Like the title says, can a creature's Natural Weapon be made into a Weapon Focus?

Hmm. Sounds like a job for poachers.

I'd say no, just like you can't enchant your hand into a power focus.

A hand is not a Natural Weapon. However, I've seen that people do allow a cybernetic Spur to be enchanted, so why not Goring Horns?

If it's living, which includes a fang, tusk, horn, stinger, claw, or "wookie club" then no, you can't enchant it. Cyberweapons are enchanted first and then implanted.

I'd say no, but I would allow a "cap" to be placed on it. I had a game I played in where a troll "infected" hunter had silver caps that were epoxyed over his horns.

So if a Minotaur gets his natural horns hacked off he can get them replaced with enchanted replacements?

I'm going to say no as well. Though a creature may have a Natural Weapon it's a part of its living body. Foci (unless I misremember something) are inanimate or dead objects.

A rabbit's foot? Focus. A living rabbit? Not a focus.

Well, technically it sounds like ANYONE can get enchanted horns installed:


...if they pay the Essence for it.

so you couldn't cap your horns with something dead an use that as a focus?

It would make sense that you could - if you can enchant brass knuckes or a cestus. Which, AFAICT, you can.

I believe you can. But it's what encases the horn that's the focus, not the horn itself.

Yes, by paying for horn implants.

Which is rather odd in some respects as your fingernails, hair, etc are not alive. Well, the business parts of them aren't.

Those horns? Not alive. The roots of them are but the pointy end that is useful for goring someone, not alive.

Of course, there is the question of it being contained within / being an integral part of your aura. That might be a problem.

Well, technically, the outer layer of your skin isn't alive either. But you can't turn your fist into a Weapon Focus.

Hardliner Gloves r designed to boost the damage u do with ur bare hands, and they come under the Exotic Weapon cathegory. Nevertheless when u equip them u still use ur Unarmed Combat skill (which governs the use of Natural Weapons ).
But they're a weapon, so u can make them into a focus.

So get an armorer to build a set of casing for ur horns, and by the same logic turn them into a focus.

p.s. Not trying to loophole the rules there, but i can't see why u couldn't.


Edited.

The glove is the Focus, not the actual hand in it. That's all I'm sayin'...

So ?

And if you got custom weapons built for your horns/feet/claws/whatever then you're not attacking with your natural weapon, you're attacking with your custom weapon on top of it.

Forget it.

Shame, i'd be interested in ur feedback

I'm pretty sure it was the same, then you're not attacking with your hand, you're attacking with your glove.

You have the same options you do for augmenting any other form of unarmed damage you naturally do (fists, feet, horns, claws; all the same category). That means either using something like the adept power of Killing Hands or creating a focus for a weapon like Shock Gloves or Horn Implants. It's not complicated. At all.

True, i don't denie the fact that ur attaking with ur gloves now, but u still using ur Unarmed Combat yes ? So u can fight with natural weapons and benefit from weapon focus at the same time, yes ?
It is clear that u can't make ur natural weapon into a focus, but i think there is a way around it, the example of the gloves makes sense to me.

Am i wrong or what ?

Just because you're using unarmed combat doesn't mean you aren't attacking with a specific weapon.

Normal metahumans using unarmed combat get str/2 Stun for damage

Critters with natural weapons can choose to attack with the natural weapons for the listed damage.

Or sapients with natural weapons and an equipped weapon could choose to attack with their equipped weapon for its damage (which could be a focus).

Just because it still uses "unarmed combat" doesn't mean you attack with everything together. The same as you use a swords damage code because you attack with it instead of your elbow, you would use the enchanted focus' code instead of your natural weapon if you wanted.

I see no reason why you could not get a sheath or something similar designed for one of your natural weapons, then have it enchanted as a weapon focus. As long as the sheath/casing/whatever is worn, attacks with that natural weapon would receive all the benefits of the weapon focus. If it is removed, the benefits are lost until it is replaced.

Because, the weapon focus when attacking something such as a spirit astrally wouldn't have the properties of the horn or whatever its sheathing. Its like saying if you enchanged your swords sheath as a weapon focus, you could use it to chop astral creatures for the same damage as the sword. Doesn't work like that.

If you use a Natural Weapon can you still use Critical Strike and/or Killing Hands with it? What if you do get enchanted 'horn condoms' can you still boost it with Critical Strike?

I ask this because the Natural Weapon seems unable to benefit from being directly enchanted because it's seen as being an unarmed attack, but since it doesn't use Unarmed Combat, it seems that it can't benefit from Critical Strike and similar powers either. In effect, it looks like it gets the worst of both worlds.

Critical stirke adept power? Yes. Killing hands? Yes, but most natural weapons do P already, so no point.
Enchanted horn condoms? Whats the benefit? I wouldn't call a horn condom a weapon, or if you were attacking with it, I'd probably equate it to htiting someone with it off your horn, and thusly, doing something like Str/2-4S. But sure, critical strike would work with it!

Besides which, any such lunacy weapon is not RAW anyway.

Consider it a sharply-pointed sleeve of steel with mystical sigils scribed into it rather than a ribbed piece of latex and you might see how it would be pretty damn useful as a weapon to a creature that can already employ its naked horns as weapons for Str/2+1P.


Like I said, it's not lunacy if you understand what I'm really talking about.

More believable now, but still, nothing raw that exists like that. Why would you need a weapon focus anyway? Centaurs are dual-natured and thusly able to attack stuff on the astral anyway.

Just for the bonus dice? Ok, cheesy, but I'll buy that. You're bonding it and all that, and a glitch/crit glitch would be them slipping off/breaking off and good luck with that.

Minotaurs are a Troll metavariant. They do not have Dual Nature.


The same reasons that anyone wants a weapon focus for...


They may be permanently attached and thus you wouldn't have to worry about slipping off. As for breaking off, that's pretty unlikely unless you'd rule that a martial artist breaks his hand/foot on a critical glitch. Regardless, some nanomenders should be albe to go in and reattach a broken horn if necessary. The bond would be as good as new and take less time (but more nuyen) than repairing a broken limb.

I have yet to find any RAW game information that pencils and paper (even toilet tissue) exist in Shadowrun 4. Does this mean that they don't? If there is no reason wy it shouldn't be able to be made with existing tech, there's no reason to try to crawl behind RAW to disallow it.

Goring horns != Natural Weapon.

Goring horns is a metagenetic quality, natural weapon is a power. Goring horns can only be used with exotic melee weapon: horns. Natural weapon is unarmed.

Permanently attached? Must like fingernails, I'm pretty sure horns naturally grow, so unless you feel like having it removed and re-attached every so often, I wouldn't let it fly.

"Breaking off" I mean something such as your horn busts through the tip on the sheath, rendering the sheath unuseable until repaired. Not the horn breaking off.

Much the same as a crit glitch on a gun attack often results in the gun being unusable until repaired.

He was asking for a minortor there just trolls with bigger horns so they cant use the horns in astral combat .

I'd make it use the exotic melee weapon: horn condom skill then. Since the horns really aren't made for fighting with, and the weapon isn't in any books.

When i read what u guys have to say and i consider what i think is acceptable, i think the issue comes from the fact that the gloves r considered as a weapon, usable by martial artists.
If these gloves ( and they're just leather gloves with some reinforcement at the knuckles ) would have been treated as Natural Weapon Modifications/Accessories , there would b no issue on my part.

But i understand i think, u can't be seen using Killing Hands, a power imbued in ur very flesh and blood natural weapon, AND a weapon focus that actually belong to an item which is not u at the same time.

You got it!

SR4 p. 192, "Weapon Foci." You make attacks with the weapon focus itself. If you have a sword that's a weapon focus, for instance, you can't punch someone in the face with your sword hand and get the benefits of using a weapon focus. You have to attack with the weapon focus, and damage is based on that weapon focus. This is why the bonding cost is based on the Reach of the weapon.

SR4 p. 289, "Natural Weapon." Natural melee weapons use Unarmed Combat. Thus powers like Critical Strike and Killing Hands work just fine with them.

So which one do the Goring Horns fall under? They are an Exotic Melee attack, but they are not really 'weapons' as most people define a Weapon Focus nor are they an attack made with Unarmed Combat (as seems to be required for many adept powers). So, how do you rule to make them effective for a Minotaur adept?

RAW Paper, SR4, 318, "Electronic Paper: This electronic sheet is roughly the size of a piece of paper and can be folded to fit into a pocket. It digitally displays any input"

Pencils are pretty much phased out because of commlinks. And obviously, theres no rules requiring you use the bathroom, so there no rules for bathroom tissue either. Any bathroom use is entirely houserule territory. Maybe there aren't any bathrooms in shadowrun!

They are an exotic melee weapon. Adept powers that affect unarmed combat don't work with them, and they cannot be enchanted as a weapon focus. They just suck, get over it. Or houserule.

The reasons Goring Horns are an exotic weapon are 1) inconsistency in the rules [they're more akin to natural weapons than cybernetic implants], 2) because some dunderhead decided the cybernetic implant version needed to be an exotic weapon and whoever wrote up the Changeling rules referenced them instead of Natural Weapons, and 3) they were too lazy to reference things properly and just decided to use SURGE traits for metatype traits.

In other words, it's an error due to incompetence and laziness. Metavarients technically aren't metavarients in SR4; they're just SURGE changelings without the quality cost.

So , make ur complete conclusion on the subject now Dr.

Regardless, they still suck for adepts to try to use as a main weapon. You'd be better off just getting killing hands and punching things like everyone else.

I did earlier in the thread. That wasn't support for you. It was pointing you to where it says, in black and white, you can't do what you want to do by the rules. Either you make up a horn/claw variant of Hardliner Gloves or (what I do in my games) flat out change Weapon Foci to ordinary foci that enhance a specific combat skill and in no way needs to be an actual weapon; it just has to represent your combat prowess to you as a character. So a paladin-like Knight Templar could use his crucifix as a weapon focus for his Blades skill, for example, or a Grecian Hercules-type could use a magic belt that he believes enhances his ability to wrestle with Unarmed Combat.

Like an Adept version of the Power Focus more or less.

I would say closer to a spellcasting focus but the same kind of idea.

Yes, agreed

The Power Focus for an Adept would b neat though ^^ , hehe.

I semi allow them but the only add to power where magic is a variable like power boost and such.