My party came up against what I thought was a good fight last week - a Force 3 City Spirit materialised while the mage was tending to a dead cat.

It turns out to be a little underwhelming although one PC did call for help.

In SR3 a spirit is a nightmare for mundanes to take down, especially once you get to Force 4 or higher because there's very few things which will bypass Immunity to Normal Weapons. I mean, a mundane can't cast spells or use a weapon focus which leaves them either overpowering the Immunity power or using a water gun or something (elemental damage is only against Essence/Force, so halves the 'armour').

One of my players said that in a previous version, a normal close combat weapon negated Immunity as it was an extension of the character's will but I can't find anything like that in this version. However, I did find something about when dual natured along those lines by a mundane can't percieve so that's no good for them.....

Any help would be appreciated, as spirits will be popping up reasonably often in my campaign for a while.

Well, if the spirit manifests to attack, then you can roll willpower instead of your armed/unarmed skill to try and damage it in melee combat. It doesn't matter what weapon you use as long as it is hand held (do swords give you the reach bonus to TN still?). If the spirit is using its powers to muck with you and you don't have someone who can at least astrally perceive you are (to quote the movie Snatch) "Proper F*cked".

Disclaimer, no books on hand.

See now I thought I remembers this, but can't find it in the books. Anyone have a page reference on this?

In just a straight-up melee contest, the average civilian (Will 3, Cha 3) will have about an even chance to beat a force 3 spirit. Since reach modifiers apply, they'll do much better swinging a long-handled shovel (reach 2) than they will punching it, though.

The civilians have an edge if they attack in the first pass while the spirit is still manifesting (the spirit shouldn't get to use combat pool or reaction/skill to dodge, they'll just have to soak the damage). If you have multiple civilians involved, the friends in melee should be able to ensure a couple good hits.

If the spirit gets an opportunity to start using its powers, though (especially the universally-feared confusion power), then they're hosed. Then you'll only have a chance if there are more than 3 civilians involved (a force 3 spirit can only confuse 3 people simultaneously).

If your runners have better stats (Will and Cha) than the average civilian, than they should have no problems with a spirit, as long as they don't get confused first.

[edit] If your runners are all Street Sams with Charisma = 1, though, then you're right: they're toasted.

Sorry, no books, but I'll have access tonight if noone else responds.

When you say they shouldn't get pool, do you mean there's something in the rules to say they don't?

~J

I would think it would be a complex action to manifest, after all it takes up a service from a bound spirit IIRC (no books). So yes, there should be something in canon to support this.

Materialization and Manifestation are both Simple Actions (sr3.264 and sr3.173, respectively). The rules for engaging Physical forms of spirits can be found at sr3.188 -- the spirit cannot use Combat Pool when fighting against someone employing this method.

The Willpower contest explicitly prohibits the use of pool for the spirit ...

[edit]too slow[/edit]

Complex actions don't preclude pool use, though.

Edit: slow.

~J

Well there you go. Not for the reason I thought, but spelled out none the less.

What do people think about this? If I am holding an action and a spirit begins manifesting/materializing and I choose to attack it during that phase of initiative, does it get to defend?

Defend = roll its melee combat dice (sans CP)? If the spirit has not spotted the "ambushing" character from the astral before materializing (Stealth vs. Perception), you could roll a Surprise Test and disallow any defense by the spirit in case it gets no successes, or even if it gets less successes than the ambusher. If it has spotted the character from the astral plane, I see no reason why it could not defend itself.

Yes.

Okay, so can someone point me to the page with the Contest of Wills on it or just describe the mechanics here.

Right now in my campaign, a mundane gets stopped by the Immunity power - only 2 characters in my camapign have the strength to overwhelm rating 6 hardened armour, and possibly rating 8 hardened armour, but beyond that it'll take a weapon focus to do the job.

And lets not get into firearms.... AR's bounce off of Force 4 spirits :o(

An AR round will bounce off a Force 4 but a Heavy Pistol won't.

Depending on whether you go with the literal interpretation of the Immunity critter/spirit power or with the FAQ-version, neither does a 3-round EX-Ex AR burst.

AE, sorry I must have missed the page ref. I'll look that up tonight when I've got my books back.

I've been using the FAQ version of the power, hence why my players have a problem... though they haven't quite grasped the potency of Ex rounds as yet :o) My own char, for the odd time I don't GM, does use them exclusively though in all his weapons :o)

Thanks for the help guys.

Or you could just have your characters pick up stun batons and tasers, which are classesed as shock weapons and therefor elemental damage and therefor bypass the immunity. Depending on the power level of your game, relying on willpower can be rather risky. Its bad enough on a force 4-5 spirit but on the rare chance a force 6 or 7 one shows up, if you dont have a backup plan youre hosed.

I would argue that the armor is affective even against magic weapons, just reducing the weapon's damage code as per normal rules(9D-6 spirit armor=3D, etc.) with mundane weapons of any kind having no efect unless handheld and using willpower. Also, the elemental effect of a shock weapon/taser is dependant on actually contacting the target. If the spirit is immune to normal weapons then the weapon cannot touch the spirit and cannot discharge. With regard to the EX explosive ammo, ranged weapons don't work, period.

What part, and what is the source (no books here)? Are you saying the spirit's armor is not effective against magical weapons? That seems like a double shot to the spirit's effectiveness to me.

I stand corrected.

Could someone elaborate a bit on how this whole business of using Willpower to fight spirits works?

Do you default to it as if it was a weapon skill, or just roll it straight up, in a contest vs. the force of the spirit? What do you use for damage? Charisma?

I find this all very interesting, because I'm playing a street sam with a Willpower of 8 in a game taking place in Chicago just before Bug City...

mmu1: You don't have SR3?

you roll Willpower as if it were the appropriate weapon skill for whatever you happen to be wielding--fists, pistol butt, 20-foot pole, whatever--and deal (Cha)M damage. you get the reach bonus for your weapon. the spirit counters with its Force, and cannot use any dice pools to help resist.

The attacking character cannot use CP with the WIL roll either, obviously, and the spirit's (possible) Armor is ignored. Very useful against lower-Force bugs, whose Immunity & Armor would make killing them otherwise pretty hard.

Provided, of course, that you get into and live through hand to hand until you have an action to use this option. Again, another reason why tasers are a good idea. Some spirits, while easier to take down with willpower, are also a lot more threatening in melee combat and will surely opt to use the normal attack rules when engaging. So dont rule out being whacked first before you have a chance to use this when planning things out.

Yup. Always carry around a broomhandle or a bayonet for a long arm or some such item, even if you have no skill for it. Not only does it give you the Reach bonus for engaging the Materialized spirit with your WIL, it will also significantly increase your chances of surviving the 29-die 6M Physical attack of a Force 6 Male Mantid. Unless you have amazing Unarmed skills (above 6) or very good Reach 1 melee weapon skills (6, preferably), you're often better off just defaulting to STR with a broomhandle.

Although that still isn't going to increase your chances of survival much above 0, unless you are packing rather heavy armor and have a good BOD.

I'm going to have to reread the spirit combat sections. I guess I am not as familiar with them as I thought, or I am all mixed up with SR2

IIRC, The only part that's differed from SR2 is the new part about hardend armor. The process has been the same since SR2-era The Grimoire. But yeah, read SR3.

The damage you do when WIL battling a spirit is also stun, not physical. I checked the page last night, and it should help a little in the adventure I'm running.

I hadn't thought about tasers and shock sticks, although it does make sense. A PC has shock hands as well which should work well.

Guess it's definately a 'up close and personal' deal. The pistoleer/sniper will be a little miffed, though he is reasonably willful and charismatic.

On the subject of elemental effect:

Is it canon that a tazer causes Elemental Effect, and so you can shock a Force 5 earth elem (or any elem) for 5S? Elemental effect != normal weapon?

Elemental armor is treated as Hardened armor, so there is some point where no damage could be done based on the weapons power level.

Otherwise, reduce and roll.