[PiXeL01]

I'm in the process of making an ork beast way berserker adept who focusses on fighting with retractable spurs (weapon focus) so I've been browsing through the various powers.

While Critical Strike and element weapon would be usable for what I had in mind, penetrating strike made me wonder.

Quote p. 173, SG
This ability allows an adept to focus and project an un- armed attack a short distance forward, bypassing armor the target may have or punching through their thick, stubborn hide. In essence, this gives the adept’s attack an AP rating equal to the levels she has in this power (maximum 4). This power can be used in conjunction with the Killing Hands power but not Elemental Strike.

As described above I won't be able to combine the power with  spur attack. But what about damage boosts from 'ware such as bone lacing or bone density aug? Would you allow that damage to stack with the power? I'm thinking "no" since you don't attack with the body but a field of magic.
Some might argue that since you payed the essence then the implant becomes a part of you and thus can be used, but with that argument then cyberweaponry would be usable too.

What do you think?

[Reaver]

I would say no.

The description says the "mana strike" (for lack of official explaination) is a few inches forward of the unarmed strike, in essence there is no actual contact between the attacking limb and the target.

[Forrest]

RAW yes
RAI maybe no.
As it's written, there is no limitation to the rule.  And to be honest, mechanically it wouldn't be any different with bone lacing than muscle augmentation, except the bone lacing would be much more expensive in terms of essence and magic loss.  So I don't really see any reason to impose a limit on it.  Like you said, you pay the essence, you're get the bonus.

[PiXeL01]

How do you feel about Spurs, Hand Razors and Hand Blades then, Forrest?

[Xenon]

How do you feel about Spurs, Hand Razors and Hand Blades then, Forrest?

They all count as melee weapons...

[PiXeL01]

Currently I'm feeling my table, but I'm probably going to say that that damage done by bone lacing and bone density does not stack with penetrating strike (and naturally ruling out cyberweaponry as well)

[Lucean]

You paid for your bone upgrades with essence, so it's part of your "self". Since neither lacings nor density augments change AP it should both work by RAW and RAI, as the power does nothing to change the unarmed strike itself, it uses all strength augmentations and magical ones aside from those mentioned (because they work differently).

[Michael Chandra]

The problem with that logic is that the bone augmentations do not boost your unarmed strike, nor do they make you stronger, they simply make your fists more painful due to the hardened bones in them. The second you use Knucks you already lose that damage bonus, and the same applies to elemental strikes. Since you do not actually hit them with your bone-augmented fists, they should not automatically be able to help you there so the RAI claim is rather arrogant to be honest.

However, since the ability projects your unarmed strike ahead, it's a fair argument that this means that even though the bone-augmented fists aren't what hits the enemy (but the projected strike), the entirety of the strike gets projected including the hardness of your fists.

[Lucean]

Since my claim was made in subjunctive by using "should work", I don't think that the shoe fits.

For ease of play it would be better, if a given list of exceptions is complete. But the problem is here, that the writers (intentionally) omitted mentioning augmentations. The wording doesn't make it easier on us. A sentence like
"This ability allows an adept to focus and gives his unarmed strikes the ability to reduce the effectiveness of armor or thick, stubborn hide."
would IM(H)O been more straight forward.

I fear we have to rely on clarification on that one

[Michael Chandra]

Such a sentence would not have helped at all. Bone Augmentations + unarmed magical adept attacks always have been a problematic beast because they only in part combine.

Edit: Uhm, Knucks ARE Weapons. They're in the Melee Weapons table. This is why they do not stack with Killing Hands or BDA/BL and do not count as an unarmed Strike since they are a weapon, even though they use Unarmed Combat.

[Lucean]

As I see it bone augmentations replace the damage code of your unarmed strikes, turning STR (S) into STR+x (P). I don't see what would be problematic. Although the text of Penetrating Strike seems to be identical to that from Street Magic, Distance Strike (also SM) could have worked.

@ edit: damn ... I only remembered this "other" and not the rest of the table it was included in.