[MercilessMing]

Pg. 105

You might not be Awakened, but you’ve learned to channel your qi (or ki, prana, ruach, pneuma, “spirit energy,” or sheer meanness) into a strike that reaches across the boundaries between material and immaterial. You may make unarmed attacks against astral entities as though you were Awakened (see Astral Combat, p. 160, SR6), with a Damage Value of (WILL/2 + net hits). This technique does not give you the ability to perceive astrally or bond weapon foci. Category: General

Alright, this sounds like doing Astral Combat against your melee target (assuming it's present on the astral plane).  My question is, does this bypass ITNW?

A - It references Astral Combat, therefore it's doing damage on the astral plane which ITNW doesn't protect against

B - ITNW still applies because it's not a magical attack (it doesn't say it counts as a magical attack).  Wholly astral entities are still affected.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

It's an unanswerable question in an objective sense, but I think it's unanswerable for reasons other that what you might have thought.

If an astral form is not materialized, that is it's purely on the astral plane, clearly Neijia will work.  Assuming you can somehow SEE the astral form!  Perhaps it's manifested, or you've got a handy Astral Window spell in effect (see Street Wyrd!)

The crux of the question of "Does Neijia allow you to ignore ItNW" is also centered on "does a spirit become dual natured when Materialized, or does its astral form wholly transfer over to the physical plane".

If the materialized spirit ceases to have an astral form on the astral plane, then there's nothing for Neijia to hit, and the core question is a non sequitur.

If the materialized spirit is dual natured, then Neijia is still hitting the astral form.  But ItNW isn't gained on a 'per plane' basis.. the whole critter has it or doesn't have it.  Striking the astral form while the critter didn't have ItNW clearly would have worked.. but while the astral form has ItNW then the question becomes is Neijia a magical attack.  All Neijia description appears to say is your regular, mundane unarmed attack can hit an astral target.  So, pedantically, while the spirit has ItNW it appears to me that it'll laugh off a nonmagical unarmed attack, no matter which plane it lands on.

At any rate, it's absolutely on the short list of Firing Squad errata to get sorted out more clearly.  If the writers' intent was that it bypass ItNW then it will clearly say so.  Speaking personally, I'm not sure it WAS the intent that you can pay some karma to bypass ItNW.  In the meanwhile, my personal opinion is it's "No, Neijia will not harm a materialized spirit" but the reason WHY it's a No is unclear on which rationale is preventing it.  Certainly if your group/table prefers that it does, then just imagine that Neijia counts as a magical attack and then you CAN use it.  Assuming materialization does in fact leave an astral form to hit in the first place!

[MercilessMing]

Wow thanks I didn't think it was a topic of debate that materialized spirits were or were not dual natured. 
In addition to "pay some karma - ignore ITNW" there's also "spend 4 edge - ignore ITNW" because of the FS edge boost "I saw it on a Trid once". 

Personally, the concept of spending 4 edge to bypass a materialized spirit's ITNW, I'm cool with. That seems useful and not OP to me. 

I have less problem with that than I do Neijia, which breaks the holy commandment of thou shalt not attack across planes. 

[Tecumseh]

Earlier editions had an "Attack of Will" option that allowed brave/desperate/foolhardy mundanes to attack spirits.

That "Attack of Will" turned into Neijia in 5E, where it was specific to materialized spirits. Here's the relevant passage from Run & Gun, emphasis added:

NEIJIA
Complex Action
Neijia means internal strength. It’s as close as a mundane can get to magical weaponry in fighting spirits. The technique focuses the spiritual and mental strength of the character in order to inflict damage to a Materialized spirit as an Attack of Will. It allows the character to perform a physical version of Astral Combat (p. 315, SR5) against Materialized spirits.  The style of the attack is based on Tai Chi’s soft and fluid motion and mental discipline. The character must first make a successful Touch Attack against the spirit. This can include a Grapple or Clinch, but it also counts if the character has been Engulfed. Using only Willpower vs. Willpower as an attack, the character can impose Charisma + net hits in Stun Damage that the spirit must resist. This damage is not physical, so it cannot be used to take down wards or magical barriers. The character feels drained after making this attack, resisting Stun. Damage equal to hits (not net hits) from the spirit defending against the attack. If they are a mage they resist Drain per their tradition; everyone else uses Willpower + Charisma.

I would not want to break the commandment of attacking across planes. In addition to not fitting the fluff, it introduces problematic "I can hit you but you can't hit me" possibilities.

To me, it is a way to bypass Immunity to Normal Weapons. No reading of the rules is without internal contradiction, but I would simply make it an Unarmed Attack with the modified WIL/2 damage value.

[ammulder]

Isn't the issue that fundamentally, a spirit with Immunity to Normal Weapons can basically mop up a bunch of non-awakened PCs?  I mean, not that it's typical that you'd have an all-mundane team, but should it be impossible for such a team to take any mission that has a conjurer among the opposition?  Especially of you have a game with only one or two PCs... are you supposed to pretend that conjuring doesn't exist in the world, or that no facility would have spirits among the defenses?

I took things like Neijia as throwing a bone to such a game... if a mundane needs to be able to not just roll over and die for a spirit, this is what you need to take.  (Fine if there's a 4-edge option too, but you can't run an ongoing fight that relies on 4-edge actions!)

So in practical terms, I would expect it to bypass Immunity to Normal Weapons for a materialized spirit, and I would not expect it to be used much for attacking astral-only entities from the material plane.  It's odd that attacking cross-planes would even be allowed, though I can't deny the original quoted text block seems to explicitly encourage it.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Yeah ItNW has always been an issue.  Some editions did it better than others, but of late 5e and 6e haven't done it quite as well as some others.  It basically does make a spirit be auto-win vs mundane opposition... that's obviously no fun when a mage-less team of PCs has to face a spirit, but it's also not much fun (for long, anyway) when mage PCs are never threatened by NPCs because they can just sic spirits on them.

5e had Blight toxin, which *I* happened to find hilarious and awesome.  But despite my haterade, looking objectively at the issue I have to agree that making spirits have no chance vs anyone who happens to pack some Spirit-B-GON isn't any better balanced than mundanes who LACK the toxin have no chance vs a spirit.

A sorta-kinda-house-rule that I like is to say that spirits don't necessarily always come with full essence when summoned.  Summon a fire elemental out on the open ocean?  Ok, fine. Rules don't say you have any penalties, but then again 6e is all loosey goosey with "GM discretion" for almost everything.  It's not a house rule at all for the GM to say summoning a spirit of fire when there's no fire around imposes a disadvantage on Edge.  So why not have a different disadvantage beside "NO EDGE FOR YOU".  Maybe a spirit comes with sub-max essence?  This is relevant because ItNW is based on ESSENCE, not Force...  And frankly so long as the Essence isn't higher than say 3, ItNW doesn't become "auto-win".

[Michael Chandra]

I half Immunity's autohits in SR6, at which point they're still tough and it takes quite a large set of grunts to beat up a tough elemental.

[MercilessMing]

I think there was a time in previous editions (don't know how far back) where ITNW acted as Hardened Armor, completely deflecting damage from weapons with a base damage equal to or less than its rating, wasn't there?  In that way, autohits on damage resist is a less punishing mechanic. 
I would prefer a static autohit number that doesn't scale with Force though.  Spirit damage resist already increases by 3 dice per point of Force - One from the increase to Body and two through the increase to whatever the defense pool would be. 

Isn't the issue that fundamentally, a spirit with Immunity to Normal Weapons can basically mop up a bunch of non-awakened PCs?

A *high level* spirit can mop up a bunch of non-awakened PCs, but there is a sweet spot where ITNW makes them tough but not too tough.  If your combat monster PC can dish out like 8 points of damage in an attack vs non spirits, then they can do about 4 points of damage to a Force 4 spirit. 
A bigger issue IMO is PCs mopping up opposition this way.  PCs are more likely to bring high level spirits to bear, and opposition is less likely to be ready for it than PCs would be.  And that's how we get Angel Summoner memes.