Injection Weapons: how do they work?

[Enoren]

Hello everyone, I'm fairly new to the game and I'm currently playing a biohacker, which gives me the proficiency in all injection weapons, so I choosed a Needler Rifle(Tactical) and saw it can hold 14 darts and shoots them one by one.
Great, now I search the darts and I find out that they are sold empty and then you can fill them with poisons, medicines and such.
So what happens if I load my rifle with darts filled with different fluids? Let's say 10 of them are empty, 1 is a drug, 1 is a medicine, 1 is poison A and 1 is poison B.
How do I choose which one I shoot when I use the rifle? I find that the "realistic" answer would be that I have to write down the sequence of the darts in the order i put them in the magazine(?), but I feel like this can't seriously be in the game design, I mean... that would be awful to keep track.
So I don't really know how this works, any help?

Also, the biohacker page states:

Quote:

You can deliver any biohack you create with any attack from an injection weapon. You must declare prior to the attack roll that you are using a biohack and specify which effect you are using, but you select and apply the biohack as part of the action used to make the attack. You do not need to preload your weapon with biohacks.

So what if the dart I'm supposed to use (assuming I can't choose) is not empty but filled with something else? I add the biohack effect or it overwrites the poison in the dart?

Thank you.

[Pantshandshake]

Biohacker, Injection Expert Class ability, spoilered for length:

Spoiler:

Injection Expert (Ex) - 1st Level
You are proficient with weapons with the injection weapon special property, as long as the weapon has not gained that weapon special property through a weapon fusion, spell, class feature, or similar ability or effect. At 2nd level, you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls with these weapons. At 9th level, that bonus increases to +2, and at 18th level it increases to +3.

When you hit an ally with such a weapon, you can avoid dealing damage to that ally, while still affecting the ally with the biohack booster or inhibitor, drug, medicinal compound, poison, serum, or other substance that was loaded into the injection weapon. When you fire a weapon with the injection special property and you have multiple types of ammunition loaded into the weapon, you choose which type of ammunition you fire when you attempt the attack.

As to your first question, I don't think that you can inject two things from one piece of ammo, though I'm not 100% on that. As to whether a biohack fails or overwrites another kind of injectable, if I'm right that you can't inject two things at once, I'd say the biohack fails but you don't lose a usage of it.

[Enoren]

Thank you for the reply but i never talked about adding 2 things in a single ammo (this is obviously against the rules), read it again.

[BigNorseWolf]

The injection expert class ability covers this.

When you fire a weapon with the injection special property and you have multiple types of ammunition loaded into the weapon, you choose which type of ammunition you fire when you attempt the attack.

So a biohacker can fire any dart they want at any time. A non biohacker would probably have to declare their order in the chamber/magazine.

How you flavor that is up to you. For my two gun old geezer, she just has revolvers with transparent aluminum cylinders and spins them around. You could also have a judge dread styled talkinig ammo, or maybe a toggle switch on the underside of the barrel for stun.

[Pantshandshake]

Enoren wrote:

Thank you for the reply but i never talked about adding 2 things in a single ammo (this is obviously against the rules), read it again.

First, no snark: You asked what would happen if you had an injectable already loaded and wanted to use a biohack with that projectile. (specifically, your words were "So what if the dart I'm supposed to use (assuming I can't choose) is not empty but filled with something else? I add the biohack effect or it overwrites the poison in the dart?"

My guess is that you can't inject two things at once, so the biohack fails but you don't lose a usage of it (because you couldn't load it into the projectile in the first place). Though, it could go the other way, and it overwrites whatever other injectable you had loaded. It'll probably be a GM call.

Second, with snark: I answered your questions to the best of my ability based on what you wrote. One of your questions was answered by reading your class. Before you start telling people to read something again, how about you read your class description in the first place?

[BigNorseWolf]

Enoren wrote:

So what if the dart I'm supposed to use (assuming I can't choose) is not empty but filled with something else? I add the biohack effect or it overwrites the poison in the dart?

Its currently up in the air as to how exactly a biohack works, and if it counts as filling the syringe or not.

[Enoren]

Pantshandshake wrote:

Biohacker, Injection Expert Class ability, spoilered for length:

** spoiler omitted **

As to your first question, I don't think that you can inject two things from one piece of ammo, though I'm not 100% on that. As to whether a biohack fails or overwrites another kind of injectable, if I'm right that you can't inject two things at once, I'd say the biohack fails but you don't lose a usage of it.

I'm sorry, english is not my main language, so sometimes I find hard to give a sentence the right tone, I didn't want to sound snarky, I was just saying that you misread the first question. Let me make another example:

I load my rifle with 14 syringes, each one of them is filled with a different dye: pink, purple, red, silver, blue, orange, green, gold, white, black, magenta, gray, brown and yellow.
Can I choose which one of them to shot every time I use the rifle to attack?

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Enoren wrote:

So what if the dart I'm supposed to use (assuming I can't choose) is not empty but filled with something else? I add the biohack effect or it overwrites the poison in the dart?

Its currently up in the air as to how exactly a biohack works, and if it counts as filling the syringe or not.

Mmmmh, well, good to know I guess.

How about the first question? It's the one that concearn me the most.

[HammerJack]

Yes. You can select which dart to shoot when you fire.

[Enoren]

HammerJack wrote:

Yes. You can select which dart to shoot when you fire.

Is this supported by any rule or reference or it's just common sense?

[Enoren]

Oh, I just noticed that BigNoseWolf already posted the reference and I totally missed that reply.
Thank you everyone.

[Zwordsman]

Biohacks only require 2 things.
1) Injection ?Weapon.
2) An "attack"

It doesn't require an empty or full Needle. It doesnt' specifiy so it doesn't apply. Flavor/fluff wise--You're modifying the biohack in the moment to work on the target's physiology. Meaning you can just modify it to work with whatever is loaded in it anyway.

A good piece of evidence that the base assumption is that you can inject and biohack is the line in Medicinal Mastery. This Theorm specifically disallows being loaded along with a biohack.

"You can add one of these medicinals to any attack you make with an injection weapon as part of the action to make the attack or attacks, but you can’t add a biohack of any kind to the same attack"

This being a restriction means that normally you must be able to mix them. (Medicinals and biohacks).

Thats how I read it anyway.

[BigNorseWolf]

Zwordsman wrote:

"You can add one of these medicinals to any attack you make with an injection weapon as part of the action to make the attack or attacks, but you can’t add a biohack of any kind to the same attack"

This being a restriction means that normally you must be able to mix them. (Medicinals and biohacks).

Thats how I read it anyway.

That just.. really. really. Doesn't follow. At all.

I don't disagree or agree with the conclusion, but this argument doesn't get you there and is kind of weird. The medicinal working with the biohack is more or less irrelevant to the biohack working with anything else.

You could more easily say that the biohack and medicinal not working together fits the paradigm that there's only room on the injection weapon for one unit of liquid.

[Zwordsman]

It more relates to how normal medicinal supplies work, rather than the biohacks. That implies that normal medicinal (i.e. not via that theorm) would work in concert. Because there would be no restriction listed in the theorom otherwise.

If the standard was anything other than "they do not conflict" then I can't see a reason to write a rule in the theorm to cause them to conflict.

Well other than a writer wanting to call it out specifically. WHich I assume is a balancing method for the free items perhaps

But, they would've added in the Biohack feature a restriction to empy 'injection ammo*' if they wanted that specifically. Biohack is in the same book as this theorm, a s well as several new injection weapons. Instead they only required biohacks to be added to an attack roll. (much less it states you don't preload with biohacks**)

Last detail is the lack of any commentary in the biohacker area on what happens if you 'try' to load a biohack into ammo that is already full. Some would call this missing rules, but I would say it isn't missing because they dont' interact

Unsure if that is a better explaination or not.

*I state ammo because we now have an injection weapon that works with batteries/acid not needle darts. And we a lso have (From core I think) a firearm that uses needles that is not injection

** This one I could see people using arguments to say they're loaded into the darts, which would prevent other loads from it. But its a section following the earlier mentions of adding biohacks to any attack roll. Which states the only requirement is injection weapons-Which, not every injection weapon even has dart ammo as of this book.
But I wouldn't be surprised either reading method.

[BigNorseWolf]

Zwordsman wrote:

.

If the standard was anything other than "they do not conflict" then I can't see a reason to write a rule in the theorem to cause them to conflict.

!) The rules have an annoying habbit of not distinguishing between when they're re iterating/clarifying a rule or making an exception to a rule

2) There could be an implied/ held over/ simulationist paradigm of a vial having room for one dose of space poison/medicine per needle/acid glob. Biohacks and this thing

3) This thing is biohack like enough that they didn't want people double up.

4) There's no underlying theory to it at but getting one of these for free in the same shot as the biohack made the option TOO good.

[Metaphysician]

"If A, Then B" does *not* mean "If Not A, then Not B".

[BigNorseWolf]

Metaphysician wrote:

"If A, Then B" does *not* mean "If Not A, then Not B".

Does that one have a name?

[Charlesfire]

Metaphysician wrote:

"If A, Then B" does *not* mean "If Not A, then Not B".

Yes, but biohack just says "You can deliver any biohack you create with any attack from an injection weapon".

I fail to see how an attack that inject a poison/drug/whatever isn't included in "any attack made with an injection weapon". Thus, I think it's pretty clear that biohack + poison/drug/whatever is valid by RAW. RAI is still unknown tho...

[Xenocrat]

Charlesfire wrote:

Metaphysician wrote:

"If A, Then B" does *not* mean "If Not A, then Not B".

Yes, but biohack just says "You can deliver any biohack you create with any attack from an injection weapon".

I fail to see how an attack that inject a poison/drug/whatever isn't included in "any attack made with an injection weapon". Thus, I think it's pretty clear that biohack + poison/drug/whatever is valid by RAW. RAI is still unknown tho...

Agreed. It's totally unclear whether a biohack is actually put inside an injection round or just somehow smeared on the outside/tip. Since you're able to add a biohack, but not any other substance, to a full attack as you fire (including quad attacking operatives who dip biohacker) I tend to think it's probably a minimalist addition to "just the tip" rather than an equivalent volume of liquid to a serum/poison/etc. Especially since you can create dozens of them per day as your key attribute and resolve pool grow.

[Metaphysician]

Given the fact that poisons/drugs/etc are fairly expensive per shot, I'd be inclined to allow it. Stacking a biohack with a purchased poison is not exactly free power.

[Hawk Kriegsman]

I though we solved this back in November?

From the COM skill synergies thread.

COM SkillSynegies Thread wrote:

Biohack wrote:

you can deliver any biohack you create with any attack from an injection weapon. You must declare prior to the attack roll that you are using a biohack and specify which effect you are using, but you select and apply the biohack as part of the action used to make the attack.

Hawk Kriegsman wrote:
Note is says apply the biohack, not load, not fill, not etc....

It is a quasi magical effect as you state.

It is written so that they can be combined.

And it does not make the Biohacker over powered.

Xenocrat wrote:

I agree, thanks for bringing this to my attention. It really makes serums and poisons a lot more viable, as well as the basic boosters that I would have had a hard time justifying over an inhibitor in combat. But if I'm shooting them with a serum anyway, why not give them an AC or speed boost.