My experience with 6e spirits is: They are even harder to deal with than 5e. A typical player summoned spirit will be 5-6 force that ignore 5-6 damage + body soak, and with the lower weapon damage values, it can be quite hard to deal any significant damage with a gun or a sword. Of course, it is also meant that spirits are significant foes that are trouble unless you have an adept or mage.
Unfortunately, in actual game, it seems to come down to if the players face a materialized sprit, most of the party is not able to contribute much while mage and/or adept do their stuff. Likewise, if the players encounter mundane opposition, sending in a beefy spirit, pretty much auto win the conflict unless there is something tailored to challenge the spirit, like… another spirit. I am not too fond of combats ending in summing wars.
With that, I am looking into how to use 6e rules in a sensible way to smooth things a bit and make it a bit more interesting for everyone at my table. But I prefer to work with the rules there are, rather than do some custom house rules that clash with the rules. That said I looked at what it takes to make enchanted weapons and bullets a thing that comes into play.
Of course, there are already the weapon foci for adepts. They are permanent, quite powerful and great for dealing with spirits, but it seems there is a large gap between mundane weapons and actual weapon foci. So, these are my thoughts (and here I’m NOT trying to use previous editions as guidelines, just what is in 6e)
So, what does it take for a weapon to count as magical? Immunity specifies:” all attacks that are not magical in nature; weapon foci, spells, and adept or critter powers". So, what about an item under the effect of a spell or an alchemy preparation? Would they count as magical or mundane in relation to normal weapon immunity?
Here I am looking a bit for balance. An alchemical preparation (in waiting) on a bullet or sword could somehow be considered magical, but on the other hand, it would allow for quite long-lasting magical weapons with unrelated effects that may never trigger, so I went away from that idea. On the other hand, an active magical effect on a bullet or sword requires a bit more, usually some timing and of course a relevant spell.
I looked in Street Wyrd to see, what would it take to make a spell that enchanted a weapon but had no other side effects. Let’s called it Enchant Weapon. It seems it would just be a basic manipulation spell without any ingredients added since it does not do anything beyond being magical. Opposed by object resistance and lasting net hits rounds. Seems like it would useful but also situational and a tactical choice. It also seems it would valid if used as alchemical preparation, allowing for the party to prepare before a run if they have invested in enchantment (often less tempting to do).
So, an Enchant Weapon spell like that could have two uses:
1. When in combat with a spirit, you could cast it on a weapon or regular bullet against object resistance 6, lasting net hit rounds, allowing the attack to be magical.
2. In preparation to a run, bullets or weapons could be prepared with alchemy and a suitable trigger. When triggered, the potency+magic vs object resistance would determine if it worked, and how many combat rounds it lasted.
This would give runners and NPCs a bit more options for handling medium force spirits, and it may encourage more use of enchantment skill.
I would love some 6e feedback on:
- If its reasonable within the 6e rules? Is it way off?
- Is my approach balanced? Too hard on spirits?
- Or just if it’s generally a good idea? or not at all.