Agreed.

I'll work with my players on that.

I felt that cyberware should be more expensive (double would be good.), but not that expensive (at triple the price is nearly back to 3rd edition prices).

Personally I liked Street Samurai, not carrying a half million nuyen worth of cyberware.
Once again we are at the point where why is the Sammy on the battlefield if he can afford to layout a half million for his cyber and bioware?

Also the lower prices in 4th made it easier to justify the opposition having some cyberware.
And you had less to worthy about player' looting the battlefield.

There were some very good reasons that the price of cyberware came down in 4th. Now it is nearly back to the original price.


I can see that this is balanced out some what by the reduction in price for upgraded cyberware.

Before I saw just how much more cyberware was costing, I figured one advantage to being cybered was that you could afford to customize your cyber load out for a particular missing (say picking up Gills and webbed feet if heading to the South Pacific), but not at these prices.

And the allowing non enhanced combatants to get get two pass at least half the time will help the GM in providing opposition for the players.
Course that does nothing to encourage someone to play a cybered character.

But we are back to exactly the same place as always in Shadowrun where Decker and Samurai are totally desperate for cred so they can upgrade and stay State of the Art while the Technomancers, Mages, and Adepts are rolling in the cred.

In my game, the Gunslinger Adept is riding in a tricked out Ranger Rover and has cred to burn (mostly on APDS ammo - it is hard to keep it out of his hands when he invests in the contacts and is willing to put down a grand for six rounds). The Street Sammie has an old bike.

With the new things for the Awaken and Technomancers to spend cred on, i was hoping that would balance out, but I see I'm going to be disappointed since the increased costs for the cybered individuals just means more cred all around.

I like decks being a real investment so you don't have script kiddes out there who spent a couple of grand, but we have the same problems for the Decker as the Street Samurai (and a deck is a lot easier to loot then a set of Wired II).

So far the only reason i can see to play a cybered individual is background count, maybe skill wires, and in some places a cyber virgin will standout like a sore thumb.

Maybe Cyberlimbs will really kick hoop.

When I first looked at SR5, I was really glad that the designers of 5th are totally not afraid to take risks and make changes, but I didn't think it through.
In my mind SR5 alternative title will be Too Much of a Good Thing.

Cndblank. the price margin SR3-5 is still massively lower. As I said a few posts ago you get 47.5% the cash in slot A in 5th compared to 3rd, but the prices are 30-40% of what they cost in 3rd and Alpha ware comes in at around 25% what it used to cost in 3rd. That's a lot more cyber option from that edition to this, it's only the jump from 4-5 that might be feeling a pinch.

It's just the availability ratings that seem off for starting out.

And the fact that instead of a combined cost of 8 (16) points you now can only have 6 (12) points of cyber and bio. Delta being cheaper won't change that. As a matter of fact, with cheaper and more availible deltaware an augmented character will his this hard limit earlier than before.

That means nothing to me Cochise. For me it's Essence 6 with 3points of BioIndex before it starts effecting Essence. Never saw the SR4 Cyber-Bio cost rules. So that'll be entirely new.

Since SR4, and in SR5, Bioware does not have it's own index of Essence+3 anymore, but it costs essence the same as cyberware does.
It just costs less essence than comparative cyber. More money though. Under SR4, you still tallied these two essence ammounts separately.
And the smaller one got halved. So if you had 4 points of Bioware-Essence-Loss and 3 Points of Cyberware Essence loss, you had used stuff worth 7 Points of essence all in all, but the smaller ammount, in this case the 3 Essence from Cyber got halved and so you ended up with exactly 5.5 Essence lost.
As of SR5, no more halving. just straight adding up cyber and bio essence.

Coming directly from SR3 it's even worse, because there the combined essence and bioindex that could be accumulated before automatically dying (unless cybermancy is involved) left even more room for implants before a sammy hit his hard cap of "you're not going any further". So despite your claim, this certainly will mean something for you. Not in the beginning, but most certainly during later progression.

Perhaps, but the essence costs seem a lot lower in SR5 than they were in 3rd anyway and the bio stuff is 50% lower. So the final math based on that would be nearly 6 pts of Essence in 5th being much the same as what nearly 6 + 3 was for 3rd.

Of course until I see all the numbers I don't know how blanket that is.

To be honest: I prefer this straight mechanism. However, I do not prefer the new base or essence costs. I certainly prefer the new grade modifier costs.

SYL

even if it means that using just my example up there, you lose out on at least 1,01 Points of Essence you can use?

Some good points.

I agree with getting rid of the Bio/Cyberware essence bonus but still not feeling the love for the non awakened in SR5.

Cheaper cyberware would have been one way to help balance it out.

just curious but:
why are you all okay with the useable essence being lowered?
that's the one thing the mundanes need to shine to put in toys.

Well, for me it's because is functionally higher than what I'm used to. 6+3 for Sr3 cyber and bio and with the average essence cost having halved for essence and bio my players can get the equivalent of what would have been 12 now. So it's a net gain of 3pts (ish).

The only way it benefits mundanes only would be to bring back the BioIndex which cased Magic Loss seperate to that of essence loss (until the bio went past 3pts and started chomping into essence).

I am talking about the mechanism (1+1 = 2, not 1+1 = 1,5). I agree that the actual essence costs should be lowered, especially so that mundane characters can use some shiny combinations (I am well aware that this would mean that cybermages/adepts can use little more for their 1 or 2 essence points as well).

SYL

@Moirdryd
Actually, it is only 6 Points of Essence now, no Bio-index or other Tricks at all.
If you go straight from 3rd to 5th, you lose out pretty big.

@apple
ah.

That I understand Stahlseele. But the Essence cost of Cyber and Bioware has Halved(approx) since SR3 from the few numbers given. So in effect you lose 3 gain 6 if you're maxing out. Unless I'm reading something wrong (on seen a few examples).

And if the Essence cost for Bio/Cyberware was cut by 25% from SR4 to SR5 then it is a net wash anyway. Can someone do the math and confirm the % decrease that this gear was reduced by?

All I have are SR4 numbers, otherwise I'd hash it all out.

~Umi

Sure, hope this helps:

'it all' hashes out to '1cd74085899e54e4194efa29650b248654ee0396' (sha1)

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Sure but the immortal elves aren't an issue. It is the things that the players actually encounter that matter. The players and their adversaries/allies should be balanced whether mundane or magical, whether street sam, face, decker, mage or non-bizarre hybrid.

I wish they had made essence cost double for magically active folks. A dip for mages and adepts into cyber/bio gives them more bang for their buck than a mundane gets out of it. Sure mundanes can dive in but a mage should not get mor eout of 1 essence than a mundane and sadly they do since they can cherry pick between adept powers, or sustained spells and cyber/bio.

First I was like ಠ_ಠ

But then I was like (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

~Umi

Per SR4 core book p313, theres no increase in availability when you purchase alpha.


Also muscle replacement, augmentation, and toners all have an avail of rating x 5, so unless you're using cyberlimbs (which are avail rating x 4 for stat mods) you're capped at rating 2.

The decrease is not linear. For instance, VCRs [1-3] are at 1, 2 and 3 now, while Wired [1-3] still cost 2, 3, and 5.

*cough* wireless reflexes *cough*

So I noticed on the other thread Hermit. I obviously misread someone's post somewhere before hand.