The risk of the monofilament whip. Options

[Jack Kain]

This poll has been burning in my head for a week or so, but I had trouble coming up with the options. I wanted choices but not to many or to narrow.

So really who here takes the risk on a melee weapon that risked damaging yourself on a critical glitch or geting tangled up on a regular glitch. But the pay off in my mind is great.
A DV of 8 with an ap of -4 and a reach of 2.
The wire retracts into the weapon’s haft when not in use making it easily concealible

I rather enjoy it when my elf street samurai pulls out his monowhip when foes close into melee.
Hell he even has a modified arm slide that holds the monowhip's haft instead of a gun. As the weapon is clearly small enougth when not deployed givin its concealibility bonus is the same as a hold out pistol.
My street samurai has only average strength as he also pulls double duty as the party face and that ate up some BP.

But I'm curious as to who else takes the risk that come with the weapon, who thinks the risk is to great. And who had tried it in the past but paid the price.

[Glyph]

I haven't played that much SR4 yet, but I have put together a lot of builds, and the monofilament whip is a good choice for high Agility/low Strength characters - it is a perfect fall-back weapon for a guns guy, or any other character with a low Strength. It is extremely concealable but very effective. And the risk isn't too much, since you can negate a critical glitch with Edge. I do recommend a high skill for it, though. And one disadvantage is that it uses the exotic melee weapon skill, so specialization is not available for it.

[OneTrikPony]

In SR3 I would give them to my NPCs fairly often. My Pc's were usualy strong enough that the mono whip was a step down.

Just barely played my first SR4 PC for the first time tonight. He has str 10 so the mono whip is pretty much useless.

It does have an attractive concealability though. Probably the greates damage potential in the smallest package of any weapon in the game.

[Jack Kain]

My current character is a low strength high agility type.
He started with an agility 6(2) and 4 ranks in the monofiliment whip. He has raised the skill to 5 and purchased a reflex recorder for it. Hasn't glitched yet and I think at this point it is very unlikly to happen when there is no edge to spare.

Maybe Arsenal will add some rules for "specialization like bonus" on exotic weapon skills that don't allow for specializations. Hey I can dream can't I?

[Anythingforenoug...]

...of course, this thread would not be complete if someone did not mention that age old Twink favorite-The Monofilament Whip Weapon Focus. Don't leave home without it (which is not a problem if you have a point of cyberware for your Adept assassin, and carry your Mono-Whip-Focus around in a finger-tip compartment).

AFE :nuyen:

[Konsaki]

I see the specialization on Exotic Weapons sorta like Unarmed Combat specializations. Attack and Defense, though I dont know about any others...

[RunnerPaul]

And here, I always thought the twink favorite with regards to the mono-filament whip was to reel it out just one meter instead of two, and sustain a limited-target telekinesis spell on to the counterweight, keeping it at full distance from the haft and the line perfectly taut so that it can be wielded as a reach 1 sword with the damage code of the whip but without the drawback. (Usually combined with a touch-range sustained damaging manipulation with the elemental effect of light, to get the full effect.)

[hyzmarca]

Nah, the twink favorite is to reel it out all the way and then cast levitate on it and use it as a DV 8 -4AP flying weed whacker.

[TBRMInsanity]

Critical glitches are rare and burning an edge will stop major damage to your character. The advantages of using a monofilament whip out way the disadvantages. Even better is a monofilament strangle wire.

This is all assuming you are a stealth based character like a sam.

[ElFenrir]

The whip is a nasty piece of work, ive used it before, and seen it used. Ive also seen it glitch once. But the guy had his forearm replaced, so it was all good. :D


I find its even useful for above average Strength characters...even a character with Strength 4 or 5 and a sword won't be doing as much damage as this guy, and without the massive AP on top of it.* Its just a good weapon, if you take a skill high enough to wield it properly, and have a decent Agility.




*Until everyones favorite weapons glazing system is maybe re-implemented, much to the joy of GMs around the world!!!(:P :grinbig: ;) )

[eidolon]

A "yes and will" here. It's the weapon that got me into SR. :)

[toturi]

It becomes more and more unlikely a monofilament whip will glitch/critical glitch the more dice you get. So unless you have a low dice pool/real lousy rolls, you won't be seeing glitches at 6 base skill + 5 Agility + maybe weapon focus bonus 2 + maybe adept Improved skill 3, for a total of 16 dice.

[James McMurray]

tpturi beat me to it. The whip even helps you avoid a glitch by adding two dice to your roll unless you really want to apply the reach to your opponent.

[lorechaser]

The fact that it can be run out of a fingertip compartment pushes it over the edge, for me.

And yeah, the fact that a critical glitch is amazingly rare with a dice pool of 12 or so means that those horrible moments won't happen too often.

From my math:

The probability of rolling no successes on 12 dice: .77%
The probability of rolling 6 or more 1's on 12 dice: .79%

So the odds of rolling no successes *and* 6 ones look to be pretty slim.

[Butterblume]

One wonders how they train to be that efficient with the monowhip. Perhaps only a lucky few survive monowhip 101 :wobble:.

Never used one with my chars. Never fitted, roleplaying wise ;).

[Jaid]

[BishopMcQ]

I had a character in SR3 who dual wielded mono-whips. He never sliced himself up, though it was always an ending I knew would happen eventually.

When/if he comes over to SR4 he will probably keep on swinging.

[Jack Kain]

[FriendoftheDork]

After seeing Johnny Mnemonics in the nineties, I've always wanted a Monowhip. But it had too high avaliabilty in SR3 and wasn't that good compared to a troll with a dire-coated axe (or whatever).

Now I'm gonna build a character with one soon enough.

BTW an off topic question: Does the monowhip slice through ALL materials or just some? Why, why not? I mean in the movie it sliced flesh and metal as a hot knife through butter, but then it was defeated by some run-down metal fence!

In the game it doesen't appear to do much damage to structures and items, is that so?

[James McMurray]

Yep. In the game it sucks against objects.

[FriendoftheDork]

[Jack Kain]

It doesn't deal much damage to structures because the hole it makes is so very thin. A hole in the wall as wide as paper is thick isn't much.
The way I envison the weapon in use makes cuting through a wall very difficult. The weighted tip guides the wire and that tip needs to go past your target to get a good hit. You can't do that on a wall but could on fence, lamp post or other such objects.

[Moon-Hawk]

[FriendoftheDork]

[FrankTrollman]

Seriously, using monowire is no big deal.

Your chances of glitching on a 12 die pool (including critical glitches) is less than .8% - and if you reroll your failures it drops even lower.

Your chances of critically glitching are so miniscule that it's not even worth worrying about for a skilled character with some Edge lying around. And if you benefit from Guard, the chances go actually to zero.

That being said, the damage breakeven point of the monowhip is about Strength 9 vs. the Combat Axe, so unless you're a cyber-tusker chances are a monowhip is the most damaging melee weapon you can have.

The only problem with this weapon is that it interacts with the Exotic Weapon Rules - which are contradictory and non-functional. But even at a worst case - where the lack of possible specializations means that you're out 2 dice of attack vs. someone using practically any other melee weapon - the fact that it has +2 Reach over any other weapon that is remotely as concealable as it is almost makes up for it.

The monowhip is hands down the best melee weapon, and anyone who seriously wants to kill people in melee combat should check it out. The only thing that comes close is the stun baton.

-Frank