A clarification on what counts as "unarmed" is required for the Killing Hands adept power (core rulebook, page 310), the Bone Lacing augmentation (core rulebook 454), Bone Density Augmentation (core, 459), Elemental Strike (Street Grimoire, 170), and Penetrating Strike (Street Grimoire, 173).
The confusion is over whether "unarmed" means any attack using the Unarmed Combat skill, and what of these things can stack with each other or other weapons that use the Unarmed Combat skill.
For instance; can you use Elemental Strike with a "Knucks" weapon? Does Bone Lacing or Bone Density Augmentation increase damage done with knucks? What about implanted weapons? Can you use Penetrating Strike with cyber spurs or a biospike?
First order of clarification:Unarmed Combat Unarmed Combat covers the various self-defense and attack moves that employ the
body as a primary weapon. This includes a wide array of martial arts along with the use of cybernetic implant weaponry and the fighting styles that sprung up around those implants.
Default: Yes
Skill Group: Close Combat
Specializations: Blocking, Cyber Implants, Subduing Combat, or by specific Martial Art
Second order of clarification:Knucks: (found immediately under the section 'Other Melee Weapons') These may be traditional fist-load weapons like brass knuckles, or modern “Hardliner gloves” with a thin layer of densiplast located along the knuckles and the edge of the hand. Either way they substantially boost the impact of a punch, making it potentially deadly. Attacks with knucks use the Unarmed Combat skill.
If you are still confused by this, NOTE the part of
Other Melee Weapons These weapons require skills other than Blades or Clubs to use. (pg 422 Gear Listing); aka It
IS a melee weapon; but, uses the unarmed combat skill for purposes of skill dice.
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Third Order of clarification:Bodyware covers the goods to make you stronger, faster, better protected, and altogether more robotic, if that’s your thing. Bodyware cannot be installed into cyberlimbs unless it has a Capacity cost [in brackets]. Bodyware with a Capacity cost can be installed in cyberlimbs, costing capacity rather than Essence.
Bone lacing: Your bones are laced with lattice chains of reinforcing plastics or metals, improving their integrity and tensile strength (and adding to your body’s overall weight). Bone lacing comes in three types: plastic, aluminum, and titanium — you can only have one installed at a time. It gives you extra Body for resisting physical damage, a little Armor (cumulative with other Armor, without adding to Encumbrance), and changes your unarmed combat damage, all listed in the Bone Lacing table. Bone lacing is incompatible with other augmentations that add to or alter your bones (such as bone density augmentation).
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Bioware is subtler, more holistic, and less invasive than cyberware, at the cost of being substantially pricier. Instead of replacing body parts with machines, bioware augments the body’s own functions and integrates transplanted organs that function as natural features. The application of biotechnology is a tricky business, as the fine balance of homeostasis between the body’s organic systems must be maintained. In the last decade, bionics and bio-engineering techniques have taken bioware from cutting edge to commonplace. Bioware is more expensive monetarily, costs less Essence, and is much harder to spot. Also—and we’d like to think this goes without saying— bioware has no wireless capability at all
Bone density augmentation: The molecular structure of your bones is altered to increase density and tensile strength. Ligaments are strengthened, and the increased bone density increases your weight a bit. Your Body attribute is increased by the bone density Rating for the purpose of damage resistance tests. You also deal Physical damage in unarmed combat, based on the Rating of the augmentation (see the Bone Density Augmentation table). Bone density augmentation is incompatible with other augmentations to the bones, including bone lacing cyberware.
In case the above descriptions from the books are still unclear : You can
NOT have both Bioware and Cyberware at the same time. BIOware uses your body
without replacing the whole thing. CYBERware replaces the whole thing.
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Adept PowersKilling Hands Cost: 0.5 PP
Activation: Free Action
This power lets you inflict lethal damage with your unarmed attacks. When inflicting damage on the target of an unarmed attack, you may choose whether to cause Stun or Physical damage. Killing Hands may be combined with other adept powers that increase unarmed damage. Your Killing Hands attacks are magical, so they can bypass a creature’s magical defenses against attack, such as the Immunity to Normal Weapons power, and may be used by adepts with Astral Perception during astral combat.
ELEMENTAL STRIKE COST: 0.5 PP
ACTIVATION: SIMPLE ACTION
PREREQUISITES: KILLING HANDS
Elemental Strike enhances the damage caused by an unarmed Killing Hands strike by channeling an elemental effect into the attack. Activating this power requires a Simple Action and the effect remains active for (Magic) Combat Turns or until the adept deactivates it with. Free Action or is rendered unconscious. While active, the chosen elemental effect wreathes the hand, foot, or other body part the adept uses to strike. Only one effect can be used at a time and can’t be combined with any other adept striking power except Killing Hands. Each elemental effect must be purchased as a separate power.
PENETRATING STRIKE COST: 0.25 PP PER LEVEL (MAX 4)
This ability allows an adept to focus and project an unarmed 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.**EDIT 2**
Base in the part of Unarmed combat, any Implants that are not considered a melee weapon count, if the word melee is uses at any point then it will not apply. CYBERARMS are unarmed, the blades or other weapons are NOT.
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**EDIT 1**
Forgot this part:
Cyber melee weapons: For a quarter of a century now, cyber-implant melee weapons have been the classic, favored toys of razor guys, from street muscle to professional urban samurai. They are available as cyberarm upgrades, but can also be installed directly into the flesh. Cyber weapons can be readied via muscle flexture, neural impulse, or wireless signal. Attacks with cyber melee weapons use Unarmed Combat skill and the Physical limit.
Hand razors are blades two to three centimeters long, made of chromed steel or carbon fiber. They either slide out from beneath your fingernails or replace them entirely. Hand blades slip out the side of the hand opposite the thumb, parallel to the hand, and while they are universally thin and sharp, they come in a variety of shapes and styles.
Spurs are one to three blades or spikes protruding from the back of your wrist or your knuckles, sticking out from your fist as much as thirty centimeters. The shock hand is like a shock glove built into the palm of your hand, perfect for inflicting a nasty shock to anything it comes into contact with. Shock hands deal Electricity damage (p. 170) and have ten charges in each hand; when plugged in they recharge at a rate of one charge per ten seconds.
I could not find anything about a BIOSPIKE so I will have to assume you are still referring to the Cyber melee weapons.
Here is more info about Cyberlimbs:
Cyberlimbs
In today’s world of transplant-friendly bioware, the use of cyberlimbs is sometimes viewed as crude and outdated. On the other hand, they are cheap and easy to service and upgrade, so in the end they became even more popular for the less fortunate. Since cyberlimbs are more capable than most natural limbs, and you can load them up with all sorts of wiz tech, this kind of cyberware has stayed in high demand.
Cyberskulls and –torsos are included in the “cyberlimbs” category, though they are in fact shells rather than full replacements (or actual limbs).
Cyberlimbs have their own Strength and Agility ratings. When a particular limb is used for a test (such as leading an attack with your cyberarm), use the attribute for that limb (natural or cyber); in any other case, take the average value of all limbs involved in the task. If a task requires the careful coordination of several limbs, use the value of the weakest limb. The attributes of partial limbs (including cyberhands and –feet) may be enhanced, but their attributes only apply for tests directly involving those limbs (such as a Strength Test when gripping something with an enhanced cyberhand). Cyberlimbs cannot hold any bioware, nor any cyber-implants that take up Essence rather than Capacity. Essence cost, Capacity, and other stats can be found on the Cyberlimb table. Cyberlimbs have other useful features. They give you 1 extra damage box on your Physical Condition Monitor for each cyberlimb you possess (ignore hands and feet, and partial limbs count for half a limb). They have Capacity, letting you add cyberweapons and other cyber systems that have a Capacity cost [in brackets]. They can perform at superhuman levels with the right enhancements. Cyberlimbs can be dangerous even if they don’t have cyberweapons installed— their unarmed Damage Value is (STR)P.
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I hope the clarified your points of confusion. If not, please let me know.
*I was not trying to be rude by using the quotes or bold letters and underlines, it is just to highlight the parts that clarify your questions.
Sincerely,
BetaVirus