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Message no. 1
From: "Steven A. Tinner" <bluewizard@*****.COM>
Subject: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:36:14 -0400
One thing that still bugs me is that there's no limb loss chart for using a
monowhip in SR.

Every work of fiction that features these nasty weapons talks about how it
just slices people into sections.
However in SR, all you get to do is minor wounds.

Anyone done up a hit location chart for a monowhip ala A_&_'s Vorpal Sword,
or Sword of Sharpness?
How about house rules for lopping off limbs?

Thanks.

Steven A. Tinner
bluewizard@*****.com
http://www.ncweb.com/users/bluewizard
"FREE FRANCIS BEAN!"
Message no. 2
From: Swordman <swordman@******.NET>
Subject: Re: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:34:57 -0500
Steven A. Tinner wrote:

> Anyone done up a hit location chart for a monowhip ala A_&_'s Vorpal Sword,
> or Sword of Sharpness?
> How about house rules for lopping off limbs?
Seeing as how our group doesn't "make up" house rules, only find ways of
looking at the rules to see where the puzzle links up and append and
needed.
Page 113, SRII.
Deadly Wounds and Permanent Damage states that if a character suffers a
Deadly wound even after soaking there is a chance that a limb may become
dammaged and need replacing.
If one of our team calls a shot (+4 TN)
ex "Cut his arm off with the Katana."
"Shot him in the leg."
If a deadly wound is scored not only is the target dying but we just
skip the roll and rule it as if a failure
ex "You slice off not only his arm but most of his shoulder and ribs..."
"You blow his clean leg off near the hip"
Usualy the PC's don't throw hand fulls of dice into the attack hoping
not to do such damage, but it happens.
If any kind of wound is scored I have them make a body test using the
Wound Table on page 113 using the system of Deadly Wounds and Permanent
Damage on the bottom of 113, top of 114.
ex A serous wound the guy loses his his arm near the elbow and is in
pain but consious...
Message no. 3
From: John E Pederson <lobo1@****.COM>
Subject: Re: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 14:46:41 EDT
On Thu, 31 Jul 1997 13:36:14 -0400 "Steven A. Tinner"
<bluewizard@*****.COM> writes:
>One thing that still bugs me is that there's no limb loss chart for
>using a
>monowhip in SR.
>
>Every work of fiction that features these nasty weapons talks about
>how it
>just slices people into sections.
>However in SR, all you get to do is minor wounds.


Not so. It does 10S, with half impact armor. You only need two successes
to stage it up to Deadly (and thus risk limb loss) and it's not
particularly hard to get more successes than the defender can manage on
the Damage resistance test. I could certainly see making the thing
longer, though. Three feet (that's one meter for you metric folks:) seems
a bit, well, short for a whip. 4 to 5 ft might be more appropriate . . .
That'd get you more of a reach advantage and lower your TN for the melee
test, make it a bit easier to get successes. After that, let the Deadly
wound stuff do it's job. If you really feel like it's necessary, give a
+1 or +2 or something when rolling on that test to see if the guy got his
arm/leg/tentacle/whatever lopped off.


--
-Canthros (gee, I thought this was what fudging rolls was for:)
I had rather believe all the fables in the legends and the Talmud
and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.
--Francis Bacon
http://members.aol.com/canthros1
Message no. 4
From: "Mark A. Imbriaco" <mark@******.NET>
Subject: Re: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 15:20:04 -0400
On Thu, 31 Jul 1997, John E Pederson wrote:

> Not so. It does 10S, with half impact armor. You only need two successes
> to stage it up to Deadly (and thus risk limb loss) and it's not
> particularly hard to get more successes than the defender can manage on
> the Damage resistance test. I could certainly see making the thing
> longer, though. Three feet (that's one meter for you metric folks:) seems
> a bit, well, short for a whip. 4 to 5 ft might be more appropriate . . .
> That'd get you more of a reach advantage and lower your TN for the melee
> test, make it a bit easier to get successes. After that, let the Deadly
> wound stuff do it's job. If you really feel like it's necessary, give a
> +1 or +2 or something when rolling on that test to see if the guy got his
> arm/leg/tentacle/whatever lopped off.

I don't know .. I'd think that the melee test would become
more difficult as the monowhip got longer, simply because the
longer it is, the harder it is to control. I'd also stick
in some more dire fumble rules than the rule of one, to put
in the nasty probab .. err .. possibilty of cutting off one
of your own limbs. <EG>

-Mark
Message no. 5
From: Craig J Wilhelm Jr <craigjwjr@*********.NET>
Subject: Re: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 15:21:59 -0400
John E Pederson wrote:

> Not so. It does 10S, with half impact armor. You only need two successes
> to stage it up to Deadly (and thus risk limb loss) and it's not
> particularly hard to get more successes than the defender can manage on
> the Damage resistance test.

That and it works off of 1/2 impact armor (IIRC). It aint to hard to
shred some one with these things. I have a physad in my game who's
specialty is paired mono-whips, the rest of the characters give him mad
respect for the ammount of damage he can do close up. He's even gained a
few nicknames on the streets: Chopshop Charley, Sergeant Slice, and
Butcherblock Bob.

> I could certainly see making the thing
> longer, though. Three feet (that's one meter for you metric folks:) seems
> a bit, well, short for a whip. 4 to 5 ft might be more appropriate . . .

It's got a reach of 2, that's 2 meters, long enough for me.
--
Craig J Wilhelm Jr

Reality is nothing but a refuge for those who can't handle role-playing.

http://home.earthlink.net/~craigjwjr/

ICQ UIN: 1864690

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Message no. 6
From: "Wendy Wanders, Subject 117" <KGGEWEHR@******.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU>
Subject: Re: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 18:58:22 -0500
> Anyone done up a hit location chart for a monowhip ala A_&_'s Vorpal Sword,
> or Sword of Sharpness?
> How about house rules for lopping off limbs?

Umm, look at it this way, Monowhip is a dangerous weapon, look at its Reach and
damage base. If it does a Deadly weapon, the rules already account for
organ/limb damage. If it doesn't, figure it's a pretty glancing hit, only
nicked an arm or something. SR's damage system is vague, if you add things
like this, you have to remove the abstraction and treat *all* weapons like you
suggest doing for the Monowhip.

losthalo
Message no. 7
From: George Metz <W0lfstar@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 20:57:48 -0400
In a message dated 97-07-31 20:39:20 EDT, you write:

> One thing that still bugs me is that there's no limb loss chart for using a
> monowhip in SR.
>
> Every work of fiction that features these nasty weapons talks about how it
> just slices people into sections.
> However in SR, all you get to do is minor wounds.
>
> Anyone done up a hit location chart for a monowhip ala A_&_'s Vorpal
Sword,
> or Sword of Sharpness?

I would think that you could use a normal hit location chart(There's one
buried somewhere on the Shadowrun Archive somewhere, it's a .bmp file), and
you can get pretty descriptive from there.

Wolfstar
Message no. 8
From: Doc <wacansler@*******.EDU>
Subject: Re: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 20:11:15 -0500
On Thu, 31 Jul 1997, George Metz wrote:

> In a message dated 97-07-31 20:39:20 EDT, you write:
>
> > One thing that still bugs me is that there's no limb loss chart for using a
> > monowhip in SR.
> >
> > Every work of fiction that features these nasty weapons talks about how it
> > just slices people into sections.
> > However in SR, all you get to do is minor wounds.
> >
> > Anyone done up a hit location chart for a monowhip ala A_&_'s Vorpal
> Sword,
> > or Sword of Sharpness?
>
> I would think that you could use a normal hit location chart(There's one
> buried somewhere on the Shadowrun Archive somewhere, it's a .bmp file), and
> you can get pretty descriptive from there.
>
> Wolfstar
>

what are the full stats for the vorpal monowhip???

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Message no. 9
From: John E Pederson <lobo1@****.COM>
Subject: Re: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 21:33:00 EDT
On Thu, 31 Jul 1997 20:11:15 -0500 Doc <wacansler@*******.EDU> writes:

>what are the full stats for the vorpal monowhip???


There are none. "Vorpal Monowhip" just happened to be the title Steve
Tinner chose for the message, as it dealt with SR's monowhip and the
Vorpal blade from AD&D.


--
-Canthros
I had rather believe all the fables in the legends and the Talmud
and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.
--Francis Bacon
http://members.aol.com/canthros1
Message no. 10
From: Craig J Wilhelm Jr <craigjwjr@*********.NET>
Subject: Re: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 00:18:37 -0400
Martin, I got your message, but your mail server spit it back to me,
saying "We Don't Accept Spam". My was server recently fixed to keep
people from bouncing mail off of it for spamming purposes, and I guess
it hasn't been taken off the black list of some servers (including
yours). Therefore I decided to send my reply to the list. Hope no one
minds. At least it's on topic!

MARTIN E. GOTTHARD wrote:
> Hmmmm...... Do you get offhand penalties for the paired 'whips ??? It'd
> seem to me that swinging a pair of two meter long flexible things that you
> can't see would b a trifle difficult.

I though this too. When my player came to me with the idea for
this
character I thought he was nuts. I told him it would be like standing in
the center of a mono-molecular blender and that the chances of the whips
getting tangled up was quite high unless he was exceptionally skilled.
He wasn't concerned with penalties, he just thought it would
look cool,
which I kind of agreed with. So he went off into the other room to
create his monster, and came back with a shit eating grin on his face.
He put 6 skill points and 3 magic points on Armed Combat (total armed
combat 12... ARHG!) and 1 skill point on his two weapon skill. I use the
Second Weapon in Melee rules from FOF, so with the use of only one
Combat Pool die, he ends up rolling 25 dice for his attack. He still has
the normal penalties for using two weapons, and I arbitrarily gave him
an additional +1 to his T#'s when using both whips.
Yes, I know how disgustingly munchie that sounds, but that's
where his
combat forte is, up close (lemme tell you, he was hellacious in Bug
City. He himself killed dozens of bugs, nobody else even came close to
the number of kills). He sucks with Firearms (compared to the sammie in
the group). He's not really a munch, he's a great role-player, and this
characters real job/function is that of a fixer who goes along on runs
to make sure they get done right. The vast majority of his abilities are
social skills.

Peace!
--
Craig J Wilhelm Jr

Reality is nothing but a refuge for those who can't handle role-playing.

http://home.earthlink.net/~craigjwjr/

ICQ UIN: 1864690

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Message no. 11
From: TopCat <topcat@***.NET>
Subject: Re: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 03:25:37 -0500
At sometime, someday, someone wrote:
> How about house rules for lopping off limbs?

If you want limbs lopped off, say they get lopped off. Charts and tables
aren't needed for everything. Next thing you know we'll be using some
quasi-mysical alignment of stars, skills, stats, and die rolls which'll make
the Mythos rules look easy.

Use some imagination, people... everything doesn't have to be defined hard
and fast (though the more defined a combat system becomes, the slower it
gets). True enjoyment of gaming comes from imagination. At least for me...

Do you really want some chart to tell you that you shot your target 3 inches
below his right hip, the bullet didn't fully penetrate and is lodged just to
the left side of the femur, your target's movement is now decreased as is
the effectiveness of all kicking maneuvers by a factor equal to the square
root of the power of the bullet...etc?

Basically, should the monowhip ever do a wound capable of causing limb loss,
then use your imagination and come up with a result. Reading "right arm"
off of some chart doesn't do near as much for the feel of a game as what you
can come up with off of the top of your head... e.g. "You duck his clumsy
lunge and flick your wrist, sending the monowhip into a spiral around his
outstretched arm. Yanking back on the handle, the spiral of monofilament
tightens... you hear several wet thuds behind you and feel the wet spray of
blood across the back of your neck." etcetera...

Or, if your players possess a great deal of imagination of their own, let
them say what happened based on the wound. Regardless, you'll get more
without using a chart in this case than you would if you chose to do so.
--
Bob Ooton
topcat@***.net
Message no. 12
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@****.ORG>
Subject: Re: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 11:50:25 -0600
George Metz wrote:
|
| I would think that you could use a normal hit location chart(There's one
| buried somewhere on the Shadowrun Archive somewhere, it's a .bmp file), and
| you can get pretty descriptive from there.

I'd go with BattleTech's location charts. But role the location
*after* damage has been decided, then use your judgement to decide
what the effects are. Don't use a hit location table to influence
damage, it doesn't mix with SR's system.

I'm going to start using a damage location table just to let the
players now where their characters get hit for roleplaying purposes,
and to help define the effects of Deadly wounds. If they take a
Deadly wound and it ends up in the arm, and they fail their Body
test, then I know which arm gets taken off.

-David
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
--
"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing
which ones to keep."
Message no. 13
From: George Metz <W0lfstar@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 15:06:13 -0400
In a message dated 97-08-01 07:37:31 EDT, you write:

> Do you really want some chart to tell you that you shot your target 3
> inches
> below his right hip, the bullet didn't fully penetrate and is lodged just
to
> the left side of the femur, your target's movement is now decreased as is
> the effectiveness of all kicking maneuvers by a factor equal to the square
> root of the power of the bullet...etc?

OF COURSE I DO! That's why I play Rolemaster.... =) Seriously, that's the
best part of SR, it's realistic beyond expectations and it doesn't take an
hour to resolve the first attack.

> Basically, should the monowhip ever do a wound capable of causing limb
loss,
> then use your imagination and come up with a result. Reading "right arm"
> off of some chart doesn't do near as much for the feel of a game as what
you
> can come up with off of the top of your head.

I dunno, Warhammer FRP had some really extensive charts that were quick to
use and incredibly descriptive; "Your <insert weapon here> comes crashing
down as your opponent steps sideways. The blow glances off of his shoulder,
hitting his arm again at the wrist, lopping his hand off in a fountain of
gore." And that was the milder critical hits. Instant death was REALLY neat,
but that's because the british have a lovely tendency towards bloody
roleplaying. =)

Wolfstar
Message no. 14
From: George Metz <W0lfstar@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Vorpal Monowhip
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 16:20:49 -0400
In a message dated 97-08-01 13:50:08 EDT, you write:

> Don't use a hit location table to influence
> damage, it doesn't mix with SR's system.
>
> I'm going to start using a damage location table just to let the
> players now where their characters get hit for roleplaying purposes,
> and to help define the effects of Deadly wounds. If they take a
> Deadly wound and it ends up in the arm, and they fail their Body
> test, then I know which arm gets taken off.

The one I mentioned in the Archive is a Damage location chart: "If the wound
is this Damage Level, then you were hit here, here, or here." It's pretty
useful and straightforward, but it's color-coded, so I hope you've got a
color printer...

Wolfstar

Further Reading

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