One of my players wants to take the Astral Sight surge in my campaign with a Street Samurai type. I'm alright with this as he has come up with a very suitable story as to how it happened. While we were talking he brought up the question of Retractable Cyber Spur weapon foci. I already made my rulling. (No, I won't tell you.) But I am interested in everyones opinion.

I'd say no. The cyberware would be far to refined and worked to make a suitable focus. I like to say all weapon foci must be handmade, to keep out the machined element.

Plus, the spurs would be to hard to take away if they become a problem, and can't be taken away for plot purposes.

The enchantment test will be a pain, but it works. He needs to get them enchanted before the surgery, and can't add any later enchantments to them without going through at least two surgical procedures.

I've thought about this off and on. In my opinion, it should be practical enough to make the blades of retractable spurs into weapon foci. Plug them into the cybernetic retraction mechanism and you're good to go. Weapon foci are expensive investments and cyberspurs aren't the most lethal of formats for weapon foci so...why not?

I see no probs with this.... although they will be low force foci as focus addiction is a bitch

As far as SR canon is concerned, it's absolutely possible to make a focus out of cyberimplant weaponry. And I agree, I can't think of any reason not to allow it in my games.

MitS has rules on how to make anything into a focus. You can make a sustaining focus out of a pocket secretary, a power focus out of a head-set radio, or anything else of that nature. It just screws up your TN for the Enhanting test -- you're looking at at least TN 24 (can be much higher if the GM wishes it to be) before adding Orichalcum into the equation when enchanting an unprepared Cyberspur implant into a Force 6 Weapon Focus, compared to TN ~14 for enchanting in a similar way a sword that has been purposely built for this from the ground up with a number of alchemical radicals included. See mits.42-45, and sr3.182 for Object Resistance.

In theory, anything can be a foci. So yes, I'd say Cyberspurs are just fine. If you want to get really obnoxious (and a high TN#), try thinking about making a Monowhip Weapon Foci.

Very, very gray area, there...

Some would argue that the focus is useless until bound, of which mundanes cannot do (as per canon).

Some would argue that they are effective in terms of ignoring the Immunity to normal weapons that some spirits and critters have.

If he (or she) doesn't have a Magic rating, he (or, again, she) cannot bind the focus.

Then the big time thinking comes in.

Since it does have Orichalcum in it... It is no longer a normal weapon.

Then again, since it isn't bound, then it really is nothing more than a weapon with some metallurgical monstrosity in it.

Personally, I'd rule that it ignores the Immunity, but nothing else (including no extra dice).

You should be able to just take an existing set of the blade part of the cyberspurs as a template and then hand-forge a new set in the traditional manner to match, to avoid the high TN for manufactured items.

B/R edged weapons?


-karma

Owowowowowowow...

Reminds me in the older X-Men comics. (Those that have not read or heard about when Wolvey loses his metal, a spoiler is contained herein.)



Edit: Herald: Might help if I took more than a glance at YotC, eh? Well, moot point on my part. Change stance to "it works."

Oh, but make sure to really peeve them by rolling for Magic loss when they get them installed.

On that wolverine thing:

Hm. I never got heavy into the comics, so I didn't know as much.

Granted, a lot of things go through the "You're fucking up the universe" periods. I think authors really like to make people angry.

Example 1: Robert Jordan and the Wheel of Time series. Still not over, no end in sight. And he's getting older. Oi.

I did make him roll for magic loss with my new harder to succeed system Magic Dice vs. 12-magic as a TN. He got a 56 on one die.

...

One lucky-ass player.

The Dice Gods looked down on him and smiled. A lot. Maybe even threw a party in his favor.

Not to mention you can't lose them short of some vast physical pain on your part or the skill of a physician (or non-skill if you don't mind losing most of the use of your hands).

Well there are drawbacks as well. While he can turn the foci off he has to remember to tell me so. This character has never played a mage so I doubt he'll remember that often. Can we say ground to manifestation, anyone?

That doesn't work in 3rd. A rule only in 2nd.

(We just had a thread about this, heh.)

Can we say "grounding doesnt exist in this edition of shadowrun" anyone?

I'd say the biggest drawback, especially if theyre low force foci, is that failing to deactivate them leaves them vulnerable to destruction via astral combat. A powerful, dematerialized spirit can fly in and destroy a low force focus before friend sammy knows what hit him. Then he's out all that nuyen and karma.

I suggest being nice and reminding him at least once that he should leave them off most of the time, for that reason. The costs associated with weapon foci are nontrivial, and it really sucks to throw hundreds of thousands of nuyen down the toilet because of a seemingly minor overlooked detail.

Maybe it only work in 2 edition in your world, but I believe it a valid concept. it makes all the runners more paranoid and it is a great way to get rid of foci.

As tanka says, you're out of luck there lorthazar. No more grounding.

The only issues w/ foci now are 1) foci addiction, 2) Wards (as in getting past them), and 3) Legality (anything >3 force).

Masking also becomes a bitch. A pair of cyberspurs still count as two foci; so two Force 3 Weapon Foci requires a Grade 6 initiate to mask under normal circumstances.

Well sorry to say, but yeah there is in my world. too much game info and discussion went into it in old supplements to discard it now.

Oh yeah, wards are nasty for the inattentive low-force focus owner as well.

Actually I have noticed a lot of things that changed and some of those changes have been in a word moronic. And I didn't ask for rulings I asked for opinions.

The only great danger that kept magician from loading up ridiculous foci was ground to manifestation. That forced you to plan carefully and optimize. Focus addiction might be a bear, but it is nothing compared to the realization that the spell that astral projecting mage shot off could still kill you and your team. Taking away an integral part of the world like that is among the most assinine things I have ever seen.

The same can be said for how Bioware and Cyberware react together in man and machine. I see no logical reason for Bonelacing, Cyber spurs, retractable canines and a plethora of other things to reduce how much Bioware you can have. I can see the arguments with Wired Refexes, boosted reflexes, cyberarms, dermal plating, move by wire systems, and other such things.

Hell, I still miss armor rating being the number of automatic successes in a damage resistance test. That and variable staging. Made the gun differences more then just ammo capacity.

Well if you are the GM there is NOTHING stopping you from going back to that.

Too hard to figure out staging for all the new weapons

And the power rules are all based around being reduced by armor.

Actually no too hard to figure TSS #8 has the info you need

Download page

Lor, you may do whatever you wish in your games.

But realize that asking questions here will almost always result in answers based on the most current rules set, as any discussion needs a baseline for everyone to start from and SR3 is the most convienent baseline for Shadowrun discussions.


-karma

Oh, I understand completely. I was also asking for your general opinions. Those are much more important than the rules. Becuase, let's face it, neither FASA nor WizKids cares about jack except your money coming in. They won't tell you that. They'll hide behind cliches such as "Well, we got a lot of suggestions to change this." and "The game doesn't need it." They'll song and dance you to death rendering every old supplement obsolete so you have to buy new ones.

FanPro, not FASA. Minor discrepancy.

Oh, and some companies do care about their consumers. RPG makers that aren't d20 based tend to be most of them, as they don't have a huge fanbase anyway, and any lost customers can mean a lot to them.

The rules (whatever version you are using) set the boundries the players and GM abide by. Neither myself or the players like to make house rulings, we really want to try and make the ruleset work as it was intended so we can all agree on decisions and outcomes.

We don't follow the grand events of the SR world as closely as some do here, but we try to atleast adhere to a large percentage of the canon rules handed down in the various sourcebooks.

Long as you have fun, since that's what it's all about.

Actually I meant FASA when it was still around, Sorry for the confusion.

Oh game companies do care that you stay a loyal customer. After all they can't keep selling to you if you aren't. Of course they will use every underhanded dirty sneaky trick to keep you a customer. I love Shadowrun. Played it since it first came out.

What I hate is when a whole bunch of whining babies get something removed becuase it makes things harder on them. I play mostly deckers and samurai. Do I complain when the physical adept starts doing stuff better than my character? No. Did I complain when a fiendishly clever GM used Spell locks on rats to manifest Powerballs from a astral mage? No. Did I complain when we spent eight sessions in a row fight off vamps, wendigos, and corpselights? No. Did I complain when we had our hoops handed to us by a Cyberzombie loaded with bothe cyber and bioware? No. That's why Quickdraw is the baddest MFer on the street. he survives by wits, karma, and by having been through all of it.

I would argue that maybe, just maybe, they made the changes they did in SR3 because they honestly believed they were improving the game... but your whole "we're being screwed by our corporate overlords, and I'm just trying to make the best of things" rant is sufficiently thematically in line with Shadowrun that I'll just let it go.

Power to the People, stick it to The Man!

Thank you! Now that my rant is done i will be a peaceful wageslave again.

In case you are interested some Old rules I have kept.

Ground to Manifestion
Vehicle body acts like Standard Armor


Some rules I have altered

Anchoring drains you when you craft it not when it is used.
Masked Quickening/Anchoring for extra karma it makes it nearly impossible to see.

Some rules I have added

Adaptive Biochemistry some people just take the ware better than others

I'm not up on current events - such a surge and all, so I acannot really comment ou your specific situation.

But I would allow a Mage or adept have Cyber spur weapon foci. If the are willing to spend the nuyen, and give up a magic point, and spend the karma to bond it - that's quite an expense. And for what?

Coolness, really. A weapon focus that is with you all of the time.

And it looks great on the astral plane.


I have played SR sine it was published - through all three additions. I have had many disagreements with their rule changes, but overall I think they have improved things for the better. And if there is a rule I do not like, I change it and hope the players will agree.

...

You know, I think we all forgot something.

If he has Magic 1 only... And Cyber/Bio effects Magic...

Wouldn't installing cyberspurs take his Magic to 0, thusly making him unable to use a weapon focus?

Unless there's a special ruling somewhere that I'm missing (like in YotC), I think that the entire idea is only plausible with somebody with at least 2 points of Magic.

Assuming the astral sight was gained after the main set of implants and these are replacements for some previous non-magical spurs, there is no problem.

Aw, crap. I tried to replay to something on the other page before realizing there was a page 2, and it hit everything I had to say. Don't mind me.

Never heard of grounding before, but I've only been playing for about 4 years. I would say no problem with them, except that having the oriculum in the blade might somehow interfere with the mundane operation of them.

Also, Foci addiction wouldn't really be a problem here.
Fails the adiction check -> takes the talisman geas as the spurs -> lost magic point doesn't matter.

Except Foci Addiction doesn't stop after the first failure. It proceeds to get worse and worse if you continue to use it.

And of course you cannot geas that lost point of magic in that manner, since your magic rating drops to 0 => You're back to being mundane => The foci won't work any longe since you're no longer awakened