Ok, in my insanity I was making an unarmed physical adept who has the Trailer Park Boys as contacts. Then, stumbled across a problem while trying to figure out what to spend his measly 5000 nuyen on: when using shock gloves, do you add the 5S(e) to your original unarmed damage(STR/2)? What about with adepts who have Critical Strike? Please Dumpshock, come to my rescue!

Well, my group has always run it as two separate damage tests. One for the actual hit and one for the shock.

I always rule that they are not stackable. An attacker can either choose to do damage through his own power, or use the glove's effect, but not both. And I would never let Shock Glove damage be boosted by Critical Strike. Works for me.

Just for curiosity's sake...

Why?

Game balance?

Considering touch is all thats necessary for a capacitor to short across some skin
and I would say a punch to the gut is a touch and the shockproof armor variant
can make it quite easy to avoid the affects....

Would you allow punch damage with a spike or punch dagger

Or an electrified line strung at (neck) clothesline height
*heh* I ran into a 'lectric fence' once at 2am while running and man did I get both


Thanks

Yep. Game balance ... and it makes sense to me. I don't think Shock Gloves are made to thump people over the head with. They only need contact to deliver their charge, and a more forceful strike is (in my games) counterproductive to that end.

As for the punch dagger, nope. You get the punch damage, or the dagger damage, but not both.

Per the official FAQ, you get to pick if you want to do your normal Unarmed Combat damage, or the damage from the Shock Gloves, but you don't get both.

it's kinda stupid though . . a STR16 Troll with bone-lacing suddenly only doing 5S(e) Damage instead of *thinks* STR/2+3=11S (or did they get p? i don't know) damage?

The big advantage, though, is the special rules that go with the shock gloves. Sure, a troll can hit you hard (and yes, I think they get to do physical damage with bone lacing), but the shock gloves will stun you for a while, and possibly short out any electronics (depending on the GM, this could mean your commlink, your smartgun, your pacemaker...). Or, maybe a such a troll would use them to avoid having to pull punches, which can get dodgy. My group has a cybertroll that damn near killed the adept while they were training.

hmm . . isn't there an ortho-skin-addon that does electricity damage?
is that depending on strength or is that a fixed power that you again get to decide for or against?
"But i only wanted to stun him! why is he dead?"
"because a STR16 Troll with Titanium-Bones hitting an Body 3 Elf on the Head . . IS STILL A STR16 TROLL WITH TITAN-BONES HITTING A BODY 3 ELF ON THE HEAD!"

Agreed game balance.

However, if you are keen to have the shock + melee damage, then jsut add the shock effect only to the melle hit damage. However, be warned that other GMs will not likely let you do this, so if you plan on jumping around to different GMs your character might not be so 1 hit wonder.

If a strength 16 troll with titanium bone lacing punches somebody with shock gloves on, the troll is probably going to break the gloves.

If you want a good reason for only being able to do one kind of damage, feel free to assume the shock pads are on the palm of the glove instead of the knuckles (as I assumed). Because sure you can still slap them, but slap doesn't really count as a full Unarmed Attack (in my opinion).

But really, if you can play a dragon, you should be able to do melee damage AND shock damage thanks

...now the dept power Elemental Strike only adds the secondary elemental effect to the attack so the actual damage would still be STR/2 (though P instead of S as Killing Hands is a prerequisite which I never understood if you just intend to zap someone).

This is not RAW, but we picked up a "stun gun" (just the normal hand-held type) a few years back and had fun seeing how much trouble it caused. Definitely effective, but you really have to keep contact longer than a punch to have any real effect.

Based on that, here is how I rationalize having the player pick one or the other: the attack that would provide punching damage would be fast and hard while the attack that would provide shock damage would be need to be more controlled to maintain contact for as long as possible.

I've never run into this problem because any character with 9+ Strength never used Shock Gloves. They just beat people into submission by hand or by a good whack over the skull. Only the weak characters who don't have a lot of physical strength usually take Shock Gloves.

in our games everybody and their mom uses shock-gloves . .
especially for things like destroying electronics or torturing people . .
*Troll makes this nice gesture docs use when slipping on their gloves for body-cavity-search*
*everybody cringes*
GM:"what did you just do?"
Troll:"i put on my shock gloves"
*everybody WINCES*
with us they come with a switch that lets you decide if you want to use the shock pads on the knife-edge of your hand, on the palm, or on the knuckles . .
i still like how trolls and other power-mongers are the only ones who can say:"allright, now the gloves are off!" with a serious face and taking off their shock-gloves *g*

Elemental strike does damage as appropriate to the element, which if I remember right, is S for electricity.

As far as the shock and punch effect.... if they want to punch with the shock gloves, give the shock gloves a barrier rating, and let them blow their shock gloves to smithereens as they try to pulverize someone with them.


On the flip side, its arguable that shock gloves only require a touch attack, and thus you can get a +2 dice bonus on the melee attack for only attempting a touch.

As far as I know, that's not really arguable ... 'cause them's the rules.

I don't think shock gloves say they only require a touch to work (but I'm not at my books), so, if its non specified, its certainly arguable. If it is specified, well... then there ya go.

...then it would make no sense for Killing Hands to be a prerequisite for Elemental Strike other than assigning an arbitrary requirement for the sake of having one since KH allows an adept to deliver P damage with her unarmed attacks.

Allows, does not force. Its a pre-requisite for a fairly obvious reason I think. Killing hands is the adept channeling mana to their body parts as they strike to do lethal damage. Elemental aura the adept channeling more mana to their body parts wreathing them in an element.

I'm fairly certain that you can't do P damage with elemental aura sound.

Elemental Strike does damage as appropriate to the element in question. With electricity, this damage is considered to be Stun in SR4.

...still makes no sense for the prerequisite. Both cost .5 & could just as well be "standalone" powers since KH has apparently no "in game" effect on the outcome when using Elemental Strike. With KH you channel a for of Ki to cause physical damage, with ES you channel Ki to create the elemental (S damage) effect. IMO This would make the two exclusive of each other. I would have no issue allowing an adept to learn Elemental Strike without having Killing Hands. Sounds too much like that "other game" (e.g. you need Power Attack for Flying Kick...huh?).

I basically did it this way in GMing my group as well, with a twist.

Character wants to bash guy over the head with stun baton: Roll attack for a physical bludgening.

Then, apply those successes to the structure rating of the trodes on the baton. I would give the trodes an 8. Subtract the success on the trodes. If the guy got say 3 net successes, he did 3 points of dmage to the trodes. Keep track of damage to the trodes. he's now 5/8

Now, take those same three successes and divide them by the percentage of the damage done to them (rounding down) He got one success on the electrical damage.

So, it would look like this:

Fred the Baton Twirler(with a strength 4) bonks the unarmored sec guard over his head with his stun baton, not jsut trying to use the baton for a prod, but actually swinging it for physical damage. He gets 3 successes with it as a club. That's (4/2)+1=3 +3(successes)=6P damage.

Now, take those same three success and subtract them from the structure of the baton trodes ( 8 ). You have 5/8 of the trodes. Multiple that times the number of net success. 3*5/8= 1.875. Round down to 1. Now add that to the stun damage of the stun baton. 6S(e)+1=7S(e)

Fred the Twirler jsut did 6P and 7S(e) to the sec Guard. But he damaged his baton. It might be good as a stun device for one or two more pops, with diminishing returns each time he used it. Don't forget to apply all armor mods to all damage before applying to the victim of the attack.

I know it sounds complicated, but I could not in good conscience allow someone to hit someone with a large stick and say "Oh, it only does electrical stun damage." Or say that he couldn't damage the baton for using it in a non-proscribed way. This way he gets to use it a few times with diminishing results and then has to procur a new one if he wants it to be more than a club.

I also follow the same ruling for a character punching a guy with stun glove. My party's adept used to do that a lot.

Vlad

The prerequisite is there more for flavor purposes than actual mechanical reasons. The ability to channel raw damaging magic through an attack (Killing Hands) is learned before channeling elemental magic (Elemental Strike). Seems fine to me.

...still, it ranks up there in silliness with the old Magic Loss rule for Wounds and +4 to TN for awakened characters to perform matrix tests when jacked in.

...looks like another houserule.

Shrug. I like the idea of 'stacked powers' (fits well with the stacked Metamagics), and don't mind at all that it takes a whole Power Point to get Elemental Strike instead of merely .5. Killing Hands is useful even without doing Physical damage, with the ability to damage Spirits.

KK, I am listening if you have any specific ideas. I never really considered it, but now that I think about it, when you have killing hands as a requirement, the additional powers that you can stack on should have to deal Physical damage as well. Since you are materializing your Ki in an elemental form, whatever that elemental form hits will contain the same ki as killing hands. As for Electricity Damage, I dont feel as though it is Stun by default (since Lightning Bolt should indeed be Physical), though most weapons that discharge electricity discharge it as stun.

Houserule #1: "Killing Hands is not a prerequisite for Elemental Strike".

Splitting them seems perfectly fine to me. Still, let's look at all of them:

• Acid: Resisted by half Impact Armor (+Chemical Protection), Continues to eat through material until washed off or base applied, creates smoke when burning off material, causing visibility modifiers.
• Cold: Resisted by half Impact Armor (+Insulation), some gear may become brittle or freeze.
• Electricity: Resisted by half Impact Armor (+Nonconductivity), then do shock test, Incapacitated for 2+net hits combat turns if unsuccessful, or -2DP from disorientation for the same time, electronic devices can be damaged as well, and must resist with Body + Armor or Armor*2, or be inoperable for 2+net hit combat turns. (by RAW, Electricity Damage is Stun, booooooo!)
• Fire: Resisted by half Impact Armor (+Fire Resistance), objects hit risk catching fire, Armor * 2 against Fire DV, if fire DV is higher, item catches fire. GM decides next turn whether the item stays on fire or not. Electronics may short circuit, explosives and ammunition explodes.

Since Falling and Fatigue are not elements, we shall ignore them. These are elaborated on in Street Magic:

• Blast: Resisted by half Impact Armor, add Force (DV) to DV when comparing against Body for Knockdown, at GM discretion, objects with barrier rating less than the force (DV) may be shattered, shredded, or knocked over.
• Ice: Same as cold, except that objects hit are coated with ice. Agility + Reaction to avoid slipping, vehicles must make crash test. May melt quickly.
• Light: Resisted by half Impact Armor, target suffers a glare modifier for one Combat Turn after the attack, may ignite flammables. (Should also be quite useful against Vampires and Undead)
• Metal: Treate as flechette (+2DV/+5AP), resisted with Impact Armor (not even half!), may cut some fabric (woop de doo, though I guess you now have a "Shotgun punch")
• Sand: Resisted by half Impact Armor, may jam weapons or machinery not adapted to the element.
• Smoke: Treated as stun, inhalation vector toxin attack, inflicts Heavy Smoke visibility modifiers on the target.
• Sound: Treated as stun, bypasses all armor (Silence and Hush add their ratings as DP mod to resistance test, aka, sound armor), If sound DV is higher than target's willpower, he suffers the effect of nausea and is deafened for 10 minutes.
• Water: Treated as physical, resisted by half Impact Armor, add the Force (DV) to DV against Body when determining knockdown. May put out fires or short out sensitive electronics.

Now that we have everything laid out, the only issues are Electricity, Smoke, Sound, and Water. I am perfectly fine with ignoring the default damage type in regards to Electricity, Sound, and Water, but I have no idea what to do about Smoke. Any ideas?

Houserule #2: "Electricity, Smoke, Sound, and Water damage are not Physical or Stun by default, but by the vector of damage".

Honestly? You see no imbalance with letting sound (which ignores ALL armor) be treated as P? Ok. I'll make an adept that uses sound to blow up tanks, walls, bunkers, and diamonds. Why? Well, why the hell not.

Well I never read elemental strike as doing that. What do you get from sound hands, oh if you do more boxes in damage than his willpower he is nauseated and deafened for 10 minutes. And that is it. Having it 1/2 or ignore armor would just make penetrating strike even more worthless than it already is.

"Elemental strike enhances the effects of killing hands with a elemental effect"

So it enhances killing hands by turning it back into stun damage? If it requires killing hands and enhances it chances are the damage just stays P, they really don't give much detail on what it does, but giving it everything under a elemental description would make it the most absurd .5 power even with a .5 pre-req in the game.

It truly has been a while since I have dealt with it, but come to think of it, I never give actual extra 'damage' with the Elemental Effect Power. Merely the accompanying 'elemental effects', as described in the test. The damage from the attack itself remains Physical (due to Killing Hands), and the elemental (non-damage) stuff is added on top.

Note the absense of any mention of additional damage, or even any actual use of the word 'damage' whatsoever. I think it is quite clear that the Power grants an 'elemental effect' on top of the normal damage inflicted by Killing Hands.

...by that description, then the base attack still does P damage even if the normal Elemental effect would only do stun. So an Adept with Killing hands and electrical elemental effect would still inflict STR/2 DV (P) damage of the base attack, while also subjecting the target to the secondary effects of electrical damage (DP reduction & possible incapacitation) as if hit by a taser or shock glove.

lets think logically here. When you strike with a shock glove, it sends a electric current through the body. wouldnt activating the shock gloves and then makeing a fist be a REALLY bad idea? I think it would short curcit itself. also, with regular unarmed attacks, its more of a punch. I always pictured shock gloves to be more of a touch type thing. or even a grab, i guess.

But it does say Elemental Effect, is not the half impact armor part of the effect? Sure this could be unbalanced, but it is also limited to the usefulness of melee damage, and by cost. If you think it is absurdly godly awesome, make it cost 1pp/ea. Oh wait! It already does! 1pp is one fuck ton of karma by RAW. You should get something pretty pimp for that.

And half impact, or even no armor is nice, but it certainly isnt game breaking. Plus, I treat emission adept powers like spells in that they leave a signature, though much more faint and quicker fading which cannot be erased. This is only natural since it is magic.


Yeah, this is an issue. That is why there should be two seperate forms of Shock Glove: "Shock Glove", and "Shock Knucles" (Hell, maybe even a "Shock Boot").

Shit, I completely forgot, It is a SOUND attack. That means it is LOUD. I say +DP to hearing based perception checks equal to DV of the attack (at least within a cone extending out from the fist/foot.

Everything can be balanced, you just have to think harder.

it says in the description, that only one elemental efect can be active at any one given time . .
but as far as i remember, there were mixing effects like firewater and Boom, or however that is called . .
so, if i take the water effect and the fire effect separately, can i use the mixed effect of firewater?
or if i take the blast and the sound can i use the boom?
it says only one per time, but those mixed are each only one effect in their own right or am i reading this wrong?

nvm

I don't think it does actual 'elemental damage' (as in boxes on the stun monitor), but it would do all the other elemental effects appropriate to the element in question. So with electricity it would do DP reduction and possible stun. For blast it would cause added knockdown. And so on. As I pointed out, there is no actual reference to 'elemental damage', only 'elemental effects', and any mention of actual damage is in relation to the Killing Hands prerequisite. In contrast, Elemental Combat Spell specifically mention damage on top of any elemental effect.

...I believe that was what I implied way back when I first brought this up.


Then...



...which is why I thought KH was a silly prerequisite if Elemental Strike only let you inflict S damage.

So basically I was correct. The Adept still inflicts STR/2 P damage from her Killing Hands attack (should she elect to do so) while Elemental Strike only adds the DP reduction, Stunning effect, and possible damage to electrical equipment that is characteristic of an electrical attack.

Note it also doesn't say that the elemental effects damaging properties are changed. Instead of just punching, you're hitting them with a fist wreathed in fire, sound, or electricity. Obviously, fire will do P, as you usually do P with killing hands. But killing hands gives the option to remain doing stun damage as well. So, does that mean you can have elemental strike (fire) and yet do stun damage since its an "enhancement" of killing hands and killing hands allows you to choose which damage type you do?

Yep. I was originally mistaken, which is why I spoke up again when I realized my error.



It specifically doesn't mention elemental damage at all. Merely 'elemental effects', which are differentiated from 'damage' in the descriptions of the Elemental Combat Spells (where elemental effects are described).

No, if you could have napalm hands, it would say that you could mix elemental effects. Since it doesn't, then my best guess it that you can't.


I very much like that interpretation. Not only can you turn a non-lethal attack into a lethal one, but you can turn a lethal attack to non-lethal. I actually prefer this since I prefer not to kill with my hands (dry cleaning adds up). I also like to treat Missile Mastery this way as well (exp: Throwing a Pen, you are good enough that you can either hit him hard with the sharp end or the broad side causing either physical or stun). There really is something of an unconscious focus in SR on killing the enemy, and I don't like to play that way too often.

I just can't validly picture how ES(fire) or ES(acid) can possibly do S and not P.

smoke with stunning components would come to mind . . kinda like making your fists into blunts *g*

Yes, smoke makes sense, because the smoke effect does stun damage (such as if you had a smoke thrower spell). Thats why I stuck with elemental effects which defaultly do P damage for my examples.

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The Magic of Killing Hands lets you do Stun damage with fire?

(shrugs shoulders) If you want it to. Its not like fire punches are realistic or anything.