But walking around with Rating 4 BGC and Arcane Arrester might make it less problematic.
You can look into the astral yourself and you are barely touchable by magic from the astral.
Also, it would make most other HMHVV things powerless against you. Other ghouls would go blind.
You'd be the undisputed alpha in a pack of otherwise normal ghouls for example. Also, an outcast.

Except there's plenty of things that can mess you up from the astral that don't need to come within your radius and aren't spells; plenty of spirits have M powers that can shaft you badly (like Fear or Confusion) and Arcane Arrester and Astral Hazing do diddly to protect you from that.

Correct. Also the GM hates you, because you are close to unplayable. ^^ Besides: as i understand it, the astral combat skill should prevent you from being shot astrally by "out-of-range" mages. without a possibility to reach them by yourself. RAW says, it includes specific ways to fight in the unusual realm of astral space. I always thought of it like an special version of "attack of will" that lets you fight against enemies that are not only WAYS faster than you, but also maybe out of range. Otherwise this ability would be next to useless to any astral perceiving entity.

Nope, it doesn't do jack. Astral Combat is astral melee. Mages can sit back and stunbolt you do death from the air, and you can't do anything about it with Astral Combat except ineffectively flail around.

So no defense for every dual-natured creature? That would be weak and it would make the skill even more useless than it really is.

Bingo. Astral Combat is a very sketchy skill choice for most characters, and dual-natured creatures with no ranged M attacks are basically target practice. Welcome to Shadowrun.

To be fair, we feel the same way about melee fighters in the physical world.

With the difference that nobody prevents you from getting a ranged-weapon skill, while "becoming" a full mage, capable of spellcasting is not possible.

The only dual natured critter, which is not totally screwed, is the free spirit.
All the others suck hard, very hard! (If they do not kick "dual natured")

A Ward is a solid wall for you. Yes, in other threads it was pointed out, that puplic wards are probably weak and not controled but this does not help you, if you want to get in the "non-public" area...
Or some Asshole building his ward to big and blocking the street.

A similar question is, what powers are astrally active and if they can be turned off without killing you...

I really cannot believe that. This would make astral perception / dual-natured be incredibly broken. I assume that being able to perceive into this plane is an advantage, not the biggest drawback in the SR history.

Believe it, Machiavelli.

Oh, from before: *everyone* had that same idea, that was my point.

Do keep in mind that spellcasting on the astral is a bit harder than on the mundane for the mage, due to drain being physical immeditately and overcasting being more difficult due to that . .
Furthermore, the rating 4 BGC would make the ghoul harder to target(i think there is a table for this somewhere) and it would make spells weaker that target him, same with arcane arrester.
And the BGC would take care of weak(force 1-4) wards too. Of course, this does not lessen the problem with the M Critter-Powers, but those are not all that prevalent to begin with i believe.

Actually, the BGC has no effect on direct spells cast into it.

It's dumb IMO, but them's the rules.

(That's right, you can cast Wreck at the moon with no penalty)

Uhm, Draco, sorry but . . Space is not BGC, it's a Level 12 Mana VOID . . Negative Mana more or less . . BGC is Mana, but chaotic mana. It's a Positive disturbance.

I think we can agree that an Arcane Arrester, Astral Hazing ghoul is a significantly special case. Dual-Natured in general, however, is pretty bad.

Doesn't matter. ;D

Casting a directly targetted spell (such as Mana Bolt, Stun Bolt, etc.) aren't effected by the background count (positive OR negative) at the target's location, only the caster's.

Read the rules on BGC sometime.

Also, lack of mana instead of a well of mana is still BGC.

That's . . that's . . oy @.@

Also, people in the real world can't all fly at high speed. It would be like being a melee fighter in a world where everyone else is a jet plane with machine guns.

I have come up with an interesting idea or two for a Loup-Garou. Unfortunately, our table does not allow Infected PC's. *shrug*
SOmetimes an Idea calls out for a specific "Race."

They are the metavariant of choice for Drizzt fans. Ew.

;D
Told you it makes no goddamn sense.

And on top of that, if your magic is higher than 12 you will be able to cast spells even in a mana downtime, although the drain will screw you bigtime.
No mana, yes but technically you are still able to cast.
Intersting would be how much you can cyber up people in a downtime since i think essence is a mana phenomenon.

If we are to believe the Street Legends Supplemental, Harlequin summoned an ally spirit in the 5th age and had a duel with Eran somewhere in the 17th century IIRC.

And how exactly does a Mana Void affect a Duel (Since they normally duel with Swords)?
And yes, with a Magic greater than 12, You can still cast magic in the down cycle. Yay.

I assumed from context that it was a magic duel, personally.

Well, i assume that a duel between those magically totally overfed guys might involve some spells, but yes for the sake of the ritual they might just have crossed swords.
IDK but Harlequin was able to troll Ehran and it definitively made him happy

Challenge. Or maybe an unhealth y fixation with werewolves...

That, or a cruel gm who infects you and forces you to keep playing.

But to give a better answer:

No. No. Indeed they don't, as PCs.

Astral combat has never come up at my table so I am not sure, but can you give me a page quotation for Astral Combat as a melee skill? Just wonderin', because I could see it as 2 mages manipulating raw mana (no, mana not spells) and hurling them at each other in a big ranged astral duel ...

That was my feeling of the description, too.

It's under "Astral Combat" SR4A p193.

Astral combat is resolved in the same way as physical combat. Astrally
perceiving and dual-natured characters use their Physical attributes
and skills to fight opponents with a physical body, and their Astral
Combat + Willpower to fight wholly astral entities. Astrally project-
ing characters use their Mental attributes in place of Physical ones (see
the Astral Attributes Table, above) along with the Astral Combat skill.
There are no known ranged weapons that function in astral space, so
unarmed attacks, active weapon foci (p. 199), and mana spells are the
only options for astral combat.
Most astral combat damage is based on the character’s astral
strength (Charisma), as noted on the Astral Combat table. Damage
inflicted from astral combat attacks can be either Stun or Physical
(attacker’s choice). Astral objects like barriers can only be affected by
Physical damage.

Hmm, did we ever come to a consensus wether or not a weapon focus harpoon would work, as long as a line connects the thrown part to the body of the thrower?

If the line is an integral part of the weapon and covered in the focus formula and therefore a part of its aura.
Why not?
I see the munchkins with rocket propelled wire guided weapon focus spears approaching on the horizon.
The propulsion rockets would be replaceable and not part of the focus itself.
Any idea about the damage they deal?

Damage: Yes.

...you can always rule that a spell cast into a background is 'preexisting' and thus reduced in force. This avoids the weirdness.

If the caster is in the BC, his magic is reduced - regardless of where he aims the spell.

If the caster is outside of the BC, he keeps his magic but if casting into a background count, the spells force is reduced.

It doesn't even contradict the RAW, since there is nothing anywhere that specifically states that "Instant spells cast into a BC does not have their force reduced". The RAW doesn't mention the situation, really, as it only talks about spirits and pre-existing spells...

Here's what the book says:



It says nothing about instant spells being reduced.

Both interpretations are possible. It depends on how you see BC and Magic.
An instant spell is already in effect. It has all the power it needs. A sustained spell sustains itself from the mana around it. So it is influenced if the mana gets warped around or there is no mana...

So I would even say, the rules "good", because they can be reasoned.

Beauty.

If you're not using a weapon foci taser(the wired kind), you're not trying hard enough.

It is basically the most unexpected thing for a spirit to deal with.

Only Problem being that the electrical Damage does not translate over to the Astral, because it's not an "Elemental Effect"
Only thing that you'd gain would be bonus dice to using it, nothing else . . With the normal Harpoon you'd get more Reach at least.
And more Damage from the Throwing it too. And several Weapons in one single weapon too.
It's a blade, it's a club, it's a pole-arm, it's a thrown weapon, it's a whip! It slices, it dices, it clobbers and impales and ties up stuff!

I think people consider a weapon focus taser to be an expensive whip, or at best a tiny dart gun.

Can you provide the page # for that? I think you are confusing physical element-type spells(which aren't allowd to be mana spells) with other rules for the astral.

A dual natured taser still hits normally. You can even shoot with it, but won't get bonus dice for it.(foci add to melee dice only)

The damage will still carry over. Its going to be about 6-8 stun depending on your model, but you don't really NEED the ap half from electricity because you get to ignore ItnW.

I'd want a page number showing you *can* taze on the astral, myself. You can't chainsaw, after all; that's a technological function.

I think Udoshi is relying upon it being a Weapon Focus (Tazer), which is then dual natured, and can function on the astral. At least that is the Theory, anyways.

… But a chainsaw can't. I'm not even sure how the dart-shooting part works, that's as mechanical as a chainsaw.

When was that decided? I vaguely remember a discussion on the Chainsaw, but, as I said, it is a vague memory. Is it in the book, somewhere?

Here is the text that I could find...



In the Astral Combat Section (Page 193, SR4A), there is mention that "No Known Ranged Weapons work in Astral Spoace." I think this would disqualify a Tazer with Darts, but the Melee tazer should work just fine.

However, on the Physical Plane, the wire-trailing Dart Tazer should work, as it is still being held in the hand.

Yeah, it's from the books. 'A chainsaw is just a club.'

Hmmm... Did not see that in any of the Weapon Foci Text... Got a page number and Book?

I'll have to run a search when I get the chance, I don't recall. I'm sure I read that exact example, though. Possibly the FAQ?

Yeah, it's from the FAQ. It only makes sense. You are taking an astral copy of your weapon focus into space with you - things like batteries, fuel, and such won't work (for chainsaws, vibroswords, etc.). A weapon foci with those features wielded by an astrally perceiving character against a purely astral opponent would not have those problems.

Allowing ranged weapon foci on the astral plane opens up a can of worms, since astral movement is so fast. Would a ranged attack be plausible against targets zipping around at those speeds?

If you are going do play a dual-natured critter, pixies are the best. They have astral perception, rather than dual-natured, as a power. They can turn it off.

Loup-garou are a decent approximation of a traditional lycanthrope, but the negatives (very distinctive, berserker rage, dual-natured) make them problematic as PCs. They would be a viable choice is a medieval low magic campaign, but in Shadowrun, there are many other, much more effective, ways to be a superhuman fighting machine.

Wolves get no love in Shadowrun. Wolf shapeshifters are similarly shafted because they are the baseline, making them far weaker than other 'shifters, who for a bit more in cost, get a lot more in bonuses.

Irion is right, either interpretation is valid. Your position that instant spells are not mentioned smacks to me of somantics, and it could be argued that the RAI of the writers is that all spells get affected when they cross the BGC, but the devs just glitched their grammar in the write-up. I would tend to go with the latter interpretation as making more sense, but it doesn't really come up in my games. YMMV.

Instant spells are not reduced in Force - rather, the drain is increased by the background count, as well as the Magic attribute itself being reduced. Casters are basically penalized twice already - reducing spell force would be triply penalizing them.

The rules for background count, as presented, seem to assume a mage that is physically present in the background count. But if you look at the entries for astral hazing (both in Augmentation, under cyberzombies, and in Runner's Companion, under SURGE), it says "This astral haze affects all attempts to cast magic on, at, or in the vicinity of the character." In other words, the usual rules for background counts apply for, say, trying to manabolt a character with astral hazing.