I didn't see The Cube; how'd it work there?

The only way I've been able to visualize monowhip lopping off limbs has been a 'wrap and pull' paradigm, where you swing the wire so that it wraps around the limb, and then yank back. It would seem to make it more susceptible to having the wire fly back at you, though.

I have always seen the mono-whip work by wrapping the weighted end around something (neck, arm, let, waist, etc) and then pulling.

So as the mono-whip slides back around you it slices into you.


Where as 'whip' it is the intial impact that does the large part of the damage, with a mono-whip it is the pull-back, yank that saws into you.

It is the same effect as if you took a strand of super-fine wire, wrapped it around your finger then then tried to pull it over your finger (using finger as pulley).

The wire (especially a nano wire) would cut deeply into the finger while 'sliding' over it.

Atleast that is how my mind has always explained the damage from a nano-whip

lots of points in the critical strike power. There doesn't seem to be a limit so lets say two full magic points giving you 8 levels of critical strike. With a 4 str your damage with one net success will be 11DV. That should make you fairly successful in melee combat even with how gimped it currently is in the rules.

The maximum levels you can have in an adept power is capped by your magic rating. So to get those eight levels of critical strike, you'd need an adept with Magic 8. Which is scary, quite frankly.

thats just two grades of initiation to get a 8 max attribute in magic. You can start the game with 6 levels in it. And if you are going for an unarmed combat specialist I'd probably suggest that after you get your to hit portion covered. In the short run I'd rather have +2dv than have killing hands, I'll worry about spirits and making my punches deadly when I get some karma.

Two levels of initiation, plus Magic attribute purchase, plus starting the game with capped out Magic. I'd check the power balance of your game if that's common. It's way out of whack with mine.

what people aren't allowed to initiate in your game or something. What do pyhs adds spend there karma on in your game. He already almost maxed out his unarmed skill. Is he supposed to take basket weaving now, or hey heavy weapons. With hard caps on attributes and skills once you get your skill up there really isn't much more for a phys add specialist to do with his karma than initiate.

And starting with a 6 magic may be rare in games i play but its not unheard of for phys adds, especially since we generally odnt mix cyber/bioware with magic types in our game. The players thematically are opposed to damaging there magic even if game mechanic wise its a good idea.

Aside from the large amount of build points it costs for Magic 6, it would take another 74 karma to get 8 Magic. If a character earns average 6 karma per adventure, that's about twelve solid missions to get that far with none of the karma being spent to broaden the skills of an already quite specialised character.

I don't think that's common and as I know DrPeteCastle is new to Shadowrun, I thought it worth emphasising that such a character is way above the normal range of even adepts.

Actually, it probably takes you only 65, but the rest of your points stand.

-Frank

I average 6 or 7 which is more than the book recommends. But either way, such a character with eight magic is a very experienced runner with a lot of dedication to their chosen area.

I discounted the possibility of lowering initiation costs with ordeals as these are pretty GM specific, some just ticking them off automatically whilst others rub their hands in anticipation of making the mage suffer horribly. (I'm the latter kind, by the way).

well, it is an *ordeal*, it shouldn't be easy...

...which is how the original KK survived her entire career with having only + 1d6 initiative.

In her case, speed often killed..

...the one who was faster than her.

I can somewhat agree with the karma expenditure but maxing one attribute isn't that hard if your a focussed character.

Quick example.
B 4 A 4 R 4 S 4 C 3 I 3 L3 W 3 (200 points) Edge 3(20 points) Magic 6 (75) points
phys add (5pts)
Unarmed combat 5 (20 points)

Total 320 leaving 80 points with out any disads to flesh out your character.
Phys add abilities
Improved ability unarmed +2 dice 1 point
6 levels critical strike 1.5 points
improved reflexes level 1 2 points
Combat sense 2 levels 1 point(or another level of improved reflexes)
Heck if your willing to cheese it a bit take a synaptic booster lose one point of magic and one level of critical strike and have a bunch more magic to play with like take 5 levels of combat sense. Though thats 20 more build points gone to resources.
killing hands .5 points

As for the karma it depends really on how much you play if you game weekly 65 karma shouldn't be too far off. And again if I was playing a ultra focussed unarmed combatant its what I'd be putting almost all my points towards.

So wave after wave of NPC just ran eagerly into melee with you (regardless of how well they just saw you do against the last guy), instead of keeping their distance and shooting? Sounds like you had a nice GM.

Its very kung fu movie like at least.

For some reason I' thinking of the big trouble in little china scene where there supposed to be holding the door and jack burton looses his knife and is out the entire fight. A stream of mooks just keep running in for the slaughter.