[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Not that useful when it's a damage toxin, though, and a single dose already knocks you or throws you into Overflow.

Since they just "turn off" the toxin rather than giving you additional resist dice, they're the perfect counter. Of course, the rub is in applying the antidote in time when it's an immediate toxin, since initiative passes are gone.  But a biomonitor + autoinjector should still work.

Edit: wow, autocorrect. I typed "antidote" so you changed it to abortion o.0

[Lormyr]

Toxins have been unreasonably powerful since at least 5th edition (possibly earlier, but I am not familiar with the rules of the earlier editions). They were at least slightly easier to handle in 5th due to the wider spread of ware and spells that added dice to resist them, though. This might be expanded upon in future material, but I still think scaling back the damage would be a superior solution.

A troll with a rating 13 or 14 bow and injection arrows with nacrojet in them is straight up lolsy how much damage it inflicts compared to say just getting your torso blown in half by a canon.

[Hobbes]

[quote author=Lormyr link=topic=30847.msg533366#msg533366 date=1579181937

A troll with a rating 13 or 14 bow and injection arrows with nacrojet in them is straight up lolsy how much damage it inflicts compared to say just getting your torso blown in half by a canon.
[/quote]

First of all, personally, I love that Trollbows are back. 

And the knock against Bows is the action economy.  You're likely just taking one attack per turn because of the extra Minor Action to ready the Arrow.  But you're still dealing damage twice per turn, just to the same target.  Once for the Arrow, once for your toxin.  And if you're a typical Samurai or Adept the Archer is pocketing a couple minor Actions for ducking, moving, diving for cover...  As opposed to the Cannon wielding Samurai taking two Major actions to deal damage twice.

[Lormyr]

You're not wrong Hobbes, I'm just saying that the damage calculation is wildly nonsensical vs. other printed weapons who's real world equivalents blow craters into bodies and/or tear them apart. Part of that issue is an arrow (or fist) doing as much damage as canon baseline, the other part is the asinine damage codes for toxins. For the first, game mechanics balance was really missed in 6e. For the later, game mechanics balance was missed in both editions (5 and 6).

Cage never shot his bow in our stress test because he was having too much fun grappling foes and tossing them around like toddlers in a crocodile's mouth.

[Finstersang]

Gas Grenades are only useful for Pepper Punch, because you have to pay for 20 doses. Even a Tear Gas Grenade costs 450 nuyen, a Neurostun starts at 1250.

Good catch, makes the pricing of these little fraggers a little bit more reasonable.

However, I think that the biggest problem with most of the gases is that they often have use both the Inhalation Vector and the Contact Vector and no appriopriate rules for what happens when you block out just the Inhalation Vector. It´s true, many real-life combat gases can also affect their targets through skin contact alone, but they usually lose a lot of their potency if you can stop yourself from inhaling them (and even more if you also protect your mucous membranes). But strictly RAW, if you put on a Gas Mask as a response to a Pepper Punch or Neurostun attack, it doesn´t do anything: unless you go full Hazmat, the attack hits you just as hard as if you were naked and voraciously huffing it in. In fact, it´s kind of pointless that these gases have the Inhalation vector listed in the first place.

As a houserule (or dare to say: Errata?  ), I´d suggest giving the different vectors different powers (and even speeds), so that you when you block out the Inhalation vector, you are only hit with a slower and less powerfull dose.

That being said, I suspect they forgot to half the DV values for Toxins, just like they forgot to half Hardened Armor's autohits, to scale with the lower damage values. I wonder if this will be covered in the errata that will release this month, otherwise it's time to houserule a nerf.

Is it though? I mean, Neurostun and Narcoject are supposed to knock you out instantly. If we´d take their Power in half, they maximum effect would only be... dizzying. Though that might work if the Net hits come back into play again.

There are a few other things to keep in mind for potential houserules:

• Making Antidotes and Spells able to "heal" the Damage already caused by a Toxin as well (unless the Toxin specifically states otherwise - which does make sense for many types of toxins, especially those that aren´t Neurotoxins)
• (Non-)Interaction with Cyberware, especially Cyberlimbs. How is a Chrome Arm supposed to absorb a DMSO Patch and deliver the the paiload into the meat-body bloodstream?
• Armor and Clothing interacting with Contact Vector Poisons.

A few things to bear in mind, though: First, net hits from the attack don't add to the power of the toxin. Second, even "Immediate"  toxins don't take effect until the end of the current combat round (p.121), so the target can still take actions before they have to resist the damage. And third, the Ares S-III Super Squirt fires DMSO "paintballs" that convert toxins to Contact vector (p.258), and chemical protection and chemical seal armor mods protect against Contact-vector attacks (p.266).

Last, but not least: It doesn´t help against Drones, Spirits and other non-biological targets.

Toxins work as well as anything else against Materialized Spirits.  In game world Toxins are frequently a Spirits weakness, Insecticide vs bug Spirits, Herbicide vs Plant Spirits, Fire suppression vs Fire Spirits, FAB vs all Spirits.  Narcojet, Pepperpunch ect would work, Spirit would get Auto successes from ItNW then normal resistance.

A large enough spirit will of course just wade through a cloud of poison gas and ignore it thanks to ItNW.  Arguably lingering effects may or may not "stick" if the Spirit simply de-materializes to the Astral plane.

Unless they tacked on some additional Immunity this time around that I missed.  Totally could have happened, but Nerostun/Narcojet/whatever has always been a somewhat decent option to irritate Spirits. 

Pretty sure that the weaknesses against Insecticides and Herbicides and ant-spirit Gases like FAB are supposed to be exemptions. Why would a materialized Spirit be affected by Neuro-Stun when they don´t even have a real nervous system? In 5th Edition, they were even immune to electrical shocks because of that (which I considered a huge flavour-fail, but that´s besides the point...)

[Hobbes]

Pretty sure that the weaknesses against Insecticides and Herbicides and ant-spirit Gases like FAB are supposed to be exemptions. Why would a materialized Spirit be affected by Neuro-Stun when they don´t even have a real nervous system? In 5th Edition, they were even immune to electrical shocks because of that (which I considered a huge flavour-fail, but that´s besides the point...)

Why would Blight, FAB, Herbicide, or Insecticide work then?  They're toxins that would require a bloodstream or nervous system or other anatomical and biological elements to "work".

If you want to bring real Science into this, a Spirit's Materialized Body obviously functions somehow.  It's physically there and chemicals will react with it.  Toxins are generally nasty chemicals that react energetically. 

If a GM wants to rule X Toxin doesn't work on Y Spirit, that's cool, but there isn't any reason to think all Spirits are totally immune to all biological and chemical weapons.  Spirits are harmed by Bullets and Swords disrupting their materialized forms, kinetic energy or some kind of stored chemical energy, or caustic chemicals that burn and/or dissolve physical objects.  It all hurts.  ItNW provides Auto hits to resistance, that seems like a solid way to represent Toxins not working quite as well vs a Spirits Materialized form.  Clearly YMMV.

[Horsemen]

My house rule is to halve toxins. I am hoping it gets addressed in the errata.

[wraith]

JM Hardy commented it on Facebook a few days ago, AJ and I mentioned it in a few topics, but those are in the CGL subforum so not strange you missed it.

Jason M. Hardy A new update with added errata will be released this month.
Jason M. Hardy PDF. The next print run of the hardcopy book will have the revisions, but I don't currently have a schedule on when that will be ordered.

What, they going to publish the rest of the rules six months past when they would have been relevant?

[Michael Chandra]

Oh please, the game has been playable and SR5 errata took longer, plus the second batch of SR5 errata we are still waiting for. Stop attacking SR6 and pretending SR5 is any better, after we heard for years 'We need SR6 because SR5 is broken beyond repair' on the forum.

[Lormyr]

Hey Mikey, I didn't see anyone say anything that could even reasonably be construed as the game isn't playable. Check the hyperbole and maybe brush up on your reading comprehension skills, it's gotten quite old, son.

He has a valid point that SR5 errata did take substantially longer, but that is also not a valid excuse. I'd wager hard money that Stainless and team had the changes ready to roll months ago and the powers that be mostly just sat on it. We can do better.

[Finstersang]

Pretty sure that the weaknesses against Insecticides and Herbicides and ant-spirit Gases like FAB are supposed to be exemptions. Why would a materialized Spirit be affected by Neuro-Stun when they don´t even have a real nervous system? In 5th Edition, they were even immune to electrical shocks because of that (which I considered a huge flavour-fail, but that´s besides the point...)

Why would Blight, FAB, Herbicide, or Insecticide work then?  They're toxins that would require a bloodstream or nervous system or other anatomical and biological elements to "work".

If you want to bring real Science into this, a Spirit's Materialized Body obviously functions somehow.  It's physically there and chemicals will react with it.  Toxins are generally nasty chemicals that react energetically. 

If a GM wants to rule X Toxin doesn't work on Y Spirit, that's cool, but there isn't any reason to think all Spirits are totally immune to all biological and chemical weapons.  Spirits are harmed by Bullets and Swords disrupting their materialized forms, kinetic energy or some kind of stored chemical energy, or caustic chemicals that burn and/or dissolve physical objects.  It all hurts.  ItNW provides Auto hits to resistance, that seems like a solid way to represent Toxins not working quite as well vs a Spirits Materialized form.  Clearly YMMV.

FAB is specifically designed to hurt spirits. But you´re right in that Spirits are not immune to all kind of toxins, simply because "toxin" is more of mechanical term that sums up a huge variety of effects of different chemical attacks. Herbicides work by attacking certain physiological feature of plants, and since Plant spirits take on plant-like features when materializing, they also get affected by the toxin. That´s explainable, even without the usual "Well, that´s just magic". There are likely other, more general toxins as well that are able to hurt materialized spirits, f.i. caustic chemicals that just wreak havoc instead of targetting specific receptors and neurons of humans and animals. In a way, these are basically more like acids that are just labelled "toxins" for mechanical reasons (If I´m not completely mistaken, radiation poisoning has always been treated like a toxin as well in gameplay terms).

However, many toxin - specifically the most common "Knockout Drugs" Neuro-Stun and Narcoject - are Neurotoxins designed to attack the nervous system of a living organism. And Spirits simply don´t have that, that´s canon. Just like they don´t have a bloodstream, digestive track or respiratory system that would make them suspectible to injection, ingestion or inhalation toxic.

TL;DR: Caustic Chemicals working against materialized spirits does make sense. Neurotoxins: Not so much.     

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

He has a valid point that SR5 errata did take substantially longer, but that is also not a valid excuse. I'd wager hard money that Stainless and team had the changes ready to roll months ago and the powers that be mostly just sat on it. We can do better.

Well credit where credit should be due, and no credit where no credit should be due... I'm a relatively recent addition to the team. Firebug and Adzling (and other team members who don't often make public posts) did much more work than me putting 5e errata together.

...
However, many toxin - specifically the most common "Knockout Drugs" Neuro-Stun and Narcoject - are Neurotoxins designed to attack the nervous system of a living organism. And Spirits simply don´t have that, that´s canon. Just like they don´t have a bloodstream, digestive track or respiratory system that would make them suspectible to injection, ingestion or inhalation toxic.

TL;DR: Caustic Chemicals working against materialized spirits does make sense. Neurotoxins: Not so much.     

This is, imo, a casualty of ditching the differences between nature spirits and elementals.  UMT rears its ugly head, yet again!

Now, sure, in the case of a Spirit of Air taking the form of a sentient fart, or a Spirit of Fire taking the form of a ball of flame with a face... it makes sense to argue that don't have circulatory or nervous systems.  However, if the Spirit of Air takes the form of a winged horse or if the Spirit of Fire takes the form of a red horned devil-man, now it begins to make sense that they DO have circulatory and nervous systems.

You can't have the toxin rules working on spirits based on how they're "skinned", so they either flatly work or they flatly don't work. 

[Lormyr]

Well credit where credit should be due, and no credit where no credit should be due... I'm a relatively recent addition to the team. Firebug and Adzling (and other team members who don't often make public posts) did much more work than me putting 5e errata together.

Oh, sure. I was speaking more directly to 6th in that statement. As in I would wager that you guys had your changes ready and proposed within 30 days of that book releasing (possibly even sooner), and JH and/or the other powers that be have mostly just been sitting on it for no excellent reason.

[Hobbes]

This is, imo, a casualty of ditching the differences between nature spirits and elementals.  UMT rears its ugly head, yet again!

Now, sure, in the case of a Spirit of Air taking the form of a sentient fart, or a Spirit of Fire taking the form of a ball of flame with a face... it makes sense to argue that don't have circulatory or nervous systems.  However, if the Spirit of Air takes the form of a winged horse or if the Spirit of Fire takes the form of a red horned devil-man, now it begins to make sense that they DO have circulatory and nervous systems.

You can't have the toxin rules working on spirits based on how they're "skinned", so they either flatly work or they flatly don't work.

Spirits also don't have any additional RAW mechanical immunity to "their" elements, but I can't see any GM letting a Fire Spirit take damage from a Flamethrower.  But creating a chart of "All Spirits" and "All things that do damage" and putting a Y or N is just silly and likely futile.  Clearly there is room for a GM to make a call on what will harm a Spirit, and what won't. 

A Hurricane might be a bit rough on a Fire Spirit.  An Air Spirit would likely be just fine.  A mudslide would probably just amuse an Earth Spirit.  Beast Spirit could very well be swept away / forced to de-materialize, whatever. 

Whatever works at your table, but Spirits are already well nigh invulnerable.  IMO they don't need any more blanket immunities to mundane weaponry, but GMs should feel free to make that call.

[skalchemist]

Oh please, the game has been playable and SR5 errata took longer, plus the second batch of SR5 errata we are still waiting for. Stop attacking SR6 and pretending SR5 is any better, after we heard for years 'We need SR6 because SR5 is broken beyond repair' on the forum.

Michael, I am not a person that has been "attacking" SR6.  And it is certainly playable; we have been playing it for two sessions now and have enjoyed ourselves.

But this post really irks me, and I'm going to rant a bit. 

I think some people seem to have an axe to grind about changes from SR5 to SR6.  Honestly, the level of vitriol and negativity in this forum often shocks me.  I'm not going to excuse that.  But I could care less what things were like with SR5; I haven't played Shadowrun since 1st edition.  This comparison is meaningless to me.

I think I can reasonably say that Catalyst did me wrong. Catalyst charged me $50 at GenCon last year for what they knew was an incomplete and flawed hardcover book; I know they knew it because the "hotfix" came out the day before I bought it!  Were they handing out printed copies of the "hotfix" at the GenCon booth?  Were they including a little note in the book saying "check this website for important corrections and additions to this rulebook, sorry for the problems"?  No, they were not.  And even then the "hotfix" team had to know that those 10 pages were just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what would eventually be released. 

My fundamental issue is this.  Normally errata are something that is generated when a game is out "in the wild" and being played by hundreds or even thousands more players than playtested it.  It is minor editing problems, weird rules cases that never came up in playtesting, and sometimes even major blind spots that the designers had that would only come to light with more play.  Designers are human beings just like everybody else; they will be the last people to see their own errors.  To take two examples, both the One Ring (from Cubicle 7) and Star Trek Adventures (from Modiphius) have ended up with over 10 pages of errata, but in general that errata is...errata.  Its stuff that seems at least vaguely reasonable to have shown up in a large rulebook after hundreds of people have used it. 

But that is not what the hotfixes and most of the errata that will eventually show up are for SR6  They were doing that work before the game had even been sold.  These issues are things that were noticed almost immediately as soon as people started reading the rulebook. There is nothing in that work that required it to be done after the books were on the boat from China or wherever.  Its normal proof-reading and editing stuff done by people who are familiar with reading game rules. So, why didn't Catalyst have this work done before the game was sent to the printers?  I have yet to hear a good answer to that question.

I'm playing SR6.  So far I am enjoying it and expect I will continue to do so.  I look forward to the official errata.  But that enjoyment is despite the rulebook and despite what I consider my reasonable anger at Catalyst.  It would be nice if Catalyst could acknowledge this as a thing that happened, say they are sorry, and tell me how they are going to make sure it doesn't happen again.  If Catalyst has done this and I've missed it, I will gladly apologize myself for not noticing that act.

Rant completed. Back to your regularly scheduled thread, and sorry for this admittedly off-topic post; I'll delete if moderators tell me I have gone over the line.  I don't expect any reply to this, nor honestly would this be a good place for such a reply; I'm already feeling bad about posting it in poor Xelian's thread about toxins.  Just tell me where it would be a good place to talk about this and I will go there.