So im in the process of rollin up an adept, and i decided to take the power Nerve strike. I guess my first question is, when you use this ability, it says to roll it as a normal unarmed attack. So they get to defend with reaction+whatever, and then what, do you just apply net hits to their agility or do the get to soak it with body+armor?

Also when you use finishing strike, it says after a successful strike you get to make a follow up melee attack in the same phase. Can i use nerve strike as the opening move for finishing strike, the finishing strike itself, or both?

Street Magic is maddeningly vague on how, or if, nerve strike is soaked - "net hits" could mean after the attack roll, or after the soak roll. Usually I would assume the former, but that doesn't seem kosher - armor should have some effect on whether you can deliver an effective nerve strike to someone.

I don't see why nerve strike couldn't be used for either the initial or finishing move if using that maneuver. It is still an unarmed attack.

Just apply to agility is how I read it. Keep in mind its a full power point which would be 4DV if you put it into critical strike. People you take out with one hit with nerve strike will be likely be splattered if you had put it into critical strike.

And both is my read on finishing move.

I think in 3e armor had some effect, I was kind of surprised it doesn't in 4e.(I felt it was too hard to pull off in 3e for the 1 PP so never took it, I never did math on it though) I might have given this a look on my last phys ad if I had known how its works in 4e at the time.

In the description of the ability, the power does NOT inflict damage, therefore no soak roll; every net hit inflicts a reduction to Agility or Reaction of 1 point... this reduction is recovered at the rate of 1 point per minute... if at any time, either Agility or Reduction is reduce to ), the target is paralyzed...

Now, you could always say that Armor provides some protection, but it is not described as such in the power... it is after all, magical in nature... I know, so what... I am just saying...

I have one more little thing now that im reading more into it...since it says "net hits" i assume it means that your actual unarmed DV has nothing to do with how much agi you get rid of. The main reason i wondered was because with finishing strike it seemed a little overpowered to basically be guaranteeing an incapacitated opponent, getting 2 of those in one attack round...

From what I understand... Net hits on the attack roll... you do no damage, so strength is not a factor...

Yeah, that is how it reads in 4e. I think in 3e they added there impact armor to the opposed unarmed combat test or something or it gave a threshold. IIRC it was hard enough to pull off in 3e that I never took it. Now in 4e it looks like a decent 1 PP investment, but not a must have. IOW well balanced.

I have a character with it and it is not all that bad... gives options...

Look at it this way:
A troll with finishing move will probably incapacitate that guy as well, so does a Stunbolt or a Manhunter with SnS and whatnot.

Seems pretty ok for me.

That is how I see it. Like I pointed out you could have +4DV to your fist of doom attack instead of this, and that is fairly powerful It isn't hard to get a unarmed type up to base 10DV, which makes nerve strike kind of the weak sauce option when with critical strike every time you hit someone they explode. On the other hand nerve stirke opens up better not splatter the target options and is effective if you weren't going for a really hgih DV build. It might be a waste if you have 6 levels of critical strike with the boxing martial art adding another +2 DV and are a troll. But if you are getting your base DV to the 5-6 range it looks fairly sweet.

I just never even read the dang thing in 4e until recently, a total wasted opportunity on my last adept character.

No Doubt... I really like it a lot...

Actually my adept WAS going for a high damage unarmed build, but i guess i was under the assumption that it was their agi-(net hits+Base DV) so it seems alot less appealing now...it would be pretty nasty with 10DV plus net hits...i have...lvl 3 penetrating strike, crit strike at 5, improved reflexes at 1 and killing hands of course. im probably going to rearrange it now that ive found this out, and wasnt there an errata that capped crit strike at like 3? if so...i need to do a bit of shuffling...

power throw was capped, not critical strike. I keep seeing this though, so maybe it was capped in the german version or something.

Kinesics and power throw have been capped at 3 by errata, but I don't think critical strike has been, yet. The cumulative damage bonus that you can get from martial arts has been capped at +3, though.

I knew that Kinesics had been capped, but where is the reference for capped Power Throw... I cannot seem to find it, though it is past my bed time, and I am a little exausted

Power throw was capped a good while before kinesics was. It is in the Street Magic errata.

Here's the cool thing about nerve strike though. While you may take an extra 4DV from the same power point dumped into critical strike, there is no armor or damage soak roll, so it evens out. Also, most attribute maximums aren't as high as damage tracks. Here, I'll show you.

Our Adept will use 12 dice to attack (while having str 4 and Crit strike 4 for regular attacks for a base 6DV) a grunt with 6 to defend and has an armor of 6 (rea 3, unarmed 3). Statistically, He'll end up with 2 net hits.

Nerve Strike. 1st pass, reduces agi or rea by 2. If reaction, then he'll remove dice from his next attack which with finishing move is immediate. Now he's rolling his 12 dice against only 3 dice (-2 to reaction, -1 for second attack against defender before his next turn). That's 3 net hits statistically and he'll immobilize most NPCs up to a reaction of 5 immediately. Once paralyzed, knock them out or kill them at your leisure (well, within a minute).

Critical Strike. 1st pass gets his 2 net hits and raises damage up to 8. The soak is body is armor plus body so lets call it 3 body for 9 total dice. Statistically, he'll reduce 3 points of damage to take 5. That's half of his damage track (if his willpower is also 3). It'll still take a second pass to drop him.

Now, where Nerve Strike shines is with walking tank damage soak characters like big trolls or orks.

Same scenario, but now the target has a body of 9 (troll) and wears 9 impact armor points. (easily possible with most combos of FFBA, the personal armor gear and other forms of armor). He rolls 18 to soak and will statistically reduce your 8 damage down to 2 every time. It'll take 5 passes to drop this troll at that rate. Nerve Strike however will still do it in 2 passes.


So keep in mind, that nerve strike has its uses and is awesome against heavily armored opponents with high damage resistance rolls. When choosing which to use against small time low grade grunts, I'll use Crit strike unarmed attacks, but I'm still happy my Martial arts adept has nerve strike in his reserves.

Now, a long time ago there were questions as to why there was no armor accounted for the nerve strike in another thread of this exact same breed (learn to use the search button). A general consensus agreed since it was "magic" one must project mana into nerve clusters with the strike, and since armor is just as inanimate as clothing, it doesn't do much to protect against the mana projection. Otherwise, why would this exist as an adept power instead of a maneuver that any mundane could learn?

That is a good analysis of the power. It adds a level of versatility to deal with high armor targets and is great in the hands of your hypothetical build. Where it becomes less useful is in the hands of a Troll with 9 strength and a couple points in DV from boxing or something and 4 levels of critical strike. A totally hypothetical build, but lets say you had a 9 strength +4 critical strike, +2 DV boxing. That is a base DV of 11, even tank types have a hard time dealing with this though some absurd builds could soak it. Also you can take out some vehicles with the high DV build where nerve strike does nothing.

So for mid to low level DV builds nerve strike gives a fairly affordable versatile way to deal with hard targets and a variety of foes. If you are a high DV build, you are a hammer and everything is a nail. The 1PP it costs wont be usually worth it since your high base damage solves almost all combat problems.

At the risk of coming off as a 14 year old boy, am I the only person here whose mind goes immediately to Negi Hyuga from Naruto?

Why only 9 points of impact armor, even my dryad combat face has 12 points of impact and only 2 of those are from her cyber arm.

But when you ran into that troll tank with 33+ dice in soak pool, your really gonna wish youd have that nerve strike

Chakura and collection points/gates would be a good representation of it. Same ideas of shiatsu and acupuncture.

I never really liked negi. Chogi and Lee that is where the awesome lies.

I think that is rare enough that I can hand that situation off to my mage companion.