Unarmed adept. elemental fist. Which element to get? Options

[Raiden]

So. I do not think Shock damage would be vaible, since you can just use shock gloves or shock frills. ice, fire, (sand?, light?) what do you suggest

[almost normal]

Sand. Ignores armor, IIRC.

[CloisterCobra]

What do you want to do? There are some benefits to most of them.

[Inu]

I like blast for the visual effect -- fists that hit like explosions! Plus, good for knocking people on their arse.

[Makki]

Sound ignores (most) armor, too, but is the opposite of stealthy.
Fire has some secondary uses, like lighting cigarettes.
Sand makes me think of Sandman from Spider-man 3: http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTM4...X485_SY323_.jpg. Works best, if you're a Vampire with Mist Form.

eventually, they're all good. Even metal, if you're dice pool is good enough for a ignore-armor-called shot

It's more of a style and theme question.

[UmaroVI]

Sound is far and away the best against people, but you can't hurt vehicles/drones/barriers with it outside of shenanigans like Vicious Blow. If you aren't going to be using Sound it should be because you want to punch tanks in half, in which case you should probably take an element that does not have a corresponding elemental defense for armor (ie, not Fire, because people can have fire resistant armor), and you would want an element that has some particular nasty effect against vehicles. Sand is a good choice (no special armor upgrade, vague magic teaparty effects that might help against drones and stuff), so is Acid (unlike Combat spells, Elemental Strike does not create only temporary acid; it will continue to melt things).

[Umidori]

Sonic is just insane against anything biological or even spiritual, thanks to complete armor negation and disgustingly good secondary effects.

If you want a quieter and less lethal alternative to Sonic, the Smoke element also ignores armor and inflicts a decent dice pool modifier (although without the "stun" capabilities.)

Ice is a somewhat overlooked choice, getting all the bonuses of standard Cold damage, but also forcing Crash Tests on vehicles and slipping tests on living foes.

For a fist adept, Metal element is also potentially pretty powerful, adding +2 DV at the cost of a mere +2 AP. If you're going for one-punch devastation, combine this with bone lacing for punches that rival even the strongest melee weapons at up to (STR/2) + 5P.


~Umi

[Udoshi]

On a sidenote, doing a similiar thing with a Mystic Adept is also a possibility.

I'm fond of a custom FireWater aura, using Metal and any AP-Half element(like fire). Acid is surprisingly deadly as well, especially at high levels.

[Xenefungus]

For pure DV, I would just use Critical Strike. Along with Martial Arts thats an easy +9 to unarmed attacks.

[Umidori]

And if you also add the bone lacing and the Metal elemental effect, that turns into +14, don't it? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

~Umi

[Stahlseele]

Electric Shocks.
Higher Power Stick'n'Shock

[UmaroVI]

Metal really isn't ever worth it. You're trading half+2 AP for 2 DV. Yeah, it does get you the biggest DV value, but people only need 8 armor to break even and past that Metal is just worse. This is especially bad because one of the big draws of not using Sound is breaking stun-immune things, and Metal is counterproductive for that.

[ZeroPoint]

In the end, it comes down to what Makki and some others have said. What sort of flavor are you looking for?

Do you want to get your DV as high as (meta)humanly possible?
Do you want to bypass armor?
Are you looking for interesting additional affects?
What of the above elements fits the style for the character your building?

All of the elements are viable (including metal) if you know what you want to use and build toward that.

[Stahlseele]

*shrugs*
neat idea would be water(make them fall down and wet) and then electricity(shock somebody who is now wet and lying on the ground)

[ZeroPoint]

Actually, thats something I've never looked at. Is it possible to get 2 different elemental fists? One for each fist?

[Stahlseele]

You can get them all, pokeman style.
But you can always only use one at a time, pokeman style.

[Raiden]

How do they work. I cant find anything about that. does it give your "fists" the effects of said element but does damage based on your unarmed DV, or does it apply a secondary effect?

[Stahlseele]

Both.
Electroshock for example uses your unarmed DV, then applies the minus half armor thing.
And then there's the secondary effect of -2 dice even if the target did not take damage, or however that works with stick and shock ammo . .

[_Pax._]

Cold ignores half armor, and is as stealthy as you could ask for.

[Stahlseele]

Is there anything that helps smash through barriers, and if so, do elemental effects stack with that and halve barrier rating?

[Makki]

Smashing Blow adept power

[Stahlseele]

Ah, so that is still in SR4 then.
Does it stack with the elemental effect halving thing?

[StealthSigma]

Obviously, this power needs an Orgasm element.

[Dakka Dakka]

Does it stack with the elemental effect halving thing?

No. It gives you AP - half impact. It does not modify your normal AP.
It does not even work to combine those at all. Each of the powers sets your damage to a certain element.

[shinyjam]

How about one hand with water element and combo with the other hand's shock glove. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smokin.gif)