Yeah, and also it can go from sword to whip, and then break into a cloud individual of flying blades to attack them! ;)

The core book mentions it as "smart material" I think (I am sure the Reaper's description includes those words). It's no big deal what they said... but it would be homebrew. Eclipse Phase is not a game about blades and melee, but guns, guts and smarts. Personally, I don't really like the Fury much, I think it's too expensive for what it gives. An Olympian seems to have a much better cost/benefit ratio, or a Steel Morph. Oh, and just a small appreciation: the only character background who really beneficts from the "expert" trait is the AGI with any of the four he pays at half price, for everybody else is losing 10 CP compared to everybody else. Also, you cannot reach 100% in a skill, since the dice goes from 00 (always a critical success) to 99 (always a botch), so having 100% only helps you compensate for penalizers. And believe me, unless you are really stealthy, what you will get is a full salvo of Shredders before you reach your target. And 3d10+ tend to hurt llike hell...

Though guns are the most frequent and frequently the most effective ways to inflict grievous bodily harm in EP, there is much to be said in favor of blades. Provided you plan ahead, spend skills, and wear enough armor so you can get in close safely and reliably they can be more effective than guns. A few points in their favor: - Many habs - especially non-terrestrial ones - restrict slug throwers and explosives in some way due to the potential for collateral damage. Even places with very tight gun laws are often pretty lax about blades, so it's easy to remain armed at all times. Even better, if you produce a blade from a smart material that has a "safe" base state you should be able to walk around anywhere with your preferred deadly weapon near to hand. - In some situations blades may be generally more useful or effective than guns. If you have a bit of Knowledge: Anatomy, Morph Design, or Engineering you could easily debilitate someone without necessarily killing them or even otherwise causing them serious injury. In environments where exposure to the atmosphere (or lack thereof) can be a hazard a long cut across a vacsuit could be more deadly and much harder to fix than a small puncture from a bullet. - Blades are by nature quiet and much subtler than guns. Palming the weapon and stabbing someone unsuspecting might give you just a few seconds' advantage from being picked up by security minders as having made an assault, and that round or two could prove critical in accomplishing what you want and/or making a getaway. - Due to the close-in nature of melee combat you don't have to worry about many of the range and condition penalties that can jeopardize successful hits with projectile weapons. So far as the original question about mods, take a closer look at the wasp knife and the many varied and unusual drugs and toxins that it can be used to introduce. A brace of two or three pre-loaded with the right accessory can help you easily and quickly incapacitate or at the bare minimum seriously inconvenience targets with one successful hit each.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:

Blades are also a far more common improvised weapons, for all those times you're dumped in a morph (or hab) without any equipment.

I prefer clubs for this exact reason. For when you have your equipment, you have dual wielding shock batons (which are amazing against biomorphs). When you don't, a piece of rebar will do.

I know this is a random, trivial tangent, but I'd wager there's a host of reasons electric knives are relatively uncommon. :)

Re-Laborat wrote:

Yerameyahu wrote:

I know this is a random, trivial tangent, but I'd wager there's a host of reasons electric knives are relatively uncommon. :)

Yeah, but most of them (power density, tensile strength of the thinner blades) can be handwaved with EP tech. The big thing is that in a stab or quick slash they just really don't [u]do[/u] much more than a normal blade.

To be fair, the in-game vibroblades follow that. They are worse than a monofilament unless you are carefully sawing through the target.

CodeBreaker wrote:

To be fair, the in-game vibroblades follow that. They are worse than a monofilament unless you are carefully sawing through the target.

Yes, and I definitely appreciate that note. My point wasn't meant to attack how the game handles them but more an observation on "hard" limitations.

Xagroth][quote=Re-Laborat wrote:

Wasn't the no-dachi made to cut from head to toe a mounted enemy? (With the horse!) I might be confused about the name, however, but I'm fairly sure I read somewhere about that... ^^

That's popular myth, to go alongside Richard cleaving an anvil with an English longsword and Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn letting a silk fall to cut itself against his sword, any number of 'cleaved through five men at a stroke' stories and similar "our weapons are more badass than yours" legendaria/propaganda. (Still happens today. See also: our (nukes/tanks/aircraft electronics) are better than yours.) The reality is less prosaic; they were horse-killers, meant to spill mounted warriors from a suddenly legless horse. As such they were specialized weapons with specialized roles, not unlike the landsknecht doppelsoldner's zweihander or flamberge. Quite effective mankillers, sure, but specialist weapons with a different primary role from the standard infantry blade. Usually carried by well-paid professionals who accrued their own boastful legends. "Its an eighty-eight magnum. I had it made special. It shoots, through schools."

Yeah, it's nasty... but it's a one use knife, also, and very big compared to ammo for your kinetic rifle or the shredder... Also, the explosion will make some noise (not much, but some), and it requires the blade to cause actual damage to the morph before applying the effects you describe. So if for example you throw the knife or use it to attack and you don't penetrate the armor... Mesh signals to activate the detonation are also a possibility, of course. And timers. Sadly, synthmorphs will prove to require a nanotech version of the venoms, and put some nasty variations depending of where the knife goes in ("in the leg? like I care..."); also, synthmorphs would be able to "turn off" the pain with ease, and not have the Stress Damage of watching part of their morph exploding from the inside plus all the gruesome innards flying around, painting everything red...