Guns are great. Chain guns are better. Shot-chainguns are awesome. Flamethrowers burned the impurities of awesome away... with FIRE!

However, in Shadowrun science isn't the only player on the power table. Magic is also there, locking and loading for the elite few.

So how do we combine the two into a fantastic way of ending people right fast?

Well the obvious start is alchemy. Use rubber bullets, add contact preparations, put them in an air-pressure-based weapon (to prevent damage to the preparation when fired) and you can lay down a lot of oomph with a little prep work. Most paintball guns would be suitable, so you don't even need to custom make the weapon (though accuracy will suffer due to the unrifled barrel ect.)

Now, time for someone with a better working knowledge of magic to flesh this thread out.

I suspect the Magic Splat book will do alot for this as the whole trigger system has some gaping holes in it right now, like the question of contact trigger being set off by own caster etc...

Also Unique Enchantments can create some fun effects.

What I miss is the Elemental/Spirit bound to an item for making a flaming sword with attitude. (Look up the Elric/Stormbringer RPG for more ideas on using bound spirits in this manner). VERY not Spirit Politically Correct, but the potential....

The problem with magic and guns is the same problem with magic and bows; it is not possible, to the best of anyone's knowledge, for an enchanted projectile weapon to meaningfully impart power to the projectile which is launched from it.

Therefor, directly empowering a gun in the manner of a +2 High-Velocity Machine Gun just doesn't work... However...

There has been, sadly, an utter dearth of investiture into magically enhancing the function of the gun without toughing the projectiles. Imagine a firearm enchanted to suppress recoil, or to operate in utter silence...

Imagine a heavy machine gun and ammunition pack permanently linked by the ammo feed tube, with a permanent levitate spell to allow a gnome to carry it around as if it weighed no more than a stick, enchanted to suppress recoil so it didn't propel it backwards when fired, enchanted to resist heat without any deformation or warping, and enchanted so it operates in complete and utter silence without any muzzle flash.

Now imagine he's loaded that sumbitch with subsonic rounds.

Now feel pity for anyone downrange when he opens that motherfucker up and nobody has a clue why people are suddenly sprouting bullet holes.

The big problem of magitech weapon in SR, would be that it would lead to a magictech>tech which can be seen as a "magic>tech".

Mages/magic already dominate in many fields, having it be also better at tech would be the last step towards MagicRun.

I had a thread on this subject not that long ago.

Final conclusions were... well... inconclusive, but it might have some discussion that will interest you.

~Umi

You can make a penetrating dart that delivers an electric shock. Examples are Stick n Shock and taser/stun guns.

A dart can deliver a toxin payload. And example is NarcoJet.

These can be combined. A dart can inject a payload while conducting electricity at the same time.

Enchant it with a stunbolt spell. Ta da! Three stun resistance rolls. One for the electricity, one for the toxin, and one for the spell.

You can make a grenade launcher that fired alchemical preparations in the form of magic potions or powder. Because the preparation won't do any damage on contact, their not an attack. Then you can also activate them on the same turn, which is an attack. And they should be large enough to see without a perception check.

What kind of action is activating a preparation? The launching is necessary for Touch and Area spells. Line of Sight spells are limited to (Preparation x Force) meters. Does the magician need to be holding the preparation? If not, then is that range from where the preparation is or where the magician is?

And in my view, launching the preparation is an attack. Damage is irrelevant. I would even argue that activating the preparation is not an attack, even if it is a fireball.

So let me get this strait, currently I Could Not enchant a arrowhead with say.... a combat touch spell with a Contact trigger, than screw it to the shaft without touching it with my hands, than firing it from my bow? Or if it was a rubber bullet loaded into a clip. Its not being touched directly at any time.
Can the alchemist not touch their own contact preperations without setting them off even after creation?

It's... not clear. The rules for triggers just don't say. They're really rather half-baked and vague, which is a shame - Alchemy sounded so promising, but it has yet to get clear and comprehensive rules that explain how it works in all the various situations one might come up with for it.

~Umi

Maybe because it was rushed and poorly edited. It reads as if it was either thrown together at the last second, or just had no oversight to keep it cohesive.