Cyberware, the SR3R way Options

[Darkest Angel]

[Sphynx]

I know I've posted this a few times, but here are some game-mechanic changes in our system for Cyberlimbs.

1) Arms start at the maximum racial bonus of the character's race.

Reasoning being thematic and realism. Thematic: Cyberpunk genre. Can you honestly imagine a metal arm being weaker than your meat-arm? A metal hand should be able to crush a person's skull. Realism: I work with hydraulics every day. To make something with hydraulics (which cyber-arms are suppose to be using) that was weaker than a meat-arm but not prone to breaking and leakage within 10 uses requires infinitely more work to accomplish.

2) The ECU of arms works like the Essence of eyes. Multiply the ECU-requirement of cyberlimb accessories by the grade bonus of the arm. So, an item that would take 1 ECU would take up 0.80 ECU in an Alpha Grade cyberlimb. Grades of cyberlimbs do not decrease capacity.

Cyberlimbs and 1 other item are the most 'broken' cyberware in the game. The other item is Muscle Replacement.

Muscle Replacement is stupid. If you allocated enough resources to get Muscle Replacement at a level that is interesting to the character, you'd be better off buying Muscle Toner/Augmentation, so that your 'natural' attributes are higher allowing you to use skills.

Our own House Rule has been to ignore the problem, after all, who's going to use it? But it would be interesting to come up with some rule that makes it usable in preference to the bioware....

I'm not crazy about re-writing the cyberware essence and costs, especially if you want the 'revised' to be more accepted by people. However, it would make sense that 'basic' grade has evolved to a more 'alpha' grade level. Ie: 0.8 vs 1.0 for a full limb, allowing for 'alpha grade' to cost '0.64' now. Means you can get a full 4-limb replacement for 3.76 in Alpha Grade. :nuyen: should remain the same I think. (Basic cost for the Alpha level adjustment of 0.80)

[SirBedevere]

I was adjusting the costs from 'Man & Machine' and IIRC that cost is excluding surgery.

[nezumi]

I don't mind muscle replacement being outpaced. It's been around since first edition. The idea of 'newer and better' gives a sense of progress for the whole metaplot. Frankly, I'm a little surprised that wired reflexes and VCRs have changed so little in 15 years (of course, now WR is partially replaced by reaction boosters+synaptic accelerator, so there's progress for you).

But that still doesn't explain why cyberlimbs have actually gotten WORSE after sixty years of development.

[Kagetenshi]

[nezumi]

Power creep over 20 YEARS IRL time and 30 in game does not seem like a bad thing to me. It's not like everyone said 'woo, SR3, I'm sure it'll have more powerful stuff than SR2!' And the difference is really fairly minor.

If your concern is you want to save that one extra line in the main manual for all the people who have both that AND M&M AND will never have another reason for using muscle replacement... I don't know what to say. I'm not going to cry over one wasted line, and as someone who is currently running a BBB-only game, it's actually kinda useful. None of the characters have bioware, so they're happy to use the cyber version. (In other words, under some circumstances, that cyberware IS worth taking, although you may consider those circumstances extenuating. I can guarantee you, if you do actually make an SR3R manual before... 2009, there will be at least one player who continues to use muscle replacement, because he's in my game right now.)

I'd say drop the issue and continue on. If we're going to spend weeks debating how best to use a single line in a single book, we're never going to get anywhere, and it's not like either piece of ware are especially unbalanced.

[Sphynx]

I assume however, that SR3R will include Bioware, making it useless to have Muscle Replacement. And honestly, even using just the BBB, I've never known anyone to take Muscle Replacement except in maybe their very first cyber character.

But still, I agree with Nezumi in that it's a "core" item to Shadowrun. It shouldn't be deleted as much as 'fixed'. Your muscles are kinda 'steel' (yeah, I know it's some sort of calcium and vat grown bioware or something), that should offer more than just Strength and Quickness, that should add to Body and maybe Impact Armour as well. Something so that a full Muscle Replacement with Titanium Bone Lacing makes you a scary thing. Just my opinion....

[nezumi]

[Link]

Is Muscle Replacement compatible with Muscle Augmentation? I'm sure no book says otherwise.

As most cyberware has been around since either SR1 or Shadowtech the cyberware technology curve is about 4 years long as far as obsolescence goes.

As Sphynx said, I think it makes sense that cyberlimbs match the body's attributes. When attributes rise a quick tweak by the cyberdoc soups the limb up to the new rating. Flesh is weak... Steel you can trust!

[Kagetenshi]

[Sphynx]

The difference between the Muscle Replacement and the other items you listed is their seemingly unbalanced costs in comparisson. It's just not viable to expend so much of your limited essence for so little. That, and the description pretty much states that it is Bioware. It is outdated, both thematicly (what doctor would recommend it over the real-deal, less intrusive bioware?) and for a player.

While I agree it shouldn't be removed, it does need, just like cyberlimbs, a re-think to either make it worth the costs, or adjust those costs.

[Sphynx]

[Link]

[Kyoto Kid]

...ahhhh, some of the fun toys from Shadowbeat. We adapted some of the "newsware" (as I called it) for my Reporter character Lana Lane. She wasn't just the Camera ["love ya, Audrey W."], she was also the broadcast and fragging video editing studio to boot. The only non-related ware she had was a level 1 Synaptic Accelerator & two levels of Muscle Toner.

[Chance359]

I don't think I've every made a character with cyberlimbs, I just never cared for how much they cost versus either bioware (which would affect the whole body) or clonal parts.

I'm fine with Kage's original suggestion of cutting the essence cost by two and the cash cost by five. And also with Sphynx's suggest that limbs start at the racial max strength.

Also I'd like to throw this out for consideration:

[nezumi]

I'm not comfortable with giving them a 75% bonus before cyberware grade, especially for some of those...

A cybertorso should reduce the additional essence cost of cyberlimb strength and quickness increases to 0. In addition, it should have an impact on monetary cost.

By the rules, it decreases the costs (essence and monetary) of bone lacing, muscle replacement and a few other things (dermal sheaths, etc.), but also decreases their effects. You just don't have bones in a cyberlimb, so you can't reinforce them. Why can't you add dermal sheath to a cyberlimb? I don't know.

Boosted reflexes, the VCR and simlinks have no interaction with cyberlimbs. There should be no bonus.

Things with a simsense rig (skillwires, smartlink) could perhaps have a very, very slight bonus (way less than 75%). Wire reflexes I'm on the fence about.

That isn't to say that cyberware shouldn't have a reduced cost. I see no reason why dermal sheath shouldn't be just as effective, but have a reduced essence cost, or a smartlink or a cyberradio in a cyberskull. I just think you chose some less than exemplary ones of this case.

[Link]

[Chance359]

Alright, heres a dumb question, how do cyberlimbs work? are they hydraulic with tubes of pressuried fluid, or do they rely on servos, or perhaps they use something like a variable memory (more current more movement) metal counter balanced with another one (one shortening, the other lengthening like real muscles)?

[Moon-Hawk]

Probably an artificial muscle. Some kind of polymer or metal that changes length when a tiny current is applied. The stuff exists now, in face I have some in my lab right now. (no, I didn't make it) It's just expensive and kinda sucky, it needs a few years of improvement, but it's very promising.

[Chance359]

Maybe different ways of making a limb work could count for the different types of limbs. You've obvious cyberlimbs would be hydraulic, synthetic limbs would use servos, and custom cyberware (beta and delta) would us the memory metals.

[Garrowolf]

I have heavyware that uses hydrolics, Alphaware that uses myomer, and then Wetware (bioware).

[Kagetenshi]

It'd be a nice touch to expand cyberlimbs into multiple categories, all with different degrees of strength, resemblance to the original limb, etc. rather than the simple obvious/synthetic divide we have now.

~J

[Eyeless Blond]

(Cross-post from Matrix thread, as it concerns cyberware)


Absolutely agree that initiative-boosters should be all cyber-based, rather than external-hardware based (I came up with the idea; one has to be his own biggest fan :D). The breakdown, as I saw it, went thusly:

• "Physical" initiative boosts came from Wired Reflexes (+2+d6 init/rating level, can be switched off to avoid "twitch-fire"), or their bioware equivalent (Synaptic Accelorators, harder to detect but cannot be switched off). These affect actions made in meatspace, but not purely mental actions like decking, using DNI to drive a car, etc.
• "Mental" initiative boosts come from the Encephalon (again, +2+d6 init/rating level). These affect only purely mental actions: DNI driving, decking, CCSS system-interaction, etc. Encephalons no longer provide Task Pool. Dunno about a Bioware equivalent here, at least not pre-2070.
• Reaction Enhancers (+1 Reaction/level) and their bioware equivalents (Boosted Reaction treatments, +1 Reaction/level) affect both physical and mental initiative.
• VCRs have their init-boosting effects stripped out, and only provide the driving bonuses. Essence and nuyen cost are reduced accordingly, as a "rigger" will need to have both.
• A given deck can only handle a maximum-rated Encephalon rating of MPCP/3, round down to a minimum of 0. Beyond that the headware is just too advanced for the hardware to cope with, much like having a persona attribute that's set too high.
• (HIGHLY DEBATABLE): Combat turns could be run like this: if your Encephalon rating is higher than your Wired Reflexes rating, roll the extra die seperately. If you get an extra init pass, that pass can only be used for purely mental actions (observe in detail, etc). If opposite is true, any extra init pass gained by WR can only be used on purely physical actions.

[Link]

[Eyeless Blond]

Weighing in on the cyberarm debate:

I vaguely recall this proud nail being fought a whole lot on the SR4 boards too, as one of the big things that SR4 failed to resolve. Here's one such thread, looking in the wayback machine from when SR4 was brand new.

Naturally, I like my own idea, smack in the middle of that thread :). But more seriously, there are lots of better thought-through ideas to look over there as well. wavydavy's notes about cyberlimbs' lack of fatigue have resurfaced here, but there's a bit more in that thread about an obvious limb's durability with regards to normal skin that bears repeating.