Telescoping Staff, What were they thinking? Options

[Wireknight]

I have up and until this point miraculously failed to consider the utter unfeasability of a telescoping staff, ala the ones possessed by the comic-book characters Gambit and Robin. If such a weapon did exist, it would require smart materials and nanotech engineering to be able to actually survive hitting someone or being hit, when fully extended. Yet, not only has a telescoping staff been introduced to Shadowrun in Cannon Companion, it is remarkably cheap and easy to acquire(Availability 4/48 Hours; 100 :nuyen: ).

What were they thinking?

[Moon-Hawk]

They were probably thinking that they needed a decent reach, somewhat concealable melee weapon to make the monowhip seems less broken. :D
I dunno. Maybe it's not a feasible design, I'm not a materials engineer, but it's certainly fun.
I do know that a staff doesn't have to be heavy to be dangerous. A lighter staff can be accelerated more quickly and reach higher speeds, so kinetic transferral isn't decreased as much as you might think. You're just getting more damage from speed than from mass.

[lorthazar]

They might have been thinking of some of the nice tool steel telescoping staves I have seen. No good for thrusting but man they sting when they hit you on a swing

[Wireknight]

The lightness isn't an issue of damage, so much as it's an issue of the staff crumpling like a straw when you hit someone with it, at the points of articulation. I've got a collapsible baton, and the closest thing I could imagine to a real-and-true collapsible staff would be two collapsible batons that screw together at the base and have some locking mechanism(since the motion to extend one side would retract the other).

And even then, most of the mass would be concentrated in the center even when the weapon was extended, making it much more difficult to employ effectively than a standard staff of equivalent length.

[heliocentric]

I don't know... I've seen telescoping batons in action and they seem to work pretty well. Telescoping staves probably aren't that weird given the internal logic of your average comic book/ action movie/ RPG.

[Herald of Verjig...]

There are some metals that will barely deform even when rather thin. Also, nothing says that it's smooth, it probably is significantly smaller at the ends than at the middle. There may even be some fun chemistry options to increase weapon durability while still allowing it to collapse.

Concealability of 5 is on par with a full sized club, so change your opinion of how small it gets as well.

[Moon-Hawk]

[Wireknight]

Like I said, it could be done with advanced materials engineering and/or nanotech... but at its cost/availability, it's obviously a mass-produced, low-overhead weapon. I mean, try to find a collapsible staff, for sale, nowadays. Hiking, disability-related, sure. They exist. Ones for self-defense and martial arts are nonexistent.

[Cray74]

[lorthazar]

No such luck friend. The ones I saw were the result of a rather demented friend of mine who was an expert in mettalurgy. I say was becuase not long after he made them he had a terrible car wreck. I think his wife still hs them, btu you'd have better luck surviving an attack from piranha. Although he used to say he got the idea form Babylon 5 so if you can afford to pay for props you might be able to get one.

[Kagetenshi]

Though that may have more to do with the demand for collapsible staves…

~J

[Jason Farlander]

Umm... 4 isnt really that low for melee weapons. Hell, a goddamn polearm has an availability of 4. A combat axe has an availability of 3. Dont think of that 4 as "there are dozens of them in every warehouse" and more as "your fixer can find one without too much trouble given a couple of days to make inquiries." I mean, if you have problems with the availabilities in general, you arent alone. The telescoping staff is not an anomaly, though, its pretty consistent.

I do not share your incredulity concerning the actual item.

[GaiasWrath8]

I have never seen a fully telescoping staff the way they talk about it, but have used a real one. It had three parts and the two outer parts could slide half way into the middle part. You still had a pole that was 2 1/2 feet long but I guess its easyer to hide than a 5 foot staff. The funny part was you could get the two ends to slide out by twirling the staff (of a sharp rotation of the staff). But to get it to go back in you had to hold down two points and push hard. LOL.

It was made from a form of aluminum, much like an aluminum base ball bat. Light weight and fast. used agenst another weapon it would dent and one day was no longer able to retract. But it was fast as hell and hurt like a B***h when you got hit with it. It did take many months for the dents to render it useless, but I guess its the same with most weapons.

[Herald of Verjig...]

Since the one in the books collapses to the same concealability of a .5 meter (or more) club, your example is probably very close to the item in the books. If a game were to include weapon degredation, it would be vulnerable, but that isn't in the rules because it's usually just annoying to track.

[Wireknight]

[Kagetenshi]

A karma reroll indicates extraordinary luck and/or effort.

~J

[mfb]

yes. in other words, a guy who's either lucky or trying very hard can acquire a collapsible staff, or katana, in sixteen hours.

[Wireknight]

Must be effort, though. I've never considered myself lucky.

[Herald of Verjig...]

Just think of how much the demand for telescoping staves will increase when people realize that it can help them scare away troublesome spirits. Just extend the staff and start waving it at the nasty materialized spirit, and you may just beat it back, no skill required. Once that demand is noticed, production will increase beyond the "suicidal comic book fan" production level to the "paranoid mundane" production level.

[Moon-Hawk]

Never underestimate the paranoid mundane market base.

[lorthazar]

Well how common were Katana's in these United States 60 years ago? Now you get a picture of how thing might be a little different in 2064.

[Wireknight]

I like to think that if a telescoping staff were a practical possibility, they'd already be for sale, catering to the same market as most low-end katanas sell to, now. If a telescoping staff is such a practical weapon, why can't I, personally, find a single one for sale? It's not like they'll develop some incredible new extradimensional pocket telescoping technology in the next sixty years.

[Critias]

Yeah. According to most of the artwork, everyone will carry a katana around, sixty years from now.

[Shockwave_IIc]

I have an extanedable baton (in my jacket pocket right now) it's about 8" in length, 21" when extended Opened with a sharp flick of the wrist.

Telescoping staves would be about 24" in length collaspsed. and would open with a sharp spin (carefull not to catch your shins) using centralfugal(sp) force.

The baton i could pick up by walking in to a shop that opens at 9.30am and pay £24 for. The Stave though i've never seen one in real life, once the sixth wourld comes along i could quite easly see some people getting them for the sole reason the Herald has mentioned and becoming common(ish) cos of that.

I really can't see why theres such a problem.

[Jason Farlander]

As others have mentioned, the functional problems you see with telescoping staves could be resolved, or at least significantly reduced, with a little bit of intelligent engineering.

Also, as has been mentioned, there are no weapon degradation rules. Your quality katana shouldn't last you forever either, if you regularly engage in sword duels. If you want to enforce your *own* weapon degradation rules, thats fine, and perhaps the telescoping staff would be more prone to breakage than other weapons. However, the melee combat rules in SR are insufficiently precise as to clearly define what is a parry and what is a clean miss, and so you'd probably have to work out a whole new melee combat system as well to keep up with your house rules for weapon degradation. I dont feel that would sufficiently enhance the game for me to bother with it, but more power to you if you come up with a system you like.

In general, I think that, for whatever reasons you want to assume, melee weapons across the board are more popular/common in the 2060s than they are now, and so some uncommon weapons are more readily available than they are today. Ive never seen a combat axe with a spring-loaded thrust point for sale anywhere, myself, but apparently those are just as common as telescoping staves in SR. Hell, look at the ares monosword - that has an availability of 4/24 hours! With the same effort/luck, you could get one of those in just 8 hours! And those dont even exist yet!