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Message no. 1
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 19:09:02 CDT
While running last night, I realized that the armor spell is a game/realism
buster. I knew it before, but when one of my PC's bounced a 14mm round (The
Ares MonsterHammer from the old Shadowland mag., benchmarked at 12M in my
campaign [even after CC]), taking no damage due to her 13(!) points of
Ballistic armor (armor jacket 5, +2 for Form Fitting lv 3, +6 from a
Quickened armor spell), it just made me nauseous.

Now, admitedly, I let this happen in a way. I'd been using FA weapons
against them for some time, which gets around that problem, but this
occurance made me realize that there is a problem with the rules for the
armor spell, particularly because the player, and her teammates, are
developing an invincibility complex, which we all know leads to incredibly
munchineous stupidity in the long run.

Dispeling the spell would suffice in the short term, but she'd just Quicken
another and be precisely within the rules.

So, my question is, how can the armor spell be revised so as to maintain
it's integrity and usefulness without leading to stupid situations like
this.

I've come up with a couple of solutions:

* The armor spell gives both Impact and Ballistic armor, but only at 1
point/2 casting successes achieved.

* The armor spell gives normal armor ratings as described in SR3, but at 1/2
(round down) against Ballistic [this runs into problems with MitS
armor-varients, though]

Does anybody have any good ideas on this situation?
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Message no. 2
From: Deirdre M. Brooks xenya@********.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 17:49:56 -0700
"Nightmare ..." wrote:
>
<snip>
> Does anybody have any good ideas on this situation?

I was always partial to the version that gave you extra dice to stage
down damage.

--
Deird'Re M. Brooks | xenya@********.com | cam#9309026
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
"If you loved me, you'd all kill yourselves today."
-- Spider Jerusalem | http://www.teleport.com/~xenya
Message no. 3
From: Alfredo B Alves dghost@****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 20:20:36 -0500
On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 19:09:02 CDT "Nightmare ..." <tarot0@*******.com>
writes:
> While running last night, I realized that the armor spell is a
> game/realism
> buster. I knew it before, but when one of my PC's bounced a 14mm
> round (The
> Ares MonsterHammer from the old Shadowland mag., benchmarked at 12M
> in my
> campaign [even after CC]), taking no damage due to her 13(!) points
> of
> Ballistic armor (armor jacket 5, +2 for Form Fitting lv 3, +6 from a
> Quickened armor spell), it just made me nauseous.
<SNIP>

Do you realize that only the 6 points from the spell is treated as a
Barrier? Therefore, only attacks of power 6 or lower are "bounced". Also,
Form-fitting 3 would only give one point of armor (3/2 = 1.5 rounded down
to 1). I know this is the rule in SR3, but I can't remember where the 2nd
Edition's rule is.

Therefore, her total armor is only (only!) 12.

--
D. Ghost
Profanity is the one language all programmers know best
- Troutman's 6th programming postulate.

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Message no. 4
From: NaCl(aq) jed7466@******.isc.rit.edu
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 21:05:05 -0400
"Nightmare ..." wrote:
<Snip>

> Now, admitedly, I let this happen in a way. I'd been using FA weapons
> against them for some time, which gets around that problem, but this
> occurance made me realize that there is a problem with the rules for the
> armor spell, particularly because the player, and her teammates, are
> developing an invincibility complex, which we all know leads to incredibly
> munchineous stupidity in the long run.
>

<SNIP>
Gee, I guess my GM is just evil, then . . . .we can't really get munchkin,
because he gives us runs that are made to hurt us a little. For example, if you
know a player can have 13 points of armor, why not hand your NPC's some APDS
shotguns? Really kills invinsibility complexes. :) Just another suggestion to
beat armor.


--
NaCl(aq)
-------------
GCS(GAT) d>d-- s-:- a-->a? C++++ S E W+>W++ w PS? PE Y+ R+ tv-@ b+ DI+++ G
e>e+++ h>h+ r--- !y+**
Message no. 5
From: Archimage4@***.com Archimage4@***.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:18:21 EDT
Nightmare wrote:

>Dispeling the spell would suffice in the short term, but she'd just Quicken
another and >be precisely within the rules.

Quickened Armor spell... hmm. I had another player try this once. I came up
with a few nasty ways of beating it.

An Armor spell doesn't protect you against a gas grenade. Have all your
guard NPCs carry around gas masks and lots of Neurostun grenades. Also, if
you MUST do physical damage, make sure to do enough to at least break through
the Barrier Rating. If even one point gets through, it gets toasted ("If the
Barrier is penetrated, it collapses and the spell ends." pg 189 BBB). But
why would you want to destroy the spell, when you can have so much evil GM
fun with it?

If the spell is quickened, he can't turn it on and off: it's always on. This
doesn't seem like much of a problem, until you realize that the character
can't change clothes in the morning (Why would the spell let cloth through,
but not a bullet? Magic is not intelligent enough to make this distinction
on its own). He also can't eat (same deal, with food this time). And going
to the bathroom would be really fun. How would the, um, waste drain out?

Of course, if you just want to dispell it, do so. Quickening a spell isn't
like sustaining it: it takes karma to do it. The player may start to wonder
whether the spell is really worth it when he's spending more on Quickening
then Initiation.

Just a few ideas to give the character's life a living hell...

-- The Archimage
Message no. 6
From: Simon and Fiona sfuller@******.com.au
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 15:41:53 +1000
-----Original Message-----
From: Archimage4@***.com <Archimage4@***.com>
To: shadowrn@*********.com <shadowrn@*********.com>
Date: Saturday, April 29, 2000 3:20 PM
Subject: Re: Armor Spell blues


>Nightmare wrote:
>
>>Dispeling the spell would suffice in the short term, but she'd just
Quicken
>another and >be precisely within the rules.
>
>Quickened Armor spell... hmm. I had another player try this once. I came
up
>with a few nasty ways of beating it.
>
>An Armor spell doesn't protect you against a gas grenade. Have all your
>guard NPCs carry around gas masks and lots of Neurostun grenades. Also, if
>you MUST do physical damage, make sure to do enough to at least break
through
>the Barrier Rating. If even one point gets through, it gets toasted ("If
the
>Barrier is penetrated, it collapses and the spell ends." pg 189 BBB). But
>why would you want to destroy the spell, when you can have so much evil GM
>fun with it?
>
>If the spell is quickened, he can't turn it on and off: it's always on.
This
>doesn't seem like much of a problem, until you realize that the character
>can't change clothes in the morning (Why would the spell let cloth through,
>but not a bullet? Magic is not intelligent enough to make this distinction
>on its own). He also can't eat (same deal, with food this time). And
going
>to the bathroom would be really fun. How would the, um, waste drain out?
>
>Of course, if you just want to dispell it, do so. Quickening a spell isn't
>like sustaining it: it takes karma to do it. The player may start to
wonder
>whether the spell is really worth it when he's spending more on Quickening
>then Initiation.
>
>Just a few ideas to give the character's life a living hell...
>
>-- The Archimage
>
hah! love it!
Sammy: "Hey, whats all that yellow stuff?"
Mage"Shut up."
Sammy "Yesterday I thought it was just funny shoes, but now it's up to your
knees"
Mage "I said Shut up!"
Sammy "And isn't it about time you changed your clothes? You've been wearing
that same shirt for days now. You're really beginning to smell."
Mage "Yeah? Well I don't care, I'm bulletproof."
Sammy "The new beard doesn't suit you, either. Why's it all flat? It looks
like you're wrapped in Glad Wrap."
Message no. 7
From: Deirdre M. Brooks xenya@********.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 22:44:14 -0700
Archimage4@***.com wrote:
>
> An Armor spell doesn't protect you against a gas grenade. Have all your
> guard NPCs carry around gas masks and lots of Neurostun grenades. Also, if
> you MUST do physical damage, make sure to do enough to at least break through
> the Barrier Rating. If even one point gets through, it gets toasted ("If the
> Barrier is penetrated, it collapses and the spell ends." pg 189 BBB). But
> why would you want to destroy the spell, when you can have so much evil GM
> fun with it?

And suddenly, everyone carries gas grenades and tosses them at you first
thing. "Why go to the trouble of spending karma for an edge if the NPCs
automatically act to bypass it all the time?"

> If the spell is quickened, he can't turn it on and off: it's always on. This
> doesn't seem like much of a problem, until you realize that the character
> can't change clothes in the morning (Why would the spell let cloth through,
> but not a bullet? Magic is not intelligent enough to make this distinction
> on its own). He also can't eat (same deal, with food this time). And going
> to the bathroom would be really fun. How would the, um, waste drain out?

Of course, if a GM sprung this upon me after I cast the spell, I'd find
a new GM - the old one was clearly broken and not working properly.

> Of course, if you just want to dispell it, do so. Quickening a spell isn't
> like sustaining it: it takes karma to do it. The player may start to wonder
> whether the spell is really worth it when he's spending more on Quickening
> then Initiation.

It's the same as the first concern - if you constantly act to break
quickened spells just because they're there, the player may begin to
wonder if it's worth the trouble playing in your game.

It's not appropriate for a PC to have a panacea, but it's not
appropriate for the GM to smack down the players anytime the character
gets an edge.

> Just a few ideas to give the character's life a living hell...

Is the idea to make the character's life a living hell or provide a
challenging and fun experience?

--
Deird'Re M. Brooks | xenya@********.com | cam#9309026
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
"If you loved me, you'd all kill yourselves today."
-- Spider Jerusalem | http://www.teleport.com/~xenya
Message no. 8
From: Jeff axter@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 22:54:03 -0700 (PDT)
> armor spell, particularly because the player, and
> her teammates, are
> developing an invincibility complex, which we all
> know leads to incredibly
> munchineous stupidity in the long run.
>

I had a similar problem with a cyber troll with Body
15 and 6 points of ballistic. He figured out that he
could stop any bullet and was invicible.. until he met
Bob : small human, bigger gun and better spell.

So I would just let them develop they invicibility
complex and die in an horrible stupid fashion way dor
this once, and hope they learn something.

====Jeff

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Message no. 9
From: Aristotle antithesis@**********.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 02:05:48 -0400
>>> The Archimage Wrote:
<snip>[ Also, if you MUST do physical damage, make sure to do enough to at
least break through he Barrier Rating. If even one point gets through, it
gets toasted ("If the Barrier is penetrated, it collapses and the spell
ends." pg 189 BBB). ]<snip>

Actually I believe that is a missprint from a bad cut and paste. As the
spell reads in the revised printing it doesn't have a barrier rating it
just adds to armor (both ballistic and impact IIRC).

Signed,
Aristotle
Message no. 10
From: Oliver McDonald oliver@*********.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 23:33:50 -0700 (PDT)
On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 19:09:02 CDT, Nightmare ... wrote:

>While running last night, I realized that the armor spell is a game/realism
>buster. I knew it before, but when one of my PC's bounced a 14mm round (The
>Ares MonsterHammer from the old Shadowland mag., benchmarked at 12M in my
>campaign [even after CC]), taking no damage due to her 13(!) points of
>Ballistic armor (armor jacket 5, +2 for Form Fitting lv 3, +6 from a
>Quickened armor spell), it just made me nauseous.

Yuck.

>Now, admitedly, I let this happen in a way. I'd been using FA weapons
>against them for some time, which gets around that problem, but this
>occurance made me realize that there is a problem with the rules for the
>armor spell, particularly because the player, and her teammates, are
>developing an invincibility complex, which we all know leads to incredibly
>munchineous stupidity in the long run.
>
>Dispeling the spell would suffice in the short term, but she'd just Quicken
>another and be precisely within the rules.
>
>So, my question is, how can the armor spell be revised so as to maintain
>it's integrity and usefulness without leading to stupid situations like
>this.
>
>I've come up with a couple of solutions:
>
>* The armor spell gives both Impact and Ballistic armor, but only at 1
>point/2 casting successes achieved.
>
>* The armor spell gives normal armor ratings as described in SR3, but at 1/2
>(round down) against Ballistic [this runs into problems with MitS
>armor-varients, though]

I don't really like those 'solutions'...

>Does anybody have any good ideas on this situation?

Apply the layering armour rules. Solves the problem using the existing rules.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Oliver McDonald - oliver@*********.com
http://www.spydernet.com/oliver/
-----------------------------------------------------------
Space. The Final Frontier. Let's not close it down.
Brought to you via CyberSpace, the recursive frontier.

"that is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may
die."
-H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu."

ICQ: 38158540
Message no. 11
From: Alfredo B Alves dghost@****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:05:09 -0500
On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 21:05:05 -0400 "NaCl(aq)"
<jed7466@******.isc.rit.edu> writes:
<SNIP>
> For
> example, if you
> know a player can have 13 points of armor, why not hand your NPC's
> some APDS
> shotguns?
<SNIP>

I thought APDS was considered regular ammo against magical barriers ...

--
D. Ghost
Profanity is the one language all programmers know best
- Troutman's 6th programming postulate.

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Message no. 12
From: Alfredo B Alves dghost@****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:03:50 -0500
On Sat, 29 Apr 2000 01:18:21 EDT Archimage4@***.com writes:
<SNIP>
> If the spell is quickened, he can't turn it on and off: it's always
> on. This
> doesn't seem like much of a problem, until you realize that the
> character
> can't change clothes in the morning (Why would the spell let cloth
> through,
> but not a bullet? Magic is not intelligent enough to make this
> distinction
> on its own).

Oh no? Then how do Blast Barrier spells work? Magic IS intelligent
enough. The spell parameters for the Armor spell would probably not be
"keep out certain materials". Instead they would probably be more like
"keep out anything with x or greater kinetic energy". A Barrier spell, on
the other hand, would probably simply keep everything out (or try to, at
least ;) ).

> He also can't eat (same deal, with food this time).
> And going
> to the bathroom would be really fun. How would the, um, waste drain
> out?
<SNIP>

Considering what I just said, probably very slowly :) (Same goes for
showering, btw. :) )

--
D. Ghost
Profanity is the one language all programmers know best
- Troutman's 6th programming postulate.

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Message no. 13
From: Alfredo B Alves dghost@****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 02:01:37 -0500
On Sat, 29 Apr 2000 02:05:48 -0400 Aristotle <antithesis@**********.com>
writes:
<SNIP>
> Actually I believe that is a missprint from a bad cut and paste. As
> the
> spell reads in the revised printing it doesn't have a barrier rating
> it
> just adds to armor (both ballistic and impact IIRC).

Oh yeah, I forgot about the revised printing... The armor spell isn't a
barrier anymore. If you have an armor spell of force 6 and get shot by a
hold out, you still have to roll damage resitance.

>From the Errata (version 1.8):
"This spell creates a glowing field of magical energy around the target
that protects against impact and ballistic damage. One success is enough
to create the magical field around the character of an Armor Rating equal
to the Force of the spell. The Armor spell is compatible with all armor
types and adds its rating to the rating of the physical armor being worn.
This spell either works or it doesn’t; extra successes do not add
additional points to the Armor Rating."

This replaces the original spell description.

So, how do you sneak around with a "glowing field of magical energy"?

--
D. Ghost
Profanity is the one language all programmers know best
- Troutman's 6th programming postulate.

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Message no. 14
From: Archimage4@***.com Archimage4@***.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 03:12:14 EDT
Xenya wrote:

>And suddenly, everyone carries gas grenades and tosses them at you first
>thing. "Why go to the trouble of spending karma for an edge if the NPCs
>automatically act to bypass it all the time?"

You'd have to wonder why more security guards wouldn't do this anyway. Less
collateral damage than firing SMGs or even assault rifles, and most runners
(at least, the ones I've seen) don't bother getting air filtration systems.
Or gas masks. Or even a freakin' napkin to hold in front of their mouths.
I'd use Neurostun even in the absence of an Armor spell if it proved
effective, and there's no real reason for the NPCs to do any different. If
you didn't bother planning against a possible method of attack, you screwed
up. And if you screw up, it ceases to be my problem.

>Of course, if a GM sprung this upon me after I cast the spell, I'd find
>a new GM - the old one was clearly broken and not working properly.

The spell is only this dangerous when quickened. If sustained normally, they
can drop it for meal time. Even if put into a sustaining focus, the focus
can be turned off when they need to take a leak. You make the decision to
Quicken, you deal with the consequnces. Welcome to the wonderful world of
reality!

>It's the same as the first concern - if you constantly act to break
>quickened spells just because they're there, the player may begin to
>wonder if it's worth the trouble playing in your game.

Not all quickened spells. But place yourself in the NPC mage's situation: a
single person is wreaking havoc on the rest of your group, but your bullets
are simply bouncing off of him. The group's mage, curious, uses astral
perception, and sees a spell aura over the would-be Superman. Is it
unreasonable to assume that he would determine that this spell was what was
making the opponent invincible, and attempt to disrupt it? No: given the
mage's likely Intelligence, he could probably deduce at least this much, even
if he had never encountered an Armor spell before. The PCs would do the same
if put in this position, so it is grossly unfair to deny this option to NPC's
merely because it would make the player upset.

>It's not appropriate for a PC to have a panacea, but it's not
>appropriate for the GM to smack down the players anytime the character
>gets an edge.

When did I imply that I toasted PCs every time they got an edge?
Shadowrunners are supposed to get better as their careers progress: I have
nothing against the inevitable edge. It all comes down to what the spell's
effect is; the power of the 'edge' is irrelevant. I'd have these things
happen with that particular spell whether the Force was 1 or 21. The only
difference would be that the one with a Force 1 Armor spell could probably
get it blown off before he starved to death. I only "smack down" players
when it would be a rational and logical outcomes of actions and reactions
taken in the world. In other words, would you yell at the GM if your
character put a gun to his head, pulled the trigger, and the GM informed you
that he was now dead?

>Is the idea to make the character's life a living hell or provide a
challenging and fun >experience?

Answered above. I never commanded the person "QUICKEN THE SPELL NOW SO I CAN
TORTURE YOU!!!" He made the choice, he lives with what the choice brings in
relation to reality. Am I, the GM, to be ridiculed simply because I tell the
character the effects of his choice? And if I am, how am I providing a
"challenging" and "fun" experience if I keep anything bad from ever
happening
to the PCs?

I hope this has made my position a little more clear.

-- The Archimage
Message no. 15
From: Archimage4@***.com Archimage4@***.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 03:20:10 EDT
D. Ghost wrote:

>Oh no? Then how do Blast Barrier spells work? Magic IS intelligent
>enough. The spell parameters for the Armor spell would probably not be
>"keep out certain materials". Instead they would probably be more like
>"keep out anything with x or greater kinetic energy". A Barrier spell,
>on the other hand, would probably simply keep everything out (or try to, at
>least ;) ).

In the case of the Blast Barrier, it is because it has been SPECIFICALLY TOLD
to protect against explosions. It has been TOLD to make that disntiction.
With a plain vanilla Armor spell, it hasn't. So it won't. See "Magic is not
intelligent" under "Limits of Sorcery" in MitS, page 47, middle of the
right
column.

<SNIP>

-- The Archimage
Message no. 16
From: Archimage4@***.com Archimage4@***.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 03:22:44 EDT
Aristotle wrote:

>Actually I believe that is a missprint from a bad cut and paste. As the
>spell reads in the revised printing it doesn't have a barrier rating it
>just adds to armor (both ballistic and impact IIRC).

Really? Hmmm...

Methinks I need to check the errata sheets a bit more often! :D

<SNIP>

-- The Archimage
Message no. 17
From: Deirdre M. Brooks xenya@********.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 00:33:16 -0700
Archimage4@***.com wrote:
>
> You'd have to wonder why more security guards wouldn't do this anyway. Less
> collateral damage than firing SMGs or even assault rifles, and most runners
> (at least, the ones I've seen) don't bother getting air filtration systems.
> Or gas masks. Or even a freakin' napkin to hold in front of their mouths.
> I'd use Neurostun even in the absence of an Armor spell if it proved
> effective, and there's no real reason for the NPCs to do any different. If
> you didn't bother planning against a possible method of attack, you screwed
> up. And if you screw up, it ceases to be my problem.

No argument with this... I like to use non-lethal,
non-collateral-damage-inflicting means to resolve problems (and you can
question them later). The problem is when they suddenly do it because
the GM doesn't have a better way to handle a situation, if that makes
sense.

"Last week, the guards shot at me with uzi-3s, so I quickened armor. Now
they throw knockout gas?"

> >Of course, if a GM sprung this upon me after I cast the spell, I'd find
> >a new GM - the old one was clearly broken and not working properly.
>
> The spell is only this dangerous when quickened. If sustained normally, they
> can drop it for meal time. Even if put into a sustaining focus, the focus
> can be turned off when they need to take a leak. You make the decision to
> Quicken, you deal with the consequnces. Welcome to the wonderful world of
> reality!

This isn't reality. This is the GM playing games - if the GM said before
I quickened the spell, "this is how it will work," I'd say, "Okay, how
about one of those sustaining foci..." But if he said it *after* I spent
the Karma (and say I have Sorcery 6 and the spell at Force 4-6), I'd
feel about as offended as if he told me that my Samurai forgot to unload
her assault rifle before cleaning it because I didn't specifically say
that I was.

Does that make sense? You're shafting the player without fair warning.

> >It's the same as the first concern - if you constantly act to break
> >quickened spells just because they're there, the player may begin to
> >wonder if it's worth the trouble playing in your game.
>
> Not all quickened spells. But place yourself in the NPC mage's situation: a
> single person is wreaking havoc on the rest of your group, but your bullets
> are simply bouncing off of him. The group's mage, curious, uses astral
> perception, and sees a spell aura over the would-be Superman. Is it
> unreasonable to assume that he would determine that this spell was what was
> making the opponent invincible, and attempt to disrupt it? No: given the
> mage's likely Intelligence, he could probably deduce at least this much, even
> if he had never encountered an Armor spell before. The PCs would do the same
> if put in this position, so it is grossly unfair to deny this option to NPC's
> merely because it would make the player upset.

This makes sense if it's not contrived.

Of course, he'd do better to just zap the mage with a spell that
wouldn't notice the armor rather than take time to take a spell apart in
the middle of pitched battle - unless he's already astral and his body
is in a safe place.

> >It's not appropriate for a PC to have a panacea, but it's not
> >appropriate for the GM to smack down the players anytime the character
> >gets an edge.
>
> When did I imply that I toasted PCs every time they got an edge?
> Shadowrunners are supposed to get better as their careers progress: I have
> nothing against the inevitable edge. It all comes down to what the spell's
> effect is; the power of the 'edge' is irrelevant. I'd have these things
> happen with that particular spell whether the Force was 1 or 21. The only
> difference would be that the one with a Force 1 Armor spell could probably
> get it blown off before he starved to death. I only "smack down" players
> when it would be a rational and logical outcomes of actions and reactions
> taken in the world. In other words, would you yell at the GM if your
> character put a gun to his head, pulled the trigger, and the GM informed you
> that he was now dead?

No, but then I know what's likely to happen if I hold a gun to my head.
If the GM has different ideas about the game world's physics than the
players (say your example with eating and the armor spell - I disagree
with your interpretation), springing that different interpretation
*after* the character takes the irrevocable step - especially in a field
that the character hypothetically *knows* - is simply abusive.

> >Is the idea to make the character's life a living hell or provide a
> challenging and fun >experience?
>
> Answered above. I never commanded the person "QUICKEN THE SPELL NOW SO I CAN
> TORTURE YOU!!!" He made the choice, he lives with what the choice brings in
> relation to reality. Am I, the GM, to be ridiculed simply because I tell the
> character the effects of his choice? And if I am, how am I providing a
> "challenging" and "fun" experience if I keep anything bad from
ever happening
> to the PCs?

No, see above. If you've decided that Spell X has Y effect, and the
player has no reason to deduce that Y effect is involved, and uses Spell
X, only to get Y effect sprung on him, you've abused the trust placed in
you.

> I hope this has made my position a little more clear.

A little.

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Message no. 18
From: Alfredo B Alves dghost@****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 02:54:16 -0500
On Sat, 29 Apr 2000 03:20:10 EDT Archimage4@***.com writes:
<SNIP>
> See
> "Magic is not
> intelligent" under "Limits of Sorcery" in MitS, page 47, middle of
> the right
> column.

You are overgeneralizing that section. Otherwise, you'd cast a barrier in
a dome around you and either nothing would would get through it
(including air) or nothing would be stopped by it, regardless of the
barrier parameters (ie, plain vanilla barrier vrs blast barrier). What
that section means (IMO) is that you can't design a fireball spell that
will sit and wait for the first elf to come through a door or something
like that. Any sort of AI descision making is a no-no. Saying protect me
against attacks but let me take a leak is the same as restricted or Very
Restricted Target, merely being too vague to warrant a drain
modification.

--
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- Troutman's 6th programming postulate.

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Message no. 19
From: Mark A Shieh SHODAN+@***.EDU
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 03:55:52 -0400 (EDT)
"Nightmare ..." <tarot0@*******.com> writes:
> While running last night, I realized that the armor spell is a game/realism
> buster. I knew it before, but when one of my PC's bounced a
> [snip 12M attack due to 7 ballistic armor and a Force 6 Armor spell]

> Does anybody have any good ideas on this situation?

Manabolt (old faithful). CCSS is useful so the mage doesn't go squish
at the beginning of combat.

If they're standing out in the open, they're going to be taking a lot
of fire with plenty of successes behind them. You can't resist 1M
staged up all day unless you're a troll, because you run out of combat
pool. (Only the first 6 points of armor are hardened.)

Use the CC Martial Arts rules and apply a chokehold/jointlock/other
disabling move. If you're disarmed and your face is being pushed into
the ground, I don't care how much armor you have, it's hard to be
useful. The other PCs make this problematic, of course.

Opposing mage with Levitate. (I'm surprised this doesn't get used
more often anyway)

FAB-III, vs. quickened *anything*.

net gun.

Enough firepower to convince everyone without 13 points of armor to
leave, and then any method desired to deal with a single hard target.

Sorry if I repeated a suggestion, I only remember some of the others.

Mark
Message no. 20
From: Phil Smith phil_urbanhell@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 09:16:55 GMT
SNIP
>So, my question is, how can the armor spell be revised so as to maintain
>it's integrity and usefulness without leading to stupid situations like
>this.
>
>I've come up with a couple of solutions:
>
>* The armor spell gives both Impact and Ballistic armor, but only at 1
>point/2 casting successes achieved.
>
>* The armor spell gives normal armor ratings as described in SR3, but at
>1/2
>(round down) against Ballistic [this runs into problems with MitS
>armor-varients, though]
>
>Does anybody have any good ideas on this situation?
>

Try this; the spell gives a ballistic/impact armor of 2x successes (up to
the spell's force) or even 1x if that works better.

Phil
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Message no. 21
From: Phil Smith phil_urbanhell@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 09:44:38 GMT
>From: Alfredo B Alves <dghost@****.com>
>Reply-To: shadowrn@*********.com
>To: shadowrn@*********.com
>Subject: Re: Armor Spell blues
>Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 02:54:16 -0500
>
>On Sat, 29 Apr 2000 03:20:10 EDT Archimage4@***.com writes:
><SNIP>
> > See
> > "Magic is not
> > intelligent" under "Limits of Sorcery" in MitS, page 47, middle
of
> > the right
> > column.
>
>You are overgeneralizing that section. Otherwise, you'd cast a barrier in
>a dome around you and either nothing would would get through it
>(including air) or nothing would be stopped by it, regardless of the
>barrier parameters (ie, plain vanilla barrier vrs blast barrier). What
>that section means (IMO) is that you can't design a fireball spell that
>will sit and wait for the first elf to come through a door or something
>like that. Any sort of AI descision making is a no-no. Saying protect me
>against attacks but let me take a leak is the same as restricted or Very
>Restricted Target, merely being too vague to warrant a drain
>modification.
>
>--
>D. Ghost

There is a simple solution to half of this; a one way armor spell.
Otherwise armor spells IMHO would try to stop outgoing bullets as well as
incoming ones. Certainly, it would still stop the mage from eating which is
why I always cast it into a sustaning focus (at force 3; not giving the GM
(if and when I am not he) a reason to bitch).
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Message no. 22
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 11:52:42 +0200
According to Nightmare ..., at 19:09 on 28 Apr 00, the word on the street
was...

> While running last night, I realized that the armor spell is a game/realism
> buster. I knew it before, but when one of my PC's bounced a 14mm round (The
> Ares MonsterHammer from the old Shadowland mag.,

Ah yes, the rather poor BFG article that for some reason appeared in two
issues of the magazine.

> Now, admitedly, I let this happen in a way. I'd been using FA weapons
> against them for some time, which gets around that problem, but this
> occurance made me realize that there is a problem with the rules for the
> armor spell, particularly because the player, and her teammates, are
> developing an invincibility complex, which we all know leads to incredibly
> munchineous stupidity in the long run.

IMO, an invincibility complex leads to death, as they'll start
underestimating their opposition. "A medium-sized dragon? Hah! The last
one didn't hurt us, either... Ouch! Oops..."

> I've come up with a couple of solutions:
>
> * The armor spell gives both Impact and Ballistic armor, but only at 1
> point/2 casting successes achieved.
>
> * The armor spell gives normal armor ratings as described in SR3, but at 1/2
> (round down) against Ballistic [this runs into problems with MitS
> armor-varients, though]

You could make the player split the successes between ballistic and impact
armor, with a maximum number of successes equal to the spell's Force or
something. That way, the player can choose to have good ballistic armor
(so you send a good martial artist against her) or good impact armor (so
you shoot her) but it's unlikely she'll have both.

--
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Message no. 23
From: Patrick Goodman remo@***.net
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 09:00:04 -0500
From: Mark A Shieh
Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2000 2:56 AM

> Manabolt (old faithful). CCSS is useful so the mage doesn't go squish
> at the beginning of combat.

Mark, this is embarrassing to me, but...I can't recall what CCSS means, and
I don't have my books handy. When it's somewhat later in the day and all my
neurons are firing again, this situation will probably resolve itself, but
until then, will someone take pity on me and tell me...?

--
Patrick E. Goodman
remo@***.net
"I'm going to tell you something cool." -- Gene Wolfe
Message no. 24
From: Manolis Skoulikas great_worm@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 22:14:27 +0300
Nightmare ... wrote:
>
> While running last night, I realized that the armor spell is a game/realism
> buster. I knew it before, but when one of my PC's bounced a 14mm round (The
> Ares MonsterHammer from the old Shadowland mag., benchmarked at 12M in my
> campaign [even after CC]), taking no damage due to her 13(!) points of
> Ballistic armor (armor jacket 5, +2 for Form Fitting lv 3, +6 from a
> Quickened armor spell), it just made me nauseous.
>
No need to alter anything you can deal with with existing rules.

1) Grenades in a confined space (power 30+)

2) Full Auto with EX explosive rounds (power 19+).

3) Full auto or burst fire with APDS rounds (power 17+ with half
armor=6)

4) Gas

5) DMSO

6) Neurostun darts

7) Spells

8) Multiple successes with low powered weapons tend to kill anyone once
he/she/it exhausts his/her/its combat pool.

9) knockdown in dangerous places and vehicle collisions (I won't even
bother to calculate the power)

10) Spirit powers (Confusion , Fear etc.)

You still think your players are invincible.
Give them a chance! SR is a very deadly setting and having some extra
armor hardly gives them the edge.

BTW the ''armor'' spell is not treated as a barrier, only the ''physical
barrier'' spell is.
And water does pass through the force field, just as it passes through
the much 'denser' physical barrier spell
(see spell description) even there might be be some original cohesion
problems with stuff more cohesive than gases.

The Wiz

PS: If you really want to try a combo that really can hurt your
campaign, use THREE anchored Force 7 personal physical barrier spells
(Drain is only Light!) along with a spirit barrier and shielding dice.
No spells, no normal weapons, no spirit powers and you can possibly
levitate for free falling!
If any of my players is reading this, don't get any ideas 'cause I got a
nasty countermeasure for this and I won't hesitate to try it out on you
if pull such a stunt on me (not bad fr bullying them back into
position?ha?
Message no. 25
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 16:28:14 CDT
D. Ghost wrote...

>Do you realize that only the 6 points from the spell is treated as a
>Barrier? Therefore, only attacks of power 6 or lower are "bounced".
??? If the (total) armor rating is higher than the Power of the attack, how
can the attack have any effect? What, would she be resisting damage at a
Power of 2 or something? Now I'm confused...

>Also, Form-fitting 3 would only give one point of armor (3/2 = 1.5 >rounded
>down to 1).

Last I knew, Form-fitting level 3 had a Ballistic of 4, unless CC changed
that and I didn't notice.


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Message no. 26
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 16:31:29 CDT
NaCl(aq) wrote:

>Gee, I guess my GM is just evil, then . . . .we can't really get >munchkin,
>because he gives us runs that are made to hurt us a little. >For example,
>if you know a player can have 13 points of armor, why >not hand your NPC's
>some APDS shotguns? Really kills invinsibility >complexes. :) Just another
>suggestion to beat armor.

I must be running low on evil...Somebody gimme a refill please! ;)
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Message no. 27
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 16:35:33 CDT
Simon and Fiona wrote:

>Sammy: "Hey, whats all that yellow stuff?"
>Mage"Shut up."
>Sammy "Yesterday I thought it was just funny shoes, but now it's up >to
>your knees"
>Mage "I said Shut up!"
>Sammy "And isn't it about time you changed your clothes? You've been
> >wearing that same shirt for days now. You're really beginning to >smell."
>Mage "Yeah? Well I don't care, I'm bulletproof."
>Sammy "The new beard doesn't suit you, either. Why's it all flat? It >looks
>like you're wrapped in Glad Wrap."

ROFLMAO!




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Message no. 28
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 16:46:09 CDT
Archimage said:

>If the spell is quickened, he can't turn it on and off: it's always >on.
>This doesn't seem like much of a problem, until you realize that >the
>character can't change clothes in the morning (Why would the >spell let
>cloth through, but not a bullet? Magic is not intelligent >enough to make
>this distinction on its own). He also can't eat (same >deal, with food
>this time). And going to the bathroom would be >really fun. How would
>the, um, waste drain out?

Great in theory, but the problem is one of continuity. The game world I'm
running has existed for ten (real world) years now, and the spell never
worked like that before....
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Message no. 29
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 16:51:42 CDT
Deird'Re wrote:

>And suddenly, everyone carries gas grenades and tosses them at you >first
>thing. "Why go to the trouble of spending karma for an edge if >the NPCs
>automatically act to bypass it all the time?"

Pretty much the same as my concern about APDS ammo. Once and a while is
fine, but if every NPC starts carrying an arsenal of anti-armor gear, the
game world and the logic thereof just goes right down the toilet. And that
I don't want.

>Of course, if a GM sprung this upon me after I cast the spell, I'd >find a
>new GM - the old one was clearly broken and not working >properly.

Precisely. Every since '90, the various GMs (myself included) have been
running in this game world, and a certain amount of in-character continuity
must be maintained. Changing mechanics is fine, since they don't have any
"game world" existance, but in-character things must be maintained to a
large degree.

>Is the idea to make the character's life a living hell or provide a
>challenging and fun experience?

I've always thought the idea was to make it challenging and fun. If it
ain't fun, why bother? That's why I'm looking to change the mechanics, not
the spell.




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Message no. 30
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 16:57:36 CDT
Jeff wrote:

>So I would just let them develop they invicibility
>complex and die in an horrible stupid fashion way dor
>this once, and hope they learn something.

And ruin my plot line? I think not. The two characters that have become
the biggest problems are, regretably, the ones that I have scheduled to live
for at the very minimum the next four game months. I don't want them dead,
just realistically respectful of the dangers they face. When the PC's begin
to stop fearing gunfire, (through no fault of their own, because of a system
mechanic) something is drastically wrong.


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Message no. 31
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 17:00:50 CDT
Oliver wrote:

>Apply the layering armour rules. Solves the problem using the >existing
>rules.

Sweet! The only problems are continuity (easily solved) and player
acceptance...
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Message no. 32
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 17:12:20 CDT
D. Ghost wrote:

>So, how do you sneak around with a "glowing field of magical energy"?

This campaign world has always assumed that special effects (ie -
non-mechanical) of certain spells may be altered slightly to account for
varietions in the magician's spell signature. For instance, a long running
PC(at one time)/NPC(currently) of mine has a Powerbolt that looks like a
heat-shimmer as it flies at its target, making it effectively invisible
under most lighting conditions. His armor spell is the same, but most of
the rest of his spells (except telekinetics) are showy enough to outshine
Vegas. Thus, a balance is maintained.

The armor spells of the characters that started this debate are also near
invisible (they were cast by the same character), but this facet also has
never being a problem because the rest of her spells and suitably quirky or
showy.

Its only when a player wants to have ALL of their spells nearly
un-detectable (one idiot wanted an undetectable fireball!) that I start
enforcing spell appearances.


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Message no. 33
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 17:22:24 CDT
Gurth wrote:

>You could make the player split the successes between ballistic and >impact
>armor, with a maximum number of successes equal to the spell's >Force or
>something. That way, the player can choose to have good >ballistic armor
>(so you send a good martial artist against her) or >good impact armor (so
>you shoot her) but it's unlikely she'll have >both.

Nice! Elegent too. I like ;)
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Message no. 34
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 17:31:42 CDT
Manolis Skoulikas wrote:

>Give them a chance! SR is a very deadly setting and having some extra
>armor hardly gives them the edge.

A chance is great, but when the loose respect for some of the most common
elements in the game world (namely firefights), something needs to be done.
Especially when the attitude is not really their fault. They're just using
the rules to their best advantage, as they should. But when the rules start
to inhibit the realism of the game world and begin the make the story
unbelievable, one has to start examining the rules for flaws. In my
opinion, the rules are there to support the story, not vice versa.

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Message no. 35
From: Alfredo B Alves dghost@****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 18:55:19 -0500
On Sat, 29 Apr 2000 16:28:14 CDT "Nightmare ..." <tarot0@*******.com>
writes:
<SNIP>
> ??? If the (total) armor rating is higher than the Power of the
> attack, how
> can the attack have any effect? What, would she be resisting damage
> at a
> Power of 2 or something? Now I'm confused...

Correct. Minimum Target number of 2 and all. You only circumvent the
minimum target number issue with barriers and hardened armor. the armor
spell is neither.

<SNIP>
> Last I knew, Form-fitting level 3 had a Ballistic of 4, unless CC
> changed
> that and I didn't notice.

You're right. I was confused. :)

--
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- Troutman's 6th programming postulate.

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Message no. 36
From: Archimage4@***.com Archimage4@***.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 22:23:24 EDT
Dierd'Re wrote:

>This isn't reality. This is the GM playing games - if the GM said before
>I quickened the spell, "this is how it will work," I'd say, "Okay, how
>about one of those sustaining foci..." But if he said it *after* I spent
>the Karma (and say I have Sorcery 6 and the spell at Force 4-6), I'd
>feel about as offended as if he told me that my Samurai forgot to unload
>her assault rifle before cleaning it because I didn't specifically say
>that I was.
>
>Does that make sense? You're shafting the player without fair warning.

As a matter of fact, it DOES make sense. I had truthfully not considered
that aspect of the matter. I am a fairly new GM, and things slip by me
sometimes. Well, we all have to learn somehow.

-- The Archimage
Message no. 37
From: Deirdre M. Brooks xenya@********.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 19:44:21 -0700
Archimage4@***.com wrote:
>
> As a matter of fact, it DOES make sense. I had truthfully not considered
> that aspect of the matter. I am a fairly new GM, and things slip by me
> sometimes. Well, we all have to learn somehow.

You should see some of the things I did learning... :-)

--
Deird'Re M. Brooks | xenya@********.com | cam#9309026
Listowner: Aberrants_Worldwide, Fading_Suns_Games, TrinityRPG
"If you loved me, you'd all kill yourselves today."
-- Spider Jerusalem | http://www.teleport.com/~xenya
Message no. 38
From: Strago strago@***.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 03:52:12 -0400
"Nightmare ..." wrote:

> <SNIP>

> And ruin my plot line? I think not. The two characters that have become
> the biggest problems are, regretably, the ones that I have scheduled to live
> for at the very minimum the next four game months. I don't want them dead,
> just realistically respectful of the dangers they face.

> <SNIP>

"Ruin your plot line?" "Scheduled to live for at the very minimum the next
four
game months?"
Man, you take planning way too seriously. Your PCs must be used to being led
around by the nose, or good at playing "Connect the GM's dots", no offense
intended. My players (both groups) are remarkeably good at taking any plots I
might have and mangling them beyond recognition. Just do what you normally do
when PCs do something unconventional. I say, kill 'em off, and alter your plans.

>
> ________________________________________________________________________
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Message no. 39
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 11:04:48 +0200
According to Nightmare ..., at 16:28 on 29 Apr 00, the word on the street
was...

> >Do you realize that only the 6 points from the spell is treated as a
> >Barrier? Therefore, only attacks of power 6 or lower are "bounced".
> ??? If the (total) armor rating is higher than the Power of the attack, how
> can the attack have any effect? What, would she be resisting damage at a
> Power of 2 or something? Now I'm confused...

No need to be confused: regardless of the Power Level of an incoming
attack after armor reductions, you have to roll a Body test to resist it;
TNs of less than 2 become 2 instead. (Yes, you even roll if you're shot
with a 4L hold-out pistol with one success while you're wearing 13 points
of armor; whether you have 13 points or 2 doesn't matter in that case.)

The only exception is hardened armor, wearing which you don't have to
resist attacks whose Power is less than, or equal to, your armor rating.

--
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and who do it on mobile phones" --Ian Hislop, on Have I Got News For You
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Message no. 40
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 11:04:48 +0200
According to Manolis Skoulikas, at 22:14 on 29 Apr 00, the word on the
street was...

> No need to alter anything you can deal with with existing rules.
>
> 1) Grenades in a confined space (power 30+)

Those are the cases where I don't even roll for damage... We worked out
what a standard grenade did in a stairwell (PCs were being chased up one)
and it came out to somthing like Power Level 28. I don't want to think
about IPE, thankyouverymuch :)

> 2) Full Auto with EX explosive rounds (power 19+).
>
> 3) Full auto or burst fire with APDS rounds (power 17+ with half
> armor=6)

IMHO, ammo effects don't matter against spells -- a bullet is a bullet,
regardless of its special effects. This gets difficult in cases where
normal armor is being stacked with magical armor, though.

> You still think your players are invincible.
> Give them a chance! SR is a very deadly setting and having some extra
> armor hardly gives them the edge.

I feel I need to correct you slightly there: SR without armor is very
deadly; SR with armor is typically very survivable (unless the GM breaks
out the big guns).

This was proven very well in our group's old Cyberpirates campaign, where
one fairly tough character went from unwounded to killed by a single round
from a shotgun, only because he didn't wear armor. (Which in turn was a
result of talking about these things at the start of the campaign, along
the lines of "Do you know how hot it is in the Carribean?" with which I,
being the GM, tried to discourage PCs from wearing body armor all the
time; however, the players were not smart enough to realize they could put
on body armor before starting a firefight... :)

--
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Message no. 41
From: Jan Jaap van Poelgeest aka nevermelt jjp@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 11:23:48 +0200
Gurth:

> The only exception is hardened armor, wearing which you don't have to
> resist attacks whose Power is less than, or equal to, your armor
rating.

Which makes me wonder: does a vest with (ceramic) plates count as
hardened armour? Technology in the 2060's ought to have developed to
such a point that relatively thin plates (of some unnamed hight-tech
material) can provide mucho protecion.
Anyway, if this is the case, I know what the security guards at the next
facility my players hit will be wearing....


Jan Jaap van Poelgeest aka nevermelt
Message no. 42
From: Deirdre M. Brooks xenya@********.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 02:38:54 -0700
Strago wrote:
>
> "Ruin your plot line?" "Scheduled to live for at the very minimum the
next four
> game months?"
> Man, you take planning way too seriously. Your PCs must be used to being led
> around by the nose, or good at playing "Connect the GM's dots", no offense
> intended. My players (both groups) are remarkeably good at taking any plots I
> might have and mangling them beyond recognition. Just do what you normally do
> when PCs do something unconventional. I say, kill 'em off, and alter your plans.

"Not wanting to kill the characters" != "led around by the nose."
Perhaps Nightmare prefers a more dramatist setting and doesn't want to
set up certain death scenarios without a compelling good reason,
especially since the plothooks he may have in mind might depend on
certain characters - so dead character means changing the hooks around.

If a character does something stupid enough to get whacked tho...

--
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Message no. 43
From: Patrick Goodman remo@***.net
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 09:50:14 -0500
From: Strago
Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2000 2:52 AM

> > And ruin my plot line? I think not. The two characters that
> > have become the biggest problems are, regretably, the ones that
> > I have scheduled to live for at the very minimum the next four
> > game months. I don't want them dead, just realistically respectful
> > of the dangers they face.
>
> "Ruin your plot line?" "Scheduled to live for at the very minimum
> the next four game months?" Man, you take planning way too seriously.

While perhaps not so vehement about it, I tend to agree with Strago on this
point. You can plot and plan and have an over-arching plotline if you want,
but you have to be ready for something to throw a whole carton of
monkey-wrenches into your machinery.

Players quit.

Characters do something and deserve to die a good, heroic death, and somehow
contriving to keep them alive (A) looks fake and contrived and ruins the
feel of the game and (B) cheapens the characters actions and (C) reinforces
the idea that they're invincible.

> Your PCs must be used to being led around by the nose, or good at
> playing "Connect the GM's dots", no offense intended. My players
> (both groups) are remarkeably good at taking any plots I might have
> and mangling them beyond recognition.

Mine, too, which is why I stole a page from J. Michael Straczynski and
BABYLON 5 and his handling of a large story arc where actors sometimes quit
before a plotline was resolved.

His advice> Always have trapdoors. When Michael O'Hare decided he wanted
to go back to the theater and be closer to his family, he moved plot threads
connected to Commander Sinclair to other characters (and some into the
background), and brought in Captain Sheridan. When Pat Tallman couldn't
come back ffrom the pilot to reprise her role as Lyta Alexander, he
reassigned some of her plot threads to Talia Winters, and when *she* quit
with some things still unresolved, he put some of them right back onto Lyta.
And so on, and so forth.

Actors quit, and so do players. Characters do stupid things. You want to
be true to your plotline? Plan ahead, be ready to rearrange things, and let
them do what they're gonna do. Don't contrive too much.

--
Patrick E. Goodman
remo@***.net
"I'm going to tell you something cool." -- Gene Wolfe
Message no. 44
From: Manolis Skoulikas great_worm@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 21:29:09 +0300
Gurth wrote:
>
> According to Manolis Skoulikas, at 22:14 on 29 Apr 00, the word on the
> street was...
>
> > No need to alter anything you can deal with with existing rules.
> >
> > 1) Grenades in a confined space (power 30+)
>
> Those are the cases where I don't even roll for damage... We worked out
> what a standard grenade did in a stairwell (PCs were being chased up one)
> and it came out to somthing like Power Level 28. I don't want to think
> about IPE, thankyouverymuch :)
>

Do you use staging up for extra attacker successes on grenades though?
Other wise it's usually moderate damage.


> > 2) Full Auto with EX explosive rounds (power 19+).
> >
> > 3) Full auto or burst fire with APDS rounds (power 17+ with half
> > armor=6)
>
> IMHO, ammo effects don't matter against spells -- a bullet is a bullet,
> regardless of its special effects. This gets difficult in cases where
> normal armor is being stacked with magical armor, though.
>

The spell manifests as a real thing. Ergo, it can be penetrated.
Opinions?

> > You still think your players are invincible.
> > Give them a chance! SR is a very deadly setting and having some extra
> > armor hardly gives them the edge.
>
> I feel I need to correct you slightly there: SR without armor is very
> deadly; SR with armor is typically very survivable (unless the GM breaks
> out the big guns).
>
> This was proven very well in our group's old Cyberpirates campaign, where
> one fairly tough character went from unwounded to killed by a single round
> from a shotgun, only because he didn't wear armor. (Which in turn was a
> result of talking about these things at the start of the campaign, along
> the lines of "Do you know how hot it is in the Carribean?" with which I,
> being the GM, tried to discourage PCs from wearing body armor all the
> time; however, the players were not smart enough to realize they could put
> on body armor before starting a firefight... :)
>
> --
> Gurth@******.nl


To simultaneously answer to my friend ''Nightmare'', IMO armor makes
a world of difference and astute players realize that almost instantly
(after a painfull death or two :) ). the question is:
''Do we want our players to die?''
Or given the deadly nature of the game (survivable with armor?
Neeeaaah!)
more correctly:
''Do we want our players to die all the time?''

But I think this is getting too long a thread for my taste.
check for ''DCPS'' futher on.

the wiz
Message no. 45
From: Achille Autran aautran@*************.fr
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 02:31:57 +0200
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 21:29:09 +0300
From: Manolis Skoulikas <great_worm@*****.com>

> > > 1) Grenades in a confined space (power 30+)
> >
> > Those are the cases where I don't even roll for damage... We worked out
> > what a standard grenade did in a stairwell (PCs were being chased up one)
> > and it came out to somthing like Power Level 28. I don't want to think
> > about IPE, thankyouverymuch :)
> >
>
> Do you use staging up for extra attacker successes on grenades though?
> Other wise it's usually moderate damage.

Did you considered that surrounding walls are likely to collapse ?
Still get insane power scores, but with IPE there may be no chunky salsa
(it's the accepted formula, isn't it ?) effect at all.

> > IMHO, ammo effects don't matter against spells -- a bullet is a bullet,
> > regardless of its special effects. This gets difficult in cases where
> > normal armor is being stacked with magical armor, though.
> >
>
> The spell manifests as a real thing. Ergo, it can be penetrated.
> Opinions?

Rough and crude: physical barrier act as a porous wall. It stops a
bullet, a bike, your nose alike. APDS reduce protection. Armor, bullet
barrier and the like selectively affects the kinetic energy of incoming
attacks. It stops a bullet or a sword, but no 'ouch my nose' or
protection from that crumbling building (constant pressure). Best dealt
with like Frank Herbert's Dune shields. APDS does not reduce protection.
My opinion. Compact enough ? :)
Message no. 46
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 19:45:22 CDT
Strago wrote:

>Your PCs must be used to being led around by the nose

98% of the time they have to be, otherwise they just sit there and agrue
about stupid crap like who could take who in a fight. Either that or they
turn the game into a damn soap opera. The word "proactive" isn't in their
vocabularies.

>or good at playing "Connect the GM's dots"

Huh, if they were good at figuring out anything resembling a plot line, the
object of their last run wouldn't have been stolen from, literally,
underneath their noses.

>no offense intended.

None taken ;)



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Message no. 47
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 19:48:46 CDT
Gurth wrote:

>No need to be confused: regardless of the Power Level of an incoming
>attack after armor reductions, you have to roll a Body test to resist >it;
>TNs of less than 2 become 2 instead. (Yes, you even roll if >you're shot
>with a 4L hold-out pistol with one success while you're >wearing 13 points
>of armor; whether you have 13 points or 2 doesn't >matter in that case.)

That I never knew. Must have been a misinterpetation waaaay back on my
part. Thanks for clearing it up.



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Message no. 48
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 19:55:36 CDT
Deirdre wrote:

>Perhaps Nightmare prefers a more dramatist setting and doesn't want >to set
>up certain death scenarios without a compelling good reason,
>especially since the plothooks he may have in mind might depend on
>certain characters - so dead character means changing the hooks >around.

Caught me again. My current campaign(s) are centered around (and during) an
anthology of short stories I'm writing. The really sick part came when the
players realized that the plot line between the three was "set off" by the
first story in the anthology. The dominos fell from there...
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Message no. 49
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 20:11:59 CDT
Patrick Goodman wrote:

>You can plot and plan and have an over-arching plotline if you want,
>but you have to be ready for something to throw a whole carton of
>monkey-wrenches into your machinery.

The mistake is thinking that I have every little detail planned out. Nope.
The only thing I planned in advance are NPC actions and events driven by
those actions. Certain events WILL happen in the campaign (even if they're
only "off screen"), regardless of character actions or even the characters
themselves. What the characters do to get to those events and what they do
as a result of them makes the story.

Like I remember someone (I believe it was Blackjack) stating many moons ago,
the PCs are not the center of the world, instead being only a small part of
the whole. Yes, their actions may effect the course of events in the world,
but ultimately the world will go on, with or without them. As in real life
(and many SR novels), the PCs are not end all and be all of the plot. In
all actually, they aren't even the stars. But they're actions can make them
stars they play it right.

Thus, the integrity of the entire story can remain even if all the current
PC's were gone. It would be more difficult without certain characters,
though, and certain sub-plots would have to been abandoned. This doesn't
really have much effect on the player's attitudes, however, because the
trick is not to let them know what you're up to. ;)


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Message no. 50
From: Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 23:09:00 -0700 (PDT)
> > On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 19:09:02 CDT "Nightmare ..."
<tarot0@*******.com> writes:
> > While running last night, I realized that the
armor spell is a game/realism buster.

No, it isn't. Only if you don't use the correct rules.

> > I knew it before, but when one of my PC's bounced
a 14mm round (The Ares MonsterHammer from the old
Shadowland mag., benchmarked at 12M in my campaign
[even after CC]), taking no damage due to her 13(!)
points of Ballistic armor (armor jacket 5, +2 for Form
Fitting lv 3, +6 from a Quickened armor spell), it
just made me nauseous.

> Do you realize that only the 6 points from the spell
is treated as a Barrier? Therefore, only attacks of
power 6 or lower are "bounced".

Okay, point one. You CAN'T bounce attacks with an
armour spell. The version of the spell where it's
treated like a portable barrier has been errataed out
of existence. The armour spell simply adds NORMAL
ballistic armour. So, yes, the character had 13 points
of armour, but she still had to resist 2M damage,
modified by successes. As someone else pointed out,
using APDS ammo will seriously dampen the player's
invincibility complex.

Point two - I believe you mentioned something about
quickening the spell, Nightmare? You do realise that a
quickened spell CANNOT be deactivated, right? It's
always in operation? Do you also realise that the
armour spell creates a visible field of energy around
the subject?

Can you imagine the kinds of nasty things you can do
to a character who wanders around with a visible
force-field? :)

> Also, Form-fitting 3 would only give one point of
armor (3/2 = 1.5 rounded down to 1). I know this is
the rule in SR3, but I can't remember where the 2nd
Edition's rule is.
>
> Therefore, her total armor is only (only!) 12.
> D. Ghost

Wrong, Al. Form-fitting 3 is rating 4/1 B/I armour.
The SRII rule for layering armour is in FoF.

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'-booner)

S.S. f. P.S.C. & D.J.

.sig Sauer

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Message no. 51
From: Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 23:28:00 -0700 (PDT)
> On Fri, 28 Apr 2000 21:05:05 -0400 "NaCl(aq)"
<jed7466@******.isc.rit.edu> writes:
> <SNIP>
> > For example, if you know a player can have 13
points of armor, why not hand your NPC's some APDS
shotguns?
> <SNIP>
>
> I thought APDS was considered regular ammo against
magical barriers ...
> D. Ghost

I won't say it again, Al...

:)

The armour spell is treated as normal armour in all
ways, shapes and forms (except for the fact that it's
also a spell). It is NOT a barrier. The version of the
spell where it is has been done away with - for good reason.

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'-booner)

S.S. f. P.S.C. & D.J.

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Message no. 52
From: Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 00:36:16 -0700 (PDT)
> Manolis Skoulikas wrote:
> >Give them a chance! SR is a very deadly setting and
having some extra armor hardly gives them the edge.
>
> A chance is great, but when the loose respect for
some of the most common elements in the game world
(namely firefights), something needs to be done.
Especially when the attitude is not really their
fault.

No, it's your fault.

> They're just using the rules to their best
advantage, as they should.

No, they're not. They're using your misinterpretation
of the rules to their best advantage. The current
rules do NOT give them such a big advantage.

> But when the rules start to inhibit the realism of
the game world and begin the make the story
unbelievable, one has to start examining the rules for
flaws. In my opinion, the rules are there to support
the story, not vice versa.

Sure, and sorry if this seems abrasive, but the rules
aren't flawed. You're using them incorrectly.

1. The armour spell is not hardened (or a barrier).
It's plain, old armour. It doesn't bounce ANYTHING.

2. It has ALWAYS been the case that simply having a
normal armour rating higher than the power of an
attack does NOT bounce the attack. The minimum the
power can be reduced (without a barrier or hardened
armour) is to 2. As a number of peopl have said, throw
enough 2M attacks at a character and they WILL die (or
throw a few less at them and injure them severely
without killing them).

3. Powerbolts were never visible. :) Combat spells are
ALL invisible. The armour spell IS visible. If this is
really causing you that much trouble, I'd suggest
enforcing this.

4. If it really becomes necessary to do something
about the armour spell, have the character wander
through a ward or two. They can't. Either the ward
breaks, or their spell does. Either way, it's bad news
for them (if the ward breaks, the caster KNOWS it's
broken). Toss this at them just once and she should
realise that a quickened armour spell (in fact, any
quickened spell if it's becoming abusive) is more
trouble than it's worth.

5. Game consistency is all well and good, but not if
it's causing you serious problems. If your players are
mature, they should be able to accept it if you sit
them down and say, "Look, I've been doing this wrong.
We need to start doing it right before you
accidentally get your characters killed."

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'-booner)

S.S. f. P.S.C. & D.J.

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Message no. 53
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 12:00:26 +0200
According to Jan Jaap van Poelgeest aka ne, at 11:23 on 30 Apr 00, the
word on the street was...

> Which makes me wonder: does a vest with (ceramic) plates count as
> hardened armour? Technology in the 2060's ought to have developed to
> such a point that relatively thin plates (of some unnamed hight-tech
> material) can provide mucho protecion.

Ceramic plates don't do that, but gel-packs do (see FoF p. 53; I believe
they're in CC as well, but I've loaned that out so I can't look them up).

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Message no. 54
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 12:00:26 +0200
According to Manolis Skoulikas, at 21:29 on 30 Apr 00, the word on the
street was...

> > Those are the cases where I don't even roll for damage... We worked out
> > what a standard grenade did in a stairwell (PCs were being chased up one)
> > and it came out to somthing like Power Level 28. I don't want to think
> > about IPE, thankyouverymuch :)
>
> Do you use staging up for extra attacker successes on grenades though?

Yes. That's an average of 14 successes to stage it up...

> Other wise it's usually moderate damage.

28S I would tend to call Serious damage, not Moderate :) (Unless you're
Spike, of course *grin*)

> > IMHO, ammo effects don't matter against spells -- a bullet is a bullet,
> > regardless of its special effects. This gets difficult in cases where
> > normal armor is being stacked with magical armor, though.
> >
>
> The spell manifests as a real thing. Ergo, it can be penetrated.
> Opinions?

Yes, it can be penetrated. However, bullets like APDS halve ballistic
armor only because they go faster and have a smaller cross-section than
other bullets out of the same gun. For example, an APDS round from a sport
rifle may be about the same as a regular bullet from an assault rifle in
terms of dimensions and velocity. So what's the difference between an APDS
sporting rifle bullet and a regular assault rifle bullet...?

My point is that to a magical barrier, the type of bullet does not matter,
because the armor reduction is actually a fudged way of increasing the
Power Level of the weapon compared to the (non-magical) armor without
saying so.

That may not be a very good explanation of what I was trying to say, but I
hope you understand what I mean :)

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Message no. 55
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 12:00:26 +0200
According to Achille Autran, at 2:31 on 1 May 00, the word on the street
was...

> > > Those are the cases where I don't even roll for damage... We worked out
> > > what a standard grenade did in a stairwell (PCs were being chased up one)
> > > and it came out to somthing like Power Level 28. I don't want to think
> > > about IPE, thankyouverymuch :)
>
> Did you considered that surrounding walls are likely to collapse ?

Yes, I did. A reinforced concrete stairwell does not collapse very easily
by an explosion inside it, though (some concrete may go flying, however).
If you want to put it into game rules, I'd assume the barrier rating of
the stairwell would be at least 16 ("heavy structural material" says SR3,
p.124) which is doubled against blasts (p. 119) to 32, so a Power Level of
28 will not blow down the walls.

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Message no. 56
From: Manolis Skoulikas great_worm@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 19:12:31 +0300
Rand Ratinac wrote:

> 4. If it really becomes necessary to do something
> about the armour spell, have the character wander
> through a ward or two. They can't. Either the ward
> breaks, or their spell does. Either way, it's bad news
> for them (if the ward breaks, the caster KNOWS it's
> broken). Toss this at them just once and she should
> realise that a quickened armour spell (in fact, any
> quickened spell if it's becoming abusive) is more
> trouble than it's worth.

Sorry Doc, but astral barriers like wards only block astral forms.
A spell is not an astral form. Same goes for quickened spells.
It is penalized when passing through but it does pass through.
If I am wrong on this one, I would love some ref on the subject.

the wiz
Message no. 57
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 17:59:43 CDT
Manolis Skoulikas

>Sorry Doc, but astral barriers like wards only block astral forms.
>A spell is not an astral form. Same goes for quickened spells.
>It is penalized when passing through but it does pass through.
>If I am wrong on this one, I would love some ref on the subject.

Under SR3, I think you're right. Spells can't be destroyed in astral combat
anymore, just by dispelling. I interpet this as a change in the status of
spells from astral forms to astral patterns. I could be wrong though, but
that's what the rules seem to apply.



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Message no. 58
From: Nightmare ... tarot0@*******.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 18:11:09 CDT
Rand Ratinac wrote:

>The armour spell is not hardened (or a barrier).
>It's plain, old armour. It doesn't bounce ANYTHING.

Several people have pointed this out.

>It has ALWAYS been the case that simply having a
>normal armour rating higher than the power of an
>attack does NOT bounce the attack. The minimum the
>power can be reduced (without a barrier or hardened
>armour) is to 2. As a number of peopl have said, throw
>enough 2M attacks at a character and they WILL die (or
>throw a few less at them and injure them severely
>without killing them).

Gurth corrected me on that one already.

>Powerbolts were never visible. :) Combat spells are
>ALL invisible.

That point could be debated all day, especially when various SR art from
1990 til present (The covers of DMZ, SR1, and SR2 come to mind) seems to
imply otherwise. I'm not going into that, though. You have your
interpetations, and I have mine. Enough said.

>Game consistency is all well and good, but not if it's causing you >serious
>problems.

Internal consistancy of the game is all important, otherwise I might as well
let my game devolve to the non-existant quality level of crap like the Power
Rangers or some other such drek.

>If your players are mature...

Which they aren't.
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Message no. 59
From: Mark A Shieh SHODAN+@***.EDU
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 19:25:53 -0400 (EDT)
"Nightmare ..." <tarot0@*******.com> writes:
[snip]
> Several people have pointed this out.
[snip]
> Gurth corrected me on that one already.

Nightmare, it's the nature of the 'net that you'll get multiple
messages all with the same answer to your questions, since it takes
some time for replies to propagate. Please refrain from this type of
comment, if possible. I'll volunteer to explain lag on the 'net to
you over e-mail if no one else has already. Just send me mail.

> >Powerbolts were never visible. :) Combat spells are
> >ALL invisible.
>
> That point could be debated all day, especially when various SR art from
> 1990 til present (The covers of DMZ, SR1, and SR2 come to mind) seems to
> imply otherwise.

IIRC, this is stated pretty clearly in the rules, and SR art
is not a good way to handle things. All spells are visible, though
none are obviously so (Armor and other spells that list "obvious
effects" in their description are exceptions, of course. :) There's a
section in the BBB3 rules devoted to detecting spellcasting, if I have
remember the header correctly. Something about a perception test at
TN8-force? TN8+init grade-force? TN4+magic rating-force? I need to
find a job that lets me keep SR books in the office.
It's too bad that I can't work for FASA Interactive now that
they've been bought up by the Horrors. ;)

Mark
Message no. 60
From: Manolis Skoulikas great_worm@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 03:20:30 +0300
Gurth wrote:
>
> According to Manolis Skoulikas, at 21:29 on 30 Apr 00, the word on the
> street was...
>
> > > Those are the cases where I don't even roll for damage... We worked out
> > > what a standard grenade did in a stairwell (PCs were being chased up one)
> > > and it came out to somthing like Power Level 28. I don't want to think
> > > about IPE, thankyouverymuch :)
> >
> > Do you use staging up for extra attacker successes on grenades though?
>
> Yes. That's an average of 14 successes to stage it up...
>
OOOUUHHH! That sounds like french cuisine with a Texas twist! :)
Will you have some fries with that? :)

"Sounds like you killed him so much, son, that he'll be born dead in his
reincarnation!"

the wiz
Message no. 61
From: Manolis Skoulikas great_worm@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 03:20:34 +0300
Gurth wrote:

> Yes, it can be penetrated. However, bullets like APDS halve ballistic
> armor only because they go faster and have a smaller cross-section than
> other bullets out of the same gun. For example, an APDS round from a sport
> rifle may be about the same as a regular bullet from an assault rifle in
> terms of dimensions and velocity. So what's the difference between an APDS
> sporting rifle bullet and a regular assault rifle bullet...?
>
> My point is that to a magical barrier, the type of bullet does not matter,
> because the armor reduction is actually a fudged way of increasing the
> Power Level of the weapon compared to the (non-magical) armor without
> saying so.
>
> That may not be a very good explanation of what I was trying to say, but I
> hope you understand what I mean :)
>
I think APDS bullets discard their sabot at impact (similar to glaser
rounds) and release a small "nail" carried within the sabot, that can
pierce better than a standard bullet because:

a) Through the domino effect all the bullet's kinetic energy is
transfered to the nail, which (because of the "nail's" lesser mass)
translates into greater speed (equals greater pressure per surface
measure) for the "nail".

b) by reducing the overall pressure surface (needle point) we reduce the
resisting structure's natural resistance per surface measure. (the
opposite goes for glaser bullets, that aim for maximum presure per
surface measure so as to cause more tissue damage and transfer more
kinetic energy to the victim's body for stopping power shock and
therefore use a spherical projectile within the sabot, spheres
presenting the maximum surface possible in such a case).

Hope I was n't wrong on anything (my physics is really rusty, and it's
been a long time since I red ballistics)

and I am sorry to say that I did n't quite catch what you mean.
Please rephrase... :)
*humble apologies*

the wiz (or not so)
Message no. 62
From: Achille Autran aautran@*************.fr
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 03:43:52 +0200
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 12:00:26 +0200

> > Did you considered that surrounding walls are likely to collapse ?
>
> Yes, I did. A reinforced concrete stairwell does not collapse very easily
> by an explosion inside it, though (some concrete may go flying, however).
> If you want to put it into game rules, I'd assume the barrier rating of
> the stairwell would be at least 16 ("heavy structural material" says SR3,
> p.124) which is doubled against blasts (p. 119) to 32, so a Power Level of
> 28 will not blow down the walls.

With barrier rating 16, no trouble for the staircase indeed. I was
thinking along the lines of barrier ratings around 6 - casual walls and
partitions in offices, doors, where a bullet goes through. You can't get
much higher than 24 *sigh* but if that's not enough.... With that kind
of wall, an IPE grenade would blow them right on first shockwave impact.

In fact I checked the paragraphs, but didn't dare to point a reference
at *you*. ;)
Message no. 63
From: Sebastian Wiers m0ng005e@*********.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 10:50:00 -0500
:4. If it really becomes necessary to do something
:about the armour spell, have the character wander
:through a ward or two. They can't. Either the ward
:breaks, or their spell does. Either way, it's bad news
:for them (if the ward breaks, the caster KNOWS it's
:broken). Toss this at them just once and she should
:realise that a quickened armour spell (in fact, any
:quickened spell if it's becoming abusive) is more
:trouble than it's worth.

Actually, I can't find anything in SR3 or MiTS that mentions that wards
have any effect on sustained spells. A ward will attack astral forms (like
active sustaing foci and anchoring foci), but spells don't have any astral
form and can not be attacked- they must be dispelled.
Also, MiTS does mention that a mage knows if his ward is attacked, not
just when it is defeated, so trying to force an active focus through a ward
draws attention whether it works or not.
These seem to be advantages quickeneing (or just sustaing the spell
normally, or with an elemental or with ritual sorcery) has over anchoring or
using a sustaining focus.

Mongoose


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Message no. 64
From: Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 00:51:35 -0700 (PDT)
> >The armour spell is not hardened (or a barrier).
It's plain, old armour. It doesn't bounce ANYTHING.
>
> Several people have pointed this out.
>
> >It has ALWAYS been the case that simply having a
normal armour rating higher than the power of an
attack does NOT bounce the attack. The minimum the
power can be reduced (without a barrier or hardened
armour) is to 2. As a number of peopl have said, throw
enough 2M attacks at a character and they WILL die (or
throw a few less at them and injure them severely
without killing them).
>
> Gurth corrected me on that one already.

I know - benefits of hindsight. :) Put it down to me
not managing to get through the mail at this address
after a weekend for a couple of days and being
impatient to get my two cents in. :)

> >Powerbolts were never visible. :) Combat spells are
ALL invisible.
>
> That point could be debated all day, especially when
various SR art from 1990 til present (The covers of
DMZ, SR1, and SR2 come to mind) seems to imply
otherwise. I'm not going into that, though. You have
your interpetations, and I have mine. Enough said.

Actually, no, it couldn't. According to SRII (and
probably SR1 previously, but I'm not sure) combat
spells cross from the caster to the target in astral
space - they're visible on the astral, but not on the
physical. According to SR3 the mana manipulation
involved in a combat spell takes place AT THE TARGET'S
LOCATION. Now I suppose you could argue that the
actual EFFECT is visible (I'd say "No, but if so, only
if it's a physical area spell"), but anything else is
artistic license.

But hey, it's your game - if you want to make some
spells visible and some not, cool! :)

> >Game consistency is all well and good, but not if
it's causing you serious problems.
>
> Internal consistancy of the game is all important,
otherwise I might as well let my game devolve to the
non-existant quality level of crap like the Power
Rangers or some other such drek.

Uh...yeah. Tell me, how did you go changing from SRII
to SR3?

Basically, I see your point, but there are some times
when I think for the sake of the game you must stop
and say, "All right, now this works THIS way instead."
Not often and never just because you want to. But if
you've been doing something incorrectly and it's
causing problems (either to the GM or to the players),
it only makes sense. But if internal consistency no
matter the cost is your Holy Grail, then who am I to
stand in your way? :)

> >If your players are mature...
>
> Which they aren't.

Ah...point taken. :)

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'-booner)

S.S. f. P.S.C. & D.J.

.sig Sauer

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Message no. 65
From: Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 01:34:51 -0700 (PDT)
> >Sorry Doc, but astral barriers like wards only
block astral forms. A spell is not an astral form.
Same goes for quickened spells. It is penalized when
passing through but it does pass through. If I am
wrong on this one, I would love some ref on the
subject.
>
> Under SR3, I think you're right. Spells can't be
destroyed in astral combat anymore, just by
dispelling. I interpet this as a change in the status
of spells from astral forms to astral patterns. I
could be wrong though, but that's what the rules seem
to apply.

I believe you're wrong, but that could just be the
SRII in me (I'm quite sure that wards blocked spells
in SRII). Could someone check this and confirm either
way? I'll try to remember to have a look, but I'm not
exactly famed for my recall of "things to do". :)

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'-booner)

S.S. f. P.S.C. & D.J.

.sig Sauer

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Message no. 66
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 11:00:15 +0200
According to Nightmare ..., at 18:11 on 1 May 00, the word on the street
was...

> >Powerbolts were never visible. :) Combat spells are
> >ALL invisible.
>
> That point could be debated all day, especially when various SR art from
> 1990 til present (The covers of DMZ, SR1, and SR2 come to mind) seems to
> imply otherwise. I'm not going into that, though. You have your
> interpetations, and I have mine. Enough said.

IMHO, no spell is invisible, but they can be hard to spot. Use the rules
for noticing magic from SR3: Perception test against a TN of 4 + Magic
Rating - Force. If you don't feel like rolling a test every time somebody
casts a spell, use the TN as an indication of the magic's visibility.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
"There are millions of people who've got nothing to say to each other,
and who do it on mobile phones" --Ian Hislop, on Have I Got News For You
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-

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Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 67
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 11:00:15 +0200
According to Manolis Skoulikas, at 3:20 on 2 May 00, the word on the
street was...

> > > Do you use staging up for extra attacker successes on grenades though?
> >
> > Yes. That's an average of 14 successes to stage it up...
> >
> OOOUUHHH! That sounds like french cuisine with a Texas twist! :)
> Will you have some fries with that? :)

Actually, I misread your question (and made a small mistake). To make it
clearer: I use the rules from the SRII Companion where one-half the
grenade's Power Level is rolled against a TN 4 to stage its damage up. So
that's 7 successes, which will still make most characters caught in the
blast fairly well dead...

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
"There are millions of people who've got nothing to say to each other,
and who do it on mobile phones" --Ian Hislop, on Have I Got News For You
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
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PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 68
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 11:00:15 +0200
According to Manolis Skoulikas, at 3:20 on 2 May 00, the word on the
street was...

> I think APDS bullets discard their sabot at impact (similar to glaser
> rounds) and release a small "nail" carried within the sabot, that can
> pierce better than a standard bullet because:

Glasers don't discard any sabots; their outer shell ruptures when they
hit, spilling their contents into the target. APDS, at least the large-
caliber variety (20 mm and up), discards its sabot when it leaves the
barrel, not when it hits a target; I don't see why small arms APDS would
be different.

> a) Through the domino effect

Domino effect? If one country gets a communist government, its neighbors
will too? :)

> all the bullet's kinetic energy is transfered to the nail, which
> (because of the "nail's" lesser mass) translates into greater speed
> (equals greater pressure per surface measure) for the "nail".

For maximum velocity and armor-piercing capabilities, the sabot should be
as light as it can be, while the penetrator (what you call the "nail")
should be as heavy as possible. This way, the sabot doesn't require much
energy to accelerate it, which gives the whole projectile (sabot and
penetrator) a higher muzzle velocity.

> b) by reducing the overall pressure surface (needle point) we reduce the
> resisting structure's natural resistance per surface measure.

Naturally. Which is why you want the sabot to fall off before the target
is hit. Otherwise, you're wasting energy trying to get the sabot through
the armor, and anyway, without the sabot, the penetrator will lose less
velocity in flight.

> and I am sorry to say that I did n't quite catch what you mean.
> Please rephrase... :)
> *humble apologies*

Basically: a bullet is a bullet is a bullet to a magical barrier. It
doesn't care if it's a regular bullet, an APDS round, of a flechette -- a
bullet is a thing that's moving fast toward the magical barrier, and it
tries to stop it.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
"There are millions of people who've got nothing to say to each other,
and who do it on mobile phones" --Ian Hislop, on Have I Got News For You
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
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Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 69
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 11:00:15 +0200
According to Achille Autran, at 3:43 on 2 May 00, the word on the street
was...

> With barrier rating 16, no trouble for the staircase indeed. I was
> thinking along the lines of barrier ratings around 6 - casual walls and
> partitions in offices, doors, where a bullet goes through. You can't get
> much higher than 24 *sigh* but if that's not enough.... With that kind
> of wall, an IPE grenade would blow them right on first shockwave impact.

Certainly. In another situation, our PCs were hiding out in an apartment,
and the bad guys come knocking on the door. On the first action of the
combat, one of the PCs throws a grenade into the hallway without thinking
at all about the strength of the walls. It detonates, kills all the NPCs
in the hallway. We were lucky it was a defensive grenade, else it would
have blown down the walls...

> In fact I checked the paragraphs, but didn't dare to point a reference
> at *you*. ;)

The thing is, when it comes to explosions, I half use the rules for the
game, and half use a demolitions manual I bought in an army surplus store,
so I tend to fudge the results of the game rules a bit to reflect whether
or not a wall may collapse :)

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
"There are millions of people who've got nothing to say to each other,
and who do it on mobile phones" --Ian Hislop, on Have I Got News For You
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 70
From: Manolis Skoulikas great_worm@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 15:46:11 +0300
Gurth wrote:
> The thing is, when it comes to explosions, I half use the rules for the
> game, and half use a demolitions manual I bought in an army surplus store...

<prostrates himself in complete humility and repeats matra like:
"I am not worthy..."
"I am not worthy..."
"I am not worthy..."

A few years back I would have donated body parts for such a manual...
today, we're talking toes...maybe fingers...
You cannot even begin to imagine how difficult it is to find
decent military info in Greece.
We are relly third world on this one.
If G-2 is intelligence,
a Greek G-2 is a contradiction in terms!


In fervent envy and vociferous drooling

the wiz
Message no. 71
From: Manolis Skoulikas great_worm@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 15:46:07 +0300
Gurth wrote:

> > and I am sorry to say that I did n't quite catch what you mean.
> > Please rephrase... :)
> > *humble apologies*
>
> Basically: a bullet is a bullet is a bullet to a magical barrier. It
> doesn't care if it's a regular bullet, an APDS round, of a flechette -- a
> bullet is a thing that's moving fast toward the magical barrier, and it
> tries to stop it.
>
> --
> Gurth@******.nl


Since we are basically saying the same thing,(and your knowledge of
ballistics is better documented than mine) I will not delve into this
any deeper.
But since we are talking about mechanics, why is the magical barrier
"stronger" in structure density than a normal barrier and why don't APDS
bullets pierce better the magical barrier. All the mechanics are the
same for the bullet, so what is the difrence IYO with the magical
barrier?
Message no. 72
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 19:53:54 +0200
According to Manolis Skoulikas, at 15:46 on 2 May 00, the word on the
street was...

> > The thing is, when it comes to explosions, I half use the rules for the
> > game, and half use a demolitions manual I bought in an army surplus store...
[snip]
>
> A few years back I would have donated body parts for such a manual...
> today, we're talking toes...maybe fingers...
> You cannot even begin to imagine how difficult it is to find
> decent military info in Greece.

Hey, I had to go to North Carolina, USA, to get that manual, you know :)

> We are relly third world on this one.
> If G-2 is intelligence,
> a Greek G-2 is a contradiction in terms!

<lazy> Arclight, what's the URL for that site with the scanned US Army
field manuals again? </lazy> :) I'm not sure if the demolitions manual is
there too, but there is plenty of stuff you might find useful if you run a
combat or wilderness survival-oriented campaign.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
But it's obviously a dream, as I'm waiting for that beam...
--Millencollin, "Vulcan Ears"
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 73
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 19:53:54 +0200
According to Manolis Skoulikas, at 15:46 on 2 May 00, the word on the
street was...

> But since we are talking about mechanics, why is the magical barrier
> "stronger" in structure density than a normal barrier and why don't APDS
> bullets pierce better the magical barrier. All the mechanics are the
> same for the bullet, so what is the difrence IYO with the magical
> barrier?

That's what I've been trying to put into words, but I think I'm not
succeeding very well :) Let's try it this way: what's the actual
difference, once it's in flight, between an APDS round and a normal
bullet? None, really -- they're both lumps of metal moving at high speed.
That's why I feel a magical barrier doesn't differentiate between the two,
because IMHO it's not a barrier like a wall, but a magical force field.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
But it's obviously a dream, as I'm waiting for that beam...
--Millencollin, "Vulcan Ears"
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 74
From: Edward Huyer arcanum@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 14:23:50 -0400
> > I think APDS bullets discard their sabot at impact (similar to glaser
> > rounds) and release a small "nail" carried within the sabot, that can
> > pierce better than a standard bullet because:
>
> Glasers don't discard any sabots; their outer shell ruptures when they
> hit, spilling their contents into the target. APDS, at least the large-
> caliber variety (20 mm and up), discards its sabot when it leaves the
> barrel, not when it hits a target; I don't see why small arms APDS would
> be different.

Greetings all. First post for me. :)
That's the way I've seen saboted ammunition handled in several other RPG's.
No reason to think it would be different.

> > b) by reducing the overall pressure surface (needle point) we reduce the
> > resisting structure's natural resistance per surface measure.
>
> Naturally. Which is why you want the sabot to fall off before the target
> is hit. Otherwise, you're wasting energy trying to get the sabot through
> the armor, and anyway, without the sabot, the penetrator will lose less
> velocity in flight.

Here's an interesting variation of armor-piercing ammunition out of the
GURPS system:
APHP, or armor-piercing hollow-point. It's a regular hollow-pointed bullet,
but it has a depleted uranium or tungten needle core. If it hits flesh or
light armor, it balloons out like standard hollow-point ammunition. If it
hits heavier armor, the soft exterior strips off and the armor-piercing core
punches through the armor.
Message no. 75
From: Edward Huyer arcanum@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 14:27:40 -0400
> Since we are basically saying the same thing,(and your knowledge of
> ballistics is better documented than mine) I will not delve into this
> any deeper.
> But since we are talking about mechanics, why is the magical barrier
> "stronger" in structure density than a normal barrier and why don't APDS
> bullets pierce better the magical barrier. All the mechanics are the
> same for the bullet, so what is the difrence IYO with the magical
> barrier?

It depends on how you think magical barriers work. In most cases, I tend to
think they just sit there and absorb kinetic energy. Using this view,
whether a bullet is APDS or not doesn't matter too much; the kinetic energy
is the same. On the other hand, is you assume a magical barrier is a
physical wall, then APDS should function as it does against normal physical
barriers.

Arcanum
Edward Huyer
arcanum@*****.com
ICQ# 1667646
Message no. 76
From: Tzeentch tzeentch666@*********.net
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 13:17:52 -0700
From: "Edward Huyer" <arcanum@*****.com>
To: <shadowrn@*********.com>
> It depends on how you think magical barriers work. In most cases, I tend
to
> think they just sit there and absorb kinetic energy. Using this view,
> whether a bullet is APDS or not doesn't matter too much; the kinetic
energy
> is the same. On the other hand, is you assume a magical barrier is a
> physical wall, then APDS should function as it does against normal
physical
> barriers.

I'd guess the magical barrier absorbs X amounts of kinetic energy over Y
area. Hence you can still punch through the barrier by exerting more kinetic
energy on a small area.

Ken
---------------------------
There's a war out there, old friend, a world war. And it's not about who's
got the most bullets, it's about who controls the information. What we see
and hear, how we work, what we think, it's all about the information!
Cosmo, 'Sneakers'
Message no. 77
From: Arclight arclight@*********.de
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 01:28:44 +0200
And finally, Gurth expressed himself by writing:

<snip>

> <lazy> Arclight, what's the URL for that site with the
> scanned US Army field manuals again? </lazy> :)

*crackled voice through interkom*
http://adtdl.army.mil, sir. Shall I bring you
another coffee, the machine just finished brewing...?

:)

> I'm not sure if the demolitions manual is there too, but
> there is plenty of stuff you might find useful if you run
> a combat or wilderness survival-oriented campaign.

If it's

FM 5-250 EXPLOSIVES AND DEMOLITIONS, 30 JUL 1998

it's there. Don't know if as .pdf, but html for sure. They
even started doing .doc's :) . If you cannot find what you're
searching for, check back some time later, they are updating
pretty often AFAICR.

--
arclight
[#361]<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>[ICQ
14322211]
<> SR_D Gallerie 2.0: www.datahaven.de/gallerie <>
<> Gehirnstuerm 0.7: www.datahaven.de/arclight <>
<> SR_D Most Mails Award Winner '99 <>
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Message no. 78
From: Iridios iridios@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 19:59:55 -0400
Arclight wrote:

> *crackled voice through interkom*
> http://adtdl.army.mil, sir. Shall I bring you
> another coffee, the machine just finished brewing...?

You missed the www in the beginning.

http://www.adtdl.army.mil


> If it's
>
> FM 5-250 EXPLOSIVES AND DEMOLITIONS, 30 JUL 1998
>
> it's there. Don't know if as .pdf, but html for sure. They
> even started doing .doc's :) . If you cannot find what you're
> searching for, check back some time later, they are updating
> pretty often AFAICR.

Odd thing is, some documents are "secure" and you need to register to
gain access. But their decisions to what needs to be secure is
strange.

For example:
FM 23-9 M16A1 AND M16A2 RIFLE MARKSMANSHIP, 03 JUL 1989 (secure
document)
FM 23-10 SNIPER TRAINING, 17 AUG 1994 (non-secure document)

Both are infantry Field Manuals. Why would they feel the need to
secure M16 marksmanship and not Sniper Training!

--
Iridios
--
If you are reading this,
you are too close to your monitor.

Visit "The ShadowZone"
http://members.xoom.com/Iridios/ShadowZone

Sig by Kookie Jar 5.97d http://go.to/generalfrenetics/
7:55:26 PM/212:02:02 (1) [no thud]
Message no. 79
From: Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 17:28:52 -0700 (PDT)
> :4. If it really becomes necessary to do something
about the armour spell, have the character wander
through a ward or two. They can't. Either the ward
breaks, or their spell does. Either way, it's bad news
for them (if the ward breaks, the caster KNOWS it's
broken). Toss this at them just once and she should
realise that a quickened armour spell (in fact, any
quickened spell if it's becoming abusive) is more
trouble than it's worth.
>
> Actually, I can't find anything in SR3 or MiTS
that mentions that wards have any effect on sustained
spells. A ward will attack astral forms (like active
sustaing foci and anchoring foci), but spells don't
have any astral form and can not be attacked- they
must be dispelled.
> Also, MiTS does mention that a mage knows if his
ward is attacked, not just when it is defeated, so
trying to force an active focus through a ward draws
attention whether it works or not.
> These seem to be advantages quickeneing (or just
sustaing the spell normally, or with an elemental or
with ritual sorcery) has over anchoring or using a
sustaining focus.
> Mongoose

Really? Wow...I must've been holding my interpretation
over from SRII.

My mages just got a lot more dangerous...;)

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'-booner)

S.S. f. P.S.C. & D.J.

.sig Sauer

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Message no. 80
From: Edward Huyer arcanum@*****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 19:25:02 -0400
> > It depends on how you think magical barriers work. In most cases, I
tend
> to
> > think they just sit there and absorb kinetic energy. Using this view,
> > whether a bullet is APDS or not doesn't matter too much; the kinetic
> energy
> > is the same. On the other hand, is you assume a magical barrier is a
> > physical wall, then APDS should function as it does against normal
> physical
> > barriers.
>
> I'd guess the magical barrier absorbs X amounts of kinetic energy over Y
> area. Hence you can still punch through the barrier by exerting more
kinetic
> energy on a small area.

Good point. Correct me if I am wrong, though, but isn't part of the
advantage of AP ammunition the fact that the pointy end is better at
penetrating the weave of kevlar-like armor? If this is the case, the
effectiveness of magical barriers (and other solid barriers, for that
matter) would only be cut by, say, 1/3, instead of the full 1/2.

Arcanum
Edward Huyer
arcanum@*****.com
ICQ# 1667646
-----
"There is no spoon."
Message no. 81
From: Alfredo B Alves dghost@****.com
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 22:48:42 -0500
On Tue, 2 May 2000 17:28:52 -0700 (PDT) Rand
Ratinac?<docwagon101@*****.com> writes:
<SNIP>
> Really? Wow...I must've been holding my interpretation
> over from SRII.
>
> My mages just got a lot more dangerous...;)

Doh. :)

--
D. Ghost
Profanity is the one language all programmers know best
- Troutman's 6th programming postulate.

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Message no. 82
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 10:57:15 +0200
According to Edward Huyer, at 14:23 on 2 May 00, the word on the street
was...

> Greetings all. First post for me. :)

Welcome to the list :)

> That's the way I've seen saboted ammunition handled in several other RPG's.
> No reason to think it would be different.

I tend to not care too much how these things are handled in other RPGs,
but I do look at how they work IRL :)

> > Naturally. Which is why you want the sabot to fall off before the target
> > is hit. Otherwise, you're wasting energy trying to get the sabot through
> > the armor, and anyway, without the sabot, the penetrator will lose less
> > velocity in flight.
>
> Here's an interesting variation of armor-piercing ammunition out of the
> GURPS system:
> APHP, or armor-piercing hollow-point. It's a regular hollow-pointed bullet,
> but it has a depleted uranium or tungten needle core. If it hits flesh or
> light armor, it balloons out like standard hollow-point ammunition. If it
> hits heavier armor, the soft exterior strips off and the armor-piercing core
> punches through the armor.

Cyberpunk 2020 has similar rounds in Chromebook 2, where they're called
dual-purpose ammo (with the great slogan "Gone are the days when you might
accidentally bring AP bullets to a nudist colony" ;) and I do believe
there is a round like this in the real world as well. They're basically
hollow points with a steel rod embedded in them, but I have no idea how
well they work (or even if they work at all).

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
But it's obviously a dream, as I'm waiting for that beam...
--Millencollin, "Vulcan Ears"
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 83
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 10:57:15 +0200
According to Edward Huyer, at 14:27 on 2 May 00, the word on the street
was...

> It depends on how you think magical barriers work. In most cases, I tend to
> think they just sit there and absorb kinetic energy. Using this view,
> whether a bullet is APDS or not doesn't matter too much; the kinetic energy
> is the same.

Thank you! That's what I was trying to say, but couldn't find a way of
putting it!

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
But it's obviously a dream, as I'm waiting for that beam...
--Millencollin, "Vulcan Ears"
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 84
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Armor Spell blues
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 10:57:15 +0200
According to Arclight, at 1:28 on 3 May 00, the word on the street was...

> > <lazy> Arclight, what's the URL for that site with the
> > scanned US Army field manuals again? </lazy> :)
>
> *crackled voice through interkom*
> http://adtdl.army.mil, sir. Shall I bring you
> another coffee, the machine just finished brewing...?
>
> :)

Thank you. For my next trick, I will make it start raining. *looks out of
window* See? :)

> If it's
>
> FM 5-250 EXPLOSIVES AND DEMOLITIONS, 30 JUL 1998

Mine is actually FM 5-25, Explosives And Demolitions, May 1967, but I
don't think the uses of TNT have changed much :)

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
But it's obviously a dream, as I'm waiting for that beam...
--Millencollin, "Vulcan Ears"
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998

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