I'm wondering about a thing.

Let's say that you face a free spirit and injure him severely. What would/could prevent him from fleeing in the metaplans? Actually, if youdon't blow him in a single attack, he could jus do that, no?

if you are on the physical plane it would just have to dematerialize to the astral to withdraw from the fight.

Even if the mage pops in after it, it can zip a good ways off forcing the mage to either chase and leave the team behind or give up pursuit.

What's the problem, though? If it flees, it is beaten.

You don't have to kill everything.

Bye
Thanee

Well unless that Spirit is your mortal ennemy.

I already wondered about this in Earthdawn, for the case of horrors, and likewise, many stories in SR involve spirits as ennemies (blood spirits, and so on...).


And, can a mage follow it in metaplans?

spirits are not mortal in the same sense as a human or dwarf, so it's more like immortal enemy.

Metaplanar diving can be done, but that would probably require a metaplanar quest to take you where you want to go, but that also means dealing with the Dweller on the Threshold.

You having a particular beef with a spirit or having one harass you from afar?

Are free spirits able to pop back and forth to the metaplanes at will? I thought that spirits needed to get summoned over (allies being a bit special, as they are anchored to their partner, with a lot of karma in that bond).

Otherwise we could potentially have free malign spirits (Insect, sgedim, etc) popping back and forth, I'd think?

Insects and Sehdim are special cases. The Insect spirits can only get here (SR Earth) through a Insect shaman summoning them. Shedim just tagged along when Ghost Walker popped through the DC rift and my understanding is the Shedim Masters can call more over but there is a limited number of masters. Their home planes are located very far astrally from Earth which is why they (Insects and Shedim) need help getting here. A guide as it were.

Other free spirits can and do pop back and forth between the astral, the (close) meta planes and the physical. Things like wraiths which feed off negative human emotions or tricksters or even the odd corporate shareholder (looking at you Buttercup). Most spirits don't really care for the physical plane which is why they don't hang out here all the time. They come when called correctly but are pretty anxious to get back home.

Shedim are also Inhabiting spirits who suffer from Evanescence on Earth, so they have to permanently possess a body to stay here. No quick hopping back into the astral for them if they're in danger. Of course, they tend to have Regeneration as well, which makes them tougher to kill.

Regeneration is kind of a mixed bag in Shadowrun. It can be very effective, but doesn't work on magical damage, which is a pretty big exception.

Quite true - if you have a mage handy. If not...well, there was quite the chilling encounter described in SR3 Year of the Comet, when the Shedim first appeared. The person trapped by a small horde of the living dead wasn't a mage, and things ended...poorly for him.

I might be mistaken but I think there is a short story involving a rift within a submarine volcano, and the protagonist sees shedim in the rift. (At least) one from there establishes itself in SR Earth. Right at the end of the story there's a megalodon. I don't remember more though now.

Nope I'm coming from a Gamemaster perspective. I'm actually wondering how to close an arc of my campaign. Should I let my NPC-ennemy die in the final fight, because it's the climax of the campaign ("ups I forgot to flee to the metaplan"), or is there something more interesting to build around this.

well, one of the free spirit powers is where they hide part of their life in a physical object.

As long as the hiding place remains safe, the spirit cannot be permanently banished or destroyed by any means.
The spirit is able to return after a year and a day even if banished with its spirit formula, but a character holding the formula
can attempt to call and command the spirit.

Breaking the object doesn't harm the spirit but would make them vulnerable to the usual means or removal.

So maybe have the object be one of their goals to break it so they can deal with their enemy

Know what else regeneration has a terrible time with? Full auto to the face. Actually, most gunshots in general are too much for regeneration.

Why?

Because you roll Magic and regenerate hits worth of damage. The smallest holdout pistol in the game with 1 net hit does FIVE DAMAGE. You'd need a magic rating of 15 to shrug that off at the same rate it's being dealt.

Even if you have armor, there's a point at which you go from taking no damage (and don't need regeneration) to taking 4 boxes all at once (at which point regeneration will save you from outright death and that's about it, maybe).

Had a vampire PC in a game once, thought it was The Cleverest Plan to engage in melee. Took a shotgun blast to the face, pretty much died instantly. He forgot that:
a) he had only 4-8 dice to the test (I forget exactly how many at the time)
b) it triggers once per combat round (and everyone had 3 passes, so that meant 3 chances (per enemy!) to get shot before he could heal)
c) guns hurt, a lot

Even after all the regeneration he was allowed (two rolls, IIRC: once for the round, then a bonus roll to avoid death), I think he still ended up 2 boxes past overflow. I was the only on that left that fight at full health because I did the Smart Thing and took cover.

It's actually Magic + Body in both 4th ed and 5th ed so it's a bit better than just a magic roll. It's actually great if the thing with regeneration has a stupidly high body, like a shedim master in a dead troll for example.

Been away from game for too long. Still, it isn't the sort of die pool that lets you be a juggernaught. Guns will still take you down very quickly.

Yup. That's why I liked the 1-3rd ed regeneration. Only for critters and NPCs.

- or Immunity To Normal Weapons. If the GM allowed shifters and vampires in SR3, they had the full regeneration power:

Go smoke up with the Dweller and quest for the spririt's true name.

Bind that fucker.

Problem solved.

ITNW is stronger than actual regeneration, assuming a value of ITNW > 6 (4 points is just low enough to be useless, as the only thing it blocks is an unarmed punch from a lethargic puppy, whereas 8 is a challenge to overcome sometimes, at 12 it becomes only bypassable with artillery).

At which point, if something breaks past the ITNW value, said entity is probably just outright dead anyway. At least in SR4. The change maded to hardened armor in SR5 is one of the few things I like about SR5.

Like regeneration, ITNW is great against mundane attacks, and doesn't work at all against magic attacks, whether it be spells, banishing, or killing hands/weapon foci.

I tracked it down finally. Shadowrun: Spells & Chrome (ISBN 978.1.934857.23.6) p272 - Ilsa J. Bick's story "The art of diving in the dark" which is set in "a dead, unknown undersea volcano between the Big Island and Maui" "somewhere off the Kohala Coast, Hawai'i" which is a cluster of islands in the Pacific ocean.

SPOILER BELOW


I kinda thought a thread on shedim might not mind a little necromancy.

On the side note that is Regen - it can be awesome and it can be awful - at least in SR3.

A few months ago, we were doing one of the Bottled Demon runs. Out on a ship, in a storm, in the pacific, on a boat full of Shedim and a couple of masters. Had two mages and two mundanes, no idea what we were going into at the start. Terrifying, brutal, multi-round combats that dragged on and on and on because the SOBs kept getting back up.

The troll street samurai with high strength and a dikoted polearm, good skill and reasonable combat pool was still having issues getting past ITNW on some rounds, but consistently doing damage, and it was failing its knockdown test - but it kept passing the regen check and getting back up. Eventually the team fled for their lives, only just making it off the boat and out of the storm. They were also unaware that one of the Master Shedim was with them in a stolen power focus - but that's another story...

On the other hand, our Owl Shapeshifter had terrible luck. She was captured by "the bad guy" in her personal story arc, and was chained up and being tortured for his entertainment. Punched in the chest by a troll - took deadly, failed regen roll, took deadly damage at the end of the round and then failed her check for magic loss.
It turned out the troll was actually her friend in disguise, waiting for an opportune moment to help her get free - and thus was mortified when she didn't regenerate (same troll as the story above BTW). So he hits her again, hoping that the fresh damage will make her regenerate. Rolled another 1. Allowed a karma re-roll on the regen roll..... rolled another 1. So - it was hand of god time, and the Karma Pool 11 character dropped back to Karma Pool 1 and 0 Good karma....