Running Full 'Borgs in SR4, Metalheads, unite! Options

[Shrike30]

One of my favorite aspects of CP2020 was full borgs. Not necessarily as a major focus of the game, but more as a feature of the world. Despite the risks of cyberpsychosis, there were those who decided to leave their meatbod behind, and go for the chrome.

Essence, of course, is a little more nebulous (and less repairable via therapy) than Humanity ever was, and the bodywork alone would normally stuff your essence down the tubes. However, going full 'borg is still doable... just difficult.

I've defined the "minimal" full 'borg as being a character with 4 cyberlimbs, a cybertorso and skull, cyber eyes and ears, a commlink, and a datajack. If you assume the low-end eyes and ears, the baseline essence cost on this rig is 6.95, with the mods costing 98,500 :nuyen:. With the high-end eyes and ears, this jumps to 7.55 essence, with 100,500 :nuyen:.

Amusingly, the low-end eye/ear borg is something you can build at character creation without having to hack the rules at all. Swapping all of the cyberwear over to being alpha grade uses 5.56 essence, and costs 197,000 :nuyen:, or 39.4 BP. Obviously, this doesn't leave much room to work with, but if you're vigorously trying to stay within the rules, it works.

The other option, of course, is lifting the "Starting Cyberwear Grade" restrictions and "Max BPs put into Resources" restrictions. While I don't recommend doing this as a general rule, you could think about assembling this as a package... a player dropping points into this wouldn't really be getting it as Resources (though you could easily restrict their max Resources after the purchase), they're getting something that's much more like a "race."

With alphaware, the high-end eye/ear borg isn't going to survive surgery (it ends up costing 6.04 essence). Even with the low-end systems, you've got less than half an essence point to play around with. On the other hand, if we allow people to go beta at chargen, the low end system ends up costing only 4.865 essence and 394,000 :nuyen:, and the high end caps out at 5.285 essence and 402,000 :nuyen:. Translated over into BP costs (ignoring the cap, obviously) these work out to 78.8 BP and 80.4 BP, respectively.

I'm going to allow players who are interested to drop 80 BP (rounding to the nearest convenient number) to become beta-grade full 'borgs, with the player being allowed to choose the specific grade of eye and ear he's got (burning off some of what precious little essence he's got left, should he want to opt for the high-end ones). Beyond that, players would be restricted to another 20 BP being available for Resources (leaving the character a max of 100k :nuyen: to begin play). This will make the 'borg concept more feasible for starting characters, and generally a larger part of an SR game. If full 'borgs aren't your thing, well, you're obviously going to pass on this option, but I thought I'd toss it out there.

The one really obvious issue with this plan is that the cyberwear the player is equipped with gives them a baseline (augmented) Body, Strength, and Agility of 3. While there are some tests which use the unaugmented values, it's quite possible that a player would simply set each of those stats to 1 at chargen, knowing that the cyber would kick them all up to 3, prior to enhancements. One of the questions i'm hoping to figure out through discussion would be if the sheer loss of essence involved more than makes up for the "free" statistics, if I should make my players buy up to 3 in those stats with BPs as if they were "real" (that is, coughing up the 90 or so BP to get those stats to 3), or if I should find some sort of point solution in the middle to deal with.

Any thoughts?

[BlackHat]

Isn't the availability of a cyberskull above 12?

Wouldn't that mean that this isn't doable at cahracter creation?

[Oracle]

As far as I remember it is 14. That means no cyberskull at chargen.

[nezumi]

Rather than house rule starting resources and cyberware grades, wouldn't it be easier to houserule cyberlimb costs (monetary and essence) to something reasonable?

[Crusher Bob]

The simplest way to fix to fix the attribute 1 problem is to make it so that full borgs have no 'normal' physical attributes. They have edge, the 4 mentals, and then the physical stats of whatever body they pay for. In addition, full borgs have no metatype. A full borg body can appear to be whatever metatype, you want, really.

[Arz]

[Squinky]

They still need a good body attribute if they plan on healing anything...

[Shrike30]

I missed the Avail 14 on the cyberskull, dangit. So you'd have to get a little bit of GM flex even to do the stripped-down version of this.

I'm trying to avoid actually hacking away at the essence costs of major body replacements, if for no other reason than I've never felt a point of essence for removal of your entire arm was all that unreasonable. As for costs... before you figure in grades, the ware invoved costs about as much as a sports car. They don't seem that out of whack, either.

I like Bob's idea involving physical attributes. Since you can push any of them to 10 (i believe) with a full borg body, being whatever metatype you want shouldn't really be that hard. The interesting part, of course, would be that some of the metatypes have mental advantages or disadvantages...

[PlatonicPimp]

I'm waiting for the drone book before touching this one, because the there is a thin line between an anthroform drone and a full borg. For my purposes, a full borg will simply get his nervous system implanted in an anthroform drone. They would lose all their normal physical attributes, to be replaced with the stats of the vehicle. They wouldn't be able to heal, only be repaired. They could look like whatever they wanted with sculpting. They would have to use pilot (anthroform) for everything, but would always be treated as a if they were "jumped into" the machine. Toss in the mandatory control rig, and you are good to go.

Oh yeah, Essence loss? 12 or more. Only cyberzombies could survive this, even with deltaware.

[Mr. Unpronouncea...]

Keep in mind, even a full-body replacement in SR leaves internal organs untouched. So the borgs brain (but not necessarily the rest of his nervous system), circulatory and digestive systems are all still around - it's not like the GitS plug-and-play brain scenario.

[PlatonicPimp]

that can of organs is the difference, in my mind, between a cybernetically augmented human and a full borg, which is a brain in a robot.

[Shrike30]

CP's borgs maintained a "biocore"... those organs and other bits and pieces that were really impossible to replace. I don't think SR's tech is far enough along to make a portable brain-in-a-jar really feasible, either.

[hyzmarca]

[Lagomorph]

The full borg I made, I gave digestive expansion, synthacardium and internal airtanks to replace the insides as well as the outsides.

[SpasticTeapot]

I figured SR4 cyborgs would be more like GitS 'borgs. More sleek, more effective, and capable of doing things in small numbers better than a full platoon of normal soldiers.

[PlatonicPimp]

Only surviving damage, really. A full borg can't really do anything a troll with muscle augmentation can't do better.It's just that borging is the only cyber way to boost your body or physical damage.

Ever want to be impressed by a damage meter? figure out how many boxes of physical damage a troll with max body, exceptional attribute, and full borg replacement can manage.

[Squinky]

Then you kick him in the knee and he falls unconscious, heh.

[Jaid]

meh, the damage boxes aren't that relevant.

they still take stun damage the same way as everyone else.

and besides, as i have seen pointed out before (not on these boards, but the principle still applies).... giving a crappy person more hit points (or damage boxes) doesn't make them any less crappy... it just makes them crappy for a longer time.

really, i'd rather just go with muscle augmentation and be a troll, personally.

[Squinky]

This got me thinking, if a character is a full borg, should they even take stun damage? (damage from an attack, not from being tired or whatnot) Vehicles and other objects don't, and they are pretty close to being an object, not a person.

[hyzmarca]

A full borg troll is generally on par with an uncybered mundane human, by SR canon. A full borg anything is on par with an uncybered mundane human by SR canon.

While the full borg troll may get extra damage boxes his body stat becomes meaningless for the purposes of resisting damage except from pathogens. For most of the tests that use body the borg will be rolling the average of this cyberparts. In the end, the BP and karma costs of the borg's natural body pays for damage boxs and little else. What's more, his strength, reaction, and agility is mostly meaningless and cyberlimbs lack the capacity to raise more than one of the four to a decent level.
So that full borg troll is going to be causing less damage with his melee attacks, hitting less often with his ranged attacks, dodging less often and recieving more damage when he is hit compared to an uncybered troll. Those extra boxes don't mean much when they are sure to be quickly filled.


And yes, a full borg should still take stun damage, it still has squishy parts. The bybertorso and cyberskull are just shells. Certain types of damage should be even worse for a full borg, actually. Deceleration trauma, specificly. Having your brain bang against the inside of your skull hurts. Replacing your cranium with plasteel wouldn't help matters.


The one and only advantage to cyberlimbs is the ability to become a living swiss army knife using capacity.

[Squinky]

Cyber-limbs don't have a reaction attribute, it still goes off your natural.

And yeah, Cyber-limbs have to be houseruled to make any sense....

I was thinking non-abstractly when I mentioned no stun on cyber-limbs, meaning getting punched in the leg wouldn't hurt a cyber-leg...

[Jaid]

so long as we're at it, shouldn't hitting someone with a cyberlimb do the same amount of damage as bone lacing? ie, does it somehow get less effective because the hard, heavy stuff is on the outside instead of the inside?

[Cain]

The only solution I've found is to apply my old cyberlimb rule: all cyberlimb attributes are set to match the natural body's levels. Someone who is larger and stronger can handle a more powerful cyberarm than a Body 1, Str 1 wimp.

[Liper]

I'm fine with the rules myself, but I'd make the beta of limbs available myself, and availability of skulls also hehe.

full limb replacments are great though, you can not dump any points into any of the str/agi/body since those are replaced fully by the limbs anyhow!

Also for the datajack and commlink, install them in the torso so they don't cost essence and also because the chest is only good for body and armour since the str/agi doesn't apply there (same for head)

hell, install the air tank into the torso if you want for no essence = )

[Squinky]