Knife fighting in SR3 or SR4 Options

[Shadow]

Knife fighting has always been a favorite of mine. Knives (to me) are scarrier then guns, mostly because I know how to handle a gun. SO I have two topics for discussion

1. What would be some of the RP aspects of a character who is a knife fighter.

2. What would be some of the cyberware/knives/skills etc you would want as a knife fighter.

[Aku]

i have to admit, im not a big fan of the knife fighter, or melee in general, because, well, while i only took kung-fu for abut 6 months, one leason stuck with me... "doint take a knife to a gun fight", its just generally a bad idea lol, but thats RL, and doesnt have to be that way in a game.

If i were to RP a melee/knife figter, i'd prolly go the "Bloodier than thou" route, where he uses knifes because he finds guns to be too "easy" and gets a trill of having blood spilled all over him as he slashes through his enemies.

[hyzmarca]

In SR3 you would want to have high STR and high skill. Speed doesn't matter much due to the way that SR3 melee works.

In real life you'd want high speed and high skill, STR doesn't matter much due to the knife's function as a force multiplier.

In SR4 you want high speed, high STR, high skill, basicly high everything.

[stevebugge]

Interesting topic, I'll have to admit Knives tend to get little attention in my games. I would guess that this would be a prime area for a Physical Adept to shine. Knives are very versatile, able to be thrown or used in hand to hand combat. I guess Jim Bowie might be a good start for character qualities, but certainly not the only one.

Mechanically for SR4 a high agility is a must and good blades and throwing skill desirable. A knife fighter could probably make good use of athletics and acrobatics.

I'll have to give this some more thought, it's an interesting character idea.

[Kagetenshi]

2) Depends on your approach. If you're going for a brawler-type knife fighter, you're going to want a long Cougar Fineblade. If you're going stealthy and you don't mind the fact that it isn't used like a traditional knife, go with a katar, otherwise a short Fineblade. Whatever you get, dikote™ it—many people forbid dikote™ing Fineblades, but there's nothing whatsoever in the rules to even hint at that.

For 'Ware, muscle aug is going to be the name of the game. Bioware is preferable, as it makes boosting skills into the stratosphere cheaper. A good knife fighter needs to be quick, limber, and able to think on their feet, so any attribute that will up Combat Pool is good as usual. If you're making a specialist, one often overlooked feature is reflex enhancements—they aren't as valuable as they are in ranged combat, but the ability to both win ties and dish out damage with dramatically increased frequency is quite valuable. Wear loose-fitting clothing to conceal your knives and the exact location of your body, and make sure you've got a lot of extra clothes—knife fighters go through clothing, it's what they do. You want to not get hit, of course, but carry iron supplements for when that isn't possible. Never bring a knife to a Trollfight.

Edit:

[James McMurray]

Is there a martial arts style that uses knives and will let you apply the whirling technique to your knife fighting?

[Kagetenshi]

Pentjak-Silat and Kung Fu.

~J

[nezumi]

[Shadow]

Maybe I am missing something. I can get a throwing knife to 11M. Isn't that more than a pistol?

[Kagetenshi]

Yeah, you're missing something. You can get a throwing knife to at least 22M at chargen.

~J

[Voran]

[Shadow]

[stevebugge]

Lower most of the time

[Anythingforenoug...]

One big question you need to think about-how broad is your definition of knife? If it is broad enough to include cyberspurs, that is probably the way to go, at least as far as Third Edition goes-that gives you 1.5 X Strength M [S with DiKote] damage [If you are more agro in chargen, and your GM openminded, you can even make a play to use the couger fineblade combat knife damage, as it is roughtly the same size as a spur and you can try to play it as a custom mod-and as mentioned above, I don't know of any rule that says that you can not slap a coat of DiKote on those sweat blades] Also, with the .3 essence cost for standard grade cyberware-depending on your resources and desire you can make those blades weapon foci and bond them to and adept [or mage with a lot of buffing/combat enhancing spells and sustaining foci].

whether or not you go with the spurs or a straight knife, if you have one or two cyberarms [two gives you bonus to body as well as the power of you're attacks, so I would recommend two in most circumstances], you can get cyberholsters hooked up to venom sacks, so either the spur or the blade comes out with a nice coat of the poison of your choice-which can be very nice for putting the bigger nasties down fast. Even if you go with the spur/cyber arm angle, I would still recommend gettin the cyber-holster and venom sac on that as well for the thown weapon angle.

[Kagetenshi]

Impact armor is generally lower enough that it makes sense to trade off even for doubled Impact armor over Ballistic. You just get screwed now and then when you come up against a dedicated melee person.

~J

[Kanada Ten]

In 4 you're going to want lots of initative passes to use full dodge (with a dodge of 5, specialized in Ranged, you'll be rolling 19 dice for dodging - assuming a reaciton 5). Use jammers to disable smartlinks and image enhancments (and drones!). And see if you can add shock frills to a knife.

[James McMurray]

5 (reaction) + 7 (skill) is only +12 against guns. What am I missing? Unless you meant full melee dodge, in which case just tell me to shut up. :)

[Kanada Ten]

Me stoopid. 12 against ranged, 15 against melee. Makes you think an adept with Combat Sense might not be so bad. Actually, you can do 17 against melee with Blades 5 Specilized in Knives, and then Full Parry... (5 Reaction + 5 Dodge + 5 Blades +2 Specialization)?

[ChuckRozool]

[mfb]

[Dog]

From a characterization aspect, I've always been amazed at the number of people I've met who carry a knife around with them to "protect" themselves. It's true that carrying a knife to a gun-fight is a bad idea, but the reverse is also true. Turning a Saturday-night fist-fight into a life-or-death situation is just as stupid.

What I'm getting at is that anybody who's using a knife is either an idiot or a real hardcore looking to kill somebody. A knife is an assassin's weapon.

[Shadow]

Thats what I am talking about. Any idiot can carry a gun and think they are bad. But only a real bad ass carries a knife and knows hes bad.

[Kagetenshi]

[mfb]

they don't? holy crap, they don't. what terrible ninjas they are.

oh, if you don't mind houserules, Wing Lam Kung Fu allows the combination of whirling and edge weapons, as does Silat Mubai (second MA on the page).

[Dog]