[OneofSorrow]

My favorite player has come up with another hair brained scheme of theirs.  They read the parageology book and actually liked it alot.   Even took ranks into until they got it all the way up to six..  This has manifested as a weird character hobby such as getting geologist month, taking weird trips to go rock hunting and even so far as visiting the Seattle volcano.  Said adept has it in mind to forge what he calls the ultimate sword for himself and is actually wanting to start a run to run or go hunting for Primal Fire to create a flaming weapon.  I think it is a cool idea, I like it when people come up with run ideas myself but when looking at the benefits of creating a weapon from either primal breath or fire one of the abilities is it manifests the element.  In the case of said flaming sword I am wondering how much of a DV increase that would be to a sword that he is going to turn into a weapon focus.  After all the fire is going to do some damage if not look cool (stand out too  but I've yet to point that out to him.  Let the player dream).  Figured I ask my peers to see if they have any idea how much of a DV increase I should allow when the guy shots flame on and his sword combusts.   

[martinchaen]

I'd say just make the DV (fire) with a negative AP modifier of the "Force" of the blade; since this kind of thing isn't covered in-game at all, you're on your own on this one

[Booze]

Moch like martinchaen said. But the the elemental damage itself is nice effect. The AP could be like force, just look up how firebolt works in 5th ed. For me, it is just fine

[Namikaze]

DV stays the same, but it gets the elemental effect of fire and the bonus of being a magical focus.  The fire's not making the sword more likely to cut through things, but it could sure as hell light something on fire.

[prismite]

I dunno, I can see everyone's statement of not increasing the damage, but most players will want that to go up, if even minscule.

One option could be to add a +1 to the DV total, but would add rating/2 in AP. So Force 6 = +1 DV / -3 AP.

[Ryo]

You could just give the sword the Energy Aura (fire) critter power, which he could turn off and on at will. So attacks with the sword would have +(Force) DV and the AP of the weapon would become -(Force) AP, and obviously, he has a chance to set stuff on fire whenever he uses it.

Is this a little nutty? I don't really think so, since a magician can just summon a fire spirit that can do this all day from go, while your adept is going on an epic quest to get exotic reagents valued in the millions of nuyen, and then presumably going through the completely ludicrous steps necessary to actually create a weapon foci, which is a test you cannot spend edge on and can potentially permanently damage his Essence.

If he actually succeeds, he deserves a badass super sword as a reward, in my opinion.

[Poindexter]

no idea what to do with this sword, i just wanted to say how much i love your player for his/her initiative and willingness to move things along, and you as a gm for allowing such a thing to happen.

Too often, people forget that our job as a gm is to figure out how to say "yes".

BIG up

[Mirikon]

Very cool idea. However, there are some problems that need to be worked out. First and foremost, True Elements are very volatile, and very unstable. Also, just being enchanted does not give the weapon the ability to withstand blows like a sword of hardened steel does, for instance. The reason alloys exist is because there are many, many, many materials that need to be mixed out of their 'pure' form to be hard enough to actually be useful. This is why you don't see pure gold anything. Gold is soft, to the point where if you made a ring out of pure gold, you could easily crush it in your hand. Even Orichalcum, which is more common and easier to work with, is still alloyed with things to keep it from being destroyed.

Second, True Elements are not benign. They don't pick friend or foe. True Fire in its pure state will burn anything and anyone it touches, or worse.

Third, note that the value of True Fire is 1.5 MILLION nuyen per unit. Doesn't say what the unit is, but we can be sure that you'd need more than one for anything more than a Swiss Army Knife, yeah? Even if you source the material yourself, and manage to keep it from breaking down before using it in a focus, you've still got millions of nuyen on hand. That IS going to catch someone's notice.

Fourth, a sword made entirely of fire, without a spirit riding in it or a spell effect sustaining it, is GOING to make news. The moment you use this thing, your Public Awareness, if nothing else, is going to start shooting up, because you've got a fragging FIRE SWORD.

But I'm not here with just doom and gloom. You can use True Elements in the making of a focus or fetish, but they won't be ENTIRELY that element. You can use up to two units of True Elements in a focus, but the effects are listed on the bottom of Page 30 of Parageology, namely, you get to pick one of four effects from a list for each unit of True Element you use. One of those effects is the ability to manifest the elemental effect at will (and it won't harm the person it is bonded to). That means if you put True Fire in a sword weapon focus, you can have it manifest fire on the blade. In game terms, this would likely convert the damage to (fire), including the secondary effects, but the stats would otherwise be unchanged.

Or, for the same effect you can use the Fire Aura spell, get an ally spirit to have a form of a flaming sword, or somehow convince a Spirit of Fire to inhabit a sword.

[OneofSorrow]

no idea what to do with this sword, i just wanted to say how much i love your player for his/her initiative and willingness to move things along, and you as a gm for allowing such a thing to happen.

Too often, people forget that our job as a gm is to figure out how to say "yes".

BIG up

The player in question is a constant source of amusement.  Alot of the team was boot strapping it to begin with, preferring to have skills and attributes over nuyen so they started out pretty strapped for gear.  This guy actually planned a heist to get gear for the team decker and sniper.  The first one was where they got the face to go in and order a expensive cyber deck from a retail store, the one you could get for a starting character, after that adept in particular spent a week of in game time tracking the trucks that do the delivery for the mall in question and some research on the driver.  The driver was boot strapping and had a wife with a baby on the way.  He used the decker to make a untraceable message that if he pulled over the vehicle are a certain gas station at a certain time he and his wife would receive a 20,000 nuyen credstick.  After making some of the rolls to see if thing go to planned the face goes in and orders the deck, they wait 24 hours and then at the drop off point they received the deck in question and trade the credstick.  The decker armed with his new deck hack the distribution center for the deck and change the manifest so that it looks like the deck never arrived at the center.  Now the team already had to put down a down payment on the deck for them to ship it, the team face had to go in and argue to get a refund from them for not delivering on time.    Second heist this guy plans was to actually go to a rich hunter who has various weapons in display cases as well as trophies he has collected.  Spent some time in and out of game with GM planning a heist to rob this guy.  Had to get the guys schedule to know when to hit him while he was away then they had to hire a chopper to get to the helipad on a LUXURY AAA pent house, so they once more had to hire a chopper pilot then they had the decker hack hotel and actually plan in the hotel a notice from the man that he was moving from items.  The decker who is a mastery of forgery had to come up with a fake shipping company and thanks to the face came up with moving uniforms.  So they all pile into the chopper with specialized containers and then fly towards the pent house and land, the decker starts to loop cameras while the pent house security lets us in, they go in and like a professional moving company steal as much expensive fire arms and use the adepts and mages to identify magical items to put in the boxes for extra cash and then pack up and leave in under three rounds.  However all did not go according to plan as the 'Hunter' as they began to call him actually noticed the deckers tampering and told them to let them do it.  He had the security use camera glasses to record their faces and after they thought they had got away ended up being hunted by this guy for sport.    They actually had to flee Seattle for Chicago to avoid this guy for awhile.

[OneofSorrow]

Yeah he discussed this with me Mirikon but he is actually kind of committed to the job.  He actually managed to get enough Ukkuru to build the blade and ran down a elven sword smith to forge a fine blade out of it and paid the smith to make a finely crafted elven jian out of it so all he lacks is the element having lined up someone to do the enchanting for the blade when he gets the primal fire and he has saved the karma to pay for the binding.  Now he needs to talk the team into doing the job and selling the 'EXCESS' primal fire they find and he has even gone so far as to secure the stuff to handle it.  These guys have been running since the start of 5th edition and have gone from boot strapping to pretty well off now.  Still I gotta list some of the dumb things he has suggested that have been vetoed. 

1. Check out the volcano of Seattle, he spent a week out there and nothing, but in his words 'I had to try, its a players duty to try the impossible. '
2. Go to hawaii and hurl insults at Pele, The Hawaiian Volcano God and hope one of the rocks that she hurls in anger is primal fire.  REALLY BAD IDEA
3. Sacrifice the Rigger to Pele.  The Rigger in question is a good guy but a bit irritating, he is always playing phone apps instead of paying attention to story.  I gave this one a MAYBE but I told him his notoriety would go up. 
4. Go to Yellow Stone and see about finding some there.  Two words, Sioux Wildcats. 

He however is hopeful, the geologist that he met in Seattle told them there are new active Volcano's in Russia. 

[Ryo]

Props to this player. I wish I had players this inventive. He deserves his Energy Aura sword. (That's still my vote for how to handle it.)

[Taejix]

Yeah, if the player is willing to go through all that trouble for his fancy toy, let it be a really cool one.

I'd say give it +1DV (because it's a flaming sword, of course it hurts more) and let it use the rules for fire damage - including the AP of either a fire spell (-Force) or a flame-based weapon (-6).

[martinchaen]

Flame based weapon sounds like a perfect modifier

[OneofSorrow]

Mentioned binding a spirit of fire to the blade today.  If he was going to pick a element he would of picked electricity but they don't have a primal lightning.   Also he didn't want to have to bargain with his blade to make it ignite or do something as well seeing how spirits in shadowrun can be ornery and temperamental at times.   

[prismite]

I do love the idea of the weapon, and I agree that the player should be rewarded for his creativity. But for me, +(force)DV and -(force)AP feels like a LOT.

I mean, put this on a Katana, and assume the guys strength is a 4, you have what... 6P, -2AP base? (my numbers might be off as I'm going off memory). Add in the bonuses proposed and you'd be at 12P, -8AP and thats BEFORE rolling or considering the burning effect that comes with all things fire.

But... in retrospect, if he has to bind the weapon (ala Weapon Focus) I could see it making sense. Just a thought.