Perhaps it was the over-the top acrobatics and dual butterfly knife slashing in Planet Terror that got me thinking about it, but I realise that knives that can fold or retract in some way to become more concealable would be over great interest and use for a shadowrunner.

What would they cost? Double the weapon's price? That would make a standard retractable knife :nuyen:40, and a retractable shortbladed cougar fineblade :nuyen:1100. Would that be acceptable? Well, it really depends on the effects. The Extendable Baton notes it's concealability modifier as -2 when retracted. Given that a knife is shorter, and probably only halves in length, as opposed to a baton, which is a handle with a telescoping tubes in many layers, I'd probably lean towards -1

I must admit I'm out of ideas when it comes to application of quickdraw rules. Could a butterfly knife be flicked open and used to stab some-one in a quick and fluid motion? What are the general opinions on this?

Funnily enough, Ghost Cartels lists at least one NPC with a switchblade, yet has no book reference and provides no real rules for it. Of course I realise that this post is dealing with relatively unimportant minutae, but I've been wondering how I could give my characters retractable blades without a GM discarding the proposal and grabbing his anti-twink crucifix.

A final and least important question; could a ceramic knife conceivably be built with a retractable design?

It takes essentially no time to open a knife designed for one handed opening, it's done as part of the draw. (I'm not sufficiency familiar with butterfly knives to say for sure that they work like that.) It takes a second or two to close one. Today a folding knife of the same quality costs about as much as a fixed blade of the same size. The expensive alloys and such are used for the blade, not the rest. A top quality switchblade/auto-knife costs about as much as a top quality folder. A cheap switchblade is just about the same as a cheap folder.

The main problem with ceramic knives is shock. The impact from opening might be an issue, or maybe not. There are some fixed ceramic knives out now, but I don't think anyone has built a folder etc. It certainly seems possible. But it's the kind of thing that will make cops go Hmm.

So from your opinions I'd draw that you would vote for either a 10% increase in price (for example) or an unchanged price, but you would add some points to the legality?

Böker produced a version of a normal sidelock (read: metal lock) folding knive with a ceramic blade.
The issue wasn't so much that it would break, but that the edge would chip, which causes the ugly issue how to sharpen it decently.

Ironically, in SR4, full ceramic knives are perfectly legal, BTW.

A guy where I used to work had a ceramic folder. It was expensive though. Over $100US for maybe a 2" ceramic blade. It is just too expensive for general use for most people now.

Flicking the blade open probably is no big deal, but they are still relatively weak against any kind of prying or twisting. Kyocera advises against anything but a standard back and forth cutting motion for their ceramic kitchen knives.

- STR/2+1 -AP 50 Nuyen Steel, 75 Nuyen Ceramic/Plastic

Just the way I'd run em... Nothing special at all, with the cheaper one being more highly concealable.

Wark... uhhhh, I'd let people make an Agility + Blades (2) test for a draw and stab action, and a (3) action to draw and stab with two blades?

Edited because RVD is smarter than me, and I was reading improvised weapons at 3:40am when I wrote this. Thank you.

Folding knives don't tend to be less sharp than fixed ones, so the +1AP seems pretty silly.

Of course, the only 'knive' with +1 Reach in SR4 is the Victorinox Memory blade, which is more like a sword...

Spring mechanism knives < balisong.

Why? Because the balisong has two pins holding the blade in place whereas a switchblade has only one. If you were to go and try to carve a raw side of beef with a switchblade, really dragging the blade through the flesh, it would probably break under the stress of all the torqing on one pin, but a balisong would hold up a lot better.

I'd treat folding knives as regular knives but with better concealability, and for a "flimsy" design like the switchblade maybe a bit more fragility whenever some kind of roll for the weapon breaking might come up.

Breaking a good folding knive usually requires you to clamp one part, then hit the other with a hammer.

The lock, on the other hand, is much more likely to simply slip away than a balisong to fold back.

I've long had my characters call an assortment of knives (particularly the smaller version of a Cougar Fineblade) a "tactical folder," and no one's really cared or noticed. I guess if you just have to change something, I'd go with a +1 (or -1, whichever is the "good" change) to Concealability, and purely for gameplay balance reasons I'd increase the price by maybe 30-50%.

Sorry bro, your very wrong here. Balisong, even good quality balisong, don't use very large 'pins'. Top quality spring-knives use a bolt that is far thicker. My Benchmade's pivot bolt is 8mm across, which is nearly half the width of the blade. I've pried lots of things with it while in Iraq. It went through four tours (3 with me and one with my best friend), and though it has a little cosmetic damage, works perfectly fine.

Switchblades = cheap crap you expect a pimp to be carrying (unless it's a BOKER-matic, Blackhawk, Kershaw, or some such).

What you want is tactical folders like: assisted open, automatic, etc., which are usually pretty tough. Switchblades are (mostly) garbage. There are exceptions, but not many.

Ceramic knives have extremely sharp and EXTREMELY BRITTLE blades. Great for everything except abuse and combat.

Butterfly/Balisongs are usually fairly good weapons, but are best used as weapons of intimidation (we've all seen the movies where the bad guy flips it opened and closed fast, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again); they take to long to open, and it's fairly obvious to everyone within line of sight that you just did so. 3 flips to open (or 1 if you're talented like me), compared to automatics (push button folder), assisted open (slight thumb flick moving the blade through approx. 10-20% of it's total range of motion) and regular folders (regular thumb flick, through the entire range of motion).

Go with the assisted open or automatic (assisted open is usually cheaper). I carry an assisted open (less likely to jam than an automatic), and I teach a small CQK class.

Assisted opening is nice, but not really needed, either - you can open most onehanded knives with a flick of the wrist.

I'd not really change anything - "knives" cover a lot of styles and sizes in SR.

Cheap crap is cheap crap, and 90% of everything is cheap crap, knives are no exception.

Simple switchblades with nothing but a frame and a spring are damn flimsy, but modern switchblades, even inexpensive ones, tend to have rather sturdy locking mechanisms. The bigger issue is blade quality, which is a problem with most cheap knives. And handmade Italian switchblades from the golden age of automatic knives are extremely diverse in sturdiness (they're also absurdly expensive). The biggest issue with switchblades these days is legality, which is why assisted opening knives were invented in the first place. It is more cost-efficient for knife manufacturers to produce a weapon that is legal everywhere than it is for them to produce a weapon that they can't market in a large portion of their market territory.

The Pakistani or Chinese tactical folder that you pick up for $5 at a flea market is just as likely to break or to fail to cut due to dullness as the Pakistani or Chinese switchblade you pick up for $5 at the same fleamarket.

Balisongs are supposed to be cheap. Traditionally, they're made by hand from scrap metal by poor Filipinos. Traditionally. But cheap doesn't exactly mean crap. These days, it is illegal to import real Balisongs into many countries, including the USA, but mass produced Chinese and Pakistani knockoffs are perfectly fine. The problem with this is in choice of materials. Cheap crap balisongs have cheap blade steel that won't hold and edge and won't stand much torque the same as most cheap crap knives but they also have dangerously cheap handle materials that are likely to crack or shatter under the stress of normal use. Inexpensive but fragile zinc alloys are a common choice for crappy handle materials.

WTF why is someone in this thread claiming a balisong takes a long time to open? ARRGHHH it makes my teeth hurt. With a couple weeks of practice back in college I was able to open a balisong one handed in about half a second. You just have to grip it in your fist, stroke the catch with your pinky, flick, and catch. It's easy, even if you might cut your fingers once or twice initially when you practice because to deploy correctly the sharp part of the blade must be facing "down" at your fingers.

@Rotbart van Dainig
True, but a flick of your wrist is more obvious than a thumb twitch. Getting my weapons into play before anyone knows they are is fairly important to me.

@hyzmarca
Yup. Cheap crap is cheap crap, no matter where it comes from or who made it. And like I said, there are exceptions. I don't own any crappy blades. I do own some that were cheap, but well made out of good materials. I consider them disposable.

@ Wounded Ronin
You can do it quick. I can do it quick. But I know quite a few who can't without cutting themselves, they just don't spend time with balisongs/butterflys, that's why I said that. And, unless, you're in a dense crowd, everyone will see you do it. 1 flip opening can be fast and stealthy. 3 flips, not so much.

In the end why does it matter? Generally pulling out a knife draws people's attention. I always thought using a butterfly knife was more about flare then it was about just killing people. It is a trick knife, which is to say that it still can't knife the hell out of you, but a knife is a knife. The rules don't go into it, because why bother? It is SR tec. I mean why does a bullet cost the same and can be put into any gun and suddenly change the damage code? Put that bullet into a pistol and it does 3 P, but thrust into a sniper rifle and you are doing 7 P. Trust me... down that road madness awaits.

As far as SR, it doesn't. For folders, or any other 'collapsible' knife I'd just improve the concealability by 1 and leave the price the same.

Honestly, the most obvious thing about any weapon is reaching for and drawing it.

Automated and assisted opening is nice because it's more reliable if your manual dexterity is down, like just because it cold and you are wearing gloves.
Then again, I still like my Spydercos better than my Kershaws.

As I've been considering a switchblade (or similar purpose knife) for a character embellishment, do you know of any specific high quality Italian switchblades I could look up to, well, further embellish.


Well a blade that can roughly half it's size to become more concealable (a folded knife might even feel and look a little different to an observer), should be mechanically different in Shadowrun. The point of my OP was to get some opinions on a model for a catchall retractable blade that was balanced, so that I could present it to GMs pursuasively without just writing on my character sheet:
switchblade STR /2+1 Notes: +1 to concealability.
And if I gave it the same cost, I'd look like I was squeezing for a few dice. Of course, some GM's might not be that rigid with the rules, but I'm looking at the entire GM demographic that I may encounter.

I would more likely say that if knifes can be awesome and small with some tec that can make the blade just as strong then the "knife" that you have is probably a high tec fast release fold out knife of pain. It would mean you didn't need to modify the rules, just say using the smaller better more concealabe knife is what shadowrunners always use. It cuts out the fat and means you don't need to tweak the rules.

Spyderco does make VERY good blades.

True, reaching and drawing is usually fairly obvious, but, I usually stand with my thumbs hooked into my pockets, where the Kershaw is clipped, so... hand is already there + assisted open + my skills with a blade = dead before you know it. Consequently, I've long been of the opinion that the blade is the single greatest invention, so far, that humanity has come up with. Though others will surely argue it, I feel it has more uses than any other piece of equipment in existance.

I agree with the view that says a folder or switchblade would get +1 concealability and no other modifier.

I disagree with Tachi saying that reaching and drawing is "usually fairly obvious". I carry my Cold Steels and Benchmades clipped in my jeans pocket, and with a small motion of my hand and thumb can have the knife drawn and opened in less than a second. Unless someone is looking directly at my hand, it's hard to notice.

Also on the subject of knives, RL modern one-handed openers open fast enough to make them very comparable to switchblades. Switchblades in the US, though, are still illegal - or at least perceived to be illegal - in some places, so I think a lot of customers and consequently manufacturers avoid them for that reason.

In germany, on the other hand, it's now illegal to carry (not transport, buy, sell or own) any one-handed knive (of any length) or any fixed knive with a blade length of 12cm (4.7") or more.

Yeah, that means that it's perfectly legal to carry any folding knive of any length that isn't designed to be opened with one hand.

Spring knifes are legal in over half the states. However, several of the better made ones (Benchmade's Auto-Stryker series for example) are only for sale to police and military. I actually own two Auto-Strykers, the 3.7" blade (Army issued it to me) and 2.9" blade (bought it myself with military ID).

You are correct though in that because of how they are perceived, spring-assisted knives get much more sales.

You can draw a knife and stab someone several times before anyone realizes they have been attacked. The assassination of South African Prime Minister Verwoerd in the middle of Parliament is an example.

One of the elements of using a knife in several fighting styles is to avoid showing it. Reverse grips that have the blade against your forearm do this. It is often mentioned by people who survive knife attacks that they thought they were being punched, they didn't realize they had been stabbed until later.

Fine. Henceforce, in SR, gravity knives will be exactly the same as regular knives except they will have a better Concealability rating...and if a character with low physical attributes tries to open one he actually needs to make a skill check or else accidentally stab himself.

Or if everything is super tec concealed blades just have them all be that way and ignore the extra concealability. It makes it so you don't have to change or add a complexity to the rules that is completely needless is what my point is.