Cost of Drugs Options

[neko128]

I didn't see this in the 4e rulebook, and I didn't find anything on here in searching. Are there prices listed for the various drugs (Jazz, Kamikaze, Longhaul, etcetera)? The only ones I could find are the "combat chemicals" - Mace, Seven-7, etcetera.

[Tanka]

Not as far as I can find. They're mentioned, but never given prices.

[Guest_MK Ultra_*]

Tere are no prices and availabilities for these in SR4 :STARTOFEDIT: I think, this is intentional, so every GM can controll the use and availability of Drugs in his game, thogh IMO prices and availabilities would not have hindert this ability :ENDOFEDIT:. If you have access to Man & Machine, use the 3rd Edition prices. Kamikaze i.e. IIRC was 50 :nuyen: back than but had a very high street index, Cram was only 20 :nuyen: or so.

[Deadjester]

Its the 60s all over again, its FREE! :)

[Dissonance]

I figure that regardless of the campaign type, the costs of drugs (or regular ammo within reason, for that matter) would be so low as to be inconsequential.

I'd allow, like, a certain number of free hits per whenever.

EDIT: Hold on, let me grab some books. I have a hunch.

[tisoz]

Drugs are a lifestyle thing.

[Dissonance]

So much for that hunch. I thought they might have been in the lifestyle costs. But, yeah, if you had to put a cost on 'em, I wouldn't make 'em above 50y.

Heck, I would make most of them creatable with a chem facility/lab with a pretty low threshhold. After all, if meth addicts can make meth...

[tisoz]

I was making a joke about a lifestyle choice, but as a GM, if the PC wants to do something potentially damaging, I wouldn't keep them from getting drugs.Same as I wouldn't keep a PC from getting hundreds of kilos of explosives. You know something bad is going to come of it.

[neko128]

I don't agree with the 50 nuyen/home drug lab comment because, for example, Kamikaze is a "tailored combat drug", and similarly, Jazz was developed by a corporate R&D farm. It just doesn't make sense to me that they'd be easy or cheap to produce. I mean, sure, a few drugs are easy enough to make in home labs (meth, for example), but any number of others are impossible to make without fairly advanced chemistry.

And on the other side of this, BTLs ARE listed on the price list, and are 20-200+. A drug, even one made in a home lab, has both an initial research cost - and especially in the case of a custom-made combat drug, that's going to be quite high. In the words of Toby Ziegler (any other West Wing fans here?) "The second pill pill costs $0.10; the first one cost $400 million." A BTL chip will have an initial cost, but it'll be a production cost, not a research cost... Lower than the R&D cost on a new drug.

After that, a drug has a production cost. Materials, time, processing... The BTL has no production cost; just the cost of media for the copy. In addition, the drug should be harder to package and transport; it has to be controlled, at least to an extent; especially aerosols, like Jazz.

And then, on top of it, BTLs are illegal; their marketing budget will be zero. Marketing them is BEGGING to be arrested... Beyond stupid. Those designed combat drugs will be marketed to anyone who can afford it; other corps, merc companies, etcetera. Yet more overhead.

My point is... In all areas, the combat drugs should be more expensive to the BTLs; maybe the MINIMUM cost will be 50 nuyen, but I'd imagine it should be more, and definitely not the average.

[Dissonance]

Well, my thought here has to do with the fact that your 2060s sort of chemistry set would be a lot like your 2070s medkit. I don't want to whip out the word 'replicator' willy-nilly, but there's all sorts of tools available to them that we don't have that could make the homebrew job a lot easier.

And considering a rtg 3 skill in chemistry would be equivalent to, what, an AA in chem? It's a pretty good start.

[emo samurai]

Plus, with the whole original R&D cost, these are street drugs. As soon as the formula comes out, that cost becomes meaningless.

[neko128]

[hyzmarca]

Yep. A megacorp footing the 400,000,000 :nuyen: research costs means that you don't have to. This is why patent laws exist, so that people won't be able to make ten cent copies of a drug that cost four-hundred million to devolp.

Of course, it is trivial to go to the Corporate Court patent office and learn everything you need to know to make the drug. Mass production will require more than a chemestry set but the only substantial difference between pharamcutical factories and home chemestry labs is that the pharmacutucal factories have bigger jars.

A process may require dozens of steps and rare compounts, but the basics of chemestry have never really changed.

[Tanka]

[neko128]

[Tanka]

[Dissonance]

Okay. After a good night's sleep with no distractions, I'm willing to concede that your average drug should cost a wee bit more than a BTL, but you'd likely get more than one dose out of a single buy.

My reasoning for this?

I imagine that a BTL is incredibly easy to make. You just need a chip writer and the sourcecode. I could see it being a test of, like, programming and entertainment, taking the lowest score.

But the thing is that electronic components are dirt cheap, compared to the one-use-then-gone nature of chemicals. If you were writing a BTL, you could theoretically make it so it doesn't burn out. If you're going to be the one who is using it, and all that.

As for the street production of Jazz and soforth? I think a chemical laboratory would be good enough for synthesis, but not really reaching the requirements for invention. If we're dealing with shadowrunners, here, who are kind of Above The Game, so to speak, we're talking about people with the equivalent of college degrees in the stuff.

As for reverse-engineering the formula? Well, that's coming from the fact that you've got multiple things available to you. First of all, you have your standard laboratory. I assume your regular, college-level lab is the equivalent of a Chemistry Shop. Wheras a facility would be, say, Flynn Scientific. That's a pretty dandy resource right there if you know how to use it.

Secondly, you have toys. I don't have T: WL, but they make mention of chemical analyzers. Furthermore, there's likely more stuff in there that can take a drop of something and spit out a list of components.

Thirdly, there's the Matrix. You have access to the matrix and are a sufficiently good hacker on the side? Just woamg, folks.

These three factors mean that, in my opinion at least, it's likely trivial (or at least a good month's work) for a tech-oriented shadowrunner to create his own drugs. Maybe not quite so feasable for the Trog Thumper gang down in Pullayup, but, hey. Is it against the rules to have a Technomancer that's still young? I like creepy kids.

[Tanka]

BTLs have to be recorded, which means getting an actor that has a simrig, and then paying them to do things that would go on a good BTL. Generally, I'd also pay for any hospitalization costs they may incur due to this, insurance, et cetera.

BTLs aren't going to be cheaper for one reason -- good actors are greedy. If you get yourself a shoddy simstar, your BTL will show it. If you get a good one, you're going to have to pay.

People who make the drugs for themselves won't have to pay as much as someone on the streets. Comparing make-your-own-BTLs to buy-jazz-on-the-streets doesn't work. If somebody buys either on the streets, there's going to be profit for the person selling. If somebody makes either themselves, they can then sell a few doses (or a few chips that'll burn out after one use) and pay off what they paid to get the stuff in the first place.

Welcome to Economics 101, folks. :P

[Shrike30]

Of course, there's always the risk that your home-brewed Jazz is contaminated, meaning (at best) that you have to scrap the whole batch or (at worst) you blind, paralyze, necrotize, or kill a whole bunch of your customers/yourself, and have to deal with the consequences...

[Tanka]

And there's always the risk that your BTL does the same. Your point?

[neko128]

[Tanka]

[Shrike30]

[Tanka]

[fool]

so there's a couple of problems with assuming that making drugs would be cheap.
1 yes once you have the formula you don't have to pay the cost to develop, but you do still have to pay the cost for source chemicals. While you may be able to cook meth from cold medicine you still need large amopunts of liquid (?) iodine which is controlled/ watched by the cops. In order to make a large amount of the meth you need a large amount of the source chemicals. In short no you can't get most of youre chmicals from common household items, or you can if you don't mind killing folks (blind pig anyone?).
2 You're source chemicals (or even entire product) may be something that takes a long time to produce. I'm thinking specifically deepweed and novacoke. In it's original listing, deepweed was said to be produced by the Hougans of the carribean who guarded their secretes carefully (how else do you keep the market cornered?)
3 Many drugs require steps that are too complicated for a simple chemistry lab. There is a huge difference between a chemistry lab and a pharmaceutical lab. Witness the designer drugs described in T:WL. They're can only be created in outer space which means that they have an outrageous cost.
4 Competition- you may be able to get away with whipping up some cram on your own if you have the s[pecialized equipment and source chemicals (I imagine cram being akin to modern day meth.) But try consistently making large batches and someone is going to catch wind (literalluy the stuff stinks,) and come down hard on your ass.