Shock Gloves Options

[Luke Hardison]

Here's a question:

Why do people assume that Unarmed Combat (or MA skills from CC) represent using both hands, but then turn around and assume that Clubs, Edged Weapons, Pole Arms / Staffs, and Whips, all assume that your second hand is hanging limp next to your body?

Answer: Because the writers abandoned consistency. That's the way it was written, unfortunately. If you want melee combat to make ANY sense whatsoever, either ditch the Offhand weapons and Ambidexterity for melee, or allow the same bonuses for Offhand Kung Fu etc. and Ambidex for Unarmed styles. The whole melee system should be erratta'd one of those ways, to be totally honest; consistency within the same combat system is teh win.

In my games, if you're using a one handed weapon, you can choose, as winner of a round of combat, to use the weapon OR your empty hand on this attack. You can choose to grab a reasonably large weapon with both hands before starting the round, or anytime as a free action, and get the canon +1 power instead. IF you're using two weapons, you can choose with which weapon you strike once you've won the combat. In both choice situations, you get -1 power to your attack when using the non-dominant hand. Ambidex is still pretty popular for pistols and SMG's, plus the 6- and 8- point flaws eliminate the -1 power disadvantage on the offhand weapon. That whole system, IMO, is less bulky and more flexible, with minimal impact on the abstract system; I describe the attacks after the combat is over, and if they're using two weapons the wielder gets to choose one aspect of the description.

[Cain]

[Kayne]

[BitBasher]

[hobgoblin]

hmm, polearms & staffs often require the use of both hands to control the weapon. atleast that unless you put half the weapon under you armpit in a effort to control it that way and well that limits its usefullness greatly...

as for stacking hardliner or bone laceing with killing hands, not in my game. killing hands require the use of magical energys to produce the effect so therefor it will override any mundane tools (or atleast thats my take on it). i have allways envisioned it as wraping the fist in invisible magical energys that discharge into the target on strike...

but i would stack the shock effect on top of killing hands as thats not an effect of the punch itself but part of the glove (it has a seperate damage code after all).

hell, i may even allow someone to turn of the shock effect if they want to and only apply the punch effect as most likely its just a matter of flipping a switch so that the capitators are not connected to the contact surfaces...

[GrinderTheTroll]

[Edward]

Why would you want to use killing hands. Your better of having your opponent on 10 boxes stun than 5 each of stun and physical. I never mix damage types if I can avoid it.

Edward

[Kagetenshi]

You're significantly better off having an opponent who has three boxes each of physical and stun than six boxes of either.

Not counting Adepts with Pain Resistance, that is.

~J

[Modesitt]

Edward, re-read the Killing Hands description. You can also opt to do Stun damage. So if you have Serious Killing Hands and wear Stun Gloves(Assuming your GM ok'd it of course. Something of a coin-toss in my experience), you would be doing (strength-1)S Stun+7S stun.

[Jason Farlander]

[Modesitt]

[Jason Farlander]

I am not arguing that you have to purchase the nonexistant "Stun Killing Hands" in that, well, the power doesnt exist. Theres a reason the power is called "Killing hands" - it does lethal damage. You can choose to not use the power, in which case you do Str(M) damage... as is NORMAL.

I'm not "reading too much into the 'or'". The description is fairly explicit in presenting your unarmed combat options. You can a) do lethal damage as purchased or b) do NORMAL stun damage. Unfortunately, since the majority of the denizens of the SR world do not have the killing hands power, I don't find it reasonable to say that doing (STR)S Stun damage with a punch is "normal."

By all means, if you can provide a canon example to back up your claim that you can augment the amount of stun damage you do with a punch using killing hands, please quote it here.

Now, if you utilize a *house rule* such that you can opt to to either physical or stun damage at the level of killing hands purchased, thats fine. But posting that house rule here is not really appropriate to this thread.

In any case, I dont have a problem with the use of Killing Hands and Shock Gloves. The power costs so much anyway that I rarely encounter players who choose to equip their adepts with it. It is a trivial matter to kill an unconscious being anyway, so the power itself really isnt worth the cost, IMO.

[Jason Farlander]

You know what, screw it... I'll post the entire power here because the very first sentence clearly shows that I am correct:

Page 170, SR3

[Kayne]

I guess it really depends on how you define "normal stun damage". As opposed to "normal" meaning "the normal M Stun damage" they might take it to mean "stun damage, as normal, at the level of damage of the purchased Killing Hands power".

[hobgoblin]

personaly i have allways read it as either you do normal (ie no effect what so ever from your killing hands power, basicly not useing the power) or you do killing hands damage.

as for the combo of killing hands and shock gloves. dont forget that any shock weapon gives a daze effect so it can be very effective :)'

yet again the discusson of the effect of killing hands reminds me of the difficulty of writeing a description that can only be read one way, as told in a book i ones bought about magic the gathering (go fig)...

[Jason Farlander]

[Kanada Ten]

It uses the term normal stun to mean whatever damage the character would do if they did not have Killing Hands. Which means: Killing Hands doesn't stack with any other damage modifiers. No shock gloves, no brass knuckles, no bone lacing. Killing Hands does STR (purchased level) physical, only.

[Smiley]

[hobgoblin]

if hands where harder then normal i would have given it a +1 not a -1, remeber that impact armor is padding so the power of a impact is directly linked to how hard the surface you get hit by is...

[Smiley]

True, but the shock glove descriptions expressly say that you give -1 to the power of your unarmed attack.