Useless weapons?, A look at some unlikely items Options

[Moonstone Spider]

I'm trying to figure out why anybody would use some of the lower-end shadowrun equipment.

Take knives. Say two people with roughly equal stats and skills go at it, one with a knife and one with bare hands.

The guy with bare hands will do a moderate stun wound.

The guy with a knife will do a light physical wound.

All other things being equal, the guy with the knife is screwed. The fist man only needs 4 successful melee attacks (Assuming he never manages to stage up/down) while the knife guy needs to land 10 to win. Armor works against each equally. While the fist man will only knock his opponent unconcious, 9 times out of 10 on a shadowrun that's good enough, and on the 10th you can take the knife from his unconcious body and cut his throat anyway. And since the fist does damage faster, the knife guy will lose initiative and gain + to TNs faster, making his chances of success even lower than they look. On top of that the fist can't be taken away (well, most of the time), doesn't set off alarms, and won't attract Lonestar's attention. Overall, a knife is a totally useless item.

Even on the boards people joke at how silly light pistols are. Given how much armor even average joe wears, a light pistol is useless. If that's the case, how the heck can you expect to ever use a holdout pistol? 4L damage = 0 damage against anything other than no armor at all, even with only armor clothing or a cheap armor vest a person with body 2 will probably never take damage from any holdout pistol without tons of staging up by a person with pistols skill 12.

Things only get worse when you consider a few other weapons. For instance, cyber fangs and horns. While they at least do strenth +1 (L) rather than the knife's pathetic damage, they have a -1 reach that makes the odds of success nastily low compared to good only reliable Mr. Fist. Of course the fact that you could buy several assault rifles for the price of a cyberfang or horn (not to mention essence cost) only makes things even more absurd.

Worst of all is the adept power missile mastery. Goody, you can toss credsticks and do half strength(L) damage. If the GM is kind enough to let you be near them at a critical time. Armor defends against it normally, it's so unlikely that you could ever do damage with missile mastery that I have never seen an adept take it. While it's theoretically useful when combined with Shuriken, they are basically a knife with a range lower than a holdout pistol.

Perhaps it's just my inexperience but does anybody ever use these items/powers? If so how can they be successful with such gear?

[Kagetenshi]

Light Pistols are useless. Holdouts are far from. A Needler is a great thing for fancy parties. Obviously they're useless against anyone using armor, but if you're in a situation where you need to carry them, anyone using armor is going to eat you anyway. The problem with Light Pistols is that they aren't more concealable than Heavy Pistols most of the time.

~J

Edit: and the "average Joe" wears at most 1 Impact, 2 if they can afford real leather instead of synthleather. 0 Ballistic.

[Crusher Bob]

Yep, get yourself some shock gloves, or sap gloves, or something like that. It's quite easy to claim that your shock gloves are a 'self defense item'. Combine with a small can of pepper spray and you are ready for that classy party.

[moosegod]

Harliner combat gloves give you +1 damage anyways.

Missle mastery is useful because it gives a bonus (that I don't remember) to other thrown weapons.

[Kagetenshi]

+2 Power.
Missile Mastery works best for an NPC wageslave that the players run into.
"...Why does he have an entire can of letter openers?"

~J

[El_Machinae]

Knives are good for intimidation. Suppose you're in a fight with someone who's unwilling to kill (hey, it could happen). It takes a LOT longer to heal a knife wound than a fist wound.

This is the main reason why people threaten with knives nowadays - because the threat of long-term injury.

[FlakJacket]

[RedmondLarry]

Moonstone Spider, here's my take on the lower-powered equipment:

The books give GMs the opportunity to run opposition that is more skilled or less skilled than the player characters, and either better equipped or worse equipped than the player characters. Without rules for knives and light pistols we wouldn't be able to make gangs! And besides, the characters are sometimes so drek-out-of-luck that there's nothing else to use.

Often my magician has carried a Light Pistol in an external quick-draw holster (cowboy style) when the team goes to the barrens. With such a weapon, no one ever targets me first.

And did I tell you about the time my Samurai faced a dragon with just a Heavy Pistol, and lived because of it?

[Eindrachen]

The stun damage from a punch is easier to get over than the physical damage of a knife. Also, against someone with no armor, a knife weilded by somoene with significant speed and/or strength can be rather bad on a person's lifespan.

Really, any weapon doing Light damage isn't meant to be used in "Munchkin Kombat"; they are, more or less, to take out the average slot, who shouldn't be sporting amored clothing and a lined coat, with a sustained Armor (6) spell. They were mostly made to cap that leather-clad punk who thinks he's Bruce Lee or some crap.

It's pretty much like the difference between a knife and a sword: if you need an edge for general purpose use, you take a knife; if you need to push sharp things through soft things that will scream and bleed, take a sword. If you are running security at an office or similar setting, you take a light pistol; if you are on guard duty at a corp facility that expects runners any day now, you carry a heavy pistol, SMG, or an assault rifle.

And Missile Mastery is hardly useless. What other power in the world lets you walk completely unarmed into a facility, grab a bunch of random crap, and start calling ranged damage out of the blue? Heck, link it with some Boosted Strength, Increased Reflexes, and Improved Throwing Weapons, and you can be a nasty little monkey...

[moosegod]

And you can slit someone's throat with a knife, saving that precious 2 nuyen on the bullet.

[Tanka]

Unless they're a Troll or have some form of Dermals. Or Orthoskin. Or... Scales? :eek:

[Cray74]

[Kagetenshi]

Nothing says that. It's a not-uncommon houserule as the difference between a regular knife and a Fineblade looks suspiciously like a layer of Dikote, but by canon you can stick a layer on and have your own pocket katana minus reach bonus.

~J

[TheScamp]

Then again, if NPC's and PC's are actually reacting to the item itself rather than its game stats (which don't exist to them), pulling a knife in a fistfight is a major escalation which should give the opponent pause.

[Kagetenshi]

Indeed. You can't knock someone out with a knife.

~J

[Dogsoup]

As a paranthesis;
On the topic of light pistols, everything with gunpowder in it should do M damage IMHO. L is the realm of pellet rifles and airguns. I mean, just watch Lock Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels.

"Aaah! Shit! I been shot!" :D

[Kagetenshi]

One success is just barely hitting. A glancing blow, a shot that was almost a miss. By that standard, it's reasonable in my mind to take L damage.
Plus remember that L damage is damage significant to make a routine task (TN 4, 1/2 chance of succeeding on a single die) significantly harder (TN 5, 1/3 chance, odds reduction of 1/6). Light isn't minor.

~J

[nezumi]

Apparently Dogsoup's never fired a .22 : P

A lot of the weapons are also there to keep players from saying 'what if' and feeling like the rules won't let them do what they want. Weapons also do have a roleplaying purpose. My gangers all have knives because its what gangers have, and I'd like to know how much weapon they do : P My decker (overweight and greasy faced) has cyber fangs, just because he's uber geek and I know that's something I think would be pretty neat. It doesn't ALWAYS have to be about killing people, you know.

[mfb]

there's a lot of things about SR that could use a facelift, but weapon damage values are one of the worst. forget about armor--it's next to impossible to kill an unarmored person with one or two shots from a light pistol. and trying to kill someone with a knife is like trying to dig a grave with a teaspoon--in both cases, you'd be better off just using your hands. pistols--any pistol--should have a minimum damage level of M. knives as well, to be honest.

[Dende]

You have to realize even with knifes a LOT of damage can be done. with 1 ambidextrious person using 2 at once with a 6 skill you get 9 die...With a called shot, that isn't bad, odds are good you get a few successes to the neck, and that works well.

[Moonstone Spider]

Indeed. All you need is an 8-point edge and you can try to roll a 12 while your opponent rolls against 4 with his dice. Given relatively equal skill I'd say you're totally screwed with your two knives against an opponent with 1 fist.

I think the easiest way to tone things down would be to reduce an unarmed melee attack to str(L) stun myself. It's not unreasonable to expect a serious pounding on an opponent before he is knocked unconcious.

[Ol' Scratch]

[hobgoblin]

hmm, start at L, add 2 successes and your at M, add 2 more and your at S, 2 more and your on D. 6 successes, and that in my book isnt hard if your in close range with the right gear (maybe smartlink, maybe something else). sure with a heavy you need 2 less. oh and i think its the heavys that are to easy to hide, not the lights that are to hard...

[Zazen]

I think mfb's point is worth talking about, though. For average unarmored people, it takes a whole lot of effort to stab someone to death with a knife.

[Tanka]

I think knife would win over unarmed due to this (Note: this is only if it's going to death and not knocked-out):

Say knife only does L, so it takes six net successes to do D damage. Unarmed strike does M Stun, so it takes 4 to get it to D Stun, and another 8 to get it to D physical. Obviously if you're just looking to knock the guy out, if it's all even, one-on-one fight (even excepting the knife), the guy who's going unarmed has a better chance of winning.

Not to mention that some knives do (Str - *)L, and unarmed does straight (Str)M (or (Str + *)M if you have bone lacing).

Edit: Oh, and Light Pistols are not useless. Some of them look pretty. ;)