Spun off from the Fetish Implants thread.



This brings up a few weapon focus questions...

When you buy a weapon focus, you just pay for the focus itself. The cost of the weapon is included in the price, even if its something exotic like a monowhip. Correct?

What if your weapon focus is a retractable spur or hand razors? Obviously, you're still paying karma/BP to bond it, essence/capacity, and the cost of the focus. Following the above precedent, you don't have to buy the spur itself...

And a related question, what about a shock hand/glove/baton? If one is a weapon focus, does it do electricity damage on the astral? What about the shock effect?

And as someone pointed out the other night, a cyberarm inflicts P damage. Does it count as a weapon? Can it be enchanted as a weapon focus?

-paws
Still half asleep...

Generally, a weapon focus costs are based on the reach of the weapon plus the base focus costs. I imagine that a retractable spur weapon focus would cost more since it's an unusual sort of weapon. But then again, if the costs for the spur are similar as they are for typical melee weapons, then perhaps there is no surcharge.

As for enchanting a cyber arm... why not? It's an object capable of being enchanted. You can use it as a weapon (unarmed combat). Could be an interesting item in the Astral (given it's damage is based on your meatbody strength and weapon foci retain their damage & such on the Astral).

The cost for weapon foci does not include the cost for the actual weapon. For most foci, the cost of the telesma is generally insignificant to the cost of the enchantment, so we simplified things by not including it in the cost for off-the-shelf models. However, you're really buying just the enchantment - if the telesma is expensive, you add that on top of the price. Naturally, when you enchant it yourself you have to purchase or build the telesma normally and that adds on to the price as well.

It's really up to the gamemaster's discretion, but generally speaking having a Force 1 weapon focus in the form of a 5kg brick of orichalcum is unbalancing.


Add the cost to that of the weapon focus.


Refer to the FAQ. Yes, you can enchant it. No, it does not do electricity damage or shock effects on the Astral. But you're really good at using it to hit things with.


You can, yes, with the usual caveats for implanted cyberweapons: you have to enchant them before you implant them, and it will be more difficult to enchant.

Actually, we fixed that in SR4A. You may merrily slaughter people with your magical Big Ass Swords much more economically now.

AH to the rescue.

I don't suppose you have a reference for the cost of a weapon focus not including the cost of the weapon?

I ask I don't recall seeing that listed in SR4A and I'm sure its not in my copy of SR4. It just says Force * 10,000 nuyen in the gear chart.

-paws

Slightly off topic but I was recently thinking of building a cyber-adept equivalent of a Grammaton Cleric (until I realised I got more mileage going full cyber) I was seriously thinking of giving him bonded twin FN 5-7Cs as weapon foci...

For some reason, I had a picture of an adept in my head pistol whipping an insect spirit to death with onlookers watching in sheer horror thinking "damn, that'd be cool."

- J.

Soo, what kind of Damage would the Cyber-Arm do on the Astral? O.o
do things like built in blades count? or just the simple metal fist?

The shock value alone would be work it.



Well, a cyberarm does simple (Str/2)P damage. In pure astral combat, its a non issue (since you can choose to do S or P damage anyway), but you get the focus' rating as extra dice.

The big advantage is when you're fighting a spirit or critter Immunity to Normal Weapons on the physical.

Anyway, I was running under the assumption that blades would need to be enchanted separately from the arm itself.

-paws

Would that even work?
Technically, you would be wielding one weapon-focus with another weapon-focus right? O.o
Would you get both the Bonus-Dice to using your Arm and the Bonus to using the blades?
I can see Troll-Adepts being pretty Scary like that ^^

That would be insane.

And I don't think that's how it would work.

As I understand it, you could enchant the cyberarm and have a weapon focus spur implanted in the arm. Each would be counted separately. If you're punching, then you use the cyberarm focus rating. If you're slashing you'd use the spur focus rating. They would not, at any time, be added together.

-paws

*Shrugs* fuck the Spur then.
I wanna be able to punch out Spirits, that's all that matters ^^
What about TWO of those Arms? O.o
Would their dice be cummulative when using both arms in unarmed(that looks silly somehow, using arms in un-arm-ed combat *g*) combat?

Sadly, no.

I found the BBB quote I was looking for to back this up:


-paws

aw poo ._.

You could still take Restricted Gear to get a Weapon Focus 4 cyberarm.

-paws

And into the other, i get a Built in Laser or Sonic Rifle ^^

Speaking of Awesome...

Why stop with one arm? Nothing keeping you from installing cyberguns in you weapon focus arm.

Don't forget to install a shock hand in there somewhere.

-paws

Hrm, yes, i think with Sr4 you can successfully build Shane Gooseman. Or Zacharius Fox.
Hrm, making the implanted cyber-laser/sonic into weapon focus would not work right?

How about Shiva arms? Implant weapons and foci to your heart's content and still have hands left over to manipulate things.

Essence-Expansive but Hardcore Cool ^^

All you need is 1 magic to have Astral Projection...
And none to fight manifested spirits.

Somewhere on the Metaplanes...

Spirit 1: "Dude, what happened to you?"

Spirit 2: "I DON'T KNOW. I was all ready to flay some street sam alive and he started PUNCHING ME."






-karma

Nope, sorry. No ranged weapon foci.





-paws

[delete]

And if the whole arm is too expansive/invasive, just get modular Cyber-Hands enchanted as your Weapon of Choice Focus? O.o
With Trollish strength, that's probably going to hurt just a bit more than with complete Arm right? or am i getting the rules wrong again? <.<
And if you don't want/need the focus, or want to change something on the focus, you just switch it out for something else o.O

I bet a cyber arm laced with orricalcum would look ~*Bangin'*~

But that can be had cheaper, using gold, brass and amber . . .
Orichalcum, as far as i know, is still hellishly expansive in SR4

Okay... This is a little off topic, but is related and probably doesn't need it's own thread.

I am just reading through the line of sight definition in regards to casting (SR4A p.183). Lone of sight CANNOT be achieved via electronic sighting, or electronically replicated images. Does this mean that a mage could only use touch spells should they choose to get cybereyes?

No.
As soon as you pay Essence for something, that something IS A PART OF YOU.
As long as you keep the eye in your Body(seriously, the head/eye-socket is not the only place for them), you can use them for spell-targetting.
Now as soon as you remove your Eye and use the built in wireless to look through it? nope, no dice, no target can be acquired.

No.

It's a ☼<<☼Cyber Arm☼>>☼

I think we have a Dwarf Fortress player. Losing is fun!

I'm not the only one here.

AH, still looking for a reference on paying the listed cost of the focus + base weapon cost. I'm coming up with nothing here. Any suggestions where to look?


Oh, hell yeah. Good use for the custom look option.

-paws

There isn't an explicit one, it's just common sense.

I disagree. This is not something that you should expect a new player to know.

I've been looking and so far I've found nothing to indicate that I have to pay Force * 10,000 + 20 for my Knife Weapon Focus or Force * 10,000 + 3600 for my Alphaware Spur Weapon Focus. The cost is simply listed as Force * 10,000.

If you're supposed to pay for the cost of the weapon in addition to the enchantment, that's fine.

That should go in the errata.



-paws

I agree it could be clarified (and in fact with enchanting it is clear that the cost of the telesma is a separate expense from the other materials, if any), but a little bit of common sense should rule here.

One thing I always wondered about. If a weapon focus is not bound to someone, does it still count as a magic weapon when used against things Immune to Normal Weapons? I know you wouldn't get the bonus dice, but would it ignore the immunity?

It wouldn't be on, so no. However, there's a little something in Digital Grimoire if that's your thing.

too bad, that common sense costs BP neh?

Common Sense != Obvious, unfortunately.

Who's going to look up the enchanting rules to see if it contradicts the prices listed on the gear chart?

-paws