It's always arbitrary, so certainly do what you want. AFAIK, 'dual-natured' is supposed to mean literally hybrid astral/physical (and mages Perceiving are just 'faking' it)… but that's no reason to worry about it.

I ignore the range effects just to cut down on the headaches when fighting combines jet fighter speeds with snail speeds. Just a lot of book keeping and issues of players feeling no threat from physical dual natured

I think letting dual-natured critters "turn off" their dual nature would be a much better fix than overpowering astral combat. If you do that, though, then you should also give them the same penalties for being dual-natured that anyone else gets - the rationale for them having no penalty was that their astral senses were "on" all the time, and they were acclimated to it.

Dual-Natured is only a real problem for shadowrunners. There havent any dual-natured genocides as no one has the incentive to do so and it would cost too many resources. Sure ghouls are an annoyance but the money, lives, training and nuyen spent to wipe them out could be spent better else where.

Since Dual-Natured is the way these creatures are born they shouldnt be able to turn it off but maybe supress it. Dual-Natured is as much a sense for them as hearing is for others and can you turn that off? Sure you can focus more on the other senses such as sight or tactile sense but you cant volunteerily totally turn off your sense of hearing.
A possible fix could be to allow these creatures to supress it which would require some concentration along the lines of sustaining a spell, which I feel would balance it out. Astral beings would then have to materialize to deal with them in which case the dual-natured could drop their supression and be without penalties.

PS: I only played sr2/sr3 and in those games Hellhounds and other nonsentient beings were dual-natured. They didnt have a magic stat iirc.

Thing is, most of the posts I've seen here have been trouncing up being Dual-Natured as the worst thing short of cutting a deal with a dragon or being contracted with HMHVV (and one poster suggesting a 30 or 35 BP bonus as a changeling negative metagenetic quality at one point), with hostile free spirits stalking the streets and aggressive astrally projecting magicians waiting around every corner to attack anything astrally active, and wards around every lowly Stuffer Shack and McHugh's to keep anything remotely astral out. Merely being able to astrally perceive the world around you and not suffer a -2 DP penalty on meat world activities apparently doesn't make up for it.

Of course, it'd also help explain why the ghoul population is apparently a fraction of what it should be, being Magic 1 and Dual-Natured and all...

(note: there's sarcasm here, for the sarcastically impaired)

Being Dual Natured does suck for a shadowrun since a common security measure, the astral ward, and there's a new group of enemies that have great tactical advantage over you. It can be made up however. Some forms of shapeshifters do alright with it. Personally I'll put it at -15. It's way worse than some of the more commonly picked disads like extravagant eyes, mild addiction, slow healer, incompetence, and impaired attribute. It's about as bad as something like uncouth or bad luck, but getting the ability to astrally perceive is something so reduce it by 5.

Before reading this thread I was of the opinion that dual natured was an advantage and you should pay points for it: you can assense (which is a valuable info gathering mechanism) you can hurt things immune to normal weapons etc.

I now share the view that I quoted above, and mostly agree with the size of the disadvantage.


I think I am sarcastically impaired, as although you are exaggerating, that mostly is the situation. Every corp facility has wards and patrolling spirits. Hell even the drones have spirit wingmen. As a mage you just turn of the spells, tell the spirits to wait, and walk in. I think the reason the stuffer shacks don't is that they take hours to put up, and seconds to destroy. As a dual natured you are screwed: you stand out on the astral like a sore thumb, and there is very little you can do. Getting through wards as a dual natured is very challenging: you can announce your presence as you smash your way through (hello every one please press the red alert button), or you use warding (requiring initiation) and typically have to spend hours astrally tracking to get in.

Everything alive (spirits included) stand out in the astral like a sore thumb...

You stand out extra-sorely. And you can be touched.

The fact that your body stands at the same place of your astral-self can only be noticed by other dual-natured creatures, and your physical body can only be touched by physical creatures and dual-natured. A projecting Magician can easily be grabbed by a Ghoul or another spirit...

Saying that Astral combat is ranged is misguiding, at best. Only projecting magicians (or astrally perceiving ones) and Spirits of Man has any chance of hitting someone from distance on the Astral Plane.

If I were to change anything, would be the "walking" and "running" speed on the Astral Plane

That's not quite right. An astrally-active aura is not the same as a mundane living thing. You *exist actively* on the astral plane, so you can be touched by anything astral; that's not true for anything mundane (doesn't exist as a target on the astral). So, you look different and can be touched, like I said.

There are also a couple of Powers of the M type which are ranged.

Not to mention that the astral entities can walk up to you, punch you, and walk away again before you can do anything. Oh, and through walls and 10 km away.

As I pointed out earlier in the thread: no, they can't.

They cannot walk up to you, punch you, and walk away before you can do anything. For one, disengaging from melee combat triggers a free attack. For two, while they have a bonus to initative, their bonus is not so great that a *shadowrunner* will never be faster, given spells, adept powers, or 'ware. If you're faster, all you have to do is hold action and then pre-emptively drill the spirit when it walks up.

Seriously, this whole "they can walk up, own you, and leave before you can do anything" trope is getting old. It's not just unlikely, it's unsupported by the rules. If they can do that in astral space, I can do that in the meat world by having more movement rate than you, which means dwarves are defenseless in hand to hand.

I forgot about the interception attack, but I doubt you can ave one, if you're surprised.

Depends if they surprise you, for one thing. After charging from miles away.

At any rate, that was never the main argument. It's simple: you're vulnerable, in ways that mundane creatures can't be. Against ranged attacks, you're incredibly vulnerable (again, in ways a mundane isn't). Who said we were talking about shadowrunners in particular, anyway?

Can't charge from miles away, because you have to drop out of fast speed to make any assensing tests or notice anything other than the grossly obvious. You have to be in the "slow" speed - which is still fast, but not "missile" fast. And sure, they can make a surprise roll, but there's no guarantee they'll succeed. You toss a surprising-ish spirit against me, and my diepool is gonna be about equal if not greater if I'm a shadowrunner because slow runners are dead runners.

We're talking about shadowrunners because, for all intents and purposes, a joe average on Tempo or whatever runs a higher risk of being randomly shot by a ganger than by being summarily killed by a spirit. Because gangers with guns outnumber hostile astral entities by a vast number, guns are cheap, and much, much more common. Realistically, Shadowrunners will be in high risk situations where spirits or other astral things will be actively looking to fuck them up.

Fine, the astral entity punches you through the floor. Good luck punching back.

Just because you can envision it doesn't mean it can happen: a spirit punches at me through the floor. I am not surprised, but it goes first. I defend or I don't. It recoils, and I hit it back with my intercept attack. You're either IN melee combat, or you AREN'T. A GM can rule that spirits can punch through the floor and I don't get to counterattack, but that's against the spirit of the rules. I'd also ask, "Okay, the spirit punches through the floor. -6 dice for attacking blindly. I defend easily. On my next action, I jump onto the wall and ready for ambush when it swings and misses, since I've moved from where it thought I was. Roll surprise."

"Jump into the wall"? But you're dual natured, not an astral entity. You can't jump into the wall.

I said "Onto." Not "into." Please not the subtle difference. Wall here is shorthand for "off the floor." Surely there must be something in this room, such as a desk, a chair, a potted plant, or maybe I'm wearing gecko gloves/shoes. At least, my players always seem to be.

Hell, I could accomplish the same feat by *walking several feet to the left*.

I think Adarel's point (which I agree with) is that in most cases, if you play the rules correctly, the combat system deals well with astral combat.

There are always moments when one side of a fight has an overwhelming advantage:

• caltrops on the group, featureless plane, you don't have ranged weapons and the bad guys do
• A flying helicopter gun ship with more armour than you can penetrate
• A flying spirit in a featureless plane when you haven't got enough ranged attack

Being dual natured adds another to this list: ranged wizard / spirit of man who can blast spells at you while flying out of reach. I think that's it. I think the astral combat works ok: especially if you follow all the visibility / movement / action rules correctly.

I can see that hyperbole is not to be understood here. Oh well. Once again, the point is that dual-natured entities (possibly shadowrunners, but probably not) are always more vulnerable than mundanes, in that they're not invulnerable to astral attack.

Point accepted. However that doesn't mean its bad: its just a disadvantage for that type of creature, usually offset by other advantages. I liked the suggestion above that its about a 15pt disadvantage: that kind of sums it up

Sorry, I did misunderstand. Yes, dual natured creatues have an additional vulnerability. But certain parties are making it out to be an overwhelming, crippling disability liable to result in your death from nowhere just because astral space is filled with hungry demons who want to eat you. Which is not true.

I'll never say you're not hosed if an astral critter with spells wants you toasted. You better hide, and get it in hand-to-hand combat. But saying hand-to-hand combat isn't a viable way to defend yourself is bull.

I think it bothers people because being dual-natured isn't really 'meant' to be a disadvantage. When what you expect to be a cool power turns out to be a curse, it does tend to anger. Others are bothered by the logic problem of things (ghouls, specifically) who really *are* expected to be hated by everything. *shrug*

On the face of it, dual-natured shouldn't be a 'weakness'. Dual-natured entities (excluding the Infected) should be a reasonable, functional part of the ecosystem; while humans with spells (=='guns') can indeed wreck ecosystems really fast, people expect there to be at least a pre-existing balance. AFAIK. Anyway, that's how I look at it: ranged astral attacks are guns wrecking the ecosystem, which explains the mess. This doesn't *quite* work, because non-humans can have the 'guns'. Oh well.

We had a situation like this last run. It was a flying fire elemental with a ranged attack, the 2 mages were down, and the 3 mundanes had no ranged weapons that had anychance of penetrating the ITnW 12. It was very bad...wait this happened to the non astral combat people... The only option really was to run, and hope to get under cover / into hand-to-hand or call for help.

My point of that example is that its just a vulnerability, and we have plenty of them. One more is unpleasant probably at the same level as people with a peanut allergy (really serious, and worth quite a few points as a disadvantage)

The difference is that you could run away, buy bigger guns and armor and come back for vengeance. All dual-natured critters can do is awaken as a mage - which is impossible after CharGen unless you took Latent Awakening and even then you cannot trigger it nor do you know if you won't become an adept.

The situation is quite different, actually:

Dual-natured critter;
-- Vulnerable to *materialized* flying, fire-throwing elementals. Can get guns.
-- Vulnerable to astral version of above. Can *never* get 'guns'.

Mundane critter;
-- Vulnerable to *materialized* flying, fire-throwing elementals. Can get guns.
-- 100% *invulnerable* to astral version of above.

It's *another* vulnerability. Most people would rather have fewer, that's all.

I agree that "astral hit and run" isn't as automatic as shown. You have to burn a free action to move up and then a complex to fight. Then you don't have an action to move away.

But the astral attacker has great advantages over the dual natured guy. If the astral attacker has a higher initiative (which may or may not be the case), he can run off next pass before you can intercept. First off, interception attacks are a free action so you have to delay your free action which can be annoying. And no, it clearly says available free action so you can't interrupt action it. The astral attacker due to innate flying gets +2 dice superior position bonus to attack as well.

The bigger deal is that the astral attacker gets to choose the time and place of fighting. They can just run if they want (as easily as any other meleer) and there is no way you can follow. They can attack when they want. There are things they can't move throw but they are all things you can't move though. Also they can move though more things than you. If the astral attacker has an ranged attack (which is a small but notable subset of astral attackers), you're in far more trouble. It's not "reroll your character" bad, but it's a real disadvantage.

True: it can be annoying to burn your actions to interrupt if the spirit tries to move away. But annoying is not the same as impossible, thankfully. You have options. They're not good options. But they're better than bend over and take it.

I checked all powers that cause damage whose range is LoS and listed them all. None of them function on the Astral Plane (exception being the emulate spell power of Spirits of Man).

Also, shapeshifters don't need Astral Combat at all to hit something living in the astral plane. They have natural weapons, they may use their unarmed combat to hit something there, instead of spending points in this skill. The only creatures that need Astral Combat are magicians who don't have LoS damaging spells (!?!?!?!?) and any spirit that is not a spirit of Man.

As a note, I'm designing PCs for an upcoming game, and discovered that having a Limited version of Death Touch while granting the PC high Unarmed Combat and Astral Combat pools makes for an extremely drain-effective way to lay waste to people. If he casts at Force 10, as I have created him, he is likely to take 0 drain. So while Stunbolt is still king, touch-range spells can still hurt. This seems like a real good deal for Mystic Adepts.

Hand to hand combat, that when you're a bear, strength means Jack Shit.
You're a -ing BEAR and your damage is based on your Charisma (of about 2).

I always though the whole point was to hit them from ungodly far away.

There are none, you are right, but Compulsion, Influence and to some extent Fear can be just as deadly.

@Hida Tsuzua: you don't need a Free Action to move, whether it's before or after the attack. Only if you want to change your Movement Mode to Running do you spend a Free Action.

For any PC dual natured has a rat tail of problems. So I woulds suggest to cut it.
There is no reason for shapeshifter to have it in the first place.
I mean not even pixies have it or freaking nosferatus.

The part that seems to bother me most is that all this talk about how Dual-Natured are so f-ing threatened, weak, screwed, and such that it makes the 6th world sound like a high magic campaign world like Warmachine or D&D. I still keep getting the impression from others here that there are wards enough to cover the planet and then some, and spirits are everywhere waiting for not only a Dual-Natured critter but the stray magician foolish enough to remain in the astral or leave a focus active for more than a minute. Never really expected the 6th world's astral space to be like WH40K's warp space, but if that's how it is...

And if Dual-Natured were really such a horrendous weakness as most everyone here takes it as, why has it not yet been put into the errata or faq for SR4, SR4a, RW, RC, SM, and any other book I might miss that the Dual-Natured critter Power be changed to a Weakness?

Probably it's the same reason why there is still no Erratum concerning the infectiousness of ghouls, or why you can't hit the broad side of a barn with a rocket launcher.

Change that to "the inside of a barn from the inside" and you'd be spot on.

Well, with ghouls being a pitiful Magic 1 and Dual-Natured then it makes sense that there aren't a whole lot of them as they're preyed upon by hoards of roaming free spirits and hostile projecting magicians, and keep walking into wards that are more prevalent than soy*everything.

Guess I've just been dead dog lazy with the awakened in my games.

I think most people have dropped "all dual natured will die!" but it's bad for a PC or other person who lives an interesting life. As for how common it is, being dual natured is something you only see in creatures like hell hounds and spirits. Ghouls and shapeshifters can be PCs, but there's a small group and generally weak except for certain types of shifter and builds. As said, it's bad on the level of some of the more limiting Negative Qualities.

@Dakka Dakka: Thanks, I was wrong there. Yeah if you have an initiative advantage you can fly like 10m from a ceiling punch and fly back 10m and not worry about counter attack for at least the first IP.

If you are a bear shapeshifter, your strength still means something on the astral plane. You just use your natural weapons and unarmed combat to hit the magician stupid enough to get close to you.

I think that it is a IC truism in canon that dual natured beings have magic abilities other than simply being dual natured. I think that this can be attributed to dual natured being a double edge sword. The dual natured that cannot adequately defend themselves die, while those that can survive.

Sounds nice. What about the Magic 1 ghouls, to choose the most obvious example? Do they simply not fit because they're not natural?

Quick question about Ghouls: Has the canon changed? I remember them being one of the races that emerged during the goblinazation along with the Trolls, orks and so on. That is what I remember from the novel Changeling at least.

Like vampires, loup-garou, wendigo, bandersnatchii, etc., ghouls are metahumans/critters that are Infected and transformed by a strain of HMHVV. Some can be 'born infected'.

Are canon Magic 1 ghouls totally blind (and/or suffering continual Drain every round) while in areas with Background Count? Because you'd expect BC in the places ghouls live..

Perhaps the Background Count is aspected towards them? This could also explain why even the Magic 1 ghouls can survive...

Or that could explain why Magic 1 ghouls don't survive for long.