Assume you're putting together a solid team (400bp) to clear out a haunted area of slums. What would be the gear and type of people you'd be looking for? For the purposes of this question, ignore all magic users except for purely physical adepts.

The reason I ask, is looking through some newer books, just about everything has some power creep in it except anti-spirit gear, unless I'm just missing it.

SnS is as high as it gets...

Laser Weapons and Gauss Rifles

FAB, Guardian Vines, Glo-Moss, etc.

Do you need creep, when the current level started so high?

Really? Are they considered "Fire"?


edit - Nevermind. Elemental doesn't count anyway.
I have an issue with stick and shock overcoming a magical effect that stops everything else. I believe that at my table, all of the "1/2 impact armor" type special cases will not count against hardened armor.

...what?


Edit : Nevermind. Obvious troll is obvious.

Excuse me? You mentioned that anti-spirit weapons hadn't experienced creep; that's because S&S (which had already been mentioned) and Stunbolt (which OP excluded) are already amazing. You don't need to creep above amazing.

--
Agreed, Bearclaw. We don't let S&S beat ITNW; it's not clear that S&S should even affect spirits at all. What should affect something with the equivalent of moderate/heavy vehicle armor is anti-vehicle weapons: powerful AP bullets, assault cannons, explosives, etc. And, naturally, spells.

they're just high energy weapons. what's wrong with that???

I thought he just didn't realize they get their own massive innate AP effects, instead inheriting it from being Elemental.

S&S is still probably better (as always), just because it's cheaper/more common, and works in all your normal guns. If someone invests in Heavy Weapons and a crazy expensive/rare Gauss, or in Exotic: Laser, I think they've earned that -1/2 Armor.

Yerameyahu wasn't trolling. Stick and shock as written genuinely does about as good a job as you can expect from a weapon. Here's really what it comes down to: in the Shadowrun universe there is really no way around the simple fact that trying to handle an area haunted by a couple wild spirits without even a mystic adept as backup is a deeply stupid idea. Physical adept abilities are largely a trap option for fighting off spirits and they are only mildly useful if they have Astral Perception so they can plop down a warded area for you to work from. Without Astral Projection, banishing, wards, spirit formula and high powered mana spells it's frankly really hard to deal with the simple fact that Free Spirits are astral beings with Materialization powers and when it comes to pure mobility they're playing a different game than mundos are-- summoned and bound spirits are easy to handle largely because typically some wage mage magically coerced it into coming at you like a kamikaze pitbull. Now, if your question is really more like "I've got a spirit coming right at me, what's my best option to scare it off?" then, again, that's already been answered: Stick and Shock. If the scenario is seriously some sort of weird bug hunt where the GM forbids magicians and is just throwing a mob of materialized spirits that will fight you in a painfully obvious and mathematically deterministic way for some reason, then your best option is to seriously just have everyone be a rigger running drones with stick and shock and some FAB III.

The sad part is, Stick and Shock should be the LAST thing that works on spirits, since electro-stun weapons work largely by disrupting biological systems, which spirits don't have.

But by RAW they take out spirits faster than nearly anything else besides a full blown Banishing specialist.




-k

Exactly. And some people do disallow tasers hurting spirits, for such reasons. I kinda like the idea of a squad of laser-troopers.

I managed to bash together an elven squishy shaman: MAG 5, CHA 7, WIL 5, she slings stunbolts like there's no tomorrow. If this doesn't work, she can also summon some spirits.

There is always the choice to use biological weapons, FAB3 I think is the one that eats spirits. If you had a all non awakened team it might be a viable "oh shit" plan

can't a physad with a focus weapon take spirits apart pretty easy? Doesnt have to be a full mage? Or most big guns? We dont allow stick n shock in our game at all (turning your SMG into a full auto taser is very bad)

@Psikerlord
The spirit will be defending with force X2. (Or mostly even more on the physical plane)

So yes, it would work about to force 7 or 8, like SnS. Or you would need a very high force weapon focus and maybe attune it...

Yeah, that works too. Also, I've limited S&S ammo to shotguns only in my campaign.

Elephant Rifle with sawn off barrels, pistol grip and Ex-Explosive Slugs and a foregrip. Add an underslung Elephant Rifle as well to get that extra OOMPH - not to mention a bad-ass looking weapon.

The gun can fire X2 barrels at once and will do 11P AP-2.

It would have to be F6 to be immune to it so most spirits will have a problem.

Not really. Melee PhysAds kinda suck at killing spirits. A weapon focus cuts through Immunity and gives a couple dice but that's nowhere near good enough to make up for the fact that melee is about as low as it gets on the Shadowrun totem pole and spirits come with a wide suite of abilities right out of the box. Focus weapons work on spirits that are dumb enough to traipse right up to you and make with the fisticuffs despite lacking decent melee defenses thanks to their low force, but just about anything worth worrying about has ways of making you pay for needing to actually do something so gauche as trying to fight hand to hand, like fly in the air and throw lightning at you, fry you with their Energy Aura, tether you to the ground with Binding, try and kite you with Fear, kill you with spells, or even straight up shoot you with an honest to god gun if they're a Guardian spirit and their summoner hands them one. Meanwhile, resisting melee defenders virtually always get to add either melee skills or dodge to their defense rolls and Spirits all get Unarmed and Dodge equal to their force while even the slowest non-watcher Spirits have a Reaction score of Force+2. So let's say the team is fighting a fairly standard available-to-hermetics Force 3 Fire Spirit. Your PhysAd is dealing with something that flies, spits fire, defends against their attacks with 9 dice (12 on full defense, and all spirits have 2 passes),* may take Fear as an optional power and deals 3 Fire damage reflexively when struck while your big plan is to just flail at it with Complex Actions. Unless the GM is lofting you softballs and it charges right at the team you're likely better off feeding it some burst fire stick 'n' shock or zapping it with a spell.


*Obviously, many adepts can and will hit that. But that kind of defense pool means missing isn't a trivial concern and Spirits add two more dice to that pool per level of Force right up to Force 7, so Spirits become very hard to even hit in melee--16-17 dice at force 7, 20+ on Full D-- around the same time people start finding that their stick and shock need a lot of net hits to deal damage.

But only with the old laser backpack and a former fire-station as their base.

I know this is homebrew, but I have been looking at it and I think it's insanely good at dealing with spirits.

http://pepperonie.deviantart.com/art/Shado...-Types-41371676
(the last one)

You're hitting a creature (particularly a spirit) with a barrier and making them roll against disruption.
A force 10 barrier biofiber* will disrupt any spirit 7 or below more than 75% of the time and even against force 10 spirits you have about a 50/50 chance of disrupting them.
It will instantly knock out most dual natured creatures.
It can end most sustained spells (unless they've been overcast), especially armor and other defensive spells.
Depending upon how you rule on ties, this can get even more powerful.

*Lower force biofiber is available and is still effective, but let's face it, runners probably aren't going to be packing anything that's not overkill.

How would you rule for these?

I'm thinking-
-2 Dam +4AP Aval: 2xForce Cost: 50 x Force
(low damage since these are low density rounds and would not be very effective against mundane targets)
The biofiber dies in the combat turn immediately after being fired.

Burst Fire: Add one to the effective barrier value rather than one to the damage for burst fire.

Thoughts?

Monowhips, Monofiliament Shotgun Bolas should do the trick.

That seems insanely good indeed, thorya. That's a big red flag right there, isn't it? Things should be sanely good.

I'm not sure the firearms rules are meant to be resolved as 'throwing a barrier at someone'. Wouldn't it be safer to just say, 'they count as magic against ITNW'? I don't know that we'd want something *stronger* than S&S, but maybe just something that seems more appropriate (than tasing spirits).

Would it be possible to liquidate biofiber into an algae form - or at least liquidate it for at least awhile? Perhaps turning the biofiber into a slurry moment before firing.

Backpack solution.
Tank 1: Biofiber in containment with Blender attachement
Tank 2: Pressurized water

Press button - Blend Biofiber - Add water - Shoot water at spirit.

Im thinking Water Cannon+Biofiber VS Spirits

Who you gonna call - Ghost Drenchers

Nice find, Thorya. Very interesting, and I like it plenty. For too long astrals have had the ability to go where they please, when they please. I've always hated that, the idea that astrals can snoop as they please without worry. This fixes that imbalance.

Yeah, it is powerful, and I think just allowing it to bypass ITNW would be effective in providing mundanes a reasonable counter to spirits. I think the high cost and ineffectiveness against mundanes is an important factor. I agree, I don't want another S&S round that is more effective than anything else available. I want something that reasonably hurts spirits, since they've been around for 60 years and I'm sure someone's come up with a way to handle them.

I'm still inclined to use it as forcing the spirit through a barrier, because I also like the ability of mundanes to tear up spells, but it's homebrew anyway, so people can figure out what works at their table. I think I would limit it to force 6 biofiber, for the sake of balance. The ability to knock out a dual natured creature is problematic and I'm not sure how to handle burst fire, since I realized my original suggestion would just make it too good.

I agree. I liked the way you made it weaker for non-spirits. It just seems… insanely good. At some point, higher cost isn't enough to balance something that's *really* powerful.

Yeah, my thought was to simply standardize the Force of the biofiber in the bullets, instead of offering all possibilities. Or, offer like 2 (Force 3, Force 6, I dunno).
But I think it'd be even simpler to ignore the Force and just say it ignore ITNW, or maybe ignores ITNW *and* does +1 DV against spirits, etc.

I don't really think it'd work on spells anyway, though, and anti-spirit is the main focus. Making a 'hole' in a spirit makes sense as dealing damage, but I'm less convinced about making 'holes' in active spells.

What about gauss guns, headshots with APDS, assault cannons, sniper rifles, etcetera?

Of those, only the gauss gets a '1/2 armor' effect.

Can you actually call a shot on a spirit? I mean it's just a physical form they've taken. It's not like they actually have a brain in their heads to hit. Also, you forgot Lasers, but who has the money for those anyway when SNS does the same think at 1/50 of the price and doesn't require you to dump karma into using them.

Hey, my Missions character got one for free!

He can't hit the broad side of a barn with it, and has yet to use it in combat, but it makes a fine intimidation tool.

Start burning the chair between a tied up captive's legs, and it's amazing how they cooperate.





-k

Well, freebies aside, they're usually more trouble than they're worth.

I don't think I would use a laser for that. I would think a blowtorch might actually be more intimidating. A laser might cut clean through your victim as soon as you touch them. It's amazing how long it can take to burn through something with a blow torch and how much cooperation you can get after 5-10 seconds of trying to burn through the jeans between their legs.

Though, I guess for a runner the fact that you use a weapon that expensive as a toy is probably frightening on a whole different level, because it implies all levels of insane connections and backers that they don't want to mess with.

They mentioned lasers up towards the top, of course. Yes, they're basically as expensive and Forbidden as gauss cannons, I'd forgotten that.

I'm going to echo that going up against spirits without magic backup is not a Good Thing©. Even adepts with weapon foci are out matched by the shear amount of maneuverability spirits have. They can literally come at you from any where.