agility, cyberarms, and ranged combat Options

[Silent Recoil]

Ok, it says right on pg 335 that you use the a particular cyberlimb for for a test, use the attribute for that limb. But, does ranged combat "only" include that limb? How about if its just a cyber-forearm, or just a cyberhand?

To me, it seems the reasoning behind rolling agility with ranged combat represents the hand/eye coordination it takes to point and shoot. I guess I could always add the arm's agility to the character's natural attribute score and divide in half, but that still feels off.

Anyone have any suggestions on how they like to handle cyberarms and ranged combat?

[UndeadPoet]

If you have a full cyberarm, use the agility of the arm.
If you have a cyberforearm, use 2/3 of its agility + 1/3 of your natural agility to determine the absolute agility score for shooting.
If you have a cyberhand, use 1/3 of its agility + 2/3 of your natural agility to determine the absolute agility score for shooting.

[Hasimir]

Rounding UP or DOWN ?

[UndeadPoet]

Rounding down. At least that is how we handle it in our group.
It sucks for me, though, because my character's cyberhands have 5 strength and his natural strength is 3.
3+3+5=11
11:3=2,67
Bah. :P
But since it everyone "suffers" from this rule, it is acceptable.

[Ophis]

SR4 seems to follow round in the characters favor rule.

[UndeadPoet]

Nah, it is the same as in SR3, sometimes it is rounded up, sometimes down.

[Taki]

[Squinky]

In previous discussions many felt the lower arms/hands should go off the natural arms agility. No rounding or crazy mathematics involved.

[Silent Recoil]

I really shouldn't try to figure out rules while dead tired anymore. After re-reading the rules on cyberarms, it says when doing tests that rely solely on the partial cyberarm, and firearms really doesn't seem to fall in that catagory. So for lower arms or hands I'm use the character's agility instead, and maybe a 50/50 for full cyberarms. That sound reasonable?

[Teulisch]

the problem with cyberlimbs, is it affects how much body you roll.

if i have one limb, then its (limb+naturalx5)/6
so if im an orc or troll with body 8, and i have one cyberlimb at body 3, then my body for soaking damage will be (43/6)= 7.16, or 7. thats one dice less body to soak.

same guy, with just a cyberhand, would have 7.72 body. not sure where things round at taht point.

its true that cyberlimbs are good for humans with low natural stats. but even if you just have average stats, bioware can do a lot more to improve your abilities, for less cost, than cyberlimbs.

adding a cybertorso allows higher stats, but then you have to upgrade the torso as well. and cybernetics cap at a maximum stat of 10, requiring very expensive high availibility upgrades. orc and troll can get natural stats of 10 at character creation, and then get them even higher with bioware.

[Silent Recoil]

Well, the more i reread the paragraph, the more I feel confused. I just don't seem to get how the cyberarm's agility effect ranged combat?

For example, if your natural agility is 5, and your cyberhand has an agility 3, which one do you roll when you take a shot with a pistol? And would Muscle Toner or Muscle Augmentation have any effect on that roll, since the majority of the muscles in the arm are still natural?

[Squinky]

Hands and lower arms shouldn't need attribute enhancements, there is simply no room for it. So, unless it is a full arm, the smart thing to do is just use natural.

[Serbitar]

[Shrike30]

I wanna add Str to my head, for headbutts.

I basically threw out the screwy attribute rules for cyberlimbs. Any cyberlimb you get starts out with all of it's physical stats matching yours, except for Strength, which is set to the standard racial maximum. You can only buy Str upgrades, and they only count when using that limb. Any time one of your physical stats changes, you need to spend some time and nuyen getting your limbs tuned, because they no longer sync up with your body.

This also makes building borg characters reasonable... the player sets his stats where he wants them, and that's what his body performs at. Otherwise, character creation becomes a mess of filled cyberlimbs and lots of "baseline" physical stats being 1.