From a RAW point of view, they only work for melee attacks. I'd like to allow ranged weapon Foci (for an adept). Is it unbalanced? Melee sucks in SR4, it's hard to tell Adepts 'Go Melee, or else half your powers are useless, and your focus is useless'.

The rules and background are pretty clear that magic has yet to be developed that works when not touching the user, eg. ranged weapons. You would have to develop your own house rules for that, perhaps as a campaign hook since it would be a really big change.

While melee does seem to be portrayed here in DS as the poor cousin to ranged combat, remember there are a lot of things/creatures which are highly resistant to bullets. Sometimes hitting them with a magic 2X4 is the only way to hurt them.

Now, a magic 2X4 travelling at the speed of a bullet? Hmmm...

What about those missiles that have copper wires trailing from them for control? Would that still be touching the user? Oohhh... a Magic Missile! There's a concept.

The game is not meant to have any ranged magical weapon, or else, there would since long have been magical bullets used to kill nasty spirits.
Chalk it up to the modern magicians still not having found a way to create ranged magical weapons, the same thing as they haven't found out how to create teleportation and time manipulation spells (and won't ever, as long as the SR developers still maintain a firm grip on basic human sense).

Melee is still very good, especially if you go against awakened critters and hostile spirits, where your firearms might bounce off because of the mystic shields of the monsters.

My advice: Don't do it. Gun bunny adepts are plenty powerful without weapon foci. They're better than street sam gun bunnies. Giving them yet more power would make them even nastier.

...Agreed.

Even as her 'secondary" attack (power wise) the Warhawks in KK's hands are pretty formidable. A little more Karma and she will add a couple levels of Improved ability.

As for WF vs Killing Hands. Against certain critters, having a bit of reach is a good thing. Think of having to fight a possessed troll.

Or a fire spirit with his aura raging.

reach doesn't actually help vs. elemental auras.

Interesting thought though.

Oops, I was still talking about ranged weapon foci.

Yeah, i really think it's best that you just stick with the Attuned item metamagic for gunners and leave it at that.

Adepts rock at ranged combat.

Offensively, the improved ability power means that their abilities cap at two dice higher than a sammie with a reflex recorder, and smartlinks and other visual modifications are available in equally-effective non-cyber versions.

Defensively, the combat sense power makes them harder to hit than a comparable sammie, who can't even stack reaction enhancers with his other reaction boosts any more.

And that's before you even get into the attunement metamagic, or centering to negate penalties.

Of course the cyber adept has both.

Enhanced Articulation does not add to Combat Skills. It only adds to Physical Skills linked to a Physical Attribute. Physical Skills is a specific category of skills that does not include those in the Combat Skill category.

That little "quirk" in RAW is one of the reasons that I changed Magic Loss to only affect the Max Cap as opposed to causing actual loss.

check the FAQ.

Actually, the answer given in the FAQ doesn't contradict so much as clarify. Wired reflexes can't combine with other reaction enhancements. Reaction enhancers can. Which one trumps the other if you have both? FAQ says Wired Reflexes trumps. That's all. What we need is another reaction-boosting implant that can stack. Then there'll be a reason for Reaction Enhancers to be able to.

Wired Reflexes has no such limitation on Reaction boosts, nor do Wired Reflexes or Reaction Enhancers (directly) boost Initiative. Wired Reflexes only boost Initiative Passes which has no relation to actual Initiative.

You might want to reading the rules again Dr. Funk or be clearer in your post if I've miss understood.

"When activated, wired reflexes confer a bonus of +1 to Reaction and +1 Initiative Pass per point of rating"

Wired Reflexes add to reaction just like reaction enhancers. So both indirectly boost initiative.

Nope. A direct bonus to Reaction is not the same as a direct bonus to Initiative. Reaction affects the derived attribute of Initiative, but they are two completely separate and individual attributes.

However, based upon that silly not-even-an-official-errata'ed-rule and condoned by those who want to argue the point, I guess Reaction Enhancers aren't intended to work with anything as all the real Initiative Boosters (Wired Reflexes, Synatpic Accelerators, Improved/Increased Reflexes, etc.) have simliar limitations on them, thus completely and utterly obliterating that little rule found at the end of Reaction Enhancers.

To each their own.

But Reaction Enhancers do work with the Synaptic Booster.

Afraid not. Synaptic Boosters grant +1 Reaction and +1 Initiative Pass per level. Since Reaction improves Initiative indirectly, that makes it an Initiative enhancer and it, like all other Initiative boosters, are incompatible with Reaction Enhancers.

Despite Reaction Enhancers clearly stating otherwise.

So sayeth the above posters, so sayeth the FAQ.

I thought the Increase Reflexes spell and Reaction enhancers do stack for the purposes of deriving initiative, since unlike the Synaptic/Wired 'ware, they do not list any restrictions.

for the record, while the rules (or at least, the FAQ) is quite clear on reaction enhancers not stacking, it is worth noting that it is at least not a terribly uncommon houserule to say "that's dumb, why would reaction enhancers even exist then" and make them stack with the other stuff.

Agreed. I was stating the FAQ, not agreeing with it. Although the FAQ is not the only problem - the RAW is a problem, too, with both wired reflexes and synaptic boosters stating that they cannot be combined with any other form of initiative enhancement. So that would leave the "other initiative boosters" that reaction enhancers can stack with at the suprathyroid gland (not even available at char-gen) and the increase reflexes spell. Whoopee.

What is more annoying is that the combo explicitly was allowed in SR3. Personally, I would probably house rule that reaction enhancers can stack with wired reflexes or synaptic boosters.

Like I said originally, it seems to be a pretty obvious case of the FAQ maintainer not understanding the rules in question themselves (even if they originally cooked them up!). "Not compatible with other Initiative enhancements" is a reference to mods that boost Initiative Passes, not Initiative itself (in fact, I can't think of a single spell or item that grants +Initiative) and especially not Reaction which is just another Physical Attribute.

The rule is clearly there to prevent people from reaching the 4 IPs limit easily, that's all. An extra die or two in Initiative is a miniscule issue. Guess it's what they get for not calling either Initiative or Initiative Passes something else entirely since they're really unrelated in any meaningful way.

No, I mean exactly what I wrote previously.

That said, them not adding such a stipulation to that spell is simply another shining example of their poor editing of the rules (also demonstrated by a lack of mentioning that Ally Spirits can't be used for possession, or that a Cyberarm Gyromount requires an entire Cyberarm).

But yes, nevermind that. You totally got me. It's clearly obvious that they fully intended a magical spell to work seamlessly with a cybernetic implant while it's duplicate in both cybernetics and bionics are completely and totally incompatible. It all makes perfect and unquestionable sense!

I am thoroughly shamed and humbled.

Someone should do a statistical study: how far into a thread do DSers go before they derail it into some other topic?

I think it is about a third of the way down the first page this one went from weapon foci to initiative enhancers. Is this a standard rate, or is this thread faster than most?

out of curiosity, why wouldn't ally spirits be able to possess? it makes perfect sense, imo, that a tradition with possession spirits would have an ally spirit that is the same.

We did the same at our table. Magic 5, spend 1 essence? Still at Magic 5. Spend a 2nd essence? THEN you're down to Magic 4.

i allow ranged weapon foci but they only give the extra dice for using the skill. also im in third edition in case that matters.

hi hi

No magic ranged weapons is one of those shadowrun lore things that is distinctly carved in stone, like no teleporting magic. If you really want a ranged weapon that is magic like though, I recommend making arrows out of biofiber, though this is only effective against targets that have not manifested on the physical plane. You take the force of the biofiber x2 vs force x2 for spirits or magic + charisma for people astrally projecting. If the biofiber wins, spirits are disrupted and people are knocked unconscious.

the way the fluff reads is that you cant enchant the projectiles themselves because they are not active after leaving your aura. holding a gun that is enchanted as a weapon focus would give you the dice to use it but not the ability to affect the astral or bypass immunity. that is unless you decide to club them with the gun.

That is how I have always read it. My game had a Phys Adept Pistol Master in SR3 that had two Weapon Focus revolvers. They added dice for shooting, only granted the other stuff when he beat people down with them (they were melee hardened).

On topic we have an Mono Whip wielding adept who whoops ass in Melee combat.

As for the reaction enhancers we've ignored the faq since it came out. They even mix wired and enhancers on an NPC in Ghost Cartels. If we followed the anything that effected ini couldn't be mixed with Wired then we couldn't allow intuition modifiers either. So I go with the definition of anything that adds more passes won't mix and we do allow attribute boosts. I've always looked at it this way, just a way to improve an attribute and not a game breaker like say a 5th IP in unwired...just kidding that didn't break anything either, but I'm sure someone will wish to disagree.