So here i sit wondering how possession and combat resolves.

my ally spirit possessing me has power 6
so as long as i am possessed i sport
Body 10 which lets me equip my running outfit Bal 14 / Imp 9 each +12 ITNW
So i have a whopping Bal 26 and Imp 21

And as long nobody gets higher then 12 with his dv including ap i dont take damage at all.
And even if he gets higher then 12, its still Stun damage as long as he is under 26/21.
right?

Also and especially does ITNW stack with Hardend Armor?
Assuming i want later some Milspec for the S.H.T.F. runs,
would it stack?

And does ITNW stack with another layer of ITNW?
Assuming i let a Power 4 Spirit possess my (for the fun) Underwear (yep i am not a boxershort men =)
would it stack with ITNW from the Power 6 Spirit already possessing me?


first bit is more a recap, cause i would like to make sure i got everything right
[ITNW = Imunity to normal weapons, SHTF = Shit hits the fan]
I know i could get a higher spirit and better armor but i think its good enough for starting also i have some players in group that are new and i dont want to completely dominate the game

If i forgot something plz add

I don't think any of the hardened layers stack for 'hardness' (you can't get 'immune to anything less than 30'), but the armor aspect follows normal armor rules. Possession is awful.

We had a power gamer at our table who wanted to try stacking armor like this the other day ("My Force 6 spirit possesses my long coat, another one possesses my pants...", etc). He thought he was being clever. We thought he was being a tool. Even if it was legal somehow, it would cause no end of grief verifying it at the table and it would bog down the game.

The consensus we reached was that if he tried it, everyone at the table would beat him to death.

Fun times...fun times...

- J.

Seems like a real waste of spirits, too. Offense is better than defense.

That's my view!

- J.

I'd rule that only the highest hardened armor applies to see if you take damage or not. Feel free to add up the totals for determining stun damage, though.

Hardened doesn't stack. Other armor does, as per standard rules.

- J.

Well, since "armor" is just a very specific barrier, I would handle it like that.

So a force 4 spirit possessing clothing would add 4 points of armor for everybody wearing this shirt. (Rules for barriers: Shooting through a barrier. The guy defending only gets HALF the armor)

(And this is actually, much too good! It would assume that the shirt covers the whole body. Which is silly. So I probably would adjust for that two and half it again if it only covers half the body.)

@Yerameyahu
Depends on the GM. If you can just have force 4 spirits possess your stuff, for +8 points of armor each.... Even if it would not count as hardend...
Just saying magical underware+magical T-shirt for 32 points of armor...
And services of force 4 spirits are quite cheap... (Or make it with force 3...)

There are no hit locations in SR. Coverage and protective properties of the armor are merged into the B/I values. In case of possessing armor, yes possessing stackable armor is better than possessing a normal piece. Ooh there are 5 pieces of PPP

@Hardened armor and ItNW: While ItNW works like hardened armor against mundane damage it is not hardened armor. It does not stack.

As for hardened armor stacking with hardened armor, I know of no rule prohibiting it, but I know of no way to get real hardened armor from more than one source either.

The trouble with this is that I would let the spirits take damage, too. Without hit locations, simply every spirit posessing a piece of clothing will take the attack in addition to the person wearing the armour. So an F3 spirit being hit by a 7P attack will start taking damage. In addition, while there are no rules for armour degradation, there are rules for posessed stuff taking damage, and if the posessed piece of armour gets "killed", then I would have the armour get destroyed as well.

Personally, I would ask the player to tone it down: Max 1 spirit in armour, and it has to be a piece that covers the entire body. Posession is still worse than materialization where versatility is concerned, but it does make for one hell of a tank mage.

If you really want to screw with a player you have to question what kind of service is used in order to posess a piece of armour. The posession itself is not a service. For how long will that service last?
Then, does the armour now become mobile? The spirit might be able to walk a pair of pants around town. If so, then actually it should encumber more, because the spirit has to predict the wearer's movement and move the armour.

Unfortunately, I'm thinking this is really a gigantic oversight in the rules. It SHOULD be possible to stack layers of spirits, but it's obviously quite catastrophic from a balance perspective.

This is not clever and falls into the category of 'ideas that players like but characters never would'. You'd be wearing consciouses, each of them (by and large and if you're not a very experienced character) more powerful than you. They might be your bound servants, but there is so much grief available for the GM to give you. What if the spirits don't get on? Do they all enjoy the sweat? Will they all know exactly what is expected of them at all times? It can be embarrassing to say the least if your shirt calls the Johnson a tight-fisted c*******er when his first offer comes in a bit low.

I'm not saying they'll likely try to squish you, but the optional rule on unruly spirits would quickly make this plan a real pain in the arse.
And let's not forget astral visibility and security...

@Brainpiercing7.62mm
It won't be that bad, since the spirit gets a lot of armor dice thrown his way. (You first need to calculate the armor the armor would use....)


Stacking armor and barrier rules are generally speaking "strange"....

Honestly: I prevere the "there are no rules, it does not work approach"...
Like you said encumberance alone is the hell of a mine field... This means you will need a lot of time to make up some rules and they will probably work badly..

And the coat attempting to crawl off your back to strangle some random idiot with its sleeves. That would be pretty hilarious actually.

Or they'd say while you are walking down the street:

"hey, why did you make me possess this jacket. I mean it is nice an all, but does this mean I am going to get shot at? Why would you do that to me? I mean I am trying to be a good servant," (while walking down the street)

"OWOWOWOWOWOWWOWOWIEEEE!!!!! It hurts!" (AFTER GETTING SHOT and the player tries to hide)

"Wow that is some power focus you got there. I sure hope that fake liscense will hold" (While being questioned by KE or other LE)

-"Excuse me for a moment, I have to consult with my outfit."

(But it is just priceless to say: May shoes are smarter than you and be able to prove it)

well i dont see that happen...


So no rules i overlooked good to know but sadly another hole in the rules..
Also i dont see that as to overpowerd, there are still enough ways to hurt me.
Also i could do much more assuming i would push my ally to 10 or 12 with only dropping a few more body attributes
which by raw nothing would prevent me from doing that


new questions
if i would make an Quadrapalegic possessed by an Spirit could the spirit move the body and act normal?

if i would let a spirit possess the fullbody armor of a chummer could he move him (assuming he is unselfconscious)
(asking cause some runner dont wont to get possessed)

also if i would let a spirit possess an armor (or clothing) and someone uses that armor, would it be an opposed strength check to see which one of them gets to act?

The short answer is 'we don't know'. They didn't bother writing rules for any of this. Possession is a mess.

@Stahlgewitter

It depends on how you rule it.
RAW should be, that the protective value of the clothing is not changed at all.


I would allow it. But at most one INI-Pass and the spirit has to make an intuition check at the start of every round. If this check fails, I would put a penalty on every action.


What the hell are you talking about? To bind an allyspirit of force 12 you would roll against 24 dice. And for every hit the spirit gets (around you take two points of (I guess physical) damage...
So, well... You would be dead...

afaik u dont have to roll for anything (by raw) u buy at Char creation, so getting an force 12 Ally is only about spending Karma at creation.
Yes most GM may want u to roll for it, but thats house ruling (also if he wants u to roll for it i would suggest everyone has to roll for everything, see streetsam and his implants...)

If youre GM wants u to roll, get high summoning skills spec if needed and so on
spend some points on a Spirit Pact. Roll 3 times, this will consume some karma but if success full u are op.
If u fail start with a new char....

or do it ingame after achieving ProRunner status if u have the patience

It's still fundamentally ridiculous, even if you happen to be using karmagen *and* allowing initiation pre-grame, etc. Certainly not to be assumed as a normal game/tactic.

@Stahlgewitter
You can't get an ally spirit at chargen, period.
If you would let that fly, do your hackers all start with raiting 10 programms and your sams with "super cool weapons they build themself"?
(I would let my Sam start with biotech 4 and a medical workshop and declare he has all the bioware I want deltagrade...)


Have fun with that... And you need the karma.
There are reasons why you are not allowed to get it in chargen. Those reasons are actually quite straigt forward.
For the same reasons you are not allowed to drag 200 Karma out of chargen.

It's true that rolling in chargen is a houserule, but when you're talking about a spirit that can simply buy 12 points of drain on you it doesn't really matter. Even if you build a character that can survive it (perhaps spending some of your resources on on-hand medical expertise) you should at the very least incur some heavy damage from Augmented. If I were GM though it would be rolled and you can bet that spirit will be using Edge.

As for starting a new character if your pre-game rolls go badly I'm lost for words.

The most straightforward being Availability 12 - binding materials and magical lodges are Force x 2, so even Restricted Gear can't help you out.

@Aerospider

Of course to reroll... (Since it would only have the players amount of edge...)


Well, even with twice restricted gear and "only" a force 10 spirit it still would possibly break the game.

Even the possibility to just draw 100 Karma out of chargen, would actually break the game.

Yes, it is true that actually it would be a good thing to transfer karma from Chargen into play. Why? To give chars which need this Karma for stuff they can buy in Chargen a chance.
(A technomancer needs hundreds of Karma to draw equal with a "normal" character. Mostly because he only starts do be "capable" .)

But to make this possible some "tricks" need to be prevented. Things like allyspirit of force 10. Because yes, in game you have a chance to bull it off.
And 200 Chargen Karma are nothing if you may get an force 8 or even 10 ally spirit. (They cost 64 or 80 Karma, but you probably need a lot of Karma to initiate or buy magic back up after getting some ware you need to pull off this "trick".)