just about everything. Explosives are cheap and fun.

If you are moving along the themed elemental damage lines, I would use Allergies. Have the allergy to their opposition element cause them to lose their powers. salt vs Air, fire vs Plant and or Water, leaving the ground for Earth, water for Fire and so on....

If you never want to see spirits in your game, or more specifically, any above force ~3, its fine, otherwise its terrible.

I would 'fix' attack of will by making it Willpower + Relevant Close Combat Skill. Damage is still equal to Charisma, probably. I would also state that drug and technology based modifiers to EITHER attribute or the skill do not apply. Your Pheromones do not give you extra damage boxes, being on kamikaze doesn't make it easier to banish a spirit, and your Reflex Recorder does not come into play. Only your martial skill and your determination matter.

Since afaik attack of will is defended against with the spirit's Reaction + Unarmed Combat just like a physical attack, I see no reason weapon reach (and for that matter troll reach) shouldn't come into the equation.

If I was going to house rule it, that is how I would house rule it.

Restricting them to shot guns would be better, as we actually have tazer shells now.


This is good, as it would reduce to ping/splat effect


I really think these two suck


So long as the allergy makes sense based on the spirit type, though given the infinite range of the metaplanes, its possible what some spirits are allergic to can not physically exist within our universe.

Wooo Hyperbolic exageration for the win.

You want to summon a force 6 spirit, The spirit rolls F*2 for 12 dice, getting 4 hits, woop de doo.

How many mages have you seen with Drain pools of 12 or higher? Most dedicated PC magician's I've seen have 12-15 for their drain dice.
That means, that on average they're taking 0-1 drain.

That's not exactly, never happen.

If you include the Drain Value being twice the gross hits, then that shoots up to 8.
That's less happy, A good mage will take ~3-4 stun damage.

If you want pre-meditated High Spirit Summoning, allow materials, foci, etc to add to the drain pool.

Like hope or goodwill.

I've always felt that if you've reached the point where you're up against spirits with no magical backup, the heavy weapons should come out. Yes, it's pink mohawk, but what else are you going to use that Thunderstruck or Panther for?

Let your Trolls feel warm and fuzzy. Let them use the heavy guns.

More like a square which contains 8000 degrees of internal angles.

If you want to realize not all mages in the world are highly tuned to absorb drain from summoning, and yet some spirits used in security applications are exceedingly common, meaning the drain must be tolerable or else no one could ever afford to employ them.....

As I read the OP, he was thinking about the ramifications of removing SnS, not that this was a given already. If that is not the case simply ignore that part of my post.

To me it is not any more cheesy that killing spirits with fire, but that is just my opinion.

Magicians summoning for security applications are using lower force spirits, or they are using longer term rituals to summon spirits, and using 'cash money' ie: ritual items, foci, gifts to the spirits, to increase their effective Drain Pool.

And Really, I would expect a Corp Mage who specializes in Security applications, specifically the summoning and binding of spirits for security, for a LIVING. Would actually be quite good at dealing with drain issues.

Spirits should not be a insta-summon something more bad-ass then all the other PC's.
Spirits should either be.. insta-summon low force spirits to run interference, do a small specific task.
Pre summon a big-bad spirit as part of legwork. Like a Street Sam buying a LAw and a couple of Frag Rockets, or 10 kilo's of plastique.

The whole spirit issue is the application of a lot of skill, expensive gear, and side effects and risk in the form of drain. It is a large investment for a short period of use.

With guns it is lots of skill, less expensive gear, no real side effects, and little newyen cost per use.

You need to balance the equation by either spending a lot more for a one shot item such as explosives or shell out for a more expensive gun like a laser.

I've found that the good old Elephant rifle usually does the trick with EX-EX or APDS rounds does the trick. 11DV -2AP, or 10 DV - 5 AP (when firing both barrels) usually does the trick up to anything up to F8 spirits and above.

For those spirits above that my rigger has a cannon mounted on his van. Or you can decide to run really really fast

I mostly have a problem with killing 'fire' spirits with fire...

If we can put out an oil well fire by setting off a bomb next to it, I don't see why we can't disrupt a fire spirit with a thermobaric kablooey.

As for killing spirits without resorting to attacks that shouldn't work, regular attacks involving excessive force. Grenade machine guns, thunder struck gauss guns, lasers, assault cannons, suicide drones with explosives, ramming with vehicles, using explosives to implode buildings onto them, etc....

Spirits are the big ramification, don't you think? What else would be a big ramification?




Well, I'm not wild about that. Sure, water spirits, but fire elementals should be fairly good at handling it.

A solution which could be charming, or complicated, is to give spirits Allergies based on the elemental rock paper scizzors of their tradition; Wuxing spirits might have different allergies than Hermetic ones. For example, a Wuxing Water elemental might be allergic to wood ("Wood absorbs water") rather than fire.

I think the easier solution is to remove SnS and go back to older versions of ItNW. They only get F instead of F*2.

I still don't understand the problem. Are there a large preponderance of street level games where the PCs run around with stock pistols and regular ammo? The PC in my group has a sniper rifle that's not even hugely tricked out and that thing, with APDS, can take out a Force 6 spirit in one shot. That sniper rifle is the heaviest weapon in the group, no LMGs, railguns or assault cannons. Between the dual-wielding Warhawk(equivalents), the sniper rifle, the mage, and the adept with Killing Hands, I would need to throw multiple Force 8+ spirits to begin to overwhelm the team.

It's not that my team thinks spirits are a joke but the ItNW is not the spirit power my team is afraid of.

Don't forget that no spirit likes getting Thunderstruck.

Spirits should be an assistance to a mage, not a force than can single-handedly destroy a tank column that a starting mage can manage.

Honestly the real issue should be "why do you feel the need to throw high level spirits at your players instead of real opposition that uses superior tactics". Exceptions going to bug spirits, I'd like to see your tricked out players taking on multiple F10 bug warriors and THEN not complain about ItNW in 4th Edition.

The problem isn't ITNW, the problem is F10.

Even with a less severe F6 spirit, let's really think about it. You need to bypass twelve (12) armor in order to even harm said spirit. That's a lot of armor, and bursts don't help you overcome this. Sniper rifles are great, of course, but how often are carrying around a sniper rifle and can quickly access it? Not often.

More reasonably speaking we have SMGs, Heavy Pistols, and Assault Rifles.

SMG is 5P. With Ex-Ex you're looking at 6P -1. This means you still need 5 net hits. The spirit still gets to dodge as well. Statistically you'll need 15 dice to get a decent chance. Wide burst helps, but you still need 5 hits.

Heavy Pistol is 5P -1. With Ex-Ex you're looking at 6P -2. This means you'll need 4 hits. Spirit still gets to dodge as well. Statistically you'll need 12 dice to get a decent chance.

Assault Rifle is 6P -1. With Ex-Ex you're lookin at 7P -2. This means you'll need 3 hits. With a wide burst you can probably negate most of the dodge of the spirit. You'll only need 9 dice to have a decent chance.

This is assuming optimum scenario, namely that you're already loaded for bear with loud, powerful ammunition. This does not factor in movement, lighting, cover, etc. APDS is ridiculously hard to get ahold of, especially given you're buying 10 rounds at a time, and should not be really considered the end all be all.

I'll add in one last one for the gun bunnies that noticed it missing.

Ruger Superwarhawk is 6P -2. With Ex-Ex (which we all know you're loading exclusively) you're at 7P -3. You need 2 hits and chances are you're throwing in excess of 16 and called a shot as well

I still think that the +DV from Burst and Full auto should count for penetrating armor.