As I was going thumbing through my trusty Magic in the Shadows rulbook, I realized with much surprise that True Form Insect Spirits don't seem to have the Immunity to Normal Weapons power that I had always taken for granted since they are spirits after all, having a few armor points in the stat block alongside with their Body score...

If that so it means anyone with a good assault rifle or SMG can waste a True Form without sweating that much...is that the way things should be?

Or was I right in giving them the benefits of Immunity at twice their Force, which seems to be in accordance with descriptions of confrontations with these nasty killers found in SR novels like Burning Bright or 2XS with bullets ricocheting off their chitinous carapaces....

Where's the truth (except out there) ?

true form insect spirits are, well, spirits. they're astral beings that materialize according the normal rules. the rules for materialization include, i believe, immunity/normal weapons. now, flesh form spirits don't, i believe, have immunity/normal weapons.

edit: one of them 'm' words.

Right, Immunity comes automatically with materialization, and is in the description of that power.

[edit] manifesting! right!

mfb and BitBasher have it right.

True Forms have Immunity to Normal Weapons as part of Materializing (not manifesting -- that's just a ghostly image that can talk to mundanes). This acts like built-in armor to many types of attacks.

Flesh Forms do not have this, but can wear armor if they can find any that fits.

I'm relieved to see I wasn't mistaken...thanks, chummers...

I don't have my book on hand, but I seem to recall that Beetle spirits' stats listed extra armor compared to other spirits. Was this right? If so, how would that work, rules-wise? Treat the spirits as having a higher force when calculating their Immunity, or what?

Also, Flesh forms vary in appearance from giant, human-sized bugs, to mostly-human looking creatures with a few insectoid traits. I'd think that the bad merges (giant bugs) would get some sort of armor bonus for their chitin, but the more human-looking ones wouldn't. How do you calculate this?

The spirits armor would work against magical attacks.

I suppose one would add that armor and the immunity armor together for normal weapon attacks.

Yea, it would be cool if more insectile merges could get some armor etc. Just make up whatever rules you want.

I am under the impression that unless we are dealing with a True Form insect spirit, it is ultimately an amalgam of the human host and the possessing spirit, in physical appearance. Only True Forms are human-sized versions of the insect, without any metahuman traits at all.

I've always thought it should be easier(or at least less contradictory) to make Good Merges. I mean, Good Merges are supposedly the sign of assistance from an advanced queen/mother spirit, yet statistically, the aid from such a spirit makes a flesh form/true form more likely, and a good merge almost impossible.