I can see where you're coming from. It does kinda make carrying passengers a weakness - but I'd have thought that the power was still halved since you're still shooting the vehicle so you still get penalised for shooting through this big hunk of metal.

They do still get the vehicle's armor for cover. That and the fact that the windows are usually opaque and equally heavily armored, if there are any windows…

~J

I've always been partial to the "have the fire elemental manifest in the crew compartment" means of dealing with armored vehicles.

Unfortunately, there's too many 'Spirit Ball Grenades' in my campaign for that to work effectively :o)

My issue with this is that passengers are still protected by vehicular armor which if I remember is the factor that makes it halve and stage down once...


or you can have a salamander manifest in the fuel tank.

Also note... to my knowledge there is no minimum on the physical size of a manifested salamander, at least not that I have noticed... Stats may be given somewhere defining it for all spirits, but I don't know what or where they are, if they exist. If there are none, a salamander could manifest inside the engine and use its flamethrower innate spell.

Salamander stats are in MITS, and they do give a physical description. Not that it matters all that much, this is a spirit afterall :o)

Right, but the physical description doesn't state a minimum size, just what they happen to look like.

Very true. And the usual 'BOD rule of thumb' don't work much for spirits :o)

My rule of thumb on this particular problem is solved by a two part question 9and caveat) I put forth.
#1) Is physically striking a passenger possible, without first firing through the vehicle's armor plating? If no, such in the case of crew compartments in IFVs, do not pass go. You cannot shoot through windows/viewing slots if there is an armored plate *currently down* over them.
#2) Would a shot to an exposed passenger neccessitate the round/shell/weapon passing through parts of the vehicle? If no, such as in an open-backed Humvee, the weapon does not *automatically* do damage to the vehicle, but will generally do the light wound if the round/weapon is especially damaging or explosive. See 'Assault Cannon', 'Explosive charge,' or 'Dikoted blade-based weapon in strong man's hands.'

The caveat is that shooting at a passenger in most vehicles with decent cover (military vehicles, armored & window-tinted cars, planes, etc) firing at a pilot, driver or passenger usually neccesitates a called shot to be able to do *at all*.

A whole section on shooting passengers and nowhere did they mention called shots. After all, people don't shrink just because they jump into a vehicle.

But the area of them you can actually hit does shrink.

~J

No it doesn't. If you were targeting the portion of them that is behind glass, yes it would. But the rules use vehicular body or armor as a barrier rating. You can shoot through any part of that door, not just the window.

[EDIT]Door, roof, floor, rear, firewall, etc.[/EDIT]

Oh, and Zenmaxer, it specifically states not to stage down damage. The half power thing is not stated either way. I would think that they'd put it in there if you were still supposed to do it, then again, I did address the half power thing in my initial post.

That's fine. Just understand that your called shot is not canon.
[EDIT]No, wait. I stepped over the line. The called shot is not necessarily canon.[/EDIT]

nitpick:

cannon = large heavy gun

canon = an accepted principle or rule/a body of principles, rules, standards, or norms.

Noted and fixed. Thank you.

Blind fire! The would be tank buster is thwarted by +8 blind fire through those "tinted windows." Ugh! That's even worse than a called shot!