Exotic Melee Weapons require a skill per weapon. This is unarmed combat for an unarmed attack.

Actually, making an item a weapon focus does not make it a weapon explicitly and base items are not restricted to weapons. A glove or a sock could indeed be made into a weapon focus and the user would still be unarmed (since a glove or sock is not a weapon). Hardliner/Shock gloves or brass knuckles however are weapons.

Generally this is true. The hardliner gloves however have the following exception:
This exception only changes the used skill, it does not make an (obviously armed) attack with the hardliner gloves into an unarmed attack.

Or explains why an obviously unarmed attack is listed in a section of exotic weapons rather than creating a distinct section for unarmed combat aids.

Plain English:

Hardliner gloves definitely fit that description.



Emphasis mine.
Now tell me how an attack using hardliner gloves is not an armed attack.

I don't agree (on this specific point). When you use a weapon focus, whatever it is (feather, Kleenex, ring), it's a weapon you're using. The skill you use is a separate question, but as you say, not a relevant one for Adept powers.

So does a fist, particularly when combined with killing hands or bone lacing. Nearly everything that affects the effectiveness of a punch will improve the effectiveness of a hardliner punch. There may be a question of balance, but that's a separate question.

And again, I don't think it makes sense to argue that hardliners are a weapon and so unarmed bonuses do not affect a hardliner punch, but that enchanting a sock or glove as a weapon focus grants a bonus to unarmed combat.

It's a weapon when it is beneficial to me for it to be a weapon (so it can be a weapon focus) and not a weapon when it is not beneficial to me for it to be a weapon (so I can use Critical Strike with it). Schroedinger's Hardliner Glove +6.

LOL. It is simultaneously a weapon and non-weapon until it observed, when it is one or the other? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Pretty much exactly my POV of the munchkins Umaro.

It counts for their +focus dice on it but nothing else. But it doesn't do it's damage code, it merely adds to my already obscene damage code so that I get the absolute best of all worlds with none of the drawbacks. Any adept who takes a more traditional weapon like a sword is just a sucker because this clearly works differently than all other weapon foci in the game!


My favorite was the comment about for a mere +1 damage and a few dice... it stops being a few when that few can be a quarter or half your dice pool!!! (such as a force 6+ focus bringing you up to 18+ dice). Those extra dice are the big problem... increasing accuracy (and damage by an average of a third of the added dice as well!).

Not exactly...
Bone lacing gives its own damage code. Hardliner gloves gives its own damage code. Stun gloves gives its own damage code.

None of them ADD to your base damage code.

Bone lacing changes your base and stacks with adept abilities because you paid essence for it. Just like a mage with cyber eyes.

Besides... What would be the point of wearing a basic sock or glove as a weapon focus? The only real benefit is to make the attack dual natured so you can take out spirits. Adding dice is secondary and in a way is the balancing factor for weapon foci vs. unarmed since you can add more to unarmed then you can with attacks with weapons.

So, if I understand (one of) the general consensus(ses) right, shock gloves and hardliners count as weapons, and so can't be used with unarmed Adept powers, right?

How does Orthoskin (Electroshock) work? The RAW says it works "as if wielding a stun baton." I don't think that can mean it is a weapon (you paid good essence for it, and, fluff-wise, it's obviously embedded in your skin.) Do Critical Strike, etc. work with it? Or not?

At my table it would not. You may be using unarmed combat for the attack but you are not using your unarmed damage. You are trading that damage for the electrical damage instead.

I do understand your point on paying essence for it and for that alone I would see a case for its inclusion for adept abilities.

However, as a GM, I would see it purely as an attempt to break the game... Not that it is difficult to break the game; I just try and minimize it at my table. It is not really fair to the other players and if the players do it so can I which just makes everything spiral out of control.

More importantly they give you a different damage code. Most adept powers modify your base damage code. You can enhance it through the roof, those enhancements would still not be added to the damage code of the hardliner gloves/bone lacing etc.

You do not need to be dual-natured to attack spirits unless you want to attack astral spirits, and who but a mage wants to do that? What you want is a bypass to ItNW. A weapon focus as well as Killing Hands achieves that.

"as if wielding a stun baton" means you count as armed. So critical strike, elemental strike etc. won't work. There also is the fact that you do not perform normal melee attacks with a stun baton, you do touch attacks. As such the unarmed adept powers don't work anyways.

I only meant my statement as a way to bypass ItNW.


And I think you said it better than I!

Fine, use your Anti-Player Rules Lawyer GM arguments, but people can do the same to you. A normal unarmed strike is (Str/2), while hardliner makes it (Str/2 + 1), thus hardliner only gives a +1 to damage from base unarmed strike damage. Eat your own logic.

And a knife gives... and a sword gives... or a stun glove gives... What argument are you trying to make?

Hardliner gloves do not give you a +1 any more than a knife gives you +1... They have seperate damage codes and that makes them not unarmed combat (well, the knife is blades but you get the point) regardless that you are using the unarmed skill.

You forgot the important part, All4BigGuns. A normal unarmed attack does stun damage, an attack with hardliner gloves does physical damage. Using hardliner gloves does not result in an enhanced damage value. The damage value is replaced by a different damage value.

The same could be said for bone lacing and bone density augmentation, though. Purely by RAW, it is correct that hardliner gloves have their own damage code. I would probably let things like ceramic bone lacing stack with it, although that is a house rule, not RAW.

The problem with letting adept powers stack with it is that you are effectively letting them channel power from their fists through the gloves. So I would disallow it. You can either get hardliner gloves, or adept powers, not both. I wouldn't let two-weapon style be used, either - mainly because unarmed combat already uses both fists, by default (in addition to knees, feet, elbows, etc.). I reason that if unarmed combat can not be used with the off-hand training maneuver, it shouldn't work with the two-weapon style maneuver, either. Part of my reason is RAI, which is very subjective, part of it is a reflexive reaction against what I see as trying to loophole the system, and part of it is that dreaded specter, game balance - weapons should be better for some things.

I fail to see how in anything but a strict MMO type of "balance" a +1 to damage suddenly becomes "broken", or how it suddenly becomes "broken" being able to use a weapon focus an the intrinsic benefits of such for unarmed combat in any form--again without delving into D&D 4E style of supposed balance (read: total destruction of anything that actually brings enjoyment to the game).

A weapon is a weapon. Swords, knives, clubs, guns, etc. are weapons. A pair of hardened gloves is NOT a weapon, it merely makes a punch more effective.

...
...
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Punch someone with a closed fist...
Then punch someone else with a hardliner glove (brass knuckles, weighted glove)...
Then see what charges would be brought up on you by the police.
I can tell you that in New York the first is assault; the second is assault with a deadly weapon.
(Unless you are a black belt or above in any martial art then it is assault with a deadly weapon when your unarmed)

As for game balance... the +1 is not the issue.. The problem is when you start making concessions for everything. If you give one thing away and something else is similar then, by default, you need to give that away... etc... etc...

Not in SR4.

Haha, really? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Now that's an awesome law if I've ever seen one. Taking adepts into account 2012 in real life, priceless (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

All Magic counts as INTENT in Shadowrun Laws. No matter what.
Spells higher than Force 3 were simply illegal to have without a propper license, at least in SR3.

I remember that, except that no one could know if you had such a spell learned until you cast it, right?

That's what forensics are there for.
It doesn't really help at the moment, it just helps make higher charges stick better.
And over here, in germany, we have similar laws for assault with a deadly weapon for martial arts. And Boxing counts too.