It was quite clearly stated in M&M that cloth, plastic, etc. cannot stand the temperature required to make the special diamond molecules angry enough to increase the damage caused by any coated object, and only objects made of ceramics and certain metals can be Dikoted. That means flexible body armor is right out.

Anyhow, I completely agree with Geekkake. Unfortunately it's pretty much guaranteed to make a reappearance, but right now things are good.

Actually, no. Hardened steel is already way harder than bone or sinew, and you can make it just as sharp, and as such will cut through an unmodified human body with equal ease. Unless, of course, you assume that the steel edges are always somewhat deformed (dented, chipped, etc.) and that the extremely thin angry diamond film somehow makes the blade immune to such deformation.

This is shadowrun. Nothing is perfect, including edges on weapons.

Nah, Dikote blades are imperfect too, they're just not a imperfect.

mfb's response works alot better than mine.

If the first thing you strike with your 70 RC edge is an armor steel plate, then sure it gets blunted -- regardless of whether its got diamond on top or not. If, on the other hand, it's flexible body armor fibers, flesh and bone, you can keep going for quite a while before your cutting ability is significantly diminished, with or without Dikote.

I have no problems with that approach. I'm just discussing what the effects would realistically be, because apparently there are some in this thread that are interested in that aspect.

...or a dikoted chainsaw chain.

[Note: only availble in Texas and Adams County Wis.]

Ahh, so you know of the hell that is Adams county. Word of mouth or (shudder) personal experience?

Improving the surface hardness of a cutting implement does help cutting performance. Ultra-hard deposited coatings (including diamond) are common enough in carbide cutting tools.

Dikote's behavior is definitely based on real science, it's just exaggerated.

To continue the exaggeration into SR4, something like a -1AP bonus or -1 AP, +1 DV for edged weapons would get my vote.

A +1 bonus would be reasonable for armor, too.

Blunt weapons shouldn't benefit.

I can understand that, when the object being cut comes anywhere near the hardness of cutting edge of the blade. I don't see why it would make a difference in cutting meat whether the blade is HRC 70 or whether it's coated with something even harder. Or is there blunting constantly going on at the edge of even the hardest steel when it cuts through flesh?

...actually kind of in between since I knew someone when I was at UWSP who hailed from nearby there. Had lots of interesting tales & trivia.

To think, there's a town there called "Friendship".

Gives me the willys just thinking of it

You also have to consider that, in shadowrun, the flesh contains suprising amounts of metal.

Knowledge.... lost in the crash!!

This is. This isn't a result of the edge wearing down. It it the result of the edge bending. The edge of a sharp knife is very thin and the thiner the edge the more easily it will bend. It doesn't matter how sharp your knife is if the cutting edge isn't pointing in the right direction. This can be corrected with a sharpening steel. Harder materials more less likely to bend.

Actually, steel makes a crappy cutting edge compared to some other materials. This is obvious when looking at even the best steel blade under a powerful microscope. The steel edge is very uneven. The best edges come from chipped obsidian. Unfortunatly, with hardness comes brittleness. The extra performance of an ultra-hard edge isn't worth the the extra fragility that comes with in for most applications. Cutting meat is a great use for chipped obsidian blades. Combat, on the other hand, requires something far more durable.

from the information i've picked up from bladesmithing hobbyists, you don't want a razor-sharp edge to a fighting blade. if it's thin enough, it will chip, ding, dent, etcetera when it hits anything hard--bone included. remember that hardness is not everything, when it comes to what breaks what. i've seen a pine branch driven through the trunk of a palm tree, by hurricane-force winds.

all that said, i've always thought that SR3's +1 DL is a bit on the way-too-high side. i think adding +1 or maybe +2 to the power is plenty. after all, the edge isn't doing more damage; if you accidentally cut your thumb on it, your thumb's not going to fall off. it just allows you to bypass hard materials such as armor or bone--the end result of which may very well be more damage. but it's not guaranteed.

I'm just sharing empirical data. A diamond coating makes a noticeable difference between a bare tungsten carbide tool and a coated tool, so I take that to mean that dikoting can have an impact even in the most extreme examples. Steels, even tool steels, ain't in the "most extreme" category, so dikoting will have a distinct benefit with them.

SR exaggerates the benefit, but it's a benefit based on RL.

What mfb said.

With a harder edge you can get away with a sharper edge but there comes a point where an edge is just too sharp. This is true for a combat weapon or a food preperation tool. An infinitly thin edge is a very weak edge. It is will bend or break with the slightest pressure. Few cuts are perfectly straight and fewer edges are perfectly straight. As the blade us use tortion will be applied to the edge and even a small amount of tortion will cause a very thin edge to bend, dulling the blade untill it can be repaired. At the same time you don't want the edge to be too hard. Hard steel is brittle steel. This is true for most materials. A brittle edge is likely to chip or break if it strikes a hard object, such as bone, with significant force.

Actually making a servicable cutting tool is an exercise in balance. Too much hardness and you're screwed. Too little hardness and you're just as screwed for different reasons. Too sharp and your screwed. Too dull and you're just as screwed for different reasons.

I'm baffled about the mysterious superpowers of dikote, myself. It should be very helpfull when cutting or drilling very hard objects as it is in reality. However, cutting or drilling very hard objects has never required a very sharp tool. It simply requires a tool that is sharp enough and that won't erode quickly. In fact, extreme sharpness is disadvantageous when cutting very hard materials.

I've tried to read up on this, in swordsmith interviews at the ARMA site, in the modest medieval arms related book selection available to me, etc., and what all that is saying to me is that, first, "razor-sharp" means different things to different people, and some of those definitions are not a problem in a sword (e.g. that the absolute edge of the blade is perfectly sharp at whatever angle chosen), while others will make for a shitty blade (e.g. too acute a final sharpening angle, leading to too thin a blade for a significant length from the edge).

In other words, if possible, the leading edge of the blade may as well be made perfectly sharp, but the blade geometry is quite different from that of a razor. And my understanding is that deep denting, chipping etc. would not be really protected against by a thin diamond coating, while the slow erosion of the leading edge under certain circumstances would be.

Since executioners' swords went through a lot of sharpening, I imagine in certain circumstances this is very much true. However, executioners' swords had blade geometries quite different from those of combat swords, having a much more acute sharpening angle and a far thinner blade, and were constantly hacked against very heavy bones and, I imagine, wooden blocks. They were also probably closer to HRC 40 than HRC 70.

I agree that there will be a benefit. I'm just not convinced it's a serious benefit for directly causing damage to the human body. If, on the other hand, the main purpose of the sword in question is to whack holes through thin metal sheets all day long (closer to the purpose of said tools), then the benefit would no doubt be distinct. Which is why, even though it is possibly a heavy exaggeration, I'm not principally opposed to an armor penetration benefit from Dikote.

Taken to an extreme, definitely. I once had a fancy carbon steel screwdriver head shatter on me while trying to remove a rusted in screw. I simply figure that if medieval swordsmiths managed HRC 55+ without making the edge too brittle for a combat blade, HRC 70 shouldn't be too out there for 6th world metalsmiths. Based on the pictures of sword edges (which, AFAIK, were somewhere around HRC 45-50) that have been smacked on mail, mild steel plate and other swords, denting is a far more likely outcome as long as the blade geometry is fit for the job, you don't overdo the hardness and the steel is of good quality.

Try growing up in Juneau county (right next door, specifically 15-20 miles away tops)

It's a wonder I'm sane.......

I'm not convinced its worth a +1DV, either, but...

Frankly, ANY benefit from dikote in combat would be too small to be really perceived by the Shadowrun game system - it doesn't have the "resolution" to pick up the percentage improvement.

So you're left with two options: ignore dikote or give it some minimal bonus, like a +1DV and/or -1AP. If it makes enough players happy, I'd let it have both.