Culutred Bioware at Char Creation, Is it Allowed? Options

[Mercer]

Well, honestly, there are some pieces of cultured bioware that are simply too powerful for characters to have at creation, or to pick up during play for that matter. I am of course thinking of the Sleep Regulator. I mean, do you people want to portray god-like creatures-- nay, Gods themselves?!?-- that can control exactly when they fall asleep or wake up?

[sidekick]

[The White Dwarf]

Perhaps I should have given an example. I didnt mean he "couldnt advance", what I meant was that you can start off with "maxed" gear and extremely high skills, to the point that advancing via gear even a single step is millions of nuyen and the only way to advance skills is to either raise what you have to an even higher level or just cover someone elses area.

(for example) Our teams are typically 5-6 PCs. If the Sam starts off with 0.05 essence and 3.0 bioindex, its going to be extremley expensive to upgrade any implants (requiring several things to be deltawared etc to make room for anything new). And if he starts with combat skills at effective ratings of 6-8, theyre already high enough to do what he needs to do. And if he has backup skills at like 3 or 4 (negotiation, electronics, etc - the good stuff but not his specialty) thats great, but its likley someone else on the team has it higher and is makeing 80% of the corresponding rolls. Which means that in the end, it takes a LONG time to see any appriciable advancement in effectivness in gear, combat, or non-combat areas relative to the rest of the team.

Without posting entire characters thats about the best I can describe it. But thats how Sams pretty much panned out in our group allowing cultured. People stopped making Sams and just started making hybrids that were combat-capable-somethingelses. Not bad just not exactly fun for us.

And yes, I wasnt saying we followed that FAQ, youre correct in its statement. I was just saying that FAQ is more pertinent to me than you made it seem, a source to be considered when making a ruling. But as this example shows not something to be blindly followed, as you agree. You dont have to be mindless to turn to FAQ for guidelines, but do consider your own game when it comes down to it. Thats what I was trying to say.

Hope that is clearer. I agree with your mentailty, just thought you were being a bit hard on the FAQ /grin.

[tisoz]

How are the sams reaching maxed out status? This isn't SR2 where you had 1 skill for firearms, armed combat and unarmed combat. Those 3 skills would need to be replaced with pistols, SMGs, shotguns, rifles, AR, some type of unarmed combat (hopefully one with a few maneuvers, effectively doubling its cost), clubs, whips, polearms/staffs, edged weapons, (some maneuvers that are usable with these)...

Then there is throwing weapons, projectile weapons, demolitions, biotech, launch weapons, stealth, athletics, off-hand skills, B/R for all these skills, kits, shops, and maybe facilities for a bunch of these. And these (with the exception of the unarmed type martial arts) are all in the basic book. Why do they have karma or cash? Are they lazy, unimaginative, ignorant...?

And that doesn't even cover driving anything. ;)

[The White Dwarf]

Like I said unless you want me to post like a half dozen "example" chracters its hard to cover every concievable discrepency, but overall I stand by what I said. At chargen you can easily have brawling 6+1, pistols 5 (your choice 7) +1, and assualt rifles 5 (your choice 7) +1. While not fully maxed out in every skill or situation it covers 90% of what youll need for combat. As to the rest of the skills, Ill repeat that most of the time the Sam isnt responsible for it. The rigger drives, anyone with biotech 4 is enough for first aid street doc gets the rest, stealth 4 or 6 is plenty with things like spells and ruthenium, most of the other combat skills are unneccessary since you can only shoot one gun at a time, etc. By the time the Sam is able to increase any of the secondary-esque skills to a level able to compete with the primary-user its both a) stale for the sam and b) just duplicating another character not really advancing your own into new ground. FOR OUR GROUP disallowing cultured bioware helped counteract this in a varity of ways; both by lowering the starting potential of sams a bit to give them more space to grow, and by making it a bit harder for just anyone to pick up the same 2 or 3 mods and get a big combat advantage. It made a dedicated Sam worth playing again for us. Like not having synaptic accelerator means that to be really fast out of the box you need to go wired, too expensive and large for anyone not interesting in being a sam. Or that you need some +body 'ware rather than using trauma dampener in ever guy. Etc etc .. Again this is an example of where we considered the FAQ standpoint and decided to go with whats best for us, not blindly following it but noting its value.

[TinkerGnome]

It's one of the fundamental imbalances in SR. Sammies generally don't need a whole lot of karma to advance (they can always find something to spend it on, of course, but they are generally pretty well suited for their jobs). Instead, sammies need gear upgrades to really "advance". Our group generally doesn't get into games which are long term enough to have come up with a good solution to this, but cultured bioware doesn't at character gen doesn't seem to add to or take away from this problem.

Hitting bio index 3.0 is easy without cultured bioware, afterall (between muscle aug, muscle toner, and enhanced articulation, it's pretty fast, 2 levels of one, 4 levels of the other, and the EA and you're done). Having cultured available doesn't change that character at all.

[Kagetenshi]

Er... leaving biotech to a single character seems to be a STUPID, STUPID thing to do.
Honestly, I'd say even a Mage would end up picking up a level or two, just in case. The ability to patch yourself up at least a little after the rest of your team has been slaughtered is invaluable.
Other than that, duplicating other characers is a good thing. People die all the time, and you don't want that lucky shot to be the difference between a failed run and a successful one.

~J

[The White Dwarf]

Well the way things work out for us is that disallowing some of the cultured mods makes players think "in advance" and so leave room at chargen to get them. Not only does something like no trauma dampener make body a bit more important (now need 2 successes more every resistance test from one point of view) but it also means they have that much less space for something else if they want to leave space to "grow into". However, the same could be said of things with availabilty over 8, with planning ahead for it. Its just been our experience that there are few mods worth having over that limit, while theres several good cultured ones.

And yes, one guy with biotech isnt smart, but when going from skill 0 to 3 is but 10 karma, and savior advanced medkits have biotech at 5 for some purposes, and the test is written that so you only need 1 success to first aid, its rarely an issue. The same can be said of most backup coverage for our games, death is rather rare and its not unusual to have several folks start with something at 3 or 4 while one guy has it at 6. Striaght out of the box our teams are usually pretty well off in that respect, which is why having somewhere useful to advance is kinda important for us. The Awakened, Riggers, and to a lesser extent Deckers seem to fare the better in the long run compared to Sams and other specialist characters. They just have more places to go with both nuyen and karma. As TinkerG said a fundamental game issue I suppose.

[Siege]

Between the medkits, biomonitors and trauma patches, having a backup medic is nice but not absolutely required.

Bear in mind, all that tech is great but the best it will do is keep a character from dying outright.

It's like Car -- so many samurai don't spend any points on a vehicle skill which _really_ complicates basic legwork. Some form of social interaction is also nice -- Etiquette or Negotiations.

-Siege

[Sphynx]

Kinda off-topic, sorry. But why would you need a skill in Car? They have auto-pilots, and you can default to reaction since basic driving yould have a TN of 2 (should you actually, for some strange reason, need to take the wheel from the auto-pilot). :P

Sphynx

[Siege]

My GM rules that the autopilot is just good enough to make basic drives, essentially like a little old lady.

Which is fine for picking up groceries or coming home after a bender.

But it gets a little frustrating if you need to deviate from standard driving practices (exceeding the speed limit, driving on the sidewalk and so on) or if the autonav grid isn't working or just isn't there (Barrens).

Never mind high-speed pursuits or fleeing from aggravated people intent on seperating you from your vital organs.

-Siege

Edit: I would also point out that "basic driving" has a TN of 4 -- in all the games I've played in. It only gets harder from there. And defaulting to attribute still assess a basic penalty, doesn't it?

[Sphynx]

Well, I'd say it's be a Simple or -maybe- Routine task to drive, Average difficulty would entail Manual transmission or complex maneuvers.

Although I agree that driving carelessly (over sidewalks, sharp turns, etc) would constitute some driving skill, hell, even turning onto a busy intersection might, that's not what was mentioned. You said car skill to do legwork. Ie: driving like an old lady to a place to get information.

I buy an expensive car, with a nice autopilot rating, I tell it where I want to go, and I take a nap until I get there. If it takes me an hour cause my autopilot travels at half speed and waits at intersections until it has a mile of spare room to get on the intersection, so be it. :P

I don't think people in 2063 having alot of driving skill though, I think people are dependant on autopilots and are busy conducting conference calls, etc while their car takes them where they want to go, and I don't imagine it's as bad as the possible level I described either. I'll be up shit's creek without a paddle if some decker decides to play with the local traffic signals, true. But when that happened, I took a nap until my car was able to get clear of the traffic jam. :P

Sphynx

[nezumi]

I seem to recollect reading somewhere (I can't remember the page, sorry) that all characters are assumed to have the minimal skill required to operate a vehicle under normal conditions, however the car/bike skills apply to unusual things like driving over old ladies and on sidewalks etc.

That said, unless you are exceptionally good at hiding, being able to escape the scene (or to split up) is very useful. I think I've made all of 1 character without bike or car skill (because he's a country bumpkin) and I've never seen a party with less than half of all characters trained in either car or bike (including the 70BP ganger campaign). Being a shadowrunner generally involves running away from things, and honestly, I trust Ford over Nike for that sort of thing.

[nezumi]

Speedy Sphynx... I agree that the average person in the SR universe will NOT have exceptional car skill (although probably there are still driving tests to get your license). People still drive like morons, just like now, it's just that in SR the people can be morons doing their own thing and the cars to a good job on their own. However, I'm sure you've heard there are only two kinds of people who leave their doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition: cops and robbers, and the same is true. People chased by cops and the cops themselves (and security guards and news crews etc.) still cannot depend on auto pilot, and so they will know how to drive all on their own, probably at rating 2 or better.

[Siege]

Legwork could involve: shadowing a target or double-parking while the subject is otherwise engaged. Imagine all the other quasi-legal things you do behind the wheel on an average day, never mind what you would do when your immediate driving decisions are determined by the actions of your subject.

The autopilot probably wouldn't willingly violate traffic laws which complicates the character's immediate objective.

Unless of course you hack the autopilot, upgrade the entire system with a drone autosoft...

-Siege

[TinkerGnome]

[Ol' Scratch]

For all intents and purposes, Autopilots with a rating of 2 or higher drive like professional drivers with a Car skill equal to their rating (Rigger 3, p. 127). So an Autopilot 3 (let alone 4) is a pretty good damn driver, capable of compensating for other bad drivers, unexpected obstacles, and even breaking some traffic laws in an emergency. However they are very much safety-oriented and actually function has a penalty when you do try to manually perform crazy stunts or evade police (until you turn it off at least).