[Medicineman]

Hardened Armor power--only use the base Power of the weapon, unmodified by burst fire, ammo type, etc.
FAQ Failed (IIRC) again
You add ammo Type & Net Hits to the Base Damage to see weather the Bullets penetrate the Armor !!
What I meant with Houserules is that you have to make up some if don't use the 1/2 Armor Rules of Fire and Electricity (Stick& Schock) for Spirits

HokaHey
Medicineman

[Doc Chaos]

ItnW is just a fancy name for plain Hardened Armor. So by RAW, it gets modified by AP and other modifiers.

[Mäx]

When a spirit or critter with Immunity (Normal Weapons) is attacked, do you only compare double its Essence to the base Power of the weapon (regardless of modifiers, as with the Hardened Armor power), or do you also count modifiers to the Power from burst fire, ammo type, extra successes, etc?
Treat the Immunity power as you would the Hardened Armor power--only use the base Power of the weapon, unmodified by burst fire, ammo type, etc.

I'd go with that one, and treat shock weapons as any other against spirits. So unless you use one bad-ass troll-sized stun baton, it won't work as planned.

And it's not really a house-rule. It's just labeling shock weapons as 'normal'.

And once again the FAQ shows why it not worth the bits its stored on, by blatantly contradicting the rulebooks.
Here's a quote of the actual text of the hardened armor.

Hardened Armor (Paranormal)
Type: P • Action: Auto • Range: Self • Duration: Always
Hardened Armor is even tougher than normal armor. If
the modified Damage Value of an attack does not exceed the
Hardened Armor rating (modified by Armor Penetration), then
it bounces harmlessly off the critter; don’t even bother to make a
Damage Resistance Test. Otherwise, Hardened Armor provides
both Ballistic and Impact armor equal to its rating.

The relevant parts bolded by me

[Kot]

Heh. Good to know. House-rule then.

[Mäx]

Heh. Good to know. House-rule then.

You actually want to make spirits the ultimate i-win button for pc mages.
So pretty much only needed member for a PC team is the Angel Summoner.

[Doc Chaos]

A house rule like that will most likely mean you will have to railroad the encounters to the mage fighting of spirits while being totally ignored by every other guard/enemy/whatever. Because if the mage goes down and there are spirits left on the enemy side, the group will die.

[Kot]

Erm. Not really. There won't be much in the way of spirits, as i know how much can be done with their help (i'm a Mage player and GM with a soft spot for the Spirit Arcanum). It will just be harder to fight them without big guns and/or strong will.
And that pretty much gives my players an advantage, as we're playing a street level campaign.

[Doc Chaos]

How much Magic and Summoning skill does the mage have? Because even Force 4 spirits would be pretty much invincible if you stick to your prior statement and rule Hardened Armor to "only use the base Power of the weapon, unmodified by burst fire, ammo type, etc." There simply isn't anything around on Street Level with a DV of >8 except for grenades and good luck hitting a sprit with one of those...

[Mäx]

There simply isn't anything around on Street Level with a DV of >8 except for grenades and good luck hitting anything with one of those...

Fixed that one for you

Kot your not giving you players just an advantage, your giving your teams mage an unstoppaple i-win button that can curb stomp any and all opposition, un less the go up against a wiz-gang.

[Nomad Zophiel]

Keep in mind that even with the electrical boost, someone with SNS rounds only does 1 damage box to a Force 6 spirit per net hit. Without armor modification, anything up to an assault rifle needs six net hits just to damage a Force 6 spirit. So at the street level you're basically giving your mage the ability to summon multiple invincible combatants. That's what Max means by an "I win" button. There's basically no risk to the mage and no way for the normies to take out the spirits.

[Mäx]

Keep in mind that even with the electrical boost, someone with SNS rounds only does 1 damage box to a Force 6 spirit per net hit.

HUH???
If there are no house rules involved S&S with the one net-hit reguired to hit does 7S(e) damage to force six spirit, resisted by the spirits body+half impact armor.

[Nomad Zophiel]

Keep in mind that even with the electrical boost, someone with SNS rounds only does 1 damage box to a Force 6 spirit per net hit.

HUH???
If there are no house rules involved S&S with the one net-hit reguired to hit does 7S(e) damage to force six spirit, resisted by the spirits body+half impact armor.

Yeah, I took a shortcut to make the point. Even with the house rule, the base DV and armor are equal, although that doesn't automatically cancel out. So its more like 4+net hits. The second half was really the important bit. Unless you have an insane dice pool (18+ not counting the spirit's Dodge value), full auto and/or called shots are basically the only way to consistently hurt materialized spirits with unmodifiable armor. Well, that and magic anyway.

[Mäx]

Well auto fire doesn't actually help at all against hardened armor.
The damage bonus from extra bullets is only calculated in after the armor comparison.

[Nomad Zophiel]

So yeah. One Force six spirit is going to eventually ruin a whole gang's day pretty much every time.

[Doc Chaos]

The way I read the FAQ its even worse, successes don't count either. Its unmodified base DV of the weapon VS spirits hardened armor. So according to that FAQ ruling you can't harm a Force 4 spirit with a heavy machinegun. Ever.