Ok was trying to figure out the following. If i make an adept that takes elemental strike and killing hands.... is the normal damage physical and then they have to test against electrical stun as well or is auto-stun only and not physical?

It's a grey area. Go with whatever doesn't destroy the game (sonic fists doing Physical damage, christ).

Assuming the elemental effect is electric... Base damage will be (STR/2)P against 1/2 Impact Armor (+non-conductivity). Then the target has to resist the secondare effects of electric damage. IIRC the secondary effect is make a BOD+(1/2 Impact armor)+non-conductivity (3) test or be stunned. Even if that is successful the target still suffers a -2 to all actions. I don't remember off the top of my head the durations for all of this, but that is in the core book under electrical damage.

-D

I use the rules for the elemental effect, as it is usually the last part to be added. This means Sonic, Smoke and Electric attacks are always stun, even as Physical(affecting the physical world), Indirect, Elemental spells, which most people assume to be physical damage (it seems)

Heh, I got into an argument with my GM arguing your point, before he said "I don't care what RAW says lightning bolt is physical damage. Deal with it" and that ended the discussion.

RAW's just wrong. It's a typo.

I wondered about it because of spells like napalm in SM... where there are two elemental effects both apply.

When there's two, I rule that Physical overrules. The theory being that fire doesn't stop being fire when it's a burning glob of gunk. the secondary effects of both elements apply, but when mixed Physical is dominant.

yeah thats what i thought too.

I've never actually seen anyone use a multi-element spell, so it hasn't come up. I assume it can be brutally abused, though.

I've had a really pissed off Toxic Shaman Self-Destruct with Napalm. It didn't go over well.

After having an Adept use Sonic fists and change it to physical... I agree with this now. Critical Strike is a prereq, it isn't neccessarily in effect when you use Elemental Strike.

Wouldn't Smoke Fists be worse than Sonic Fists? They'd ignore armor *and* the damage gets resisted as a toxin attack. Plus they take the visibility modifier. Granted, all this can be countered with a gas mask, but sound can be countered with magic, and there's gotta be some kind of sound-cancelling machine.

Sound dampener earbuds/cyberwear. It'd provide a +2 bonus on the resistance test. But, where sonic is really trouble is when the damage is greater then the usually low willpower of many characters, automatically giving them a -2 penalty for the rest of the fight, and makeing it easy to sneak up on them (if your GM is mean enough to double up on penalties from defeaned and visual perception modifiers, from say, Chameleon suit)

Gas masks and re-breathers are dirt-common and mundane. Sonic is resisted with Dampers and Silence spells. So no, Smoke is not more powerful than Sonic.

Dark Smoke Puncher?