Except that is clearly a house rule. Some people are allergic to the word.

Tymeaus, I thought you guys didn't use the whole (highly controversial) SnS-kills-spirits thing. Must've mis-remembered.

From an anectdotal perspective, I had a player whose character was a pistol adept in my last game. He would rock heavy pistols with EX-EX or APDS on a regular basis, and he'd blow force 6 spirits away with shocking regularity. Now, he wasn't average, per se, but still. This is roughly what his breakdown was when he killed his first spirit:

Agility 8, Pistols 6, +3 dice from improved ability, +2 from a specialization, smartlink +2, so... 21 dice. At those numbers, he would statistically be expected to get 7 hits on his attacks (at close range), to the spirit's dodge of 2. With either Ex-Ex or APDS, that's jumping right through ITNW. Not to mention that usually he would call a shot for extra damage.

What is ITNW?
Also, instead of calling the shot, Why didn't he just attack normally? twice as many attacks -> twice as many kills against stuff like force 6 spirits.

Or zero damage becouse you can't beat the spirits Immunity To Normal Weapons.

Yeah. You need to exceed the Immunity to Normal Weapons threshold (Force x2) in damage for the attack to not automatically be reduced to 0. He could probably get away with snap-shotting spirits, but sometimes they'd roll better than he expected, or use edge, or lighting/cover conditions wouldn't be optimal, and he wouldn't wanna chance them having a good enough dodge roll to bounce the round, so he'd call a shot for extra damage.

Also, calling a shot is a free action, so he'd be making the same number of attacks regardless.

You need to make a take aim action (generally a simple, with one exception) to take the free action for a called shot.

All in all, a called shot is one action phase for a gun user, or 1.5 for a bow user.

Stick and shock ammo is four times as much as regular rounds(2.6 times as much as gel rounds). Shadowrunners use it, but corp security and gangers will rarely make that expense to take intruders alive. As we are talking about player abilities, we have to think about what players opposition usually has.

I agree that gangers probably won't use SnS very much, but Corp Sec probably will. While it is more expensive, they reduce collateral damage and all the bad press that entails. Additionally it offers an opportunity to question the intruders after stopping them.

No you don't. You can follow the Call a Shot action with Take Aim if you want, but you can also immediately follow it with pulling a trigger. SR4A, p. 146: "Call a Shot: A character may "call a shot" (aim for a vulnerable portion of a target) with this Free Action. See Called Shots, p. 161. This action must be immediately followed by a Take Aim, Fire Weapon, Throw Weapon, or Melee Unarmed Attack."

On p. 161, there is no mention of needing to aim.

I read that as: A character can (aim and then call a
shot at the time of the attack). Calling the shot is a Free Action.

So I see that as a take aim action followed by a simple action.
Can we get opinions on this? I would love to be able to make called shots as free actions.
I just don't want to feel like I'm cheating.

As Adarael said, it's on the Free Action list, p161. Done. Due to the way the numbers work, Called Shots basically *are* cheating in many cases. The GM can disallow whenever they're not appropriate… but SR4 is also just deadly. NPCs can do it, too, and not everyone has 21 dice.

Alright. Sounds good then.

Before letting it lie, let me just point out that called shots would be balanced if they required 2 simple actions and a free. Now that I've discovered they only require a free action, all my weapons suddenly have +4 DV.

It being on the list of free actions actually has nothing what so ever to do with whether or not you need to take aim action before you can call a shot, subject of witch the rules are little confusing about.
Page 146 has this
"A character may “call a shot” (aim for a vulnerable portion of a target)
with this Free Action. See Called Shots, p. 161. This action must be
immediately followed by a Take Aim, Fire Weapon, Throw Weapon,
or Melee Unarmed Attack."
Page 161 says this
"A character can only make a called shot with weapons that fire
in single-shot, semi-automatic, and burst-fire modes, as well as melee
weapons. A character can aim (see Take Aim, p. 148) and then call a
shot at the time of the attack. Calling the shot is a Free Action."
The under lined part kinda implies that you have to Take aim first and then call the shot.

That's the way I originally read it. However, it can just as easily be read their way. The sentence following the underlined part seems to clarify that the entire action is a free action.

Besides, when in doubt, take the route that leads to easy dragonslaying.

While the text says you can take aim with a called shot, it never says it has too, and on pg 146 of SR4A it just says you need to take a free action to call the shot, and then says what actions may follow it.

Yeah, Longbow, that's pretty much my way of looking at it: while I appreciate that it may be more accurate to take aim and then call a shot, it is more *awesome* to be able to call a shot from nowhere, and affords people an easier time popping pesky monsters. And I like to go with Awesome over Accuracte.

There would be no problem if it said that, but it says you can take aim and then you can call the shot, witch is a pretty big difference.

Heheh... No Worries. We do see spirits at Force 4+ as Powerful, as does the Fluff of Shadowrun. And sadly, Force 6 and lower Spirits are easily taken out by Such weapons as Tasers and SnS.

Thanks for the Support...

Just because I do not agree completely with it does not mean that it does not get used in our Games. I tend to leave that stuff to the Mages, though. Many (but not most) of my characters have either a Tazer or SnS Rounds for Spirit Defense. I actually prefer the Big Handheld Tazer, takes care of Spirits up to Force 8 fairly easily.

No Worries though, Yerameyahu.

Why? The average Mage is going to summon an Average Force 2-3 Spirit. Corp Security rarely is going to have an Issue with those. By the Same Token, the Average Runner team will have even less of an Issue. You may be happy using the Extremes to compare notes, but I am not, so I use the averages, with an ocassional oddity thrown in.

To each his own.

The average mage on a team of Shadowrunners will be summoning a force 5 or 6 spirit. The average shadowrunner is an above average person.

2-3 is an extreme for a player, player character shadowrunner mages usually have 5-6 magic to start. Haven't we gone over this allready?

Seriously, the game is called "Shadowrun", not "20 minute cardio run", why would I be playing a RPG to be an average person, I am an average person(well depends on your definition of average, but I certainly don't run raids against sovereign corporations).

A force 2-3 spirit can be taken out by random guy with a gun, a force 5-6 spirit takes a high degree of skill, specialized ammo, or heavy arms to take out, which most gangers, mobsters, and corp rent-a-cops don't have. That means an "average" magician's (who is well below average for a shadowrunner) spirits will get torn apart in 1 or two initiative passes, an average starting shadowrun magicians spirits will be difficult to defeat unless you are facing other runners or paramilitary+ level foes(which happens, but usually isn't all the time, at least not until the runner is summoning force 8-9 spirits which are tough even for that power level).

We have gone over it, numerous times, and yet you still perpetrate the Myth that all Shadowrunners have a Magic Attribute of 5 or 6... That is simply not true, and you know it.

And yet... Force 6 Spirits get torn apart in 1 or two initiative passes already. So, whats the issue here really? Force 3 or Force 6, still only 1 or two initiative passes of effectiveness.

Sooooo...spirits are only ever useful in combat then? We should only measure their effectiveness by how well they hold up against an armed opponent?

Apparently...

I still don't see how you're killing Force 6 Spirits with Immunity to Normal Weapons so easily. (Ignoring the stupidity that is stick and shock)

You need to do 12 DV against a dodge pool of 12.

Heavy Pistols:

Superhawk with APDS rounds: 6P -5AP
You still need 6 hits (so a dice pool of 15-20 depending) To do this consistently.
This is assuming that your GM lets ADPS rounds reduce the armor on ItNW, which given that the description for APDS rounds specifically says: It reduces the effectiveness of Ballistic Armor, it's not a guarantee.

A Superhawk with EX-EX rounds looks like: 7P -2AP needing 9 hits roughly to get through the ItNW.
Even if you do manage to get the 13 DV necessary

Called Shot: +4DV -4DP. This is up to GM decision though, supposedly you're targetting a vulnerable area. What vulnerable area does a Spirit with ItNW have? the ByPass Armor roll gives you a penalty = to the armor rating. Even still you need 3-4 hits on average to hit the spirit with the attack. 3-4 hits requires a dicepool of 12 to consider doing consistantly.

Even then, the Spirit still gets 18 dice to soak. So that 13DV attack, gets reduces 5 on average, down to 8.

I certainly don't call that easy, and most Security Personnel can't really pull that off without calling the big guns.

Rating 5/6 Combat Spirits are dangerous for the average combat npc. Force 9 Spirits are near impossible for them to hit. 18DV is hard to rate up, and 27 dice for soaking is... a lot.

12 dice is pretty easy to acquire as a Starting Character. Call it Skill 3 for the Character, Give him Heavy pistols as a Speicalization (+2), a Smartlink (+2), and a Moderate Tacnet Bonus of +1. All yo need is an Attribute of 4 at that point for it to be an even roll against the Spirit's Defense. A more common Variety of Shadowrunner will have Skill 3-4, Specialty (+2), Smartlink (+2) Tacnet Bonus (+2) and a Stat of 7 (Still not maxed out) for a Dice Pool of 16-17 Dice. Which now heavily favors the Attacker against that Spirit. So, 12 Dice nets the Spirit 3-4 Hits (Average-Buy), and the more common Shadorunnner has 16-17 Dice for a 4-5 (Average-Buy). So you get a Net Bonus with Characters on top. So Any round/Weapon combination that can generate enough Damage will likely Get through.

SnS is the obvious Choice...
APDS in a Super Warhawk is the next logical Choice...
The Heavy Tazer works outstandingly...
Any Sniper Rifle with APDS Ammunition will make short work of Spirit aATargets as well.

It is not hard to kill spirits.

A 6p Weapon with -5 AP only needs 2 Hits to cause net wounds to the spirit. Not the 6 you are talking about. Armor piercing works against the Hardened Armor just like it does everything else. You really need to look at those rules a bit more. Hardened Armor is BOTH Ballistic and Impact. If it affects either of those things, it affects Hardened Armor.

Force 9 Spirits are so rare in Canon that they should not even be part of the conversation. Anything above Force 6, for that matter should be rare indeed.

Yeah, 2 net hits, above the spirits 3-4 hits. Which adds up to 5-6 hits needed on your roll to pull it off consistantly.

That 17 DP character has a hard time getting 6 hits consistantly.
It's not quite simple, and it's certainly nigh impossible for the average Mafia Goon.

The problem isn't REALLY killing Force 6 Spirits, in my experience. That's an accomplishable goal. It's killing Force 6 Spirits before they totally wreck the crap out of at least one team member, or do something like Fear the guy with the big gun that can hurt them, while operating under Conceal. Because critter powers are rough, yo: no counterspelling against them.

If the the spirit has 12+ dice for dodge means it went on full defence, so it doesn't even matter anymore whether you even hit or not, the spirit is allready out of combat.

These forums so need flood control.

Spirits get 3 IP, if it's on full D it still has 2IP

If it's on FD every time i shoot it, then no it doesn't have any IP:s left, unless i have have less then 3 IP:s.

Full Defense is a once per round thing, not per IP.
If you are fighting a guy with 1 IP and full defense, and you have 3 IP you don't get to shoot him once on FD and the rest on just reaction. That's not how full defense works.

Once you're on FD you're on FD for the whole round.

Holy shit, I've been playing shadowrun wrong This is fucked up.



So there's 2 possible interpretations of this rule, both stupid.
1) I go on FD, if I have 1 IP then I'm in FD for the entire round. if I have multiple IP, then I'm only on FD for the current IP.
2) I go on FD, and If I have IP then I'm on FD for the current IP and that's it. So if someone has Multiple IPs, he just has to shoot me twice and my second IP I'm basically dead. His 12 dice, vs my 4 or 5 tops.

that's really.. fucked up.

Wires are good. In other news, sky = blue.

It's probably not productive to get into a complicated theoretical example. There are literally millions of possibilities: maybe the spirit starts with X, Y, or Z power first, or there are 3 other members of the team shooting also, or it's all thermal smoke, or any combination of a hundred other factors. Yes, certain combinations of things can neutralize the spirit. … So? It's not easy, especially for *NPCs* lacking all the runner metagaming powers. They still have high stats, nifty powers, flight, etc. Force 6 is a big deal, and low-magic mages don't really have the option.

What does this even have to do with combat spell houserules?

well, more importantly, not having at least 2 ip is bad. Like, non-combatant, you're a chump bad.

You go to FD then your on FD still your next IP.
So if you have 1IP and you go on FD your own FD untill the next round.
If you have more then 1 IP and you go on FD, your on FD until your next IP at witch point you can go on FD again.

The FD rules really aren't that compicated.

If you had like 4 IPs, though, and your opposition was only at 1 to 2 IPs, you could go FD on your first couple of passes and then safely switch to regular actions for the rest of the turn.




-k

ninja'd

Also, I don't think I'm going to find the acronym ItNW in any book. Can someone tell me what it stands for?

Immunity To Normal Weapons, i actually wrote it open allready in the post below the one you asked this the first time

Ah, thanks. I didn't draw the connection then, but now: I see what you did there.

The only reason for that 2nd sentence is simply to allow someone chooses to take aim for a few rounds... they don't lose the bonus if they suddenly decide to do a called shot when they pull the trigger.


As far as the other comment on SnS. I strongly disagree... there's no reason for holdouts to go from 3damage to 6 half... and a big slow round like a shotgun should have a 'stunbunny' round w/ a bigger jolt (shotguns in 4th are generally subpar making up for earlier editions where they were godly). The only other case where it's possible to get higher values are hunting rifles... which generally are subpar anyhow... and sniper rifles/HMG (which all have -3 AP innate!!! so AP half replacing the gun + ammo AP is generally inferior to lethal ammo).

Also, generally I tend to consider SnS useless for penetration purposes... if you're a sniper gunning down someone on the other side a car door or wall, you don't want your round discharging it's shock into the vehicle and not the target.


Another thing to keep in mind... most spirits only do stun damage on physical attacks. (only those w/ a natural weapon or elemental attack type power can hurt a vehicle or drone directly). Another fun one... if the spirit does engage in melee... then with a gun you have the in-melee penalty, but you also get the point-blank bonus... against a spirit ONLY defending against a ranged attack w/ reaction, that -3 penalty is going to do far more harm to a limited reaction pool than a larger attack pool.

You have to have a GM who's using a house rule for that 'SnS doesn't go through things' idea, Falconer. RAW is silent. I don't disagree, but it's one more thing to fix.

Well, SnS can't go through barriers. Stun Damage and all that...

The idea that when you're in melee range you can't use melee defense to defend against ranged attacks is the worlds dumbest thing in the world. A guy with a gun is pretty much fucked if a melee guy gets into close quarters with him. Certainly if he's trained. I know about a dozen ways to take someones' gun from them and point it at their head. And i'm by no stretch of the imagination on part witha 'runner.

Yes but that's really an attack on your part, not an attempt to dodge a bullet/arrow/whatever.

At least as far as the abstract rules for this role-playing game are concerned.

I believe that there are options that would allow this, though, in the books.

Tymeaus, that's not really true. The damaging barrier rules don't ask about that, and neither do the cover/armor rules for shooting passengers.

Well, Barriers don't take stun damage. So, you could shoot sns at a barrier all you want, and it would never go through it.

Which was my Point...