[Mirikon]

That's only because I can't get a lightsaber for my combat mage.

[WellsIDidIt]

Well in a game where one of the core roles is Street Samurai it's a little silly not to expect Japanese weapons to get a specific shout out.

[Kot]

That's only because I can't get a lightsaber for my combat mage.

Make a Force 6 Force Blade spell, plus a Sustaining Focus made of old camera parts.

[Ghoulfodder]

What if they choose by their personal preferences, not arbitrary stats? I guess that's because if you look into it, the characters can't see stats. We can't see stats in the real world either.
Also, take into account the fact, that game rules are simplified enough to allow fast play. They can't take into account many different facts, like that a sword is pretty worthless against an axe - you can't really parry an overhead strike. The same with a spear thrust, which is also very difficult to counter... Etc. The rules are there to make combat fun. Saying "weapon x is the best stat-wise, so everyone should use it" is borderlining on munchkinism.

Unless you're using something in the sort of fencing category you can parry a spear thrust. It should be similar to a Q-staff thrust and I've parried thrusts from one of them with a tonfa / sturdy stick. "cuts" on the other hand are more challenging.

You might be able to get away with a reinforced hanging parry on a big old axe if you have a sturdy sword. So you're not opposing all the force, you're guiding it off to one side and away from you.

Brute force can often be beaten by speed, having an unstoppable two-handed waraxe isn't going to save you if someone with a foil manages to pull off a particularly big and quick lunge from out of distance. Although I wouldn't fancy giving it a go.

[PeterSmith]

Essentially, I'm trying to say that I feel very strongly that the only reason the stats are the way they are is because way too many people have a hard-on for Japanese culture and Catalyst is pandering to them.

Aside from WellsIDidIt's reply (below, for ease of locating), I'll add my own two cents:

Shadowrun always had a strong Japanese influence. Hell, the world's benchmark currency is the nuyen. The New Yen. It makes sense that things Japanese will highlighted in the game.

Well in a game where one of the core roles is Street Samurai it's a little silly not to expect Japanese weapons to get a specific shout out.

[Mirikon]

I agree with Peter. The fact is most of the megacorps originally were from Japan. Japanese corps spread Japanese culture wherever they went. In other parts of the world (Europe, Middle East, and Russia, primarily) the Japanacorps might not have much influence, and haven't spread Japanese culture as much, but in the Americas, the only places that don't have at least some Japanacorp influence would be Tir Tairngir, Aztlan, and Amazonia. The simple fact is that Japanese corps have historically (and continue to this day) had a majority in the Corporate Court, which is the body that pretty much controls how people do business. Because corporate wageslaves often adopt the corporate culture to help their careers, this means that Japanese culture spreads further. Hence the prevalence of katanas where a vibroblade sword is clearly superior, mechanically.

[Laurentius]

Cheaper than a katana, doesn't need to be turned on, and in the Core Rulebook is the monofilament sword, which is the equivalent of the katana. (STR/2+3) with AP -1 and a Reach of 1. While I agree that there is a very strong influence of the Japanese on the rest of the world, (emphasis on the currency and sammies, as stated) I don't think it's overly consuming. The fact that they're in the majority while Shadowrunners are on the fringe helps put a line of separation between the two which can be blurred or capitalized upon as a player desires. In a similar manner, you could choose to style your character after another cultural archetype or dominant cultural force such as Amer-Indian, another frequently referred to core element.

As for pandering, I think it's been a pretty consistent theme. For the game to suddenly change some of its core elements and terminology (the Japana-corps and the nuyen) would probably be received with disdain, and frankly a bit of culture shock.

[Mirikon]

Mechanically the same, but ta monofilament sword is more akin to a broadsword than a katana. Different fighting style, for people who care about such things.

[Laurentius]

It was more to address the mechanical concerns. As for fighting styles, those can be done a number of ways, fluffed usually by the player. Martial arts can help define things too. Personally, I enjoy having a multitude of blades to use, wielded in a dervish-esque fashion.

[Kat9]

My sprawl ganger is the main combat character in our Wednesday game.


Weapons of choice? Baseball bat, sledge hammer and grenades.



Batter uuuuup!

[nullnostalgia]

My sprawl ganger is the main combat character in our Wednesday game.


Weapons of choice? Baseball bat, sledge hammer and grenades.



Batter uuuuup!

Look at that! Bashed your skull in with my bat, and it's completely dry- no hair, no skull, NOTHING!

BONK!

[Mithlas]

Mechanically the same, but ta monofilament sword is more akin to a broadsword than a katana. Different fighting style, for people who care about such things.

Depends on how exactly you interpret it - when I saw 'monofilament sword' my first image was the monofilament wire sword from Larry Niven's Ringworld Engineers, which was wielded something more like an epee if I'm not mistaken. I just think that would be more likely than a wire-edged broadsword, due to cheaper construction.

I also want to point out that there's a lot of room to fudge weaponry in Shadowrun, because there are some weapons that could easily exist given Shadowrun's technology (a forearm-mounted pile driver). Or there's polearms, which were the premier weapon across the entire world from the dawn of the stone age when people started poking each other with pointed sticks until their first real competitor in the bow, which wasn't supplanted by another weapon until gunpowder firearms like the arquebus. Yet for some reason Shadowrun doesn't have spears (except as an 'exotic weapon' in S4A 315), naginatas or glaives (no, they're not exactly the same), halberds, cudgels, folding warhammers, or a variety of other things that telescoping or folding blades would still allow street sams to use with fewer concealability problems than an assault-rifle-toting gunbunny.

Some weapons also strike a lot faster than might be implied by one Complex action (nunchaku, sansetsukon, and a bo or quarterstaff wielded by a trained user), but that might be digressing.

[Laurentius]

The broadsword description is based on the description given in SR4A:

Monofilament Sword: This well-balanced broadsword features superfine monofilament wire attached to its edges.

I think there's a lot of room for determining the design aesthetic of any weapon you get though. Even more so if you personalize it.

While 'Pole Arm' is an exotic weapon in SR4A, Spear is a Blade in AR.

Spear: The spear is one of the oldest weapons known to mankind, used for hunting, war, and sports over the last 400,000 years. Nowadays, spears are used by some tribes living in Africa, South America, and Australia, and as a traditional hunting or ritual weapon by some Native Americans, but are rarely seen in modern sprawls. Traditional spears consist of a wooden pole with a spearhead made of stone, bone, metal, or sharpened and fi re-hardened wood, while modern spears are usually constructed of composite plastics or metal alloys and sometimes even have telescopic poles. A spear can also be thrown (using the Throwing Weapons skill, the range table of shuriken, and doing the same damage as in melee combat).

Cudgels and clubs are pretty similar, in my opinion. As for weapons that strike faster,

Melee combat in Shadowrun assumes that some maneuvering occurs as part of the fight. Rather than a single blow, each attack is a series of moves and counter-moves executed by those involved. Melee combat is not “I punch you and then I wait for your turn to punch me;” rather, it represents several seconds of feints, jabs, punches, counters, attacks, defends, kicks, and bites by both combatants at the same time.

Something that irks me, though, is the splitting of dice pools for using two weapons. Makes some sense to a point, since you don't want two pistols to be doing as much damage as a machine gun, but still.

[Heckle]

The broadsword description is based on the description given in SR4A:

Monofilament Sword: This well-balanced broadsword features superfine monofilament wire attached to its edges.

I think there's a lot of room for determining the design aesthetic of any weapon you get though. Even more so if you personalize it.

+1 to this. As often as I see posts regarding people wanting weapon/vehicle creation, I think many times a simple description of your weapon can suffice. How many light pistols are there that are statistically identical? Yet, just because an official book has come out with a new name for one, often without a supporting image, we accept that they are different. If I want my street sam to use some specific weapon, then I'll buy the closest thing and describe it in such a way as to make it clear. Also, and perhaps I've been fortunate here, gm's have always been open to me creating items that I've wanted, so long as they had approval of the item/process.

I think this is where the SR community shines, and how the devs have been fairly open. We want something, so we make it. And it certainly seems, off this board and community, that they listen when we talk.

This is digressing some from the original point made, but there you go. Anyway, I like melee weps in SR, and even though some people say they get no love or are under powered/broken, I guess in my experience combat has been secondary. Even though in one of my games the sprawl ganger uses a baseball bat to "negotiate". We do it in such a way that it doesn't matter what you hit em with, the best part is finding out how you GET to the hitting. So, flavor of the campaign and character overrules stats, any day, in my book.  Does that make sense, at all?

[Kat9]

With 13 dice and a 9P base for a sledge hammer, in addition to set-up and finishing move you can really lay a smackdown with melee.


Witness the crazy fight on top of a moving car between a muscle augmented human with a sledge hammer and a troll with a monosword.