The mono-whip has too many moving parts to be created into a weapon focus. All the damaging parts must be made of oricalum as since oricalum is very fragile you could not make it into a monofilament string needed in a mono-whip. So the rules stay intact.

Actually in SR2 weapon foci damage was a mix of Force and Charisma and had nothing to do with weapon type. I personally liked it better that way.

Yep, it just seems so much more *astral* that way.

If your physical self has no impact on the astral, why should the weapon's physical self?

Bye
Thanee

What if someone moves your body and leaves the weapon focus behind?

Also, part of my point was going to be this. If the weapon stays physical, and seperates from it's astral as well, then You might be able to make an argument for damage being not based on the weapon, but on the force and the person weilding it; or you can stick with RAW here as well.

However, if the physical aspects of the weapon enter the astral during such a situation, then the weapon in the astral would be the stats of the weapon in the physical, only with CHA instead of STR, so RAW would be more likely.

Also, several things about theft and moving bring up other questions.

For instance, based on the seperate auras model

If someone moves you, then when you return to physical form, are you then seperated from your weapon, or is it seperated at the point when you are moved or it is stolen? (Ah! My sword has gone AWOL. Someone must be near my body)

Well off the top of my head .....
1) To correct percieved game imbalance.
2) To clear up some points of SR4 that aren't exactly clear.
3) To handle topics that were obviously left to be handled in later editions.
4) game concepts I liked better in SR3
5) some game mechanics that just don't work out

SR4 does have some great game mechanics in it. And the writers deserve some serious kudos for putting it together. Now having said that.... I'm still going to house rule some stuff. But I wouldn't even be able to come close without the foundation provided by the core rules.

Actually you can change a video game with a MOD too. These programs often don't change the game to make it easier. For example I remember reading about a MOD for Morrowind that adds dragons to the game. Adding dragons almost never makes things easier.

How does attacking a focus work, Work Over?
Does it have a condition monitor?
Does it just deactivate if it takes damage?
Can you show us a page where these rules may be found?

Do the albatros have huge albatros conventions? Do companies make tons of money off realeasing supplement after supplement for albastros products tons of customers are already using?

I can't stand convoluted house-rules either. I think full-auto works just fine. I think edge is broken period. I think summoning spirits is far too easy. And I think that hacking actions should have SOMETHING to do with the Logic attribute. How 'bout you? Are you content on sitting on your hands and being bugged by rules that make the game a little less fun? I will on occasion rule that something out of the book should be temporarily changed for a game session or two until we figure out what the rule really is or what our misconceptions are.
While I agree that people here are quick to jump the house-rules-gun, I think that snapping at them and comparing them to cheaters is just about as constructive.

That's all nice and good, if thats the way you like it. However, please don't even bother to try and enforce your silly sense of "the way things should be" on the rest of us.


Now, back to the topic at hand.

My impression of it is like this: when a weapon is enchanted, it gains a real astral aura, just like anything else that is dual natured. So much so, that when in the hands of a magician who can astrally project, the weapon can project as well. So, whatever it is that is projected when a mage projects (his astral form, his soul, his spirit, etc....) the same thing gets projected by the weapon. The weapons soul, in effect is being projected along with the mage.

However, the key part here is that this only works when in the hands (or claws, or whatever) of a projecting mage. As soon as that weapons leaves the hands of the mage, the soul of the weapon returns to the actual physical form of the weapon. So, when the weapon is removed from the mage's physical body, the astral form of the weapon dissappears from the mages astral form.

As for why I think the weapon should use it's actual stats in the astral plane, again it goes back to the spirit, or soul of the weapon. An enchanted long sword has the astral form of a long sword (reach, damage, etc...) and it's "intent" or soul, or spirit, or whatever you want to call it, is that of a long sword. So, to me, it would retain it's form and all characteristics, even in the astral plane.

Finally, enchanting a mono-whip....well, I don't see any reason why not; I mean, there have been other combinations of technology and magic before in SR (cyberzombies, anyone?...) and while rare, I could see it happening.

I know a quick solution to your problem: Stop reading/posting here.

Bye
Thanee

WorkOver...realize there is a difference between in game issues and the theories/debates being discussed on this board. I doubt that 80% of these discussion, coming up during a game, would have as much banter, so don't draw the conclusion that just because some of us enjoy to debate and test the rules on this forum, that it in any way affects the kind of game any of us would run.

I mean, honestly, just the fact that a player/GM takes their own time to get other's opinions on rules or objects, should generally put them in a better class of player/GM. IMO, that at least shows, no matter how outlandish they may appear here, they are spending some out of game time to improve or better understand their games!

Or, as Thanee suggested, you could just stop reading and posting:)

or you can eat shit. Is that okay?

Oh yeah, I feel that. I like debate and things of that nature. The point I am trying to make, is that 90% of the debate on this SR4 board is complaining and rules to make SR4 back into SR3.

The rules are different. Period. Learn the rules. Play with the rules. An average game I run is about 6 hours. Of the 6 hours, there will be about 1-2 fights, total. I believe in stories based on players.

I literally base my campaigns off the backgrounds of players. I will integrate my NPCs and my story arc intertwined with what my players want to do.

In the end, I have a dice way out of fights, and I have a non dice way out of fights. If players take the dice way out, I will use the rules of the system we are playing. Screw a house rule.

Screw SR3. That game was so horribly unbalanced that it needed to go the way of the albatros.

SR4 has a few issues, namely the lack of rules in certain places. This is when you need house rules. On this board, however, people just wanna change what already exists.

In SR3, attributes counted for resisting drain, doing melee damage and soaking damage. The whole skill costs based off linked attribute crap did not make attributes important.

Also, SR3 turned into a game of MI:4/Delta Force 3, except everyone played either a cyber zombie or a complete mage. No room for detectives, no room for anyone with no cyber or no magic. The game had turned into a jumbled mess.

I got off subject here. Back on track, here the posts are mega complaints about the system and the attempts to turn it back into SR3.

Try using the rules. You lose all of your dice due to dice pool modifiers? Great, you actually can use the long shot rules with edge. It works out well. Edge will give you a one time a game long shot to do something ridiculous. You can not jump 15 meters as an unaugmented human, its impossible without magic and cyber. That is okay.

Once a game you can be falling from a building, be on fire, blinded in one eye, wounded, arm broken, while being shot, and can squeeze off a shot and hit someone in the eye if your edge is high enough. It will happen once in a blue moon, not once a combat if your SR3 dice pools are up and you have enough karma pool to continually re roll failures.

Magical monowhip? great, this is a techno fantasy game, dragons run mega corporations who have cyborg security gaurds on the north doors, Hellhounds in the south doors. The cyborg smaurai supports the elven combat mage. This is techno fantasy.

That mage wants to enchant a monowhip, thats awesome. Why house rule it out? It says no where in those rules that it needs to be made from anyspecial material, and if it did, why can a monowhip not be made from orcalcium?

People need to just accept the fact that SR3 is thankfully dead, shot, and laid out to pasture. The rules of SR4 maintain a very delicate balance in a game that can easliy be thrown out of whack with a very simple house rule. Let it ride, use the rules as written, and add rules for situation where a rule does not exist.

I honestly beleive that the problem with SR4 is people are spoiled on the Playstation generation and are too god damn lazy to read the rules. Its too easy to just make stuff up as you go along, instead of reading and understandig.

Us older gamers are old enough to have remebered what pen and paper games where like before the video games destroyed our imaginations, and made people to lazy to read a book and attempt to undertand it.

I wish Fanpro actually stayed on the ball, they should have included rules for destroying a weapon, or breaking a focus. Then poor Samuel wouldn't have to worry about it. Also in the internet age you should be able to email the OFFICIAL rules people, and get a clarification, in time Fanpro should be able to compile a list of emails they have gotten, included the rules judgement and then made a list of them available to quell these types of situations, and then players hould do thier part and use SR4 as written, or quit crying and use the years worth pf SR3 rules that already exist. SR3 has everything needed to never need another SR3 product to be released again.

Your implications are... amusing. At best.

Maybe you should try some of your 'advice' there, and start reading and understanding... and then maybe... consider to post. Really, you are so far off with your assumptions. You make up stuff there that is just completely ridiculous.

90% of the posts of this board are complains and try to turn SR4 into SR3?

Right.

Did I mention 'far off' already?

I'm reasonably sure, that there will be no balance issues with my house rules (most likely less than when using SR4 by-the-book; some of that 'delicate balance' isn't very balanced at all... explosive ammo and armor penetration, anyone?). Many of them are just for style or to deliver a certain feel, though. And no, none of them have the purpose of turning SR4 into SR3. In fact, my SR2 house rules could be said to have turned SR2 into SR4 (we used many of those 'modern' concepts back then already).

This is rather off topic and has very little to do with my original post (as explained already, have you even read that?).

Is there even any point to your posts (except throwing around random insults and complains, which (90%) are based on completely different topics here, and total non-understanding that people can have a different opinion from yours (and still have fun and play great games with lots of story-based role-playing) - hard to accept, I suppose).

Peace!

Bye
Thanee

So what that the RAW are the IP owners. Does that make them the Holy Bible, Never To Be Changed? No, it makes them just another book, that I like to base things off of and change from there. I happen to enjoy thinking for myself.

If blind, mindless obedience is your way, that's fine, it works for you. For many of people here, it doesn't work.

Oh, and before you get off on your "older gamer" tangent, I dare say there are a number of people here that have been gaming longer than you. I know I've been playing D&D ever since poor ol Gygax came out with his little rules for miniatures, and you know what, that has little, if anything to do with whether my style of gaming is better than yours. So get the hell off your high horse.

So, all we do, when we make up house rules is following the rules... to the letter!

Bye
Thanee

Only if you allow non-weapons to be enchanted as weapon foci.

Bye
Thanee

If understanding comforts you, he's a legal beagle, by trade. Consequently, his position makes total sense from that perspective, though I don't agree with him and he annoys the ever-loving shit out of me.

Absolutely. I don't know about it being cool, I find it cripplingly boring, but no doubt more going on than Flint. Looking forward to it.

And what exactly do you base this on?

What makes you think, that I havn't tried and understood the rules as written and why they were written in the first place?

Since you obviously still havn't got it...

The above-quoted part has absolutely *nothing* to do with my original post!
It's totally *not* what I have proposed (and asked for opinions about) there.
In no way is it implied there, that I want to disallow monowhip weapon foci.

You either havn't understood my post (which I find hard to believe, actually, it's not that hard to understand, really, if you take the time to read it), or you havn't even read it (which also seems unlikely at best, you probably didn't thoroughly read it, though), or you superimpose some weird image you got from other posts or from the depth of your imagination over my post there and look at that instead of my actual post ().

I really don't know what it is...

Bye
Thanee

Boy did I ever go off topic on this one.

I see, then you probably got a little confused on the way.

Bye
Thanee

There's plenty of precedent for non-weapons being used as weapons in SR4. Bottles, chairs, frying pans...they've all got damage codes. The spagetti noodle might be a bit of a stretch, but if you jabbed me in the eye with an uncooked strand I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like it. On the physical plane, any use would break it immediately, and your damage code would be something like ((Str/8 )-6)S. But it wouldn't matter if I only used it for astral combat.

Holy crap, yeah, I misspoke, my bad man