Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: stevet78@*****.com (Steve Thompson)
Subject: Spirits and Immunity to Weapons.
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 13:13:51 -0700 (PDT)
---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
Okay, well, here's another ruling I disagree with entirely with the FAQ provided for us.

Spirits should not have hardened armor. Under the listing of Immunity to Normal Weapons,
nowhere does it say that you compare the unmodified Power rating of the attack against the
spirit's armor, you just compare the attack. Therefore, if a shaman whips up a Force 5
Spirit against me, my samurai can whip out an SMG and fire a 6 round full-auto burst into
the spirit and hurt it. (Force 5 spirit has 10 points of armor, my burst does 13D, the
spirit has to resist against 3D)

But according to the FAQ, the spirit has Hardened Armor. This ruling is silly and needs
to be looked at again. It means that any starting shaman will be able to kill any level
samurai. Revisiting my example, same shaman whips up a Force 6 spirit, not uncommon.
Giving it Hardened Armor means that my samurai MUST either have a Sniper Rifle or an
Assault Cannon on him to be able to even think about affecting it. Not even a Heavy
Machine Gun loading ExEx will do it.

Is this really what you want in your games? With this rule, practically anyone capable of
summoning a spirit can take out any samurai. All they have to do is conjure up a Force 6
spirit... or heaven forbid... a force 9, and your 500 karma point samurai is toast.

Just drumming up some more debate.



---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢
---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://warthog.dumpshock.com/pipermail/shadowrn/attachments/5afea211/attachment.htm

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
Message no. 2
From: davek@***.lonestar.org (David Kettler)
Subject: Spirits and Immunity to Weapons.
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 21:48:21 +0000
On Sat, Apr 17, 2004 at 01:13:51PM -0700, Steve Thompson wrote:
> Okay, well, here's another ruling I disagree with entirely with the FAQ provided for
us.
>
> Spirits should not have hardened armor. Under the listing of Immunity to Normal
Weapons, nowhere does it say that you compare the unmodified Power rating of the attack
against the spirit's armor, you just compare the attack. Therefore, if a shaman whips up
a Force 5 Spirit against me, my samurai can whip out an SMG and fire a 6 round full-auto
burst into the spirit and hurt it. (Force 5 spirit has 10 points of armor, my burst does
13D, the spirit has to resist against 3D)
>
> But according to the FAQ, the spirit has Hardened Armor. This ruling is silly and
needs to be looked at again. It means that any starting shaman will be able to kill any
level samurai. Revisiting my example, same shaman whips up a Force 6 spirit, not
uncommon. Giving it Hardened Armor means that my samurai MUST either have a Sniper Rifle
or an Assault Cannon on him to be able to even think about affecting it. Not even a Heavy
Machine Gun loading ExEx will do it.
>
> Is this really what you want in your games? With this rule, practically anyone
capable of summoning a spirit can take out any samurai. All they have to do is conjure up
a Force 6 spirit... or heaven forbid... a force 9, and your 500 karma point samurai is
toast.
>
> Just drumming up some more debate.
>

Well, in general the Samurai isn't *completely* helpless. A few options:

1. Willpower melee attack, though as discussed this isn't always effective.

2. Just geek the controlling shaman - Not recommended for dealing with elementals unless
you're really desparate.

3. Attacks (even mundane ones) with an elemental component halve the effectiveness of the
ItNW power. True, a street sam with a flamethrower is probably less common than a street
sam with an assault cannon ;) but in some situations it's possible to make use of your
environment. Or there's my favorite trick: Carry around a thermite burning rod to use as
a melee weapon in emergency situations. 10D elemental damage. Better have flare comps to
use it, though.

5. Carry around some big ass firepower.

4. Hope like hell your mage/shaman can deal with it. You *do* work in teams, right?


Despite all this, I do agree that in general it can be hard for mundanes to deal with
spirits. Not impossible, though.

--
Dave Kettler
davek@***.lonestar.org
http://davek.freeshell.org/
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
Message no. 3
From: loneeagle@********.co.uk (Lone Eagle)
Subject: Spirits and Immunity to Weapons.
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 23:15:58 +0100
At 10:48 PM 4/17/2004, Dave wrote:
>Well, in general the Samurai isn't *completely* helpless. A few options:
>1. Willpower melee attack, though as discussed this isn't always effective.
>2. Just geek the controlling shaman - Not recommended for dealing with
>elementals unless you're really desparate.

Normally it's the best way, Uncontrolled elementals tend to be low force,
in our experience anything over force three disappears to the metaplanes
when their controller is knocked unconscious... The really high force ones
going free can be difficult though.

>3. Attacks (even mundane ones) with an elemental component halve the
>effectiveness of the ItNW power. True, a street sam with a flamethrower
>is probably less common than a street sam with an assault cannon ;) but in
>some situations it's possible to make use of your environment. Or there's
>my favorite trick: Carry around a thermite burning rod to use as a melee
>weapon in emergency situations. 10D elemental damage. Better have flare
>comps to use it, though.

Our team samurai has carried a Taser ever since Chicago...

>5. Carry around some big ass firepower.

Unlike vehicle armour there is no mention IIRC in the Immunity description
of the ammunition... Our old Wire Man always (yes _always_) carried a Ruger
Super Warhawk... If I remember correctly it was loaded with an EX, an APDS,
a wooden dowel, a Gel, an encapsulated insecticide and a blood splat with a
small narcoject needle.
The Warhawk and EX combo worked quite nicely.


--
Lone Eagle
"Hold up lads, I got an idea."

www.wyrmtalk.co.uk - Please be patient, this site is under construction

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GE d++(---) s++: a->? C++(+) US++ P! L E? W++ N o? K? w+ O! M- V? PS+ PE-()
Y PGP? t+@ 5++ X- R+>+++$>* tv b+++ DI++++ D+ G++ e+ h r* y+>+++++
-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----

GCC0.2: y75>?.uk[NN] G87 S@:@@[SR] B+++ f+ RM(RR) rm++ rr++ l++(--) m- w
s+(+++) GM+++(-) A GS+(-) h++ LA+++ CG--- F c+
Message no. 4
From: zebulingod@*******.net (zebulingod)
Subject: Spirits and Immunity to Weapons.
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 17:57:11 -0700
Steve Thompson wrote:
>
> Spirits should not have hardened armor. Under the listing of
> Immunity to Normal Weapons, nowhere does it say that you
> compare the unmodified Power rating of the attack against the
> spirit's armor, you just compare the attack. Therefore, if a
> shaman whips up a Force 5 Spirit against me, my samurai can
> whip out an SMG and fire a 6 round full-auto burst into the
> spirit and hurt it. (Force 5 spirit has 10 points of armor,
> my burst does 13D, the spirit has to resist against 3D)
>

Has Immunity to Normal Weapons changed from automatic successes against the
attack? *Checks books*

In PAoNA, Immunity to Normal Weapons gave automatic successes equal to twice
the spirits essence (half against elemental damage.

In PAoE, Immunity to Normal Weapons gave 2x Essence in armor, from melee and
ranged attacks but not against magical weapons. Effect was halved against
elemental effects.

In Critters, Immunity to Normal Weapons is similar to PAoE with the added
note that if the power of the attack doesn't exceed twice the essence it
doesn't do any damage. The power does work against magical and non-magical
attacks, but not against foci or combat spells. Against elemental effects,
halve the armor, and treat all anti-vehicle as normal.

(Personally, I liked the rules from PAoNA the best.)

> But according to the FAQ, the spirit has Hardened Armor.
> This ruling is silly and needs to be looked at again. It
> means that any starting shaman will be able to kill any level
> samurai. Revisiting my example, same shaman whips up a Force
> 6 spirit, not uncommon. Giving it Hardened Armor means that
> my samurai MUST either have a Sniper Rifle or an Assault
> Cannon on him to be able to even think about affecting it.
> Not even a Heavy Machine Gun loading ExEx will do it.
>

(I had to look up the FAQ for this since I couldn't find mention of it in
any of the books.)

Okay, that makes sense. You do the same for vehicles or with regular armor,
don't you? (Our game does.) If the base power of the weapon doesn't exceed
the rating of the armor, then a burst won't either. In my mind, that makes
sense. Logically, then, the same would apply to the armor being "worn" by
spirits.

Saying that any starting shaman could kill any level street samurai is
silly. Anyone in the Shadowrun universe could kill anyone/thing else pretty
easily. A sporting rifle with a scope and a decent skill could do just as
much damage to the street sam as the shaman.

Frankly, look at it another way: The street sam should have a higher
initiative, right? If he gets the first action, the shaman's actions don't
really matter, do they?

> Is this really what you want in your games? With this rule,
> practically anyone capable of summoning a spirit can take out
> any samurai. All they have to do is conjure up a Force 6
> spirit... or heaven forbid... a force 9, and your 500 karma
> point samurai is toast.
>

Any of my players would tell you that spirits aren't (and shouldn't be) easy
to kill. There's reasons for that. And honestly, if you're going to let a
500 karma street sam die because you aren't prepared to be able to kill a
simple spirit, then, well, I have no sympathy for your street sam. *shrug*

As I mentioned before, I liked the original power from PAoNA the best, but
the problem with it was that a spirit would never take more than a light
wound unless you got a bunch of successes on your test. These rules make a
little more sense now, and fit rather nicely with the rest of the mechanics
when it comes to ammunition vs armor.

YMMV and all that. Just my .o2¥.

Zebulin
Message no. 5
From: stevet78@*****.com (Steve Thompson)
Subject: Spirits and Immunity to Weapons.
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 21:55:02 -0700 (PDT)
---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment


zebulingod <zebulingod@*******.net> wrote:

>(Personally, I liked the rules from PAoNA the best.)

The rules I am using come right from SR3 main rulebook. I do not have the others. :(

>Okay, that makes sense. You do the same for vehicles or with regular armor,
>don't you? (Our game does.) If the base power of the weapon doesn't exceed
>the rating of the armor, then a burst won't either. In my mind, that makes
>sense. Logically, then, the same would apply to the armor being "worn" by
>spirits.

But while that is logical to conclude, it is precisely what I am arguing against. It
would be easy to simply apply the hardened rules, saying that a weapon's unmodified damage
must exceed 2x the spirit's force. But the rules written in the book never actually say
to compare the weapons Unmodified damage to it... the rules say to compare the power of
the attack. I am attempting to convince whoever wrote the FAQ that they should leave the
rule as written and not to apply the hardened armor rules, for it makes spirits too
powerful.

>Saying that any starting shaman could kill any level street samurai is
>silly. Anyone in the Shadowrun universe could kill anyone/thing else pretty
>easily. A sporting rifle with a scope and a decent skill could do just as
>much damage to the street sam as the shaman.


Also true, I completely agree.

>Frankly, look at it another way: The street sam should have a higher
>initiative, right? If he gets the first action, the shaman's actions don't
>really matter, do they?

I do not wish to begin batting around scenarios in which the samurai can, given a certain
and specific circumstance, will the day. Although I will agree that environment and
circumstances make up a HUGE portion of the fight, I would like to keep the conversation
to a shaman attacking a sam... or more specifically, what a mundane sam can do against
spirits with 6+ force.


>Any of my players would tell you that spirits aren't (and shouldn't be) easy
>to kill. There's reasons for that. And honestly, if you're going to let a
>500 karma street sam die because you aren't prepared to be able to kill a
>simple spirit, then, well, I have no sympathy for your street sam. *shrug*

Well I suppose that depends on your game environment. How would one prepare to kill a
simple Force 6 spirit? In my own TT game (I am the GM), my players do not walk about with
40 pockets and pistols chambered with multi-purpose rounds as some sort of shadowrun age
Van Helsing (although that is an excellent idea... and before you ask, no, I don't have a
500 karma samurai either :)





---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢
---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://warthog.dumpshock.com/pipermail/shadowrn/attachments/214a9797/attachment.htm

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
Message no. 6
From: zebulingod@*******.net (zebulingod)
Subject: Spirits and Immunity to Weapons.
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 22:17:28 -0700
Steve Thompson wrote:
>
> But while that is logical to conclude, it is precisely what I
> am arguing against. It would be easy to simply apply the
> hardened rules, saying that a weapon's unmodified damage must
> exceed 2x the spirit's force. But the rules written in the
> book never actually say to compare the weapons Unmodified
> damage to it... the rules say to compare the power of the
> attack. I am attempting to convince whoever wrote the FAQ
> that they should leave the rule as written and not to apply
> the hardened armor rules, for it makes spirits too powerful.
>

While I would argue that, without it, spirits aren't nearly powerful enough.
Refer to my comments below.

>
> Well I suppose that depends on your game environment. How
> would one prepare to kill a simple Force 6 spirit? In my own
> TT game (I am the GM), my players do not walk about with 40
> pockets and pistols chambered with multi-purpose rounds as
> some sort of shadowrun age Van Helsing (although that is an
> excellent idea... and before you ask, no, I don't have a 500
> karma samurai either :)
>

Van Helsing, heh. If you've ever read a book called Wizard's First Rule,
there is a great character in it, named Chase or Chaz or something along
those lines. He's a walking armoury. My players tend to follow his lead. I
try to limit their ability to do so, but no amount of police stops or random
violence serves to convince them. Shoot, it does quite the opposite. Since
their run in with a group of vampires, they've taken to carrying more unique
types of ammunition, on the off-chance that it'll somehow work better. (And
let me tell you, as an NPC, a vampire with the added abilities of Immunity
to Normal Weapons, Hardened Armor, magical talents and 12 Essence is a thing
to fear!)

*egmg*

Zebulin

"Per Ardua ad Astra"
Message no. 7
From: stevet78@*****.com (Steve Thompson)
Subject: Spirits and Immunity to Weapons.
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 22:36:24 -0700 (PDT)
---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment


zebulingod <zebulingod@*******.net> wrote:

>Van Helsing, heh. If you've ever read a book called Wizard's First Rule,
>there is a great character in it, named Chase or Chaz or something along
>those lines. He's a walking armoury. My players tend to follow his lead. I
>try to limit their ability to do so, but no amount of police stops or random
>violence serves to convince them. Shoot, it does quite the opposite. Since
>their run in with a group of vampires, they've taken to carrying more unique
>types of ammunition, on the off-chance that it'll somehow work better. (And
>let me tell you, as an NPC, a vampire with the added abilities of Immunity
>to Normal Weapons, Hardened Armor, magical talents and 12 Essence is a thing to
>fear!)


I would imagine so. However, I believe we play in different worlds, as players attempting
to shoot their way out of police stops generally bring a great deal more trouble onto
their heads than they can handle. But that's not really on topic.

I would agree that treating the Immunity power as it is written can make for some fairly
wimpy spirits. Or does it? He still gets to subtract 12 directly off the Power of the
attack, you're still going to need to pump some serious lead into the thing. It's
basically still more heavily armored than a troll in heavy security armor with a helmet,
and it's harder to hit.


P.S. Does anyone from Wizkids actually read this list?





---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢
---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://warthog.dumpshock.com/pipermail/shadowrn/attachments/6fa16756/attachment.htm

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
Message no. 8
From: gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: Spirits and Immunity to Weapons.
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 10:42:03 +0200
According to David Kettler, on Saturday 17 April 2004 23:48 the word on the
street was...

> a street sam with a flamethrower
> is probably less common than a street sam with an assault cannon ;)

Which is a bit odd, as a flamethrower is easier to buy on the street...

--
Gurth@******.nl - Stone Age: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Those who ignore history are doomed to keep liking crappy dance
covers of great songs.
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- 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. 9
From: gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: Spirits and Immunity to Weapons.
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 10:47:50 +0200
According to zebulingod, on Sunday 18 April 2004 02:57 the word on the
street was...

> Has Immunity to Normal Weapons changed from automatic successes against
> the attack? *Checks books*

Yes, because after SR1 the automatic successes stuff was dropped :)

> In PAoNA, Immunity to Normal Weapons gave automatic successes equal to
> twice the spirits essence (half against elemental damage.

That's because this is an SR1 book, as you can tell by looking at the
critters' Damage Codes.

> In PAoE, Immunity to Normal Weapons gave 2x Essence in armor, from melee
> and ranged attacks but not against magical weapons. Effect was halved
> against elemental effects.

This is basically the same as in PAoNA: armor in SR1 was automatic
successes against an attack, so although the actual game rules effect is
different (a lower TN instead of automatic successes), the reasoning
behind it is not.

> Okay, that makes sense. You do the same for vehicles or with regular
> armor, don't you? (Our game does.)

That's only the rule for hardened armor, and spirits don't have that --
they have something similar, but not _exactly_ the same.

> If the base power of the weapon
> doesn't exceed the rating of the armor, then a burst won't either. In my
> mind, that makes sense.

But SR's damage system does not depend on whether a bullt got through the
armor -- it tells you how much _damage_ got through, without indicating if
this is because a bullet tore through your flesh, or because you broke a
bone from the impact of a bullet that got lodged halfway into your armor.

> Saying that any starting shaman could kill any level street samurai is
> silly. Anyone in the Shadowrun universe could kill anyone/thing else
> pretty easily. A sporting rifle with a scope and a decent skill could do
> just as much damage to the street sam as the shaman.

Which is why my shaman has a sniper rifle and the skill to use it :)

--
Gurth@******.nl - Stone Age: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Those who ignore history are doomed to keep liking crappy dance
covers of great songs.
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- 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. 10
From: pixelonpicnic@*******.com (Niels Sønderborg)
Subject: Spirits and Immunity to Weapons.
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 12:24:59 +0200
Actually I would believe Spirits arent meant to be shot down, but beaten
down. It is noted somewhere, that the way you fight spirits is through will,
and pulling a trigger doesnt carry the same amount of willpower as a
standard fist to your face.
In my book the spirit armor thing is fair enough, spirits was never meant to
be just a common walkover like your standard Lone Star officer IMHO

_________________________________________________________________
Få alle de nye og sjove ikoner med MSN Messenger http://www.msn.dk/messenger
Message no. 11
From: maxnoel_fr@*****.fr (Max Noel)
Subject: Spirits and Immunity to Weapons.
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 14:18:02 +0200
Le 18 avr. 2004, à 12:24, Niels Sønderborg a écrit :

> Actually I would believe Spirits arent meant to be shot down, but
> beaten down. It is noted somewhere, that the way you fight spirits is
> through will, and pulling a trigger doesnt carry the same amount of
> willpower as a standard fist to your face.

The main problem about this being that Immunity to Normal Weapons
works against unarmed combat too, unless you're an adept with Killing
Hands or a weapon focus.

-- Wild_Cat
maxnoel_fr at yahoo dot fr -- ICQ #85274019
"Look at you hacker... A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting
and sweating as you run through my corridors... How can you challenge a
perfect, immortal machine?"
Message no. 12
From: davek@***.lonestar.org (David Kettler)
Subject: Spirits and Immunity to Weapons.
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 01:57:55 +0000
On Sat, Apr 17, 2004 at 01:13:51PM -0700, Steve Thompson wrote:
> But according to the FAQ, the spirit has Hardened Armor. This ruling is silly and
needs to be looked at again. It means that any starting shaman will be able to kill any
level samurai. Revisiting my example, same shaman whips up a Force 6 spirit, not
uncommon. Giving it Hardened Armor means that my samurai MUST either have a Sniper Rifle
or an Assault Cannon on him to be able to even think about affecting it. Not even a Heavy
Machine Gun loading ExEx will do it.

Forgot to mention one thing: Grenades. An IPE HE grenade is a relatively easy thing to
carry around and can hurt up to a force 7 spirit (better have a good throwing arm,
though). And frankly, anything above force 7 *shouldn't* be easy to deal with.

Also, I would certainly count WP grenades as having an elemental effect, though it would
still take time to accumulate any real damage so that's not the most practical solution.

--
Dave Kettler
davek@***.lonestar.org
http://davek.freeshell.org/
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
Message no. 13
From: gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: Spirits and Immunity to Weapons.
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 11:02:05 +0200
According to Niels Sønderborg, on Sunday 18 April 2004 12:24 the word on
the street was...

> Actually I would believe Spirits arent meant to be shot down, but beaten
> down. It is noted somewhere, that the way you fight spirits is through
> will, and pulling a trigger doesnt carry the same amount of willpower as
> a standard fist to your face.

True, and that is why they get the armor -- they don't really have armor,
but in game terms it's an easy way to make shooting spirits harder: you
can _hit_ them just as easily as any other target, but causing _damage_ is
a lot more difficult.

--
Gurth@******.nl - Stone Age: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Those who ignore history are doomed to keep liking crappy dance
covers of great songs.
-> Probably NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- 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

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Spirits and Immunity to Weapons., you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!