Forums of the Megaverse®

there is much precident in the books for silver plated vibra blades, it costs about 200 more credits and deals damage like a normal weapon of its type. Have fun.

They HAVE silver-plated vibro blades in one of the books

Josh Hilden wrote:I would rule you could impregnate the vibroblade with silver.

[snicker]

He said impregnate.

[/snicker]


8p

The vibro part doesn't damage the vampire, infact it heals immediately after the v-blade touches it.

It could further be argued, that since it doesn't take any damage from the vibro part (the vamp heals immediately after the vibro part passes through it), that the silve part never really does anything except touch the vampire, slightly before it heals..which might not even deal any damage.

Am I misunderstanding something? I thought Vibroblades did damage by the energy surrounding the blade so it could do Mega Damage. Another words, the blade does not actually touch the target, but the energy contacts the target and does the damage. So how does the Vibroblade Weapon do damage to vampires unless the blade is intermittently turned off?

Meh, maybe I'm thinking about it too technically.

TheDarkSaint wrote:From my understanding of how vibro weapons work in Rifts, the "blade" is covered with an energy sheath that allows it to do mega damage.

How would you guys make the ruling if a PC wanted to get a silver knife and convert it into a vibro weapon, the thought being that you could fight vampires with it off and inflict mega damage when it is on.

My gut instinct is to say no, that the blade is going to need to be a special material to act as a conduit for the energy, but I'm interested in your thoughts.

The vibration of the blade does the MD cutting damage. Not some 'energy feild', if you call the said 'energy feild' a 'vibrational resonence feild' that would be closer to accurate. But the blade has to be specilly made for V-blades ot withstand the forces placed on it by the vibrations. (can you say MDC?) So while you could plate the V-blade with silver, it would be vibrated off the 1st time you turned the blade on. So no turning that silver knife into a v-blade.....it would just be shaken apart in to ittiy-bitty-peices the 1st time you turned it on.

The naruni probibly do something like moleculerly bond the silver to the blade to withstand the shaking.

gadrin wrote:I agree with you. I think Phase Swords in Phase World work the same way, they cloak the blade.

Of course it might change depending on how Whiny the player is.

"But, but, but...I've researched thoroughly that the blade can..."

"Yeah, ok, shut-up...the Vampire activates his Kittani Plasma Harness. As you can see by the Splynn book p164, it protects him completely from Silver weapons..."

Yes, you could make a silver or silver plated blade for a Phase-sword, becasue the "Phase effect" is produced by the hilt. The tricky part would be replacing the blade part w/o damaging the Phase parts in the hilt.

Drewkitty - The RMB book (happen to have it with me today) states:

All vibro-blades are blade weapons surrounded by an invisible high frequency energy field that gives them mega-damage capabilities.

RMB pg 205. From this, the energy field is doing the cutting, not the actual blade.

Edit: I'm not sure what is stated in RUE, it may be revised in there.

Snuffy wrote:Drewkitty - The RMB book (happen to have it with me today) states:

All vibro-blades are blade weapons surrounded by an that gives them mega-damage capabilities.

RMB pg 205. From this, the energy field is doing the cutting, not the actual blade.

Edit: I'm not sure what is stated in RUE, it may be revised in there.

'vibrational resonence feild'=invisible high frequency energy field

Happy?, its just that RUE dumbed it down.

Not sure how the rule states it, but I always took the "field" around the blade to be twofold:

First, the vibration of the blade (think something akin to a jackhammer that meets and electric knife like they used to sell for carving turkeys) creates a resonance field. This provides the cutting power, as the super sharp blade is now vibrating at a ultra high frequency (like 100,000 cycles per second and less than 5 nanometers in distance); cutting occurs if you just set the edge on a surface and let gravity pull the blade down, because on the most microscopic level it is "sawing" through the target material.

Secondly, the high frequency of this field comes from the application of a magnetic field that is basically flipping it's polarity 100,000 times per second, and that powerful magnetic field has its own side effects, similar to the magnetic field "bottle" surrounding plasma lances and the like (in fact, I ruled the plasma lance to be a derivative technology of the vibroblade, because it stood to reason that some joker figured out the "field" surrounding the vibroblade was strong enough to contain plasma as well and installed the plasma source in the grip of the weapon or via attached power lines).

So the cutting itself is a result of the surface of the vibrating blade touching a target, and the ability to parry energy blasts and other mega damage attacks is from the combination of the MDC materials they use in the construction of the blade, and the magnetic field harmonics that make the blade to vibrate in the first place.

Also, I ruled that vibroweapons are not silent, but when activated give off a barely audible hum (by human standards, dog boys can hear them from 1000 feet away) and actually increase in volume and pitch when used against increasingly harder materials. Cutting an unarmored human being is barely louder than the standard hum (and the blade passes through flesh like a lightsaber), but attacking MDC armor is as loud as a bandsaw cutting through sheet steel for as long as the blade is in contact (not even a second for a slash, but ongoing if you are "sawing" through a stationary target).

Then again, I have no clue how you would make a blade of SDC silver a vibroweapon, as silver is not even 1/4 as strong as iron, let alone steel or mega damage alloys.

Hope this helps!

D.

Since vampires cannot be harmed by a reagular Vibro-Blade attack. I rule that vampires cannot take damage from the MD vibration part of the Silver Vibro weapon, only the silver does damage as a normal non-vibro silver blade of that size.

Evil Psychologist wrote:It seems to me that silver would be incompatible with the technology, and being such a soft metal it would probably warp or shatter after a smack or two under the stress.

Keeping a few extra silver daggers for special occasions isn't much of a hassle for any character.

...snip

You are correct, silver is too soft to be used in/on a vibro-blade of any sort.

drewkitty ^..^ wrote:

Evil Psychologist wrote:It seems to me that silver would be incompatible with the technology, and being such a soft metal it would probably warp or shatter after a smack or two under the stress.

Keeping a few extra silver daggers for special occasions isn't much of a hassle for any character.

...snip

You are correct, silver is too soft to be used in/on a vibro-blade of any sort.

I do agree that you can not make one out of only silver as your reasons stated.

But, silver vibro-blade weapons are offered in a couple of books as stated in earlier posts. So, the technology does exist to inbue a vibroblade with silver so it doesn't shatter or "vibrate off."

Snuffy wrote:Drewkitty - The RMB book (happen to have it with me today) states:

All vibro-blades are blade weapons surrounded by an invisible high frequency energy field that gives them mega-damage capabilities.

RMB pg 205. From this, the energy field is doing the cutting, not the actual blade.

Edit: I'm not sure what is stated in RUE, it may be revised in there.

The book is wrong there.

Honestly, I think Daikuma's explanation makes the most sense. It's also kind of make sense in the way it compromises between both camps of vibro-blade operation.

That being said, who's to say that they haven't developed some kind of silver alloy that's MD-capable. One question this brings up is whether a silver alloy has the same or similar effects on those sensitive to it...

jackylcale wrote:Can't remember what book, but I read yesterday somewhere about some kind of silver plated vibroblade.

I think someone brought it up already, but wouldn't the whole "vibration" thing kind of un-plate the silver real fast?

i have allowed silver vibro weapons in the past as a Gm, but with the stipulation that in order to work against vamps and the like the vibro feature must be turned off, making it a regular sivler weapon.. which damages even MD beings that are vulnerable to it. but in a normal fight the vibro could be activated and it becomes a normal vibro weapon again.

Icemaster109 wrote:In Naruni Wave 2 it says that their ripper vibro blades are all standard with silver coating for use against undead. So vibro weapons can be silver coated.

I know it says it, just never bought it....