Metahuman Cyberlimb stats, Man & machine rules revisited Options

[jervinator]

One thing I don't get is why all cyberlimbs have Body, Strength, and Agility stats of 3 and require a cybertorso to exceed 6.
Okay, Agility I can see staying at a base of 3 because all use about the same control software and everything. Metahumans are similar enough in their central nervous systems that a company could standardize somewhat and equip all cyberlimbs with the same feedback and sophistication to function the same as a person with Agility 3 though some may argue that Elves should be allowed to get 4 points of Agility enhancement.
My beef is that the average Troll has a Strength and Body of 7. That means that a troll that loses an arm will either have to get a cybertorso or settle for a weak arm. Either way, it'll cost a lot of money to enhance the arm all the way to be equal with the natural arm it is replacing; more if you require the cybertorso.

I feel that different metatypes should have different base stats for their cyberlimbs, though they should cost a little more too.

Dwarf : Body 4, Strength 5, Agility 3 - it's thicker and has more room for "muscles"; +770 :nuyen:
Elf : Body 3, Strength 3, Agility 4 - more advanced "nerves" to accomodate the superior Elven agility; +300 :nuyen:
Ork : Body 6, Strength 5, Agility 3 - As a Dwarf, only more so; +1200 :nuyen:
Troll : Body 7, Strength 7, Agility 2 - It's big, has lots of material, and much room for "muscles". However, it is also a bit heavier and, of course, bigger so fine motor control is an issue.; +1700 :nuyen:

If you do it this way, you can keep the maximum enhancement without a cybertorso at 3 points without unduly penalizing the metahumans. The nuyen cost reflects both the added cost of the stat boosts inherent to the limbs plus a little extra for game balance.

[Xeros]

It makes sense to me. Evo specializes in a lot of products that metahuman customized, it would surprise me that limbs are not made more race specific. The limit of 6 without a torso may still be more universal however. You are looking at issues of the tissue where the limb meets the body hitting unusual strain. The strength of the limb is not the issue, but the pressure applied to the join.

[BlackHat]

What stops a human from ordering an elven cyberarm under these rules?
It might look a little disproportionate, but their arms are roughly the same size - and there isn't enough of a difference in their anatomy to argue that you can't wire one to the other (After all, standard cyberarms can be put onto eitehr race).

Sure, they have to pay :nuyen: 300 more to have it, but the agility cap is effectivly raised by one.

[Teulisch]

well, having more powerfull troll arms is a must. those things are huge. and a human-scale arm can only reach troll unaugmented max of 10. you need a base of 8 body/strength in order to reach the augmented max, so a base 7 would be quite reasonable.

elves do not need better cyberlimbs, as the standard variety can match the augmented max of an elf (unless he has exceptional agility). the same goes for a dwarfs body.

Orks do need something a little stronger, and they are bigger than a human.

Now a human could get an ork arm, but its going to be oversized on most (may fit a body 6 human), which would cause problems. nobody but a troll can get a troll arm, due to size.

in SR3, cyberlimbs did not have a seperate body (instead they gave +body). you had 4 strength for humans/elves, 6 for orks/dwarves, and 8 for trolls. the limbs were above average. Now in SR4, we see SR 3 capacities made to hold 50% more atribute upgrades. and everyone gets a base 3, weaker than before. If anything, i would say cyberlimbs got WORSE as technology advanced.

[Xeros]

[jervinator]

Xeros - Are you telling me that a Strength 9 Troll with a Strength 7 cyberarm is placing more pressure on his joints with that cyberarm than with the meat limb?

And yes, Blackhat, you are right. Realistically, you could becuase Real Life has no play balance. For SR purposes though, it doesn't quite wash.
My intent was to allow the cyber to match the meat without requiring a cybertorso under the assumption that the rest of the body could handle the stress of a high Str/Agi limb, so there is no good reason why it could not handle the stress of an equivalent cyber-replacement. It was either that, or require a cybertorso for any limb that had any rating that exceeded the natural body's stats.
However, making a matching arm for metahumans still requires a little bit of special attention. Of course, considering that equipment has no weight other than what the GM feels it should weigh, I suppose the issue is kind of moot.

In case you forgot (or never really read previous editions), elven muscles are flatter and thus a little strong than their bulk suggests. That is why they have a Strength of 3 despite their leaner physique. I think it safe to extrapolate that there are enough other subtle physiological differences that you couldn't do that and have it work as the players intend.
Any agility bonus in that case would be negated by the human brain's inability to adjust THAT far out of it's range. If you disagree, then you are allowing for humans to have a strength of 17.

[Veggiesama]

Curious, has anyone ever made (and presumably posted) alternative rules for cyberlimbs? The whole "average your stats/armor together" idea really leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I was wondering if anyone have (perhaps) simpler ways of dealing with cyberlimbs.

[Hell Hound]

Here is one idea I have toyed with, but never had a chance to playtest;

It is assumed that the metal can outperform the meat (that's the whole premise behind getting cyberware in the first place), so cyberlimbs are calibrated to operate at the characters current attribute levels so that they do not exceed the capacity of the rest of the body (a person with two legs hitting the ground at different speeds and/or different amounts of force would have a lot of trouble being able to run without falling over).

When you raise your natural attribute, or install some strength/agility enhancing cyberware in the meat parts of your body, you pop into a local street doc and get the limbs recalibrated, custom grade cyberlimbs self calibrate so you don't need to visit a street doc. If a character goes ahead and replaces all four limbs their natural attributes are no longer a concern and their augmented attributes are considered to be at racial maximum.

A cybertorso is required for a cyberlimb to exceed racial maximums under any circumstances, and beyond racial maximum each point must be purchased as per the standard rules.

For the Body attribute cyberlimbs are considered to start at Racial Maximum, again the metal/synthetic polymer/whatever should be more durable than typical flesh and blood.

[Feshy]

[Liper]

one time we were creating a superman (think niche) for our runners to go against, or at least encounter...

Anyhow, a physical adept, geasa, and then a full replacment of skull, torso, limbs, eyes, ears, then tactical computer built into a limb...

And still a positive essence, so for the added stats, made it a dwarf and rulled all the limbs were troll limbs, hell a troll torso and skull cage.

Voila, bamf! powerful, and still retained adept powers which were the reflexes.

[Squinky]

This is why I hope they throw away that whole geasa idea....or at least modify it some, because it was too hard to resist cheesy shit like this...

[HappyDaze]

I will simply rule that a cyberlimb isn't bulk built but is instead custom made for the recipient (and, much like culturted bioware, this doesn't change what grades it comes in).

This allows for a base rating by race (ex: Troll limbs have higher base Body and Strength with a lower base Reaction) and then increased costs for higher than average stats while at the same time prohibiting cross-metatype limbs.

Jay

[Liper]

other then putting things into a cyber limb, there's not much reason to ever get one for a regular player.

[snowRaven]

Why not use the rules for 'using unadapted gear', pg.301?

An ork, human, or elf using a dwarf or troll cyberlimb looses 2 dice to tests made with it. A troll using a dwarf limb or vice versa looses 4 dice. (This can be halved when the limb is involved in a test but isn't the sole limb used, and ignored for tests that ionvolve the entire body - calculated in the same way as for what attribute to use for a test when they differ).

For argument's sake, a human or elf using an ork limb loose 1 die.

Leave Agility at 3 for all limbs, regardless of race.

Body at 3 for dwarves, humans and elves. 6 for orks and 8 for trolls.

Strength at 4 for humans and elves, 6 for oreks and dwarves, and 8 for trolls. (to bring them back to the augmented SR3 levels)

More than 3 points of enhancement requires a cybertorso (alternatively extensive restructuring of shoulder/chest or hip/lower spine in the style of SR3, maybe costing .2 essence per extra point or something).

[jervinator]

The problem is, there is no real way to formally, through hard and fast rules, stop true munchkinism such as that demonstrated in various entries in this thread. That is where the GM must law down the law.
If you allow your players to get Troll arms on a non-Troll, then either:
A) You are so liberal that the rules don't matter at all anyways, or
B) You let your players run rough-shod over you that, well, the rules don't matter at all anyways.
If you, as a GM, believe that putting Troll arms on for the increased strength is possible, you're a little sketchy. If you believe it's possible without any drawbacks, you have a limited sense of balance. If the player WANTED a Troll, they should have GENERATED a Troll!
And if you allow your players to get away with that sort of abuse, either toss the rules out anyways, or hand your GM screen to someone who will stand up to the players. It is possible to keep them in their place without being unfair or abusive, and my players actually enjoy the challenge of coming up with ways to munch out subtly instead of overtly.

[Liper]

[Adarael]

[Gothic Rose]

[Serbitar]

You cant give Dwarfs +2 (5) strength cyberarms and leave humans with +0 (3) cyberarms. Dwarf cyberarms are actually smaller than human cyberarms. How can they be stronger with the same technology?

Dwarfs profit from their "denser muscular structure". But when they switch to cyberarms, this advantage is gone and they will, for all logic reasoning, even get worse strength cyberarms than humans (if you trust in the bigger = stronger relation).

[Squinky]

Thats the problem with cyber-arms right there. They should be able to surpass meta-human ability. I don't think they should go off of this human max attribute, or even a house ruled one that lets metas get their advantage....They should just have their own norms and maxes, regardless of race....but it should be much higher in my mind.

Body should just be a barrier rating or something that can be upgraded...Strength should be the bread and butter of cyber-limbs, I would think they should follow the troll Strength rate right off the bat, start at 7 got till 10 without a torso, then allow up to 15...It would make for some strong bastards, but then again, they are chopping off their arm, paying a load of essence and losing the ability to effectively use much of the good ware. I would go with the standard agility rates for all, Elves would be a bit screwed here, but too bad.

[Serbitar]

What about:

Cyberlim description STR/BOD/AG/REA
Standard size (Human, Elf) 6/6/4/5
Ork size 8/8/4/5
Troll size 10/10/4/4
Dwarf size 6/5/4/5

Torso needed for increasing over max racial attribute

-2 agility (all tests) for ech level of wrong size category (dwarf, human/elf, ork, troll) (-6 for a Dwarf with Troll arms)

[jervinator]

Adarael - I never intended to come across that way. You are correct that it should never be "Players-Versus-GM rather than Players-With-GM". I NEVER punish my players for coming up with creative, workable, realistic ideas. If they can provide a suitable justification, I allow quite a bit of leeway. GMs aren't there to punish players, merely to interpret and enforce the rules and disallow anything that is either overly unbalancing or just unrealistic given their understanding of how the world works.

Aside from the first sentence, I wholeheartedly agree with Gothic Rose. I would also allow that voice modulator, at increased cost to account for the helmet customization. And if someone wants an oversized arm for style, I would make the player pay more for custom clothing and gear to match that arm.
It's not that I am closed-minded. It's just that some things DO unbalance games, and I believe that allowing a character to effectively change metatypes is stretching things a little bit too far.
Of course, if SR medical science really is at the point where they can replace the ENTIRE body, and the PC is willing to pay the hefty nuyen for a matching set (custom torso and all), I'd allow it. But as the rules state that the cybertorso is more of a shell than a full replacement, for the moment I am disallowing it, unless the PC wants to place themselves at the risk inherent to all experimental surgeries (full brain transplant).

Serbitar - I am operating under the assumption that the 'muscles' do not fill the entire limb. There is empty space in the limb in order to both allow for accessories/upgrades (cyberweaponry etcetera) and to maintain a normal, realistically proportional size/shape. I also assume that, since raising the stats raises manufacturing cost, stock cyberlimbs are made for the average person off the street, with average stats, and increased stats cost extra.
I justify raising the costs the company has to offset their cost of researching all the differences between humans and metahumans whereas they have much more experience with normal human prosthetics. (Or they are just Capitalists ;) )
Besides, it's really +0 (5) strength for a stock dwarf cyberarm. If you wish to alter the capacity of cyberlimbs to acccount for different metatypes, then by all means. Or you could just fudge that for simplicity, like Fanpro did with equipment weight ;)

[Serbitar]

You did not get my point. The bigger an arm is, the stronger you can make it by default. A dwarf arm is by default smaller than a human arm, so it is weaker.

Of corse, the arm is not "filled" thats why capacity is still left. Of course you can renormalize all the cyberlimts to have 3/3/3/3 stats, but then you will have to change the capacity by race. And thats where everybody will see that drwaf arms will not have that much strength as humans, because they are smaller and thus can not have the same ammount of strength upgrades installed and still have the same ammount of capacity left.

As a futher note I think: Reaction and agility upgrades should not cost capacity. A small arm can be just as agile as a big one, but it can not be as strong or offer as much resistance.

[Squinky]

Cyber-limbs don't have their own reaction attribute. They only have Body, Strength, and Agillity.

[Liper]

I think it's that arms are built to suit the average user from the factory for each race.

I always thought default stats for arms were just too weak.

Unless you're making a average stat character and craming a ton of things into the limb, you were always better off just going for other cyber =/