Someone truely skilled in a soft reach weapon has Dodge and unarmed combat, and uses those to aviod incoming attacks.

I can only give my experience, but the chain or rope part of a soft weapon is very ineffective at blocking. Your opponent strikes, and the momentum causes the rope to flex. It can slow someone's strike but they usually still make contact. And the effort it takes to pull the chain taunt , interpose it, and hold it, it's a hell of a lot easier to just move out of the way.

Now, there's all kinds of wraps, trips and disarms that make effective defense, but in the sense of a good offense. Assuming I let the exotic weapons rules stand as is, I'd allow specializations in those maneuveurs. Rather than that, I'd like to have a soft weapons skill group, and then you specialize in the monowhip.

I also think the different effects of the reach for, say, a whip vs. the effect of reach for, say, a pike is differnt enough that using the same rule to cover both is kind of wrong. A hard reach weapon can deny area more effectively because it doesn't need to be in motion to work. A soft weapon needs to have striking force behind it, and spends at least as much time on the backswing as it does striking. This gives a canny opponent the opportunity to close, and makes the weapon ineffective at close range.

This is just based on my experience. I have been using a long staff for about 15 years and a rope dart for 6 months. Anyone with more experience. can chime in and correct me if I've made some poor observations.

I'll try to put together some house rules based on these assumptions for debate.

Yes. 0m.

It's on a spool that rolls it all the way up. The weight actually meets the handle when it's not in use.

-Frank

You can't compare a rope dart to a monowhip. On a rope dart you try and land the dart end on the target thats where the real damage is

On a monowhip the entire strand is razor sharp, the backswing is just as deadly as the first swing as your trying to land the "rope" on them not the tip.

When you close the gap on a rope dart the dart end flys past you when swung, advantage! for defender

When you close the gap on a monowhip the weighted tip flys past you. Just like the attacker would have wanted anyway, the wire is still the deadly part.
You'd have to be right in there face to keep them from using the weapon. Then again you can't really use any reach weapon very well if they guy is 3 inchs from you.

If you don't like the word parry call it something else, I envison the melee defense from a monowhip to be from the attacker trying to avoid the swinging razor wire.



And while I'd love a weapon category to allow me to specialize in monowhip, not at the expense of being able to parry. That requires me to take karma/BP into another skill so I can effectivly defend myself in melee combat.

...seconded.

Especially a nice weapon for a low STR character since it has a base DV of 6S.

Another good thing is that a grazing hit still causes damage (and the associated electrical effects).

Screw Underworld.

Of course the monowhip has weight. It also has mass and is on the surface of a planet. Of course, if you accidentally drop your monomolecular wire it will fall through the Earth and continue to cut its way down untill it reaches the center of the world.

I was under the impression he kept ahold of the counterweight and swung a loop of the wire through the door.

Like swinging a jump rope, kinda, but smaller. And more door-cuttery.


-karma

Well, yeah, that's how it looks, but the problem is the swinging loop has negligible momentum, so how does it cut the door, and even if it can, why couldn't he have done that to the fence?
I reconcile it by saying that for starters the fence is just harder, and the door was probably pretty crappy and soft, likely not even real wood at all. Second, he probably could've cut through the fence but it would've taken enough time that Johnny would've escaped anyway, so he was really just venting his frustration, not trying to cut the fence at all.
And then...here's the important part....I stop thinking about it.

<Horshack> Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! I know! </Horshack>

I'm going to go with "because it's a movie."

Did I win anything?

Fixed.

ZOMG.

I had forgotten about the dolphin until you mentioned it. Man.

I should go watch that movie again.

*Scary virtual claws*
"I could crash your system from here!"

How could you forget about the Dolphin? That is the single most shit part of the entire movie.

I'm gonna bet that's why.

Because I really want to like the movie. So my memories of it are colored by that. So I remember the monowhips, I remember the Yaks, I remember even the LoTeks. And I certainly remember the crazy street preacher man.

But I forgot the dolphin. So that I can continue to like the movie.

I don't give a shit what other people say about the movie (or other Keanu flicks like The Matrix trilogy for that matter) ... I really like it. Even with the dolphin.

Hah! I was about to post a link to that for anyone who'd missed it the first time around. One of my favorite NPCs that I've ever seen posted here.

Of course, it was a little bizarre.

-K.