Ratings of Sensory Enhancements to Perception, Hearing, Scent, Taste, Touch, Visual Options

[Louie]

List of cyberware components that add dice to perception...

Audio Enhancement (SR4, pg 333)...Rating 1-3
Olfactory Booster (SR4, pg 331)...Rating 1-6
Taste Booster (SR4, pg 331)...Rating 1-6
Touch...?...
Vision Enhancement (SR4, pg 332)...Rating 1-3

Can anyone help me understand the mismatch in rating ranges? What am I missing?

PS...I'm a new-ish player. Please forgive me if this is a newbie question.

:cyber:

[Jaid]

audio and visual are already must-haves. if you start handing out rating 6 enhancements like halloween candy, then you're gonna have to start handing out huge bonuses to stealth or else stealth becomes useless (well, not useless... but a whole lot less appealing).

[hobgoblin]

diffrent devices, diffrent rule behaviors...

[Eryk the Red]

I can't pretend to know the exact reasoning behind the rules, but here's how I see it: when you roll for taste or smell (not often, I'm sure), it's going to be specifically for that. Barring humorous odors, your sense of smell is not really figuring in to detecting an ambush. These senses are less significant to you and likely not particularly acute. I'm sure a portion of the bonus gained from smell and taste enhancements is just amplifying sensory signals to make them easier to focus on. The rest, of course, being enhancements to the actual sense. Vision and hearing are very significant to our perceptions. We focus primarily on them. The sensory bonuses for sight and hearing aren't always as pronounced, because, unlike with taste and hearing, we're normally noticing a lot of this stuff anyway.

Also, taste and smell boosters are less useful. So, at least they should be awesome when you find a reason to use them. ;)

[Mistwalker]

I would say that since Vision and Hearing are senses already have a large amount of "bandwidth" assigned to them.
Since Taste and Smell are nowhere used as much, it is easier to increase the bandwidth.

[Eryk the Red]

I guess you could say it that way. If you wanted to be less obtuse and verbose.

[Mistwalker]

:)

That's me, simplifying all around me.
I am a firm believer in the KISS principle

For those not familiar with it, it means Keep It Simple Stupid, or Keep It Simple, Stupid.

[Louie]

Thanks for the replys everyone. I appreciate it.

I guess I was surprised that there didn't appear to be consistency across all the sensory enhancements. I saw the 1-3 dice for visual and hearing first, and then was puzzled by the 1-6 dice for taste and smell. 1-3 dice seems reasonable. 1-6 dice seems way over the top. The availability stats seemed arbitrary too (Rating*3 for eye/ear vs Rating*4 for tongue/nose).

But I understand everyones' point: Visual/Hearing perception is used all the time. Taste/Smell perception...not so much. Game balance is greater than rules consistency. Makes sense, no worries...

Anyway, thanks again for the help. I've been working for more than 2 years to get my gaming group (mostly d20) to try Shadowrun. We're running our first session in late September and I'm real excited about it. This forum has helped tremendously. That and the SR4 Missions game we played at GenCon this past August.

:cyber:

PS...Hey Aaron! If you're out there...well done GM'ing the SRM02-01 game at GenCon (Friday 12:00pm). The 3 Ork brothers had a blast. Now my whole gaming group is in a lather to play. Well done, sir!

[Guest_MK Ultra_*]

I guess this just reflects, that compared to sight and sound, human´s senes of smell is fairly bad. Thuss there is much more potental for enhancement. Also there are specialized sound and sight enhancements, too, while for olfactory boost, everything is rolled into one rating.