| From: | James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: re; spirit combat |
| Date: | Tue, 23 Dec 1997 07:32:31 GMT |
> >From: Steve Kenson <TalonMail@***.COM>
> >Subject: Spirit Combat
> >To: SHADOWRN@********.ITRIBE.NET
[snip]
> >The Immunity to Normal Weapons power provides Armor equal to twice the
> spirit's Force against all attacks. Against elemental attacks
> (including elemental manipulation spells) the Armor is halved (equal to
> Force).
[snip]
> >Against ranged weapons of all kinds, the armor is also Hardened, so any
> weapon with a Power that does not exceed the Armor rating cannot hurt
> the spirit at all (making powerful spirits immune to small-arms fire).
This would make even middle-threat (Force 4) spirits almost completely
immune to small-arms fire (hardened armour=8).
> HMM, intetresting, but it reaks of a cludge. If armor "worked better"
> in general, this wouldn't be needed.
> With the rules as is, spirits can usually resist all the damage because
> the attackers success is limited to willpower. Thats good enough.
> I'd like to continue to see a full auto 10 round burst able to rip a
> spirit up. They are really physically present and should be at risk- it
> should be a matter of "welcome to my world, yah fraggin ghost! (buddah
> buddah buddah, damn, budddah buddah buddah buddah buddah budah, phew)
As the originator of the "remote weapons vs. spirits" thread, I'd have to
concur. I wouldn't be terribly interested in playing an RPG where a
particular "character class" or "archetype" didn't have a hope of
affecting
something as common (in Shadowrun) as an elemental or spirit. To make a
point, mages can affect both spiritual creatures *and* mundane ones, yet as
you are proposing, mundanes can affect mundanes, but not spiritual
creatures (most of the time, anyways).
First off, that goes against the grain when it comes to FASA play balance.
The mundanes won't even provide cannon fodder in a clash with a spirit,
since the spirit will know that they cannot affect it. It will then go
straight for the mage, killing him two or three times over before s/he even
gets a chance to act. Then it will finish off the rest of the party one by
one. Fun.
It also rekindles the argument that magic is too powerful in Shadowrun.
"Why can't a mundane use a magical weapon *efficiently* to attack a
spirit?" We do not want to get into those-- err-- discussions :)
I have also never had a problem with the idea of spirits being somewhat
easier to "kill", since their death isn't permanent on our plane. It seems
a bit unfair (again, from a play balance POV) that not only would a Force 4
spirit have 8 points of /hardened/ armour (making nearly all firearms
useless), but they also do not have to worry about truly dying unless they
are attacked by magic.
James W. Lindsay Vancouver, British Columbia
"http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero";
Money talks... it usually says "bend over"...
