ok i have finally bought mits and i have a few questions about the distance strike adept power.

1 when an adept hits someone with distance strike, does the person hit suffer a knockdown test?

2 Can an adept use distance strike to choke someone? (like Darth Vader? )

3 can an adept use distance strike to pick something up and move it around?

by the rules: yes, yes, no.

It's like "a long range punch" or like the spell Clout, it's not Telekenesis.

actually, come to think, #2 is no as well. and maybe #1, though that's iffy. the DS power tells you exactly what to roll and how to roll it; generally, that means you're not allowed to modify that roll.

Certain novels described it as a telekinetic "punch."

Novels... described this.

Just use the rules in the book.

#2 is nonguaranteed. Your choking them certainly won't do anything other than Strength (M) Stun or $Base_Damage, modified by successes on attack test, but that doesn't mean that can't be what you're doing.

~J

i was assuming he was asking if Distance Strike could be combined with Subduing Combat. my answer would be no, based mainly on the fact that i don't like it, conceptually.

The "like Darth Vader" addendum made me think that subdual had very little to do with it.

~J

From your question, it sounds like you're thinking that Distance Strike is just like having really long and invisible arms. Which, as far as I know, it's not. I was always under the impression that Distance Strike was more a one-way transferal of force than an extension of your arms.

But, as with all things in this game, it's really up to your GM as to what he or she thinks it should be.

If watching from the astral, I'd think distance strike looks kind of like shooting lasers from your body. It's a quick projection of force from the body that only works against living targets. So you can't sustain it and strangle someone, and you can't use it to punch out windows, or hit switches out of normal reach.

Either way, I'm not sure how it fits under the purview of an Adept power. Other than Distance Strike and Delay Damage, all adept powers work by using magic to improve the body and mind. Indeed, this is what an adept does, by definition. Both Delay Damage and Distance Strike by their very nature are outside the adept's own body. Distance Strike in particular doesn't make any sense to me as a power; it seems more like a spell.

Ah well, maybe I should just quit whinning.

Distance Strike clearly exists so that it's possible to build Street Fighter characters as Shadowrun adepts.

And that the ability to strike across short distnaces is a classic martial arts ability in fiction, which is what adepts represnt in SR a lot of the time.

How come I can't sword fight in the air then?

/disappointed.

Levitate.

~J

I guess they just forgot to give Levitate to Adepts then.

Or, while we're at it, Heal and Control Thoughts (ninjas could hypnotize people too, remember?) Ooh, or that neat trick you see in alot of ninja animes where the ninja substitutes something else, like a tree stump, for his own body, while he makes a counterattack from a nearby tree. Or that other anime where the guy makes a Distance Strike with his sword, or shoots fire out of it.

Distance Strike does not fit with any of the explainations as to how an adept's power works that I've read. I have no idea what the writers were thinking when they included this as an adept power. I have misgivings about Delay Dmage too, but not as much as Distance Strike.

Let me point out that these are all things that showed up long before anime.

~J

It's a good thing you pointed that out, because I was about to make some bad Naruto jokes.

Way of the Magician is fine, and that Power could be simulated with Clout.

As for a pure Adept though, Distance Strike does not really fit with the stated way that Adepts use magic.

You keep saying that Distance Strike doesn't fit how adept powers are supposed to work, but I just don't see it. It's not Manabolt For Physads. It's simply being able to focus your energy so well that the force of your attacks extends a little ways past your physical body. Not far... the range is sharply limited. In almost all cases, its range is actually less than the distance at which the physad could simply run up and punch the target. If you can accept that a physad can project mystical energy from his hands to turn stunning attacks into killing ones, I don't think it's much of a stretch to accept that he can project it a few meters farther and use it to carry the force of his attacks over a short distance.

Because the Adept does not "project mystic energy" with Killing Hands. He uses the magic of his body to physically damage his target. An Adept's Powers are supposed to be personal, centered around his own body. I don't see how that can be reconciled with Distance Strike, which has a wholely external effect.

I'm not arguing to convince anyone to change the way they play or GM Shadowrun. I'm merely expanding on my personal reasoning for disallowing the Power.

I basically see adepts as being able to do anything in the Chinese martial arts novels like Legend of the Condor Heroes, Return of the Condor Heroes and Heaven Sword, Dragon Sabre. Actually sometimes my NPC have martial arts and geasa based on these novels. So there is no difference between external or internal "Powers". In fact one of my favorite kung fu from the novels is the 18 Dragon Subduing Palms, of which one of the "powers" is a Distance Strike.

An Adept can't take Magical Power without all the drawbacks that come with it (ie. he can't start as an Adept and then aquire Magical Power, according to canon). I don't have as much of a problem with Physical Magicians because they do have limitations. Don't get me wrong, they can become very powerful, but not as a starting character.

Why should there be a need for any sort of middle ground between an Adept and what is already effectively the middle-ground Physical Mage? If the Adept wants to have his Magic have an external effect, then he should be a Physical Mage.

As I said though, this is only my opinion (and my rules when I GM), and I'm not trying to sway your opinion as much as I am trying to clarify my position.

Well since you are house ruling anyways you could always just treat Distance strike as being accomplished with a highly focused shockwave. So it isn't magic that reaches out and touches, it is air. *shrug* Given the very limited distances (Magic Rating meters) that isn't too harsh on realism, such that realism in SR is.

(Magic Rating) meters can add up once Initiation kicks in.

Since I'm house-ruling anyway (as you say), why would I even need to explain the existance of a Power that I think breaks the basic phylosophy of the Adept, when I can simply solve the whole problem by removing the offending Power?

With Improved Ability: Throwing Weapons, the Adept channels his magic to gain improved aim, and the increased ability to match his effort with his need. Therefore its effects are solely based on a personal level, and do not break the core phylosophy of the Adept.

If you want a different analogy, think of mages as fish and adepts as lizards. Each has their own domain, their own area where their magic is useful. Fish breathe water; their domain is the sea. Lizards breathe air; their domain is the land. I don't begrudge the amphibians, who are bred to do both, but I do dislike the lizard deciding that he wants gills and suddenly getting them, just because it's "cool".

If I were more awake I'd probably venture on a different analogy, but do you see my point? Just because an adept is a hammer does not necessarily mean that every power in the world must suddenly become a nail to suit him. If Distance Strike were allowed I'd have a tough time rejecting the Sammie who wants to mod his cybereyes to see into the Astral, because hey, wouldn't that be cool?

I think it's more that the powers don't fit the "where adepts draw their power vs. what they can do with it" line of defining an adept.

Distance Strike and Delay Damage are the odd-ball powers as far as what you can do by honing your body, but still inline with SR IMO.

There is one assumption that can be made that allows this to pretty much work.

Ki exists. And by existing, I don't mean it is an awakened thing, but that it is only magical because we haven't found a scientific means of explaining it.

Once that assumption is made, the projection of Ki over a short distance is no more nonsensical than the projection of spit over a short distance. Being able to do so with enough force to actually hurt someone requires extreme focus of that Ki so could easily be justified as an adept power.

That is how I see it, and for that matter, the whole group I game with sees it that way as well. I expect others to see my explanation as so much drek, and that is fine. Just take a moment to consider it first, then feel free to crap on it intelligently.

The whole Ki explanation works perfectly, as long as you don't get any munch's combining distance strike with silent delay damage. I know from a very technical rules-specific stance it's perfectly legit, but it just doesn't make sense in my mind.

Also, I think it's kind of dumb to be able to brush someone with your shoulder as you walk by, and have it rolled out to do 12D stun like a minute later.

But yes, anyway, I very much like the Ki explanation. Good show. You have the approval of a no-name loser, you should feel proud.

I guess because I've come from a rpg background that included some romping through Palladium systems (Mystic China, Ninjas and Superspies, etc) they've had alot of different types of martial arts styles and 'character classes'. So when I play SR the stuff they do with adepts doesn't seem to far off to me.

Delay Damage is like the 'classic' Dim Mak (spelling?), an assassin lightly touches you, and you die later on. Distance strike, though not defined as the way it was in Palladium, reflected masters of the art who could kill you over the phone (The power travelled over landlines, but wouldn't work over cellphones and the line) Wacky I know, I don't have my Palladium books handy or I'd try to explain it further.

Anyhoo, the way SR brings it in is probably (in my opinion) their way of allowing players to make mystic assassins if they really wanted to.