Hey, I wanted to ask, any one out there ever have a player want to build or use custom melee weapons in their game?

What i'm thinking is I want to use weapons called Tonfa (think police battons)

First of all I'm wondering what the damage code would be... I'm assuming it would fall under the "extendable baton" or "rattan stick" being STR+1 M stun damage.

any one come up with a good reason for other wise? (more or less damage)

And more importantly I would like to see what happens if I modify those tonfa... Insted make them out of say aluminum, or add studds, or flat out redesign them with an edge insted of blunt weapons.

Any sugestions?

Just comparing them to a Club would have been my first idea, but that gives the same Damage Code.

Making them out of aluminum shouldn't make much of a difference. Extendable batons are made of far harder metals, and they're still only (Str+1)M Stun. Studs might be cool as a style thing, but I doubt they'd do much damage-wise.

If you made one with an edge, I'd probably use the stats of a Katar -- (Str+3)L. Light Physical in any case, either (Str+2)L or (Str+3)L.

I've had players do this before.
it's real easy because you just let them design what they want or describe it to you, then you look through the book and compare it to other items already in stock in SR. Chances are, there's something that does pretty much the same thing, so most of the stats can be coppied from that item. The thing that will most likely change is the conceal rate.
As said, the damage rate isn't going to change a whole lot for melee weapons, but I've had players come up with some interesting ideas before.
- poles with blades on both ends (forget the name for this weapon in real life)
- (this was genius right here) a mono-whip line with a small dikoted blade attached to the end of it. (they ended up hurting themselves with it though)
- um...I don't know the name, but spikes you throw on the ground.
- bladed boomerangs
- throwing circles (thing on zena)
- baseball bats with nails sticking out
stuff like that...

yea, in canon companion. Don't have the book with me right now, but I think they did (body)L, body being of the poor char that steps on it. Trying to run through a pile of these thrown down slowed pursuers to half movement rate. This is all going by memory though

Yeah I was thinking going off of the Rattan stick rules, but i think if it were made out of solid aluminum it would change the damage code slightly. I mean the Extendable baton is made out of denser harder metals, but it's also smaller, there's a smaller striking area. A rattan stick or Tonfa is much thicker, more mass, and larger striking area.

About the biggest difference i'd see is having an aluminum strength+2 moderate stun

And I also thing by adding studs to it, it should go off the mace with spikes rules. for example, the Mace by it self is STR+3 m Stun, but when you add spikes on it it turns into a Str+1 M Physical damage

As with the customized bladed one i was thinking of going off like Ktar damage or some thing, some type of edged weapon.

The only thing i'm trying to figure out is it's basically two different edged weapons, you've got the katar-punch dagger on one side, and a short sword if you hold it the other way. I'd really rather not throw an item at my GM that's got two different damage codes.

well the point of adding studs would focus the kinetic energy of the blow to a smaller point instead of a wider area increasing the probability of damage to the muscle tissue or bone.

So by putting metal studs onto the tonfa it should do more stun damage.

Plus it's shadowrun they probably don't make weapons out of real hardwood, it's most likely Acrylic or some other type of Plastic... those materials are far more cost effective.

Actual hardwood might not be common, but with that logic it might be hard to get a hold of a tonfa made of actual aluminum, too. However, whatever material they'd be using to make those tonfas would probably have almost exactly the same attributes (density, hardness, etc) as hardwood, and the substitute would be similar to aluminum.

In any case, unless the tonfa would then be made really massive I can't see how that would make do more damage. Like I said, an extendable baton can weigh well over 1kg, nearly as much as an actual mace might. Just adding more weight to such items shouldn't make much of a difference, damage-wise, beyond such a point.

[Anal]If focusing the energy of the tonfa on a smaller area would cause it to do more damage, then shouldn't an Extendable Baton do more damage to begin with?[/Anal]

heh nope, tip isn't rounded to a point causing the focus of kinetic energy ^_^

anal, maybe, but they put studs on nunckaku, tonfa, and rattan sticks in real life for a reason.

I don't think the rounding of the point is of much importance there... It still remains a ~1-1.5cm ball of steel which focuses most of the energy from that 31"/79cm, 1.25kg, completely rigid baton. It is quite likely indeed to break bones and seriously damage muscle tissue.

I'm not saying putting studs on such weapons wouldn't have any difference whatsoever. The question is whether that difference is significant enough to merit a +1 in Power.

Just looked through the Damage Codes of blunt weapons in Cannon Companion, and I've got to say it'd be hard to make your numbers less logical. A Bo staff does (Str+3)M, WTF? And you can already do (Str+2)M Stun with a chair, a rifle butt or a steel pipe.