how does distance strike work ?, the in game details Options

[xizor]

ok i have finally bought mits and i have a few questions about the distance strike adept power.

1 when an adept hits someone with distance strike, does the person hit suffer a knockdown test?

2 Can an adept use distance strike to choke someone? (like Darth Vader? )

3 can an adept use distance strike to pick something up and move it around?

[mfb]

by the rules: yes, yes, no.

[GrinderTheTroll]

It's like "a long range punch" or like the spell Clout, it's not Telekenesis.

[mfb]

actually, come to think, #2 is no as well. and maybe #1, though that's iffy. the DS power tells you exactly what to roll and how to roll it; generally, that means you're not allowed to modify that roll.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Certain novels described it as a telekinetic "punch."

Novels... described this.

Just use the rules in the book.

[Kagetenshi]

#2 is nonguaranteed. Your choking them certainly won't do anything other than Strength (M) Stun or $Base_Damage, modified by successes on attack test, but that doesn't mean that can't be what you're doing.

~J

[mfb]

i was assuming he was asking if Distance Strike could be combined with Subduing Combat. my answer would be no, based mainly on the fact that i don't like it, conceptually.

[Kagetenshi]

The "like Darth Vader" addendum made me think that subdual had very little to do with it.

~J

[Bokujin]

From your question, it sounds like you're thinking that Distance Strike is just like having really long and invisible arms. Which, as far as I know, it's not. I was always under the impression that Distance Strike was more a one-way transferal of force than an extension of your arms.

But, as with all things in this game, it's really up to your GM as to what he or she thinks it should be.

[Sandoval Smith]

If watching from the astral, I'd think distance strike looks kind of like shooting lasers from your body. It's a quick projection of force from the body that only works against living targets. So you can't sustain it and strangle someone, and you can't use it to punch out windows, or hit switches out of normal reach.

[Eyeless Blond]

Either way, I'm not sure how it fits under the purview of an Adept power. Other than Distance Strike and Delay Damage, all adept powers work by using magic to improve the body and mind. Indeed, this is what an adept does, by definition. Both Delay Damage and Distance Strike by their very nature are outside the adept's own body. Distance Strike in particular doesn't make any sense to me as a power; it seems more like a spell.

Ah well, maybe I should just quit whinning.

[John Campbell]

Distance Strike clearly exists so that it's possible to build Street Fighter characters as Shadowrun adepts.

[BitBasher]

And that the ability to strike across short distnaces is a classic martial arts ability in fiction, which is what adepts represnt in SR a lot of the time.

[GrinderTheTroll]

How come I can't sword fight in the air then?

/disappointed.

[Kagetenshi]

Levitate.

~J

[Fortune]

I guess they just forgot to give Levitate to Adepts then. :)

[Eyeless Blond]

Or, while we're at it, Heal and Control Thoughts (ninjas could hypnotize people too, remember?) Ooh, or that neat trick you see in alot of ninja animes where the ninja substitutes something else, like a tree stump, for his own body, while he makes a counterattack from a nearby tree. Or that other anime where the guy makes a Distance Strike with his sword, or shoots fire out of it.

Distance Strike does not fit with any of the explainations as to how an adept's power works that I've read. I have no idea what the writers were thinking when they included this as an adept power. I have misgivings about Delay Dmage too, but not as much as Distance Strike.

[Kagetenshi]

Let me point out that these are all things that showed up long before anime.

~J

[Bokujin]

It's a good thing you pointed that out, because I was about to make some bad Naruto jokes.

[Eyeless Blond]

[blakkie]

[Fortune]

Way of the Magician is fine, and that Power could be simulated with Clout.

As for a pure Adept though, Distance Strike does not really fit with the stated way that Adepts use magic.

[John Campbell]

You keep saying that Distance Strike doesn't fit how adept powers are supposed to work, but I just don't see it. It's not Manabolt For Physads. It's simply being able to focus your energy so well that the force of your attacks extends a little ways past your physical body. Not far... the range is sharply limited. In almost all cases, its range is actually less than the distance at which the physad could simply run up and punch the target. If you can accept that a physad can project mystical energy from his hands to turn stunning attacks into killing ones, I don't think it's much of a stretch to accept that he can project it a few meters farther and use it to carry the force of his attacks over a short distance.

[Fortune]

Because the Adept does not "project mystic energy" with Killing Hands. He uses the magic of his body to physically damage his target. An Adept's Powers are supposed to be personal, centered around his own body. I don't see how that can be reconciled with Distance Strike, which has a wholely external effect.

I'm not arguing to convince anyone to change the way they play or GM Shadowrun. I'm merely expanding on my personal reasoning for disallowing the Power.

[toturi]

I basically see adepts as being able to do anything in the Chinese martial arts novels like Legend of the Condor Heroes, Return of the Condor Heroes and Heaven Sword, Dragon Sabre. Actually sometimes my NPC have martial arts and geasa based on these novels. So there is no difference between external or internal "Powers". In fact one of my favorite kung fu from the novels is the 18 Dragon Subduing Palms, of which one of the "powers" is a Distance Strike.