[Khepera]

I have a question regarding Adept powers. I have a bunch of the books and many of the powers seem very cool but so many of them are for unarmed only. Are there any adept powers that can be used with weapons? Perhaps in a book I don't own.
I see lots of powers like critical strike, elemental strike, distance strike, but all of them seem only usable with unarmed attacks (no weapon).

Am I missing something? When they say unarmed they don't mean any melee weapon do they?

[Falconer]

You're mostly correct...

Weapon foci though are available to those adepts and not available to the path of the magically augmented fist.  By strict RAW & RAI this is not available to fists.   Though you'll get a vocal contingent on the boards arguing that the weapon rules should be completely ignored and a hardliner glove should be allowed to stack with unarmed combat enhancements.  Their argument boils down to 'common sense' and ignoring the rulebook.


Mechanically this results in a situation where the weapon focus adept rolls a lot more dice (extra dice from reach & weapon focus bonus) and is more likely to hit (and do more damage indirectly through more successes).   While the magical punchers can go through the side of tank and hit like like a sledgehammer... they tend to have a harder time actually hitting since they don't get the extra dice from reach and weapon foci.   Also weapon foci users tend to be better at multi-attacking due to the nature of the split combat pools... the weapon focus is added after the split to each target (so he has an easier time attacking two targets at once than the puncher).


In terms of powers to watch for.   The improved skill power is good... you can augment your weapon skill up to 6(9) directly through adept powers.   Other than that.. you mostly only have the defensive powers which work well (such as combat sense are prime picks.  As always extra IPs are useful... 2 tends to be the min for combatants... with 3 nice.

[Khepera]

Thank you for the info.

[Mithlas]

Speaking of adept powers, if I may ask a related-if-slightly-tangential question - the Adept Power "Elemental Strike" only states it works like Killing Hands, which only expressly mentions Unarmed. Magic isn't exactly something I tend to associate with cyberpunk anyway so I'm not sure about what basis outside folklore might have on options here, but I've heard arguments that it would make sense to extend Elemental Strike (or perhaps require a variation of it be purchased for use with melee weapons).

What do any of you think about its strict accordance with 'rules as intended'? Good, bad, indifferent?
Or might the idea I heard bantered about (I wasn't there for part of the conversation) been about a specific modification of a Weapon Focus? Would that be better, worse (or indifferent) compared to the Elemental Strike as applicable to melee?

[RHat]

Speaking of adept powers, if I may ask a related-if-slightly-tangential question - the Adept Power "Elemental Strike" only states it works like Killing Hands, which only expressly mentions Unarmed. Magic isn't exactly something I tend to associate with cyberpunk anyway so I'm not sure about what basis outside folklore might have on options here, but I've heard arguments that it would make sense to extend Elemental Strike (or perhaps require a variation of it be purchased for use with melee weapons).

What do any of you think about its strict accordance with 'rules as intended'? Good, bad, indifferent?
Or might the idea I heard bantered about (I wasn't there for part of the conversation) been about a specific modification of a Weapon Focus? Would that be better, worse (or indifferent) compared to the Elemental Strike as applicable to melee?

I would argue that the rules as intended is for unarmed to be a True Option (meaning that it is, roughly, an equally valid choice as the others), same with armed.  Armed Adepts gain the benefit of a weapon focus, Unarmed Adepts gain the benefit of all those awesome powers.  If you cross the awesome powers into Armed Adepts, Unarmed Adepts have to get fist foci to keep balance - which means you lose distinctiveness between them, which I consider unfortunate.

If it became a serious concept issue, what I might do is allow the unique benefits to be moved from one to the other at half benefit - Armed Adepts can apply half the effect of a power that normally only works Unarmed to their bound focus, and Unarmed Adepts can apply half the benefit of a weapon focus built to work for unarmed use to their attacks (something like handwraps or brass knuckles).  But only if it became a serious concept issue for an RP focused player - balance implications could get unfortunate.

[Falconer]

Mithlas;
I'd argue it's against the intent.   Because most weapons have -1 or -2 AP on them already... as well as a nice hefty +dam figure.   So adding AP-half as well as an elemental effect is probably overkill.   At least at the cost of the actual adept unarmed power.

I'd say that to do it... you'd probably need to make it cost 1.5 or 2PP and extend it only to active weapon foci (since weapon foci become extensions of the adepts aura when active).  It is that powerful.


While weapons get all that 'for free'...  the advantage of unarmed is that it's easier to augment to really high levels... you can use bone lacing for a big +damage.  martial arts for +3 more... then +5 more for 1.25PP at mag5.    Str5 base...  you're easily up over 10 into the low-mid teens at this point.  But you're going to have to pay 2-3PP for all the augmentations (elemental, killing hands, power strike or whatever it's called).   And unlike a weapon focus you have the ability to push that way higher.


As a general rule if you're going to extend melee adept powers to weapons I'd say they should roughly triple the base cost of the power and play with it to see if that works well.

I don't think it's a bad idea... just believe it should be far more costly to get both the +bonus dice of a weapon focus AND the +damage/elemental buffs of unarmed in the same package.

[Bastwolf]

   Also weapon foci users tend to be better at multi-attacking due to the nature of the split combat pools... the weapon focus is added after the split to each target (so he has an easier time attacking two targets at once than the puncher).

Where did you find this? I'm having trouble looking it up...

[Falconer]

The standard rules in the rule book for splitting a dice pool.  (melee multiple targets p158).. how to split is covered on p150 under attacker using a second firearm.


You take your augmented attribute, augmented skill... split those dice between multiple attacks.
"split the pool before applying modifiers"

So post split modifiers include weapon foci, allies in melee, reach, visibility penalty negatives (which get subtracted out of each pool seperately), off hand penalty if you have say a dagger in each hand... the off hand gets an extra -2 if you didn't take ambidexterity.... all kinds of things I'm not listing off the chart.


So if you had 12 dice skill + attribute... and a force 4 weapon focus.  and bad lighting for -2 visibility...

That would be 12+4-2==14 dice for a single attack.
Or say two pools of 6... 6+(+4-2)==8 dice against two targets.

The rules in arsenal also include expanded option for attacking someone twice while dual wielding, once with each weapon.   That once again splits the dice pool... but unless you have two bonded weapon foci... each situational would only apply to a single pool for example.

[Helping Bear]

I feel that the unarmed adept gets way more options than the melee weapon adept when it comes to choosing adept powers. Melee weapons though are more powerful than unarmed without any adept powers, and so you can use those adept power points to purchase other nice qualities instead if you use a melee weapon.