Un-Stupid Cyberlimbs Options

[Knarfy]

Ok, I hated how cyberlimbs worked in 3rd, and though they fixed some of the stupid in 4th, they added a whole slew of new stupid. As such, I have come up with these house rules for cyberlimbs. :)

If I don't cover it here, then its the same as the BBB.

Cyberlimb abilities start at 3. They can be enhanced by buying cyberlimb enhancements, and not through other stuff, bla bla bla. Cyberlimb enhancements DO NOT take up capacity. The stats on the limb cannot exceed your augmented maximums, nor can they exceed the ability value of your torso. Cyberskulls do not get their own ability enhancements, use the values for the torso. Armor still takes up capacity. If you armor a cyberskull, treat as a helmet. And, yes, the armor does stack with worn armor.

Also, reduce the availability of the cyberskulls to 12. Theres just no good reason for it to be so high, and it shoots a cool character concept in the foot. (or head I suppose :)

Notes: To determine over all body for damage resistance tests, condition monitor size, and everything else, average the value for both arms, legs, and the torso. Use this same method to determine overall armor value, and other abilities when needed. For simplicity, I recommend that you keep your implants on the same level. Make sure to always add all five values and divide by five.

"Cyberlimbs cannot hold bioware, or anything that takes essence instead of capacity." clarification: No, you really cant have bioware. If you have a full cyber-body, you cant have any bioware at all. Too much of your body is synthetic. Implants that have a rating for both capacity and essence must be installed to use capacity. Headware that does not have a capacity rating can still be installed into a cyberskull, taking the normal essence, as well as eyeware and earware. Some bodyware without a capacity rating is still ok to install into a cybertorso. basically, everything that effects your nervous system, which is to say, reaction enhancers, simrigs, skillwires, touch links, and wired reflexes.

I feel that this makes cyberlimbs viable, but not over-good. Unless you get a full cyberbody, you are still somewhat limited by your natural values. And trolls can actually get troll arms, instead of human arms. It has the advantage of allowing a fully cybered human to get up to 9 str, agi, and body with basically no karma expenditure. (or bp for that matter) but a rather large essence loss, and the loss of the ability to take any bioware, ever :P And considering how good bioware is, thats a pretty big price to pay.

Another thing Im not sure about, is forcing the character to use their natural body to resist toxins and pathogens and stuff... Dunno

Anyway, thoughts?

[Backgammon]

Well, let's simplify what you propose:

1) Cyberlimb stat increases take no capacity
2) Cyberskulls have no stats. Use same as cybertorso.
3) Lower avail of skulls to 12.
4) If you have 2 cyberlegs + 2 cyberarms + 1 cybertorso, no bioware for you at all, period.

The rest are already canon.


So, my comments:
1) I would say reduce capacity costs rather then eliminate.
2) Only Body makes sense for a skull, the other 2 don't apply. While also possible and feasible to see people want to take armour for skulls, I think it would suck to have to divide cyber enhancements by 6 to include the skull. So yeah, I'll favour a rules that more or less ignores cyber skulls as they are... bothersome to manage.
3) Fine
4) Now that makes no sense at all. A hard limit to disallow all bioware is Not Good. For example, cat eyes would still work fine with a full cyber body (assuming no cybereyes). Just use common sense to block certain bioware, but no reason at all to disallow bio on general principle.

[Nikoli]

Also, cyber torso and skulls are shells, not replacements. Internal organs are still soft, fleshy and biodegradeable.

[Kagetenshi]

If you're a full borg, why can't you take a Cerebral Booster? Mnemonic Enhancer? Anything else like that?

~J

[Knarfy]

The restriction of no bioware is actually part of the rules as written. I was willing to leave it as is for the moment.

I agree that for some stuff, there really is no reason why you couldnt have it though.

The reason that I got rid of the capacity requirements for the stat increases, is that there were already things there that balanced how strong or fast they could be, and I added a few as well. It seems silly to me that having a flesh arm allows you to fit in enough natural muscle, with synthetic muscle, to bring you to your augmented max in str and agi, and then lace the bones with titanium for max body (of a sort anyway) and then put in spurs, and a cybergun, and a shock hand... but if we replace the arm with a full prosthetic that is obviously a giant piece of machinery, we run out of room before we even get the stats up to a comparable level.

Also, having no capacity on ability ups allows for the fact that a trolls arm is bigger than a humans arm. Thus, it can fit more strength into it and still have room left over. Otherwise I would have to come up with alternate capacity ratings for dwarves and trolls. Uh... No :P

Heres a summary for ya. Should have had it in the first place, sorry :)

1)Cyberlimb stat increases take no capacity
2)Cyberlimb stat totals cannot exceed the totals of the torso (if you dont have a cybertorso, that means they cant go past your natural values, dont like it, get some muscle augmentation)
3)Cyberskulls have no stats, use same as cybertorso (that only counts for str, bod, and agi, they can have armor, treat as a helmet)
4)lower avail of cyberskulls to 12
5) then of course thers the no bio thing ;)

I can flex on the bio. how about this. Any bioware that modifies strength, body, or agility has no effect on cybered body parts. Orthoskins dont cover cyber. Enhanced articulation does not affect cyber. You cant get a skin pocket on a cyberlimb (duh)

Other than that, I cant really come up with good reasons why the others are un-avalible :)

[Ravennus]

This is pretty much exactly how I house-ruled cyberlimbs, and I think I stated as much in an earlier thread from a couple weeks ago.

Great minds think alike! :D

My main difference, is that I reduce the capacity cost of armor to 1 capacity per point. The reason? Armor is external, not internal. Sure, there is some integration, but it's not nearly as invasive as installing other 'ware in the limb because it isn't actually INSIDE the limb.
Anyway, it's still balanced. Look at orthoskin, or even Mystic Armor. Not only do they give a healthy addition to armor, but they don't have to be bought seperately per limb and divided.
Oh, and I didn't count head armor like a helmet. It divides with the rest, but with it costing 1 capacity each point you can fit 4 points in an obvious head. Also, you can also wear a helmet on top of that...and it would just get messy if they both added to the total armor.

One other option I was thinking....increasing the capacity in the limbs according to it's grade. The reasoning behind it is that the higher quality cyberlimbs would have better miniaturization. It would be pretty simple to just increase the capacity by the inverse amount that it's essence cost is lowered.
i.e.- Alphaware's essence cost is x0.8, and capacity is x1.2 (rounded up)
Meh, just a thought.

For those of you that think this is too munchkin, try adding up the costs of an entire alphaware cyberbody w/ alphaware enhancements and implants (which you NEED to fit it under 6 essence)...it will cost almost all of the max starting nuyen of 250k. That's also leaving out alot of other important 'ware, like anything to boost your reaction/initiative. You also lose the ability to take some useful bioware (but not all). You could easily make a normal meat character that was equal to or even superior to the borg statwise by using cyber/bioware or adept powers. Also, don't forget that roleplaying wise, you'll be a social outcast and freak.

One bonus....after you replace most of the body with cyber, you won't be using many of your natural physical attributes. Strength and quickness are totally replaced, and Body will only be used to combat different internal body tests like resisting poison/disease and for healing the bits of flesh you still have.
Reaction is the exception.

Still not up to Ghost in the Shell standards, but closer. :cyber:

-Ravennus

P.S.- Oh! I've also made synthetic cyberlimbs much more difficult to detect. They can't tell me that synthetic cyberlimb have become MORE obvious from 2060 to 2070.

[Knarfy]

I left armor costing 2 cap per point because with not having to spend cap on abilitys leaves you with tons of space. Also, having armor on the head count as a helmet is the only thing that makes sense. Which means I really dont want people to have 4 points on it. Plus, If your gonna have 4 points of armor in addition to whatever your wearing, you need to pay for it.

The other reason for it, and the reason that I left the capacity alone for higher grades is that I prefer a "less is more" philosophy for house rules. I dont want to change more than I have to ;)

[Kremlin KOA]

[mintcar]

I don´t think they need house rules myself. I like it that someone who is born with an exeptionally good arm (like a troll might be) will have a harder time finding an equally good replacement.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

There is just one little problem with this theory:

Yamatetsu was #1 in cyberware, EvoCorp still is there big time.

Now guess who produces most meta-adapted things at a rate they usually don't even cost more? ;)

[Eyeless Blond]

Honestly I'd like to completely ditch the idea that cyberlimbs have different sets of stats than the rest of the body. How's this for a change:

By 2070 cyberlimbs have advanced to the point that even the most commonly-available arm is stronger than any human can hope to become. Arms are no longer bought at certain levels of physical aptitude and upgraded; in fact, replacement limbs are made at an exceptionally high rating and "weakened" by calibration to human-tolerable levels. Obviously this is done because operating a limb at levels much stronger and faster than you are capable of handling is extremely disorienting and in many cases can even rip you apart if you're not careful.

So here's the skinny. When you buy a cyberlimb by default it has the exact same Str and Agi as you do. A cyberlimb actually has Str and Agi stats three points above the normal Racial Maximum of the meta it was designed for. A human cyberlimb, for instance, has Str and Agi of 12 (alternate: no limit?). Most people never see those stats however because the expert system embedded in the limb automatically calibrates itself up or down to correspond exactly to your stats by default. Essentially a cyberlimb by itself is invisible to the end-user; unless you decide to tweak it somehow you'd never notice any difference performance-wise from a real cyberlimb.

Here's where the tweaks come in. Naturally some yahoos want to work their way around the system and activate the true power of their limbs. Well fine, they certainly can. The hack itself is fairly easy; all you need is an autosoft program for each stat you want to be able to change. Tweaks to that limb's stats can then be made as a free action. The Rating of the autosoft is the maximum amount you can raise or lower that stat from your own natural stat. A Str 3 human with a Strength-2 autosoft for example can bump his limb's Str up to 5.

There's a price to be paid, though. Every time a user uses a boosted limb in this way--that is, every time he makes a test using the augmented limb's stats--he takes physical damage equal to twice the total difference between the augmented stats and his own natural stats. This damage completely bypasses armor; only Body dice can be used to resist. A troll with natural Str of 6 and an Agi of 5, for instance using a cyberlimb boosted to Str 9 and Agi 6 takes (3+1)*2 = 8 boxes of damage, resisted only by Body each time he uses the limb as part of, for instance, an unarmed combat or shooting test.

How's that look? I like the idea because it doesn't require you to track several sets of statistics for your cyberlimbs. You only deal with the different stats and strain rules when you're tweaking the limbs, which means less paperwork and less confusion. I was thinking of adding in something like Integrity Enhancements or whatnot that reduce how much damage you take when strainning the limb, but I wanted to see how this first-pass idea went over.

[Shadow_Prophet]

Meh. I don't like it but then again I don't see alot wrong with the way they work currently.

[Eyeless Blond]

Yeah I can see that. It ended up far more complicated-sounding than I intended; I just kept writing and writing... :)

[Kagetenshi]

What is your justification for the damage?

~J

[Aku]

excessive force on the none cybered parts?

[Nikoli]

what effect would having a cyber torso have on your system?

[Nyxll]

[Nikoli]

Honestly this is how I've seen cyberlimbs since 1st edition. the mods are for your meat to better support the machine, not for the machine to be stronger

[HeySparky]

I always liked in the palladium games that you had to have infrastructure to get crazy strong cyberlimbs.

[Fortune]

If I was to use that system, I'd max the limbs out at Racial Maximum, not RM + 3.

[hahnsoo]

The thing is, the upgrades for cyberlimbs are so dirt-cheap in SR4, they might as well be software/firmware upgrades. :)

[Mr. Unpronouncea...]

[Knarfy]

[Mr. Unpronouncea...]

[Mightyflapjack]

To each his own...

I would still allow some brain bioware like Sleep Regulator, Pain Regulator, Cerebral Booster, Mnemonic Enhancer... If you have a brain.. those should work..even if the rest of you is a toaster.