[X] My Assistant

[BitBasher]

In order to maintain the 6 pool dice you need a CED on each of the 4 slots on the multi slot chipjack. So add another 90k, But that's still pretty damn well worth it in a lot of circumstances. You could also use a SkillSoft Jukebox for the same purpose.

[The Jopp]

I can't find any reference where Chipjack expert driver can be added to a jukebox. The jukebox is connected to a datajack and you cant add the expert driver ware to the jukebox?

[Siege]

I think he meant: Use a skillsoft jukebox to swap out the chps being accessed without having to manually swap them.

The CED would still have to be linked to a chipjack.

Any skillchip fed through a datajack to a chipjack could use a CED if the chipjack was so enabled. But obviously you can't use more CEDs than you have equipped. If you have four chipjacks and only two CEDs, only two skills can receieve the CED bonus.

-Siege

[BlackSmith]

wasent CED errated to have max rating of 3?

[Kagetenshi]

Nope, not unless I'm missing something on the errata page. Cochise said there would be one, but there isn't yet.

~J

[Cochise]

I said that the next reprint will have this Errata and that [b]hopefully[B] the Errata shows up on the official page sooner or later ...

All the info I provided is based on what Rob told the german SR community at the german RatCon and what he told me when we had a little "private" chat (due to a little organization problem only 3 people showed up during the second workshop hour) ...

[Kagetenshi]

Yep; I was just saying that while it will be so, as you said, it currently isn't.

~J

[Fortune]

My fix for the CED is to limit it to providing access to a character's already existing Pools, up to the level of the chip (or the CED, whichever one is lower). It does not actually provide any Pool (or dice) of it's own.

[The White Dwarf]

Kag, your example doesnt really prove anything. It shows first that a troll versus a human is imbalanced because it has more body which is exactly what I started. Then it shows that an unmodified guy versus an identical guy with more dice is imbalanced... um duh.

Try this one. Two human sams with body and skill 6 shooting each other with smartlinked pistols, wearing Long Coats and Form Fit. Oh and since theyre sams theve got Dermal Sheath 1 and Plastic Bone Lacing. So you get two guys with body 6 (9) and armor of (6/3). At short range youll get on average 5 success to hit each other, and then an average of 5 successes to resist with body alone. So, combat pool has to be used to avoid damage, at a rate of 6 dice per attack to get the extra 4 successes. If each sam has initiative of 15 thats 4 shots you need to use 6 pool on... the CED lets you soak one extra hit on the theory that it frees up your combat pool. For the cost to implement that is not unbalanced. Its easier to just get more body for the nuyen unless you want skillwires for some other reason.

Social skills, and perhaps some technical skills (again Ive never encountered a situation where you would need more than the 6 dice plus tools to use those to great effect) is it. For computer youd lose access to hacking pool which is a huge no-no. In combat the extra 6 dice make little impact simply because it takes a fair number of dice to dodge or resist any decent hit and the number of actions spreads out the chances for the pool to refresh to the point that it is *ineffecient* to use the CED to gain a combat advantage. Yea, you end up with a few more dice from one point of view, but they by and large do nothing *especially* when you consider the cost to get them.

[Glyph]

I agree with White Dwarf that the CED's main utility is in technical, B/R, and social skills. In fact, I think its usefulness in combat is even less than the example he gave. Skillwires and a CED take up a lot of Essense - if someone with a CED meets someone without one, I don't think it's that likely that they will have the same Body and initiative. The sammie without the CED will be tougher, faster, or even both.

[Cochise]

[The Jopp]

Well, expensive or not, the character becomes VERY flexible as long as he has the skillchip. The character can, theoretically, use ANY weapon existing as long as he has a chip or a jukebox. He can also have a vast knowledge in various fields, language skills etc. Flexible but highly expensive.

The concept "Rich kid playing shadowrunner" would be a stupid and dangerous thing to say since such a character could become a dangerous opponent, until you re-label all the skillchips and replace them with Black Hammer IC BTL chip. :eek:

They don't really give a description on different chiptypes but do you think there is a PHYSICAL difference on the chips and is it POSSIBLE to insert a BTL program in a skillchip? Are they like our CD's/Floppy's or is a BTL like a Floppy VS Skillchip is a ZIPdrive disc?

*Looks up* Hmm, that DOES look a bit confusing. :wobble:

[Fonitrus]

I have read thru all your responses looking for someone no so oblivious. Have not found one yet.

Can I point you to page 295 in the SR3 (aka BBB for the noobs) under the Skillsofts description, the end of the 2nd Paragraph says "Activesofts replicate Active Skills such as Combat, Physical, Technical or Vehicle Skills"...

I dont see Social skils. Also in above post someone was mentioning Hacking pools and Skillwires...Hmm when jacked in u cannot benefit from skillwires/skillsofts.. while decking i think u use Computer Skill right? to do all the Computer (TEST TN) Tests right? so the taskpool doesnt help at all. Or am I wrong about that?

I do agree that a Skillwired person has alot more advantages than someone without but so do wired reflexes 3 over a boosted 1 person. The diference is ¥ and the all so cruicial essence. First aid only goes so far. Have u ever been injured severely and the medkit didnt help and u r crossing ur fingers and 'praying' to the god of D6s for the mage in the group who is trying to roll 10-Essence to heal your wounded A$$..and fail...next stop Doctor's office and about 500-1000¥ per day to heal u.

I dont know people lose alot of essence trying to munch out on 'usefull' cyber then blame the mage for rolling bad.

I admit I may have 'gone off a tangent' (if thats the proper phrase) but CED can be abused? Yes. ANYTING can. From the standard mage setup of inc. reflexes force 1 (any variation +1,+2,+3) with asustaining foci force 1 that is always on..everywhere, to the ATGM wielders, then to the down dirty ones of muscle replacements +4 and titanium bonelacing then layering armour jackets + long coats...and dont forget the Rapid Transit Line helmet with +2 Impact for 50¥... and yea the forearm guards...so to have overall 6/8 armour in melee without layering penalties and doing STR+4M stun...mucnhkin human 6+muccle replacemtn 4 =10 STR thats 14M stun against impact... eseence u ask..close to zero...
So SMG skill in CED slot and Pistol skill learnt means u have 2 simple actions on which u can use 6+6 dice per simple action (shooting a pistol,and a burst on separate actions)....munchy yes..costly yes...but just as munchy and costly as any other ultimate mucnhkin gear...

So CED can and will be abused by those who only care about the dice. Those who think "if my eseence is 3, mages roll 10-3=7=6 not as bad..." will never abuse the system and pick a rating that they can afford both ¥ wise and essence wise...

Sure skillsofted Car skill of 12 (skill+CED) is way better than normal drivers and may border VCR1 riggers (minus the drone ability) but u can only afford so many skills at once..and its a complex action to change chips (Assuming u cannot afford CED 6 on all 4 slots of the multijack)...

The Jack of All trades with CED 12 becomes close to Master of All trades but as long as doing 1 thing at a time..or not lose the chip...

So why do ppl pick on CEDs and cyber and DO absolutely nothing about the force 1 mages increase reflex mucnhkins. mundanes lose out..spellpools refresh as per pool rules i.e. per combat turn..have u ever seen a mage cast more than 1 spell inside 3 seconds intervals while not in combat. Huh? they always get their nasty pool and with some spells where the victim must match up or succeed successes, then LVL 1 with 12 dice (average 6 successes on cast vs tn3 ) will most probably be enough for willpower 3 people to not stand a chance...so u r comlaining that CEDs break the game. Legwork is mainly based on Social Skills or Decking or maybe Astral Projecting. ALL of these are not affected by skillsofts.

Techical, B/R skill that usually get no task pool? Well even limiting the CED to rating 3 is not helping. Most of the Technical/BR require a KIT/SHOP/FACILITY to be able to even TRY to do any dice tests. Why not have the Task Pool come from the Rating of the Kit/Shop/Facility or maybe the game-designers have a more ingnenious way of getting a natural task pool based maybe on inteligence or something.

I may have not made any points except for the fact that I hate magic and munchkins of all type so judge as you please.

[Sphynx]

FYI, it says it replaces Active Skills, the 'such as' is a list of examples and not the list of ALL possibilites. Social Skills do fall under Active Skills and as such are accessable via skillsofts. :P (Though I think it's a common House Rule to prevent the use of Social Skills via Skill Softs).

Personally, we did the exact opposite of Fortune. We don't allow you to use the CED for skills that have pools (Task Pool being the exception). We see the CED as the 'pool giver' for the non-pool skills. If you want a super duper expert electronics/biotech/demolitions type of character, skillsofts is the way to go. Removing those from the list of possible CED softs, removes the biggest potential of the cyberware. It's rarely going to be a matter of balance to have 12 dice for an Electronics roll, but it IS a matter of balance to have Combat Skills used via the CED since you can DIMAP and use Combat Pool for one action, Task pool for another, and still have dice to spare for more actions.

Sphynx

[Fonitrus]

[Fonitrus]

[Sphynx]

If I may quote you above:

"Activesofts replicate Active Skills such as Combat, Physical, Technical or Vehicle Skills"...

Notice, "such as" does exist in your book, it doesn't say: "limited to", "only", etc. Now personally, I agree with you (and our House Rules show that) but it IS a House Rule that you can't Soft a Social Skill. The only limitation by that quote is that it can replicate "Active Skills" and Social skills DO fall under "Active Skills".

As for DIMAP'ping, the expense is only in the upgrade to your skillswires (which can run in the millions). Needing 432 MP to run a 69,120(assuming legal) :nuyen: rating 6 DIMAP 6 soft is where the money is at a huge 1,296,000-OriginalCost :nuyen:

Even if you Optimize it to get the MP down to 216 with a cost of 138,240(assuming legal) for the chip, since most people tend to build their Skillwires with an MP value of 108 at char-gen, cost 648,000-324,000(orignalCost for 6*108*500) :nuyen:

BUT, once the upgrade is there (which can be at Char-Gen even), than considering the cost to raise a skill to 12 vs the cost to buy a skill at 6, the cost is nothing at all. Not like you have to buy one-shot types of softs here. :P

Sphynx

PS. I'm not argueing that the wires are overpowered, I LIKE them as they are, but if a House Rule is made, I think it should be to remove Combat skills from the CED rather than the Int based skills like Electronics.

PPS. Agreed on Social Skillz when Denver has walls. ;) But it's only a House Rule

[Kagetenshi]

While you have some valid points, Fonitrus...

[Siege]

I'd point out that certain aspects of social interaction can be recorded and thus replayed.

For that matter, entire classes revolve around how to behave and how to walk, how to dress, etc. The nigh-infamous schools of thought that address things like body language, posture, tone of voice, etc.

The idea of chipping social skills isn't that far-fetched.

-Siege

[BlackSmith]

no it might not be, BUT i would categorice all chipped social skills.
you DON'T talk/act the same way when having businsess with streets or with coporate suit thus if you are "used" to talk certain way because of an chip, you are in trobule when dealign a different social class.
human could adapt and change/reduce his maners and body language to fit to the situtaion.

[Fonitrus]

[Kagetenshi]

Er, yes, it does.
I'm going to go huddle in a corner and cry now.

~J

[The White Dwarf]

Heh, it never fails. Everytime people talk skillwire abuse (outside of social skills, maybe technical tho I still maintain the "eh more dice" attitude to that) once the cost is calculated it becomes a moot point.

Yes someone could try to carry around a jukebox with 6 gun skills in it as a backup should they need to be flexible mid run. But honestly, how often has this ever come up in your games? Im sure everyone has at least one story that stands out as "that time we had to escape and I took the bad guy's gun and Blam Blam Blam!" but on a regular basis it almost never happens.

Even when it does, most of the time some of the players will have the right skill. Pistols are a common secondary when theyre not the main and most characters tend to have that skill. Even if they dont have the matching gun skill, it wont kill them to just default at a penalty for that scenario and use a little karma if they roll bad, thats what its for.

If someone wants to invest the (significant) nuyen and essence into a skillwire system to cover this enventuality, fine. Its not a common occurance, and it wouldnt be a problem for the few times it happens to have someone get to use the cyberware they spent cash on. The majority of the time they WONT be using it since theyll be using their main skill, making the investment worthless unless they get in a less than ideal situation.

[Kagetenshi]

I'm not saying that any primary intended uses are by themselves gamebreaking (I was originally but you convinced me otherwise [edit: except social skills and stealth]), I'm just still arguing that the net effect of having all of this available is still unbalanced, IMO.
I still maintain that some of the technical tests have sufficiently long base times that dividing it by six rather than three is a significant difference, Programming tests especially (even if you for whatever reason cannot use skillwires while decking, you certainly should while programming).

~J

[edit2] In my games, though, people are caught with less-than-optimal guns decently frequently. We've had a string that have required the runners to be in public places shortly before a combat.

[The White Dwarf]

Alright, I can concede that such might be the case in some games. Its "gamebreaking" effect from being available is really only comparable to "what could I get instead" so that could vary from group to group. Same thing with the guns. If we had to be in public in our groups runners would either bag up the rifles and hang at a bus stop for cover, or simply downshift to concealed pistols with the right ammo loads, etc etc. But that all depends on the run and how the GM deals with stuff.