Elemental Ammunition
I just brainstormed a few ’new’ types of ammunition.

Hellfire Rounds
Cost: As Flechettes
Availability: 14
Damage: As Shot Rounds
Weapon: Shotgun Only
Elemental Effect: Fire
Critical Glitch: Ammo Explosion – Shooter takes base damage + Can catch fire

Rock Salt
Cost: 50 per 10
Availability: 4
Damage: As Shot Rounds -2
Weapon: Shotgun Only
Elemental Effect: Earth
Critical Glitch: Jammed, Spend Complex Action to fix weapon

Tungsten Flechettes
Slightly more efficient than the regular flechettes with these fin stabilized tungsten arrows.
Cost: 150 per 10
Availability: 12
Damage: Base Damage
Weapon: Any
Elemental Effect: Metal

Magnesium Rounds
Even more efficient than tracer rounds adding an additional +1D6 to the total dicepool when shooting BF or FA.
Cost: 200 per 10
Availability: 12
Damage: Standard Ammo / AP/2
Weapon: Standard Weapons (Not Shotguns)
Elemental Effect: Light
Critical Glitch: Ammo Explosion – Shooter takes base damage / Attackers gain +2 to hit for 1 turn (bright glare)

Shockwave Rounds
Shockwave rounds are Ex-Explosive rounds with an even more highly volative explosive charge.
Cost: 200 per 10
Availability: 14
Damage: Ex-Explosive.
Weapon: Standard Weapons (Not Shotguns)
Elemental Effect: Blast
Critical Glitch: Ammo Explosion – Weapon Destroyed, Shooter takes BF damage from weapon

Mr.Freeze Rounds
These experimental Liquid Nitrogen Rounds are fairly new on the black market. A capsule round made of metal to ensure a safe storage and delivery will break on impact and incapacitate the target. Due to the required size it is limited to shotguns or large caliber rifles.
Cost: 300 per 10
Availability: 16
Damage: Base Weapon Damage
Weapon: Shotguns, Elephant Rifle, Barret Sniper Rifle
Elemental Effect: Ice
Critical Glitch: Weapon Damage due to extreme cold unless modified for such use.

Melters
Like the Mr:Freeze these experimental Acid Rounds are fairly new on the black market. A capsule round made of acid resistant fglass to ensure a safe storage and delivery will break on impact and incapacitate the target. Due to the required size it is limited to shotguns or large caliber rifles.
Cost: 300 per 10
Availability: 16
Damage: Base Weapon Damage
Weapon: Shotguns, Elephant Rifle, Barret Sniper Rifle
Elemental Effect: Acid
Critical Glitch: Weapon will need repair as acid eats through its components.

Smokers
Smokers don’t make much damage but are a good delivery system for limited smoke coverage. Each round covers a square meter of area with smoke for a few combat turns.

How to use
Count as a smoke grenade with a blast radius equal to the amount of bullets fired with a total of weapon base damage.
Cost: 50 per 10 (100 per 10 for IR-Smoke)
Availability: 8
Damage: Damage -2DV / AP+2
Weapon: Any Firearm
Elemental Effect: Smoke
Critical Glitch: Shooter is hidden in a cloud of black smoke and suffer a -4 vision penalty.

Boomers
Count as a flash bang grenade with a blast radius equal to the amount of bullets fired with a total of weapon base damage.
Cost: 50 per 10
Availability: 8
Damage: Damage -2DV / AP+2
Weapon: Any Firearm
Elemental Effect: Sound
Critical Glitch: Shooter deaf for 1 combat turn unless they have ear protection

Interesting. I might toss a few of these into the hands of some gangers or down-on-their-luck opposing runners, with the "Corp is testing" angle.

I don't think these make sense, esp. the Liquid Nitrogen, the 'super-tracer' Magnesium (+1d6?!), and the 'Elemental Earth/etc.' options. Is there some special house rule for this Elemental stuff, to make it make sense?

I think it is there to bypass ITNW. Or at least give additional Ammunition to assist Mundanes in Bypassing ITNW. *Shrug*

That's what I'm worried about. Rock Salt and 'metal bullets' bypassing ITNW? :/

*Shrug* I understand...

Just to make something clear: elemental effects from a non-magical source never bypass ItNW. All you get is the normal AP of the elemental effect. Since that is mostly -half it is still better than most kinetic projectiles.

Now onto the individual types:
Hellfire Rounds: a one shot flamethrower does not sound too bad. I think there are Dragonsbreath rounds in one of the supplements already though.

Rock Salt: Why would packing salt in front of a propellant be any better than traditional metal?

Tungsten Flechettes: That has the same effect as regular flechette, at higher cost and higher availability, so useless.

Magnesium Rounds: No that, won't work. I can see a more effective tracer, but why would a bit of burnt magnesium make a ball of metal into a light effect?

Shockwave Rounds: Not completely insane, but overpowered IMHO.

Mr.Freeze Rounds: No, liquid Nitrogen does not behave that way. A drop of liquid nitrogen would either simply cool the surrounding tissue, possibly causing frostburn, by evaporating or if lodged in a cavity would expand that cavity.

Melters: Dumping a person in lots of acid will not dissolve him instantly. Why do you think a very small one will have a great effect?

Smokers: Smoke grenades already exist, why do you need to miniaturize them into rifle or pistol rounds?

Boomers: Same as above. I don't understand how you want to calculate the radius.

I think you try to create magical properties without magic. I don't think this is a good idea.

Which is what the complaints are about. How is a Specific Metal any more an elemental effect than a Lead Bullet? Elemntal effects have some interesting properties, and they are all listed in Street Magic or the SR4A corebook. If you describe a bullet with an elemental effect, now it is "magically" better at defeating ITNW. We have enough of that already, in my opnion.

I call Shennanigans...

Most ammunition is lead that's jacketed by something. Today, it's Copper. In Shadowrun, likely Steel as Copper is too expensive, and Iron is still cheap.

*Headdesk* I fear for the day when it's Aluminum-Jacked Rounds...

I wonder what would happen if it was jacketed with orichalcum...

Knew a player (power-gamer, turned up to 11) who made Orichalcum bullets. He needed it to Anchor spells properly. Afterall, if you're Anchoring a Force 6 Fireball, a Force 6 Toxic Wave and a Force 6 Lightning Bolt to each bullet in a three round burst, I guess you don't skimp on the materials. Mostly, he used them for intimidating Awakened enemies, but, in a pinch, there was nothing quite like pointing a pistol at an Ares Citymaster and knowing that pulling the trigger would evaporate it. *eyeroll* Amazing how that GMPC never came up against NPCs that would take appropriate countermeasures...

Was he making the bullets into Anchoring Foci? I have an NPC I'm working on with the same thing, only he has the Destroy [Free Spirit] spell anchored on them, from DG. He is a corporate spell researcher though, so orichalcum is that little bit easier for him to come by.

You'd have a very expensive bullet. One you wouldn't want to fire.

But if you did fire it, it'd likely be like the suggestions above. For that "Special Occasion".

Personally, I like having firearms for a special occasion. One character has a Gold-Plated Centennial Version of the Colt M1911A1 (Which I would have loved to have bought this year. Stupid Canadian firearms laws!), and a very intricately engraved Kukri that he uses when he wants someone special to die. There's nothing special about them, it's just a personal thing for him.

Not everything is about removing immunity to normal weapons.

Rock Salt, Ebenholt wood rounds, Silver bullets, Iron Arrow heads - all of them functions against critters and metahumans (HMHVV) with weaknesses to them.



Nope, regular effect of flechettes are +5 to armor value, these have slightly better penetration at a +2 armor value. This would make the ammunition pre-errata flechettes.



Anything with weakness to the elemental effect of light would hate it. Not to mention that the entire round is amde of magnesium.


No, not really. Ex-Explosive with improved knockback effect.



Would you enjoy a round that penetrates your flesh and then freeze/expand amongst you internal organs?



I never said it would have that effect, Im just saying that the round would get the elemental effect of acid - it would continue to do damage to the target. Even worse for internal bleeding when a round penetrates and starts to disolve something important.



Why not is my answer to that. Calculating radius is easy. Shoot 4 bullets and you get a 4 meter radius up to max weapon damage.


Its not MAGICAL properties, its ELEMENTAL EFFECT properties. There is a clear difference as we already have elemental effects without magic - Fire comes to mind for example, or Acid. They are all elemental effects and not just bound to spells.

They will NOT bypass immunity to normal weapons as they are not magical in nature - they WILL apply their ELEMENTAL effect regardless.

Stick N Shock is a good example as a spirit would have immunity to normal weapons but would STILL suffer the elemental effect of 1/2 armor - but it would be applied against its FX2 armor value.

I understand.

Tungsten Flechettes would still suck against spirits as they would still just be hunks of metal. Wood Flechettes would on the other hand suck for the Vampire (Allergy, Wood, Severe).

A Wendigo would hate Iron Flechettes or pure iron bullets as they have moderate allergy to Ferrous metals.

All I'm saying is that elemental effects (NOT bypassing immunity to normal weapons) can be applied to most ammunitions.

Remember though, this ammunition would either be rather rare or custom built - Silver bullets and ebenholt flechettes arent sold at your regular ammo shop.

The clientel who uses it would be specialists in their field and not your average runner (who spends 250Y on a silver bullet?)

I'd like to see an attempt at a combined elemental effect bullet, or bullets for the Water and Sand effects

Sea Salt Buck Shot

While we're at it, why not add a chocolate coating or marshmallow centre?

Because it is not an elemental effect and would be silly?

BURNING marshmallows would have two properties though. They would stick to their target and burn them.

As someone who is allergic to nuts I could safely say that making a hollow point bullet and fill it with hazelnut paste could very well put me into Anaphylactic shock if the allergy is severe enough.

The same can happen to people who are allergic to bee stings.

Elemental Effect or Toxins...fun times.

Hmm...are there allergies to Chocolate?

The real-life Dragons Breath shell uses a mix of Iron Oxide and Magnesium Oxide which I would conclude would have the effect against Weakness Iron and Fire Elemental Effect (You get a five feet flamethrower for 3-5 seconds).

Jeezus...Wendigos will hate those. Sets fur on fire AND gives more damage due to ferrous metal of Iron Oxide.

Silver or [Bane Material] rounds are already available. They do not and should not get the -1/2 armor. Quite the contrary actually. A 9mm ball of wood should penetrate a lot worse than a steel ball of the same size

Only because the elemental effect has not been errataed. I doubt it is the intention to make the elemental effect better than real flying shrapnel.

If everything that emits light should have the elemental effect light. the world would be very dangerous. Sitting under a normal ceiling lamp should at least be painful as at least some photons will strike vunerable areas. All those with allergy to it will never be able to regenerate except in total darkness etc.

I didn't mean overpowered in the sense of breaking game balance, but in the sense that you can only pack so much explosive into a say 9mm ball.

Of course not. I only wanted to mention that such an effect should not have any advantage over expanding bullets or bullets with explosives. They will not have any effect compared to freeze rays of various scifi movies

I just doubt that a bit of acid would make a significant difference especially in the magnitude of halving armor and doing damage over time.

Because it is expensive and adds no new advantage.

Putting a bit of smoke in a hollow projectile to create a smokescreen sounds pretty magical to me. A bit of Magnesium on the outside of the projectile which significantly increases penetration even though is probably has already burned off before reaching the target is at least as bad.

At least there we are in agreement.

@Hazelnut rounds: Those (theoretically) exist already: Capsule rounds. Why you would use nuts instead of a more universal poison I don't know.

Are you sure you mean iron oxide and magnesium oxide? Not iron oxide and magnesium or even better iron oxide and and alumin(i)um i.e thermite?

Do oxides of metals trigger metal allergies? This sounds wrong. On the other hand, if you use magesium or alumin(i)um you will have iron on the target.

So it sounds like these aren't 'Elemental Effect' at all, just special materials to match paracritter Weaknesses. I'm totally fine with that (I don't think oxides count, though).

Several of the suggestions step way beyond that, in ways that don't seem okay for the game world. Half Impact armor alone is a pretty overpowering effect for the physics (and chemistry) involved, as people have pointed out.

Never have I said all ammunition would get an elemental effect. Silver, Wood or Iron rounds would only trigger weakness. Also, there is no elemental effect of wood or silver – unless we stretch it to be ALL metal or classify Wood as Earth and THAT would be overpowered.

The only reason I added metal effect to tungsten flechettes is because the metal elemental effect is basically old rules flechettes with the added bonus of shredding (cheap) clothing.


That might be the case but it is far from being overpowered.



Point taken as most allergies to light are specific sunlight and that cannot be duplicated easily as a weapon.


True, but that is already covered by the weapons base damage (Smaller weapon , smaller charge) not to mention that I also included a more severe glitch for the ammunition as the explosive is more volative, not a larger explosive charge but more unstable.


No more expensive than a single smoke grenade for 10 bullets and you can rely on weapon skill instead of throwing.


I agree on the increased penetration, that was an oversight – My reasoning was using it against beings with weakness to light. And there would be no coating, the entire round would be magnesium.


My assassin wants the target to die of natural causes?


Thermite was my thought first but I swiped the info for what Dragon Breath rounds usually include from the wiki. I’ve no idea if the weapon could literally melt if it was exposed to Thermite blasting out of the barrel for 3-5 seconds.


I’ve no idea, shadowrun rules get very vague when one starts applying actual physics and chemistry into the mix. Not to mention actual real world poisons that the rules cannot cover.

Even the new flechette rules do not reflect what the description says. Even new flechettes have better stopping power than regular ammunition against armored living opponents. To make that kind of ammo even better is unnecessary IMHO

I wonder why I have not yet heard about such a cheap and effective round? Probably because it wouldn't work. Magnesium is very light and brittle, burning some of that material won't help either. It would not transfer much kinetic energy to the target. Long range will be even more problematic as even more of the projectile will be burned.

Medical Examiner 1:"the subject seems to have died of anaphylactic shock. The files indicate he was allergic to hazelnuts."
ME 2:"There is a puncture wound in the back of his skull. Something is lodged in there... a hazelnut with burn marks, how peculiar."

Why do I have this image of a pyromanic pixie with a slingshot and a bag of hazelnuts that he/she sets fire to.

Which would go up inside the barrel. Magnesium burns ferociously fast (though maybe not fast enough).



Yes, your gun would melt in the first Second or so. Thermite is a mite vicious.

Magnesium burns quickly, but not that quickly. I've played around with magnesium strips in chemistry class. You can hold a 2 inch strip and set the other end on fire without worrying about hurting yourself. You've got time to go "that's getting close" and drop it.

And chemistry dictates that a magnesium strip would burn faster than a 1 gram chunk shaped like a bullet (more surface area to volume).

Unless you get Glare modifiers upsetting your Perception DP

Thanks for the Info, I am 20+ Years removed from basic Chemistry. I remember it burned fairly quickly, just not how fast. DO you remember how hot magnesium burns? It does not take too much over the tolerance to ruin the temper on a gun. I have burned out many a barrel with just converntional rounds, let alone something potentially like a Magnesium (or heaven forbid, a Thermite) Round.

4000 F or so, IIRC. Hot enough to ignite thermite (which is why I still have a 12 inch strip of the stuff.....somewhere, although I never did make any thermite).

Wikipedia says that it can get up to 5100 or so, depending on the alloy.

And yes, that is hot enough to melt steel.

All I know is that we played with it the first day of Chemistry Class, to ensure that the students didn't try to make black powder or nitro...

Ah, living in a mining town.

I mostly assume that, if it was a good idea for a bullet, it would already exist. People are pretty clever, greedy, and bloodthirsty.

If I were to use some of these in my game--IF--I would going under the assumption that these are specialty ammunition that are the sort of thing cooked up in nano-forges, and then set availability and price accordingly--as well as the fluff.

For example, for the Fire and Ice type rounds, instead of liquid nitrogen or magnesium (or Thermite!) I'd have packed into the payload the sort of chemicals that react happily and energetically with water--the stuff that makes up living tissue--and produce exothermic or endothermic reactions as a result. Sort of like those instant cold packs--on steroids and taken to 11.

But the only reason it's possible to even load that sort of into a bullet is because now you can have nanoware build those bullets up on the microscopic level; these things wouldn't be "lead poured into a mold" they'd be on the level of "inside this metal slug that's less than three-quarters of an inch across, there are no less than 30 individually engineered partitions and compartments containing the payload, all created to within 5 micrometers tolerance."

Boy, do I have an amp for you! This one goes to 12!



Given the posting about the spider silk microneedles, I'm pretty sure we could pour-forge some of those and not need nanites.