Pretty much like the title says: Do consider Killing Hands a Mana or Physical ability, and what do you base this on?

In other words: Can Killing Hands harm inanimate objects? If so, how do you handle attacks against e.g. Drones or Barriers?

It is neither Mana or Physical - those are spell descriptors and have no effect on Adept powers. All Killing Hands does is allow the Adept to do Physical Damage with unarmed attacks, as well as bypass a spirit's Immunity, exactly what it says it does in it's description. Nothing else changes, and the use is optional.

Let me rephrase: Does killing hands have any effects on inanimate objects above and beyond what a "mundane" unarmed would do?

It would have no effect above and beyond what a mundane unarmed physical damage attack would do.

The main difference between a mundane boxer and a adept boxer would be that most adepts also have other powers to amp up their unarmed ability; like Critical Strike (+1DV per rank, .25 points per rank.) as well as Improve Combat Skill: Unarmed Combat (+1 Dice Pool, .5 points per ranks.)

Depending on your GM, there may or may not be a limit to what you could have for Critical Strike, but Improved Skill powers are limited to your base skill rating (So, max 7 if you had a 7 in Unarmed already.)

With Killing Hands you can punch a drone and actually do damage. That doing anything for you?

how about this, the mana strengthen your body on the instant of attack in such a way that one is potentially able to punch thru steel without taking damage. so while the ability is magical in nature, its still the physical body thats doing the actual damage.

the very idea of the adept is that its not magic directly that does anything. is the adepts body, aided by magic, that do things.

Muspellsheimr

Whoops. My bad, I didn't know about that. I only have the 4th printing. Thanks!

Said correction should be in the 4th printing, as well as the errata (which still has not been updated for the 5th printing...)

How about Delayed Damage? Surely that would be a mana-driven power, right? I can't see an adept channeling his ki, delivering a blow to a drone, and then the drone crumpling hours later.

Why not? It might be a mana power, but it discharges a physical blow.

That is exactly what promted me to ask the question in the first place. The mystical background of killing hands is that they are basically a much more sinister application of Acupuncture: By striking certain focal points on the body (not even particularly hard), the adept manipulates the flow of Chi in the victims body such that it will harm him - causing cramps, rupturing organs or - classically - making it´s heart simply... stop.
None of which would work on something inanimate...

So I wondered if this is covered by the rules.

Also, even if the "working mechanism" of killing hands could affect (for example) drones, it is still a magical effect. And as we all know, magic isn´t supposed to work that well against high-tech objects.

I smell a house-rule coming...

Now, that might be your interpretation of that power, even your character might think of it that way... but it's not really what is happening. The BBB gives no indication why the adept does physical damage, other then it's magic.
So, what you try to fix with a houserule is a houserule already. Funny, how those buggers never work as intended a just screw stuff up, is it not?

The problem is that the canon rules themselves are screwed up. If you look only at the basic power, I could buy that magic enhances a Ki-Adepts body to the point where he can actually damage (say) a drone with his bare hands. In that case, the damage itself would not be magical at all, but simple blunt force.
In this case, I would apply the damage-against-vehicles rule in that case. Also, if used against living creatures, the effects would be quite... messy. (Think of someone who has been killed with a jackhammer and you get the picture).

But when you throw Delayed Damage into the mix, it is quite obvious that the damage itself is magical in nature. Even if you disregard the "background fluff", and even if you consider the effect of delayed damage to be a not a mana , but a physical "spell" (which is NOT stated anywhere explicitely, one way or the other), if a mage tried to cast a spell at something as high-tech as a drone, he will get an obscenely high TN, because magic just does not work well against that kind of target.

Edit: Quote from MitS: "If the attack is successful and the target does not completely resist the damage, delay damage converts the attack into a "charge" of magical force that lingers in the targets aura for up to 24 hours"; mechanics-wise, the adept is also treated as if he were sustaining a spell until the damage "goes off".
Also, the rules on Killing Hands state that they are unaffected by Immunity to Normal Weapons.

This makes it clear that the damage is magical in nature.

But is it physical ("magical Jackhammer" -> Bloody Mess) or Mana-based ("his heart just... stopped")?

And if it is physical... why does it bypass the innate magic-resistance of high-tech objects?
Hell, even it was Mana-based, what about Cyberzombies and their inherent anti-magical aura?
And why in the name of Dunkelzahns fat ass are adepts completely immune to Background Count?

...

Ok, I think this just became an entirely different discussion...

The problem with thinking that the use of Killing Hands is always an Adept striking critical points is that it would be increasingly less effective as he faces more cyberized mundanes and that just isn't written that way in the rules (and would ratchet up the complexity).

To me it is obvious that Delayed Damage is magical, the damage that has been delayed is not, because it is the exact same damage the adept's fist would do, if not delayed. The problem is neither the power, nor the rules.

You misunderstand me.

When I say that the damage is magical, I mean this in the same sense that a Powerbolts damage is "magical", i.e. the damage itself may not be magical in the way the result of a Manabolt would be, but even if it isn´t, the force inflicting the damage certainly is, because the adepts fist itself has airtight alibi!

otoh, If you kept Delayed Damage (and the immunity issue mentioned below) out of the picture, you could argue that the magic merely enhances the Adepts Strenght, and maybe hardenes his bones and skin; for all intents and purposes, it might be a big-ass cyberarm with an hydrolic piston. The damage would have no direct association with any magic whatsoever.

In any event, to me your assertation that it is obvious that the damage itself is physical or, as you put it, "the exact same damage the adept's fist would do" does not hold water, because I cannot find a reference anywhere in the rules exactly how it is that the adepts fist does its damage!

Also, like I said before, Killing Hands bypasses Immunity to Normal weapons. The only other non-spell weapon capable of doing this is a Weapon Focus! (but only when it is activated - and hence, dual-natured!) Yet Killing Hands do not make the Adept be dual-natured, so while the damage itself may or may not be physical in nature, the source of the damage cannot be physical.

The source of the damage is physical. It just happens to bypass ItNW. Why? Because, they said it does. Its an exception to how ItNW works.

We allways played it as magic based but physical damage, and the higher the PhysAd's initiative level, the more the magic manifested. Whether his fists looked like stone or covered in flame or took on the shape of giant eagle talons, all magic based but left physical wounds. you could also look at the modern day martial artists that break bricks or boards that would break someone elses hand as a modern physad. Looks like magic if they do it but hurts like hell when i try.

This is the best explanation of killing hands ever.

You are the Last Dragon. You have the power of The Glow. When you hit things with The Glow it causes explosions, which damage your target.


It basically works like indirect combat spells. Magic creates some real physical effect which, being real and physical, ignors object resistance yet being magically created ignores immunity to normal weapons. You can also add elemental effects.

If there is no reference to how exactly it works, why assume that the workings change at all? Hence my believe it is obvious, that the damage is "the same" with or without Killing Hands/Delayed Damage.

simple, it grants the adept a intuitive insight about where to hit so that the damage would manifest at a later time.

kinda like how someone locally recently that fell of a atv while drunk, got back on his feet, walked home and died in his sleep from internal bleeding.

a equivalent for drones are hitting a point that would create some internal leakage, a bad connection and so on. end result, the drone breaks down at a later time.

hell, its found that one nearly need to reduce a person to minced meat to really have him drop on the spot. a lot of internal systems of a body can go on for quite some time until it runs out of fuel. thats also why cpr and similar can work, as the brain is still operational for a couple of minutes after a heart failure (when the cells start running out of oxygen and dies).

Based on the description of Delay damage, with the damage staying as a charge in the target's AURA, I would rule that Delay damage can't work against inanimate/non-living objects, whereas killing hands would because it's instantly applied to the target, the same way a punch, bullet or powerbolt would be.

As far as delayed Damage is concerned, I agree. As for Killing Hands themselves... I think I´ll let the player decide if he either wants Killing Hands that can´t harm inanimate things but leave (almost) no trace, or if he wants to be able to harm drones, but also Hulk-smash his living victims into a bloody pulp.

Because melee adepts need some nerfing real bad.

Why am I suddenly getting this World of Warcraft-forums vibe?

Feel it, feel the hate.

Different problem just came up while preparing a run: Can KH be used while wearing Gloves? On the one hand, allowing the combination of, say, Shock Gloves with KH seems rather cheesy. On the other hand, forcing the adept to fight with completely bare hands can be rather harsh under certain circumstances...

Any suggestions?

Yes, unless its hardliner gloves, then you can pick whether you use the glove DV, or the KH DV.

I raise you Sonny Chiba plus lots of prothetics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcZT86YXQEM

In SR there's a certain amount of background text that suggests magical powers are formed by traditions and ideas, i.e. shamans and custom spirits. So nowadays I really see Killing Hands as a Sonny Chiba ikken histatsu type dynamic. You grimace punch someone from the hip and his teeth fall out with lots of fake blood, or you tug on the arm and rip it off. Instead of just punching someone for M stun you grimace and rip his throat out for physical damage like in "The Streetfighter".

There might be an official ruling to this, but if not I'd say you either do killing hands of shock glove/hardliner damage.

bah, why bother? just get elemental attack: electricity or something...