Do Martial Arts DV boni stack with Shock gloves? The Description in Arsenal states "+1 DV on Unarmed Combat attacks", so it should stack with shock gloves or electroshock orthoskin.

By the rules it does. Some people don't like it.

The same people usually also dislike Stick'n'Shock. You have to see what your group is comfortable with.

A minor quibble:

Some who don't like it don't mind Stick'nShock (or any other source of electrical damage) as a concept.

What people don't like is that your martial arts prowess should have zero ability to change the DV of an attack that isn't dependent on your martial arts prowess. The little prongs dump the same charge into the target for pretty much the same effect no matter where or how hard you poke him with them.

In other words, there's a few of us who think that nothing should increase the DV of a successful electrical attack except using a more powerful electrical attack.

To be honest, I doubt the designers were thinking about electrical attacks when they made the martial arts rules.

Of course it shouldn't. I mean, seriously. That's just common sense.

Alas, common sense is less than common. The issue hasn't come up at my table, but I think if it did, I would rule that the character may choose to use either the shock gloves' DV or his own unarmed DV, but not both for the same attack.

This is inconsistent with the rest of the rules, though. Net hits add to damage. Called shots add to damage. Presumably, when you add +1 DV from a martial art, you are doing the same thing as when you get 1 more net hit and thus add +1 DV, or when you make a called shot to add +1 DV.

Which is exactly how it should be.

This doesn't seem like a solid presumption. Even if it were, I don't see Called Shots increasing taser effects anyway. I'm not positive we've ever allowed net hits, either.

The easiest way to bring Shock Effects back in line is to allow no staging of the damage whatsoever. Someone earlier said it. If you are hit with a Tazer, whether it is in the hand or the neck, you still take the same shock. *shrug*

That's quite a good idea.

Shock gloves are a weapon. They use the unarmed combat skill, but are not an unarmed combat attack. You get the electrical damage - that's it. No martial arts, no adept powers such as critical strike, and no bone lacing/density augmentation.

I'm going to be really immature here and contribute essentially nothing to the original topic.

They don't work with any of the other ones you mentioned, but they do work with Martial Arts because it checks what skill you are using, not what weapon you are using.

Called Shots are somewhat magic tea party so you can make a case there, but net hits unquestionably scale electrical weapon damage in the rules. If you want to houserule differently, that's fine, have at it, but if someone asks what the rules are the answer should refer to the rules.

Did the topic give you any boni?

Seeing that word did.

What is an unarmed combat attack if it is not an attack that uses the unarmed combat skill?


An electrically-charged punch to the heart or possibly a nerve cluster should do more damage than an electrically-charged punch to the hand.

I wouldn't allow it in general because the DV bonuses represent training in effective ways to disable an opponent using the force of a strike. If you can make the argument that your style relies on precision nerve strikes, I might make an exception.

Why do you have that impression/assumption?

Unfortunately, the issue becomes a lot clearer when you realize that the bonus to DV is based on the SKILL, not the title of the weapon.
For example, the bonus to blades DV applies to all blade class weapons - there is no weapon called 'blades'.
Its just confusing with unarmed combat, but the bonuses work exactly the same.

Also, martial arts these days teach students to defend against common weapons like knives and clubs(and advanced students to use them) and occasionally firearm disarms, so why wouldn't a comprehensive modern(in sr terms) martial art include taser fists and cybershiv defense as part of the standard curriculum?
Boom, problem solved.

Not everyone considers the munchkin not getting his DV bonus to be a "problem".

I think UmaroVI may have said it best. It might be allowable by a strict, no-common-sense reading of the RAW, but a lot of GMs would nix it. It's like the Thorns negative quality - strictly by RAW, the discomfort gives you "+1 to alll Physical Tests", but most GMs would say "Uh, no, I know how it's worded, but I'm sure they didn't actually intend for this negative quality to give you a bonus."

See, I see the Negative Aspect of the Thorns NQ to give a +1 THRESHOLD to all Physical Tests.
So, in combat the defender gets an automatic +1 to defense Hits...

All other Physical Tests are already threshold based, so they become more difficult to accomplish for those who have the Thorns NQ.

When our group runs into shitty rules like this, we tend to let people have the option of using it as the actually-a-bonus version..... with the caveat that they pay for it like it was a positive quality.
Its a pretty decent solution to a lot of dumb stuff, especially when it comes to surge qualities.

Case of bad copy pasta . .
Under SR3, they gave you a +1 to all physical tests . . a +1 to the TN that is . .

1) Martial arts abilities (and hence, bonuses) accrue as much from knowing where to apply force as from being able to apply more force. +1 DV can come from either power or placement.

2) An electrical shock applied through electrodes attached at foot and knee of the same leg will hurt like hell. Attached one in each hand, or one in each ear, the same shock can kill. +1 DV can come from either power or placement.

==> If you know where to hit, you can do more damage. The understanding of physiology that comes from martial arts training should be applicable to shock gloves as well.

Because it would mess with the electrical conduction system of the heart - ventricular fibrillation is the keyword here ^^

You're not applying electrodes in various 2-point configurations. You're touching one 'spot' (probably 2 prongs very close together) with a taser weapon.

From the fact that my medical expertise mostly consists of, when using an AED, don't place the pads on the patient's feet... Take that as you will.


I have always assumed they had knuckle and finger tip contacts (so 4 - 5 contact points). That's still close together.

Right. Not making an 18'' line over their heart, both their temples, etc.

And yet modern tazers do not have that problem, why would the tech in the 2070's?

I mean, modern tasers *do* seem to kill people all the time, to the extent that the bastards have invented a BS medical condition to explain why their nonlethal gun keeps killing random people. But it's not because of where it's hitting them.

So, say the prongs are 4 or 5 inches apart. It doesn't matter where they hit, they will have exactly the same result?

The prongs on your shock glove or taser baton aren't.

Tasers have killed at least 500 Americans

Now, get Electroshock Orthoskin and hold both arms of your target ^^

Modern tasers and stunners are built around the idea if striking more or less center mass (in the torso). If you take a standard 10KV stunner and place the contacts in the palm of your hand and activate the device you will have a different reaction than if you place it on the back of your neck and activate it. I DO NOT condone the idea of actually attempting the neck trick, DO NOT use a stunner on the back of someone’s neck. I personally have been hit by electricity many times, current going simply through my hand or arm is painful, similar current passing through more of my body (torso) has caused collapse. It takes very little current passing through your heart to stop it or at least disrupt its ability to do its job. Of course in a fight or at range it is actually pretty hard to place a stunner in such a place as to cause current to pass directly through someone’s heart.

I do think that from a game perspective the DV of shock weapons can be staged based on hit location. (Our table has removed stick-n-shock rounds for non-large bore weapons as being very very silly.) Ideally the DV should have a cap however, but that would complicate the matter greatly. If I am not mistaken RAW allows the damage to stage up, if your table is uncomfortable with that by all means change it. As for the OP; in my opinion if the martial art is about precision strikes than I would allow the +DV to work, if the martial art is about hitting harder I would not, that would need to be handled on a case by case basis.

Just my 4
-D

Another way to play it is the way we do it.

Kinetic Impact is separate from Electric Impact.

You make one Unarmed Attack and get two damage values:
1: Kinetic Impact from muscles augmented by hits - [STR/2+Net Hits+Modifiers]
2: Electric Shock from Tazer Knuckle Discharge - Base Damage Only

Because if a troll of 300 kilograms is driving his entire face sized FIST INTO MY FACE with his very, very strong muscles then I sure as hell will feel it. And, since between the fist and the face is a shock glove then I feel that TOO.

We could argue that the gloves could break but I'm pretty sure they are DESIGNED for melee combat.

Yeah, that is the best way to do it.
Probably do the hitting damage first and if that is completely resisted or dodged then you forego the electric shock damage too . .

Same as with poisoned blades.

Yes if dodged because then you miss.

No if they resisted the physical attack since the electric jolt goes against 1/2 armor and is another kind of damage and give them the jitters (-2D6 penalties)

This looks like a good way to go.

I would add that if you choose to do the kinetic damage, you shouldn't get the +2 for a touch-based attack (to be determined before the attack roll, of course).

A good ruling.

Since all you need to do is to connect you could go with a slight tap on someone to shock them.

True, but the Game Tazer will do the same thing.

Sort of, but the real life ones are more apt to do it to people with clean stun tracks!

Well, 682 North Americans, over an 11 Year Timeframe. I would be curious as to how many individuals were actually tazered in that time frame (1M, 2M, 32 Mil?).
Does not sound like a lot to me, truth be told. Even though it IS a sad statistic.

682 over 11 years is just 62 deaths per year.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm

So 2009 had 2.437m deaths.

Death causes of a comparable quantity to 62 in 2009. The rate would be 0.02/100,000 if my math is correct.

Salmonella infections: 26
Whooping cough: 15
Meningococcal infection: 99
Syphillis: 34
Other and unspecified malignant neoplasms of lymphoid, hematopoietic and related tissue: 67 (out of 55,406 total lymphoid, hematopoietic and related tissue deaths)
Non-bronchitis and bronchiolitis infections of lower respiratory system: 38
Other disorders of kidney: 27
Pregnancy with abortive outcome: 34

Other things you're more likely to die from....
Tuberculosis: 529
Nutritional deficiency: 2,850
Influenza: 2,918 (Usually you die from influenza because it causes pneumonia which had 50,774).
Peptic ulcer: 2,956
Hernia: 1,801
Kidney infection: 604
Accidental firearm discharge: 554
Accidental drowning: 3,517
Suicide: 36,909
Homicide: 16,799
Legal intervention: 395 (This included death from intervention by police forces. The majority are probably firearm related but this figure probably includes tasers)
Complications of medical and surgical care: 2,616

This means that from 395 deaths caused by police forces, ~62 (15%) were caused by tasers - quite impressive for a non-lethal weapon.

The problem is that it is LESS-LETHAL and not non-lethal.

That and improper training or use of said weapon as a simple subjugation tool without considering the consequences.

For sure.

Not really.

I don't know if tasers are included in that figure.

Also, even if they are, it's not indicative of anything. It doesn't provide anything about the number of interventions where tasers were used without a death comes to intervention with firearms that results in injury vs death. Nor does it list the quantity of interventions of each type.

If there are, for example, 500,000 police interventions using a taser and 5,000 using a firearm (using meaning pulling the weapon and discharging). The rates between the two would be 0.134% of taser interventions result in a death while firearms were 6.6% of firearm interventions resulted in death.

Not quite. If taser killings are in that number, then it absolutely means a certain number of Americans were killed by tasers. We can be interested in the rate, but we can also be interested in the simple figure.

You can be interested in the rate of death, but comparisons beyond that are meaningless. 62 deaths by taser out of 395 police interventions (and the 62 is averaged over 11 years rather than 2009's death by taser figure) doesn't talk about the lethality of the taser compared to the firearm. Police intervention also doesn't distinguish specific causes. Firearms are the most likely cause of those deaths but there are other things that can be included from police sticks to tasers to punching.