I saw a thread a few weeks back discussing "fun" made up weapons which quickly fell into a battle for creating a belt feed full auto nade launcher. I thought it would be more interesting if we created melee weapons for 4e. As i'm not a GM i can't assign stats (nor do i have a clue where to start), i sorta just mimic a weapon currently in the book.

1. a large boat chain with an anchor (kusarigama)
2. single helicopter blade fashioned to a sword (sword)
3. brass knuckles made out of car rims (hardliner gloves)
4. a parking meter (club)

As in improvised melee weapons? They's in Arsenal.

Yeah, but the real question is: how would you make a full-auto belt-fed sword launcher?

Very carefully.

Dose my invisable vibro weapon focus count.... Its a vibro sword in the form of an arming sword. Your RPG longsword for the none medieval weapon nuts. With a custom grip and chameleon coating.

What about a knife or sword with a built in cybergland? I.E. there's a compartment for inserting a toxin, which can be triggered to leak through pores in the blade? This makes it easier to 'coat' the blade with the toxin of choice.

That is indeed an interesting idea...

Keep the Faith

It first occured to me when I was thinking of using nanotech with it... carcerand plus, anyone?

I like... Not sure if my GM would like it , but I do...

Keep the Faith

That is a great idea. It doesn't have to stop there. A chain weapon, one side a sai (disarm bonus, choose p or s damage) the other end a weight spike mace ball with a cybergland, insert fav aerosol poison.

*pictures Gogo Yubari with a pink mohawk*

I like the idea of a knife coated in nasty nanites... cutters perhaps programmed to go after lipids...

Note: cell membranes are made of lipids.

One of my players wanted to have an epi-pen, a spring-loaded syringe, for a weapon. I simply took a Survival Knife and replaced all of it's features with a toxin reservoir. Injection toxins only take effect if 1 physical damage remains unresisted. Contact toxins take effect if the damage is physical (ie. more than the impact armour), even if it is resisted.

Epi-pen: exotic melee weapon, (STR/2+1)P + toxin, AP-1, toxin purchased separately.

1 shot at a time?

How do you mean?

It can't be used to make two attacks per round but the knife is self-saucing, so-to-speak. It has limited ammo, probably 4 doses, and has an easily replaceable cartridge. The player in question has fairly average melee skill, so we haven't bothered balancing this too much. His character doesn't have the strength to puncture anything as think as an Armour Jacket, making them virtually immune to the toxin.

I feel like no nano is needed. It's just toxin on a knife.

I have had a few characters who carried syringes loaded with narcojet for nonlethal sentry removal. I use infiltration to approach, subduing combat to grapple, then hold until the drug kicks in.

I have an adept who has custom-made monofilament throwing knives which release a shock after the knife makes contact, dealing both physical and stun damage.

Psh. In every case in the book where there would be damage + shock, it clearly says you don't get both. Try damage + toxin instead, that's slightly more defensible.

No. What it is is a throwing weapon with the Advanced Saftey (Shocking Discharge). Interestingly, it's an illegal item (RAW standpoint) because Advanced Safteys may only be used on smartguns...

And personally I'd prefer the Explosive Self Destruct on my throwing knives.

Regardless of the details, I still wouldn't expect any damage-type-1 + damage-type-2 to work. No bullets that explode after entry, no punch & zap shock gloves, etc.

This is how it works:
1) You throw weapon at person. It deals P damage.
2) Weapon now functions as defined by Advanced Safety, and shocks them.

EDIT: To expand slightly, both attacks do not happen simultaneously. It is a physical damage attack followed up by a seperate stun damage.

Right. That's exactly why I wouldn't think it would work. The game doesn't seem to like anything like that. Otherwise, I want all my bullets to be poisoned minigrenades, plz.

Yes but some nanoware counts as toxins when applied with Injection vector.

Oh, sure. I meant that nano-pores or some such contrived explanation wasn't *required* to make that concept work.

Both Inferno and Zapper rockets work exactly like that and so does Capsule rounds.
So i dont see what your problem is.

... just looking it over I don't see anything explicitly prohibiting you from adding the smartgun mod to a throwing knife in order to add one of the advanced safety options. It gives you a node to send the activate code to, is all.

Mmmmmm, knife grenades.

Sharpen the edge of an airfoil grenade and you have a chakram made of explodium!

With a knife grenade, you can set it off remotely after you see where it lands.

With a grenade knife, you still might slit your throat from scatter.

It's for smartguns is why. A knife is not a gun, although it can be made smart. I was just stating from a RAW standpoint it is not possible, not that I wouldn't allow it.

As long as there are two seperate damage resistance tests taking place, it's fine by the rules.

What about magical poisoned minigrenades?

I could see someone making the punch assist injectors from Blade 2. I've also seen someone get a chemical gland set up to produce poisons and lick their blades before a fight.

Don't be silly, no magic ranged weapons.

That's the only answer I ever needed.

Gotta ask, did you notice my post about the multi damage type weapons that are RAW.

So, just to make sure I'm reading this right...you gave an epi-pen the same damage rating as a honkin' big Rambo survival knife? Really? A syringe?

Well, an epi pen has a fairly large gauge needle to be able to penetrate the sternum...

I would give an epipen a (str/4)P+toxin damage rating. With a caviat of minimum 1.

A survival knife is.. so much more dangerous than an epipen but it's not nearly as innocuous.

Ah, exploding throwing knives- thought about those myself once, but decided that they're just not my style. I like plain old mass-produced throwing knives made from 'unbreakable' glass. They're [technically] legal, easy to conceal, have no chemical or electronic signal, and are extremely cheap. For special jobs, though... well, that's where a vibroblade comes in handy. (To add to the "oh no, they're getting away" act we were trying impress upon our enemies, (whom we DID want to get away) I pinned one in their retreating vehicle so they could watch it hum ominously before it cut its way out. Good times!)

Now to actually contribute to the on-topic discussion for once. Some time back, our runner team found themselves on an emergent island in the south Pacific. In addition to more crazy crap than I care to mention, there were some ancient ruins of indeterminate origin. Inside them, I found a broken hilt crafted in the image of a T'skrang woman, long relieved of its blade. Later on, I took it to our local Talismonger and asked if she could make it into something interesting. (I would have loved to start using a kryss, but magical characters have got quite enough crap on which to spend points without picking up another skill.) Instead, I was thinking more toward a knuckler of some kind, but eventually settled on a trench knife. The finished product is pretty nice- somewhat ornate and of the Berber style, appropriate for a character of Moroccan origin. (And since every silly weapon has to have a name, I've dubbed it "Buruznaakh" ('heavy hand') in my semi-native Orkish.)

The GM also added a pretty sweet side-quest into the deal: It was found that the thing was originally an anchoring focus, and still had an unknown health spell still loaded into it. Now I love doing stupid stuff in the name of science just as much as the next lunatic, so I set up a joint venture between my initiatory group and our good talismonger, who provided a lodge and a magical camera, respectively. Then I punched myself, (because damned if I'm going to hit any of my friends with this thing) stunning myself out completely and getting hit with an ancient blindness spell in the process. After I woke up, one of my friends from the group and I went up to the peak of the building's roof so I could learn blind fighting before the spell wore off.

Well, thanks for listening to my exhaustive story. Let's hear about more bizzaro melee weapons. Curious about this guy who uses a boat anchor for a kusarigama, and other related tales.

WARNING: POTENTIALLY MATURE PHOTOGRAPHS.

This is an epi-pen, and how you are supposed to use it.

This is an adrenaline shot, which is not designed to go through the sternum, as the heart is to the side of it, not underneath; you're supposed to go between ribs with it.

They both do contain adrenaline (also called epinephrine), although the delivery method for the two is dramatically different. Epipens are for self use and are administered to the thigh while the distinctive "adrenaline shot" is used by EMT personelle for emergency situations.

EDIT: In case you're curious, the proceedure is called intracardiac injection.

I have mentioned this before but it is relevant. For one of my players I made a telescoping shockstaff.

One of my characters is a ganger named Chainlink. He wears a mail hauberk over an FFBA shirt and wields a shotgun and a length of chain. For the chain I simply used the stats for the weighted tip of the kusarigama.

I don't remember why but one time I statted a Gladius as str/2+2P reach 0.

Added the option to turn forearm snap blades into projectiles.

I converted the ripper to an SR weapon. Gave it stats identical to the vibroknife.

I have been thinking about converting the power fist as well.

Something like this?




-karma

Thanks for the feedback!

The player was after a suitably horrific, agility-based weapon. I worked out most agility based weapons replaced STR/2 damage with either high constant damage or energy damage (see monofilament whip and shock glove.) The epi-pen was supposed to replace the physical damage with toxin, but I had the problem that the toxin would never take effect unless the attack wasn't completely resisted. Average rolls from his character prove that he can't do physical damage to anything with more than 4 armour. He only has 2 strength. Also, this is a custom-made, combat epi-pen, not your usual medical epi-pen. Now that I have a better understanding of what an epi-pen is, how about:

Epi-pen: exotic melee weapon, 1P + toxin, AP-1, toxin purchased separately.

Ideally, it would be used with called shot to ensure the damage was physical. That would still make it effective against anyone with little or no melee combat skill.

SR4A has rules for dart guns. I'd just use those (I haven't seen them myself), but in melee instead of ranged.

Or, for example, have the player have to subdue the enemy and hold him for one round as the player pins him and searches for or clears an area for the needle. After that, the epi-pen is used and no damage is caused from the needle, but the target needs to resist the toxin as normal.


Actually, Called Shot rules can only be used by firearms.

Nope

and

I've always wondered why, from a standpoint of realisticity (word?), that people are not allowed to do zap and physical damage? Nobody's gently laying the stun baton across their foe, or tapping them on the shoulder with the shock gloves. They're hitting and punching, just like they would with normal, non-stun versions of the weapons. It's not like the weapons are fragile, or coated with nerf, either.

Oh, just a side note? Yes, my chracter once made custom, hollow arrowtips, enchanted them into fetishes, and filled them with FAB. He insisted that since it was an astrally present bullet that never stopped being "held" by an astrally present organism, they would be perfectly capable of functioning when fired from a bow.

I wanted to say "no". But then, I thought about it, and I couldn't think of a reason why it wouldn't work.

Because Sixth World metaphysics don't follow his rules, maybe? That would a good enough reason for me.

Of course YMMV, as always. If you want to allow it in your game there's nothing wrong with that, but in mine astral paradigms aren't broken by simple loopholes.

The SR4A is why. I don't have that one yet, and am not fully versed in all the new errata.

Okey now thats just wierd, the first think i quoted is IN the non anniversary corebook in page 147, except it ofcource says page 149 at the end.
But the page 149 as you quoted doesnt have the part about melee weapons like anniversary edition does.
Anyway calledshot in mee isn't new for SR4A, it's just the first book i sheck nowdays and somehow i read your quote box saying SR4A too.
Sorry that i didn't think to check the original corebook too, thats becouse i was sure that you always could use called shot with melee weapons.