hi hi

I have been doing cyberware work on street samurai type characters and the rules on Hand Razors/Cyber Spurs and Bone Lacing/Bone Density have given me no end of headache.

My question is: since Bone Lacing and Bone Density have comparable damage codes to Hand Razors, Hand Blades and Cyber Spurs, if a character has Bone Lacing or Bone Density, is there any point to getting cyber-melee weapons? The rule of cool demands that these characters have cyber-melee weapons because they are thematically awesome, but mechanically speaking I can't find a justifiable benefit. I can't even claim concealability because bone density isn't even restricted. Cyber-implant weapons can't benefit from a custom grip, but there has got to be some reason to pick them up.

No. There isn't. It's a shame that there isn't, but there still isn't.
The "benefit" of spurs is that they are blades that protude from your hands so you can stab people. I mean, how cool is that, right? Spurs rock thematically, but mechanically, they have basically been obsolete ever since the introduction of Bone Lacing in the SR1 Shadowtech.
Razors, however, have alway sucked. For the price of several useful items, you get the damage of a fucking knife, and are forced to motherfucking catfight people to death.

A "useful" cyber-melee weapon would be the shock hand. Electrocuting people up close and personal without having to pick up the awful clubs skill and a glorified cattle prod is a good thing.

On the other hand, I am firmly in the camp of people who think that your street samurai better have a very good reason why he did not, at some point in his life, have at least one set of blades implanted into his body.

PS: Blades cut people. So, if you plan on employing some convoluted plan where you need your opponent to get cut, then get away and die from blood-poisoning, or contract rabies or something, then cyberblades are a must.

An adept who's willing to suck up a point of essence loss can make his cyberspurs a weapon focus.

That's.... about all I got.

Weapon Reservoir and coat them with something nasty.
Never be without a pocket knife either. Open cans, cut wires.
All the good stuff you can use a knife for. Cleaning nails.

The problem with spurs is, in a street fight...I keep seeing one sam pull out the spurs and the other back off and with the accent, saying, Thats not a knife...this is a knife. and whip out the couger fine blade or something,

Granted for my sams they would say that and then shoot the dude with a knife...but i'm a gun bunny and rigger at heart

That's probably just me, but i see an Ancient put our their Spur against a Troll and the Troll sayins:"Only an elf would be dumb enbough to bring a Spur to a Gunfight!"
In SR3, Cyber-Blades were viable choice with Dikote and Using the SR3 Companion Rules for 2-Handed Combat.

Well, IMO, they aren't that bad.

Bone Density 4/Titanium Bone Lacing are Str/2+3.
Spurs are Str/2+3.

Both can get +3 DV to their damage codes from blades/unarmed martial arts.

The only difference is Adepts-they can get critical strike, but...they can also get a weapon focus, which while it's not as easy, the focus ends up with more dice, the critical strike more damage.

Spurs vs. Lacing, IMO, is fairly a wash.

Now, the LOWER levels of cyberblades, yeah. It seems to be spur or nothing. (I miss the old Handblades from SR3. They could be nasty.)

Cyberglands are a pretty strong incentive, making razors or spurs a fantastic delivery system.

Then there is the whole weapon focii angle.

Apart from that, I got nothing.

- J.

IIRC, spurs are a much less expensive choice and thus are good for gangers and wanna-b's.

Only because they got a +3 to power niveau. so you were more or less guaranteed to at least deal a light wound. if you hit.
They became really mean with Dikote and SR3 Companion Dual-Fighting.
STR+4M for one of those things. Then add Half Strength Again. One Troll.
16 STR. 20M Damage with one of those. 28M with two of those. And THEN come Successes. And then comes the inevitable GammaScopolamine with 10D Stun ^^

And please don´t forget one important point: you can´t get titanium bone lacing from the start and you need the maximum rating of bone density to get the same benefits that spurs provide. Both are a lot of money and cost even more essence. Bone lacing is illegal and heavy. So if you are not capable to purchase the highest ratings, spurs are still a cheap, relatively essence-friedly way to get maximum damage and outmatch the rest.

Incorrect. Titanium Bone Lacing can be bought if you take the Restricted Gear 5pt Positive Quality as well as pay the nuyen cost.

- J.

Ok, lets say "usually can´t be bought"

I know it's been erata'd but I let spurs keep their +1 reach from the original printing. I feel that makes them unique enough to stand up against bonelacing.

Yeah, that would change everything. For me, i like them just for the style. It needs no logical explanation^^

Have you seen the Wolverine Origins Movie?
Deadpool at the End? His Arm-Swords?
That's the only way Spurs could get 1 Rech.

What works better against a rope? A blade or a karate chop?

Implant weapons takes capacity in cyberlimbs, making them modestly more essence friendly in some builds.

Bone lacing is less Essence friendly, but provides other benefits.

You can't slash a Z into your enemy's clothing with bone lacing.

-paws

From a ROLEPLAYING perspective, bone-lacing is a wonderful thing for martial artists. How do I know? A training friend has STEEL in his forearm. It's exceptionally effective when blocking and passing through a weapon. I've had that steel part of his arm smack into the bone of my forearm, and I have to tell you...besides the numbing effects...it took all my willpower not to drop the training knife. If my arms had not been conditioned, I would have definitely dropped it.

Handblade IS a Karate-Chop ^^
Other question i would ask:
Do those Cyber-Implant-Weapons help with climbing?
Anyone else remember the old X-Men animated Series where wolverine used his claws to scale beton walls and the such? No? Am i that old? <.<

That just makes spurs even cheaper.

Spurs are cheaper in nuyen and Essence, making them easier to combine with other implants, and unlike titanium bone lacing, can be had at chargen without the Restricted Gear quality.

For example, you can have two sets of spurs and Dermal Sheathing 2, doing (Str/2)+3 damage and getting +2/3 armor, and pay 1.6 Essence and 23,600 nuyen. You have the option of customizing the look of your dermal sheath, and have the option of fighting with a weapon in each hand; you have the extra intimidation factor of blades, and you have the ability to cut. You have the option of delivering toxins with the spurs, either by adding a reservoir gland or just by painting the spurs with the toxin, if my memory serves.

With titanium bone lacing, you'll get +3 Body, and +1/1 armor. With the lower armor rating, you'll be converting damage to stun less often, although that's partially mitigated by the extra body dice. You do (Str/2)+3, but you'll pay 1.5 Essence, and 40,000 nuyen, not to mention another 5 bp at chargen for the Restricted Gear quality. You will not have the ability to cut.

So there are reasons to take spurs over bone lacing.

Spurs can be removed on the fly.
Switch out Spurs made of Metal for ones made of Ceramics.

lol. Yes, but its the BLADE that makes the karate-chop effective!


I'd consider hand razors worthy of eliminating 1 or 2 dice of penalties for trying to scale surfaces.


Oh yeah. That's an old trick of his. He's been doing that for... god, I don't know how long.

-paws

Yeah, we're old ._.
Would you allow this for Nail-Knifes too?
Where would you draw the line?
When do the Blades just cut through whatever you are trying to scale?

You forgot the most important advantage: you look like freaking WOLVERINE!

Well, unlike Wolverine's claws, Shadowrun's implant weapons aren't made of adamantium. That's what makes his climbing trick work. Unlike adamantium claws, an implant spur isn't something that will punch through steel, plasteel, or ferrocrete like butter.

A spur is just a blade composed of a nifty, lightweight alloy. The metal itself is probably something our current (real world) technology could produce, so its unlikely to be able to punch through much of anything, a la Wolverine.

-paws

To clarify: As a GM, I allow people creative license to use their gear/implants/etc. in unusual ways, especially if used in dramatic ways.

For instance, I would allow someone with hand razors, especially a pair of them, to eliminate certain penalties for climbing certain surfaces.

Spurs wouldn't be great for climbing, but you could reasonably use them to stop or slow a fall.

Hand blades... I don't know... they're so weirdly positioned that they'd be hard to use them for much of anything except chopping. I guess you could probably convince me to allow you use them to stop or slow a fall.

What surfaces would qualify would be decided on a case by case basis. A glass building? Not Likely. A tree or concrete wall. Almost certainly. And so on.

Aren't there even special climbing claw implants which are just bent nail knives in augmentation?
If you add a poison reservoir to cyber weapons they can be pretty nasty really, oh and since Molly Millions nail knifes are a must for any gilette anyway

Yes, there are. STR/2 P and +2 dice to climbing.

Another point for the cyberweapons: you cannot benefit from bone lacing when you strike with a cyberlimb.

You can't?
Is that written down somewhere?
In SR3 the rules explicitly stated that you got the full benefit, if you only had one or two complete limbs replaced.

"Cyberlimbs cannot hold any bioware, nor any cyber-implants that take up Essence rather than Capacity."

That does it for me. So if you have both bone lacing and cyberlimbs, the lacing only cover the non-replaced parts. Since there is nothing to prevent it, you should still benefit from the extra soak dice, but when you attack you have to choose which weapon to use. With only 1 cyber arm, you can still choose to strike with the other.

Only works if you're leading an Attack with the cyber-limb.
If you are not specifically hitting someone with your tricked out Arm, you are performing "A Series of hits, kicks, feints and Maneuvers" utilizing your whole body, thus getting the Bonus from the laced Bones in the Rest of your Meatback

However, if you've got your cyberarm tricked out for extra agility and strength, you only get to use those higher stats for your attack if you're attacking with said arm. A Cyberspur in that arm definitely does work with that attack. Titanium Bone Lacing... you're having to hope the GM is feeling generous

The part you quote is nice fluff, but it doesn't have any piece of rule inside. There are so many questions it should answer:
- do you suffer from off-hand penalty?
- in case of a cyber arm and a meat arm, do you inflict Stun or Physical damage? How about side effects like shock hands?
- do you average the Strength of your limbs for damage?
- how about a mixed attack with a knife and a bare hand? Or a different weapon in each hand? What you have quoted is not specific to unarmed combat, but is valid for all melee combat.

Without an answer to any of those, I find it better to leave it as fluff and determine a leading arm as for any melee weapon.

hi hi

I can certainly see why someone would get a cyber-implant weapon if they didn't have bone lacing or bone density. This dilemma was more for those who already got it for the body bonus.

Perhaps bone density/lacing strengthens one's nails and teeth anyway, allowing for attacks thematically similar to implant weapons, since they're pretty much the same as far as mechanics go.

An ancillary question to this one is: Is there any reason to get cyber-implant blades other than spurs? It doesn't seem like hand razors are any less detectable, which makes me wonder what Molly Millions was thinking.

There's a little different Essence and nuyen cost...other than that, not really. Just depends on what you think looks coolest.

- for what? it is your own hand O.o
- Cyber-Arm gives you the physical damage as far as i remember.
- Yes, as long as you are not specifically leading with a single cyber-limb, you ALLWAYS average.
- There are rules for two weapon style fighting, but those don't apply to UNARMED combat. And you don't use unarmed anymore as soon as you have a weapon in use that is not a kind of glove.
does not matter if you are using one knife or 8 knives, you are now not using your unarmed combat but your blade weapons skill.

You'd think that cyberarms would deal Physical, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of GMs house-ruled this to be the case, but by default, they don't change unarmed damage at all (aside from any changes caused by differences in strength between your normal arm and your cyberarm). Rather odd, having metal in your hands makes them deal physical, as does having metal around your hands. But having a metal hand doesn't.

As much as I like what they've done with cyberlimbs in this edition (compared to previous editions, at any rate, they don't suck so hard)...it is pretty ridiculous to me that they haven't even presented that as an optional rule.

Wasn't that fixed in an Errata or SR4,5?

Well, if you are a Blood Mage, it is always handy to have a blade that simply can not be taken away, not to mention the Foci aspect that has been mentioned for Adepts already.

Much better question would be the one about why there are NON RETRACTABLE Versions of these Things.

OK. I just re-read this one and it's very unclear : the malus only talks about melee weapons, but it talks about "the melee weapon" as if there was always one. I have always thought the malus also applied to unarmed attacks. The Off-hand training maneuver from Arsenal is even weirder: why bother to state that it cannot be bought for Unarmed if it would be useless anyway?

They don't give anything, they have their own damage rating which is STR/2 P. It's the same for bone lacing that has its own STR/2 + x P damage code. It's important because it makes your view impossible to express within the rules. You are saying that bonus can stack from different arm enhancements, but there is no bonus to stack.

Anyway, let us assume you are right, and a cyber arm grants physical damage. Why would I be forced to use it since I have a normal arm too? Of course, I could lead the attack with my normal arm, but then I lose the Strength bonus. However, since the STR is averaged, it means both arms contribute to a normal attack, so why can't I select to inflict Stun rather than Physical? And why is there no rule for that at all, if it is supposed to be allowed?

For more fun, you can add a shock hand on the unaugmented hand. Now one of the hands has a damage code unrelated to STR. How much damage does the combination deal? Physical or Stun ? With or without Electric side effect? Where are the rules to sort this out?

Once again, the text you are using as a support does not make any difference between unarmed and armed combat. Either it is a rule and it is valid for both, or it is just fluff.

And some of the rules for dual wielding also apply to unarmed combat. The multiple attack, for example. Unarmed multiple attacks are allowed in the base book. Multiple attacks with 2 melee weapons are covered by the Arsenal rules (the only adding here is the case of different skills), but this would not apply to a multiple attack with a melee weapon and the other hand at the same time?

You are going about this all wrong:
You presume to use logic and stuff!
It's rules. They are arbitrary balanced.
If you have a Stun-Hand, you either do Electrical stun or your Clobbering Stun Damage.
Never a Mix, never both. If you have the ability to use P Damage, that does not mean you HAVE to, as far as i remember.
If it's a blunt weapon(yes, Hands/Arms and othe rassorted limbs in my eyes), then you either use it to Hit hard to Cause stun, or you use it to hit REAL HARD to do Physical.
Of course, if you don't say what you want, the GM might decide. 2 Hand Combat is only for Combat with melee weapons that are not used with the unarmed combat skill.
allways has been the case, never been written like that anywhere.
If you use one knife in one hand, you use your knife skill. Next time you use your unarmed skill without having dropped the knife. But you don't get stabby damage.

Which rules are you talking about? Just quote them, it will be easier for everyone, except you might have a hard time finding them in any book. Especially the part that explains how to compute damage from unbalanced arms.

I didn't find anything like that within the rules. How could it be? There is no weapon classification as blunt / piercing / slashing. The way you could do that within the rules is by limiting your number of hits to keep the DV below the opponent's armor. Only I don't remember if you may always reduce your number of hits. In SR3 you had a malus for trying that in combat.

Here I feel you are contradicting yourself.

Setting 1 : 1 bone laced arm, 1 cyber arm
Setting 2 : 1 shock glove, 1 cyber arm

You claim both settings use the same rules, but in setting 2 I must choose which arm deals the damage and in setting 1 I can stack bonus from the 2? Where is the rule that governs that?

Rules As Unwritten? What makes you so sure you haven't made everything up if it's not written anywhere? Especially when the other solution works without having to add anything to RAW?

You always have to choose between doing a normal unarmed attack and using a shock glove/hand.

I completely agree with you. My questions are: why should it work differently for setting 1? If so, where are the rules that explain how Setting 1 works?