Augmentation Review, What are your thoughts? Options

[Zhan Shi]

Being someone who is not particularly interested in the tech side of things, I thought it was "OK". The section that most grabbed my attention was the section on cybermancy. As far as writing and artwork, I would give it a 10.

[Dashifen]

One word: wonderfun!

[jklst14]

Agreed with Dashifen. I think it was a fantastic supplement. It made cyberlimbs awesome, for the first time in SR history. It updated old favorites from Man & Machine as well as providing lots of fun new toys. Until this book, I really felt SR was slanted towards mages but after Augmentation, the balance feels just right to me.

[Buster]

I think Augmentation is the best SR4 book to date. As a mage, I would say that Street Magic is more useful to me of course, but Augmentation is very well crafted. The fluff is interesting and informative and the crunch is detailed and useful. They fixed some limitations to cyberlimbs, which is cool. The new positive and negative qualities were really needed and fit the game perfectly. The nanotech and genetech sections were surprisingly large sections with lots of useful stuff. The artwork is great too and adds a lot to the feel of the book. I can't really say anything negative about the book...I'm not sure why the penis and breast implants each got their own sections instead of being rolled into the cosmetic mods section, but I'm told that Americans don't understand those things.

[Zhan Shi]

On the whole, we Americans have an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. Many of us, including myself and (I think) Doc Funk, do not see how adding rules for cybergenetalia enhances the game; it's "wasted space" that could have been more fruitfully used. But SR also has an international following, so "When in Rome..." and all that.

[nathanross]

AUGMENTATIONS COVER IS THE WORST SHADOWRUN COVER EVER

Now that I have that out of my system, I must say, Man & Machine was a great supplement, Augmentation is better. I seriously enjoyed reading through it. It put together so much fluff that had been scattered about. Now cyber, bio, nano, genetech and more are all in one ~200p book.

My only gripe is that after looking over the book and all the gear, Im kind of worried how some of the things are going to stack and how balance will be.

Sure, hackers have the ware now to not only out match TM's further, but also spank hacker-adepts. I have yet to total how many dice you can get in conjunction with Logic or Intuition tests, but it cant be small. Sure, most of it is limited to knowledge skills, but common! I actually wish for more flavorful, if not downright pointless ware like the cyberpenis, instead of trying to make every......single.......tiny......... ounce ........ of ware augment the character in some way. There are way too DP modifying wares on the market now. And now there aren't even trade offs for most of the stuff aside from the essence cost.

[Synner667]

[Fortune]

[kzt]

It's pretty good, well worth the money. It reads well, much better than I was expecting. It's not just a list of "stuff". There is a lot of cool stuff, a fair amount of stuff I still think should just provide a fiated effect that only gives a +2 or something lame like that and some stuff that is quite insane. But insane in a cool way.

I still would pay an extra $5-10 it they would just roll the stuff from the BBB into Augmentation so you wouldn't keep having to look junk up in the BBB, the errata and in the FAQ to see how the add-on in augmentation works.

[knasser]

Probably the best supplement yet, and I have a very high regard for the 4th edition so far (and have bought every book for it so far).

The cover is pig ugly and that is quite bluntly the worst thing I can say for it. It is stuffed with flavour and useful things. It expands the power level upwards to compete with magic, which was necessary, but does so in a balanced way with, based on my limited use so far, well-pitched availabilities, essence costs and prices. The fluff is superbly written and really draws you in. Artwork is sparse but good. And it has Kid Stealth legs. :D

To the anti-penis crowd, I can only ask again why they complain about the cyber-genitalia but not implanted horns, silky skin, chloroplast skin, etc., if, as they say, their complaint is that it is wasted space that does not have a game application. I visited the US about eight years ago and found the people there friendly, forthright and hugely certain of what was right and wrong. When it came to sexuality, everyone was militant. Those who had sex outside a relationship were proud of it, those who had sex only within a relationship were proud of it. Gays were proud of it. Straights were either proud of their straightness or (oddly) proud of having gay friends to the point that I even met people who pretended to be lesbian or bisexual! Everybody was making a statement about their way of life.

The original SR London sourcebook put it well, I think, when it said that the difference between European and American sex was primarily oral... americans talked more about it - before, during and after. :D Europeans tend to just get on with it.

I hope this doesn't cause offense, but it is my genuine impression of having spent time in both European and American cultures.

[Casper]

[Ol' Scratch]

Think what you like. They already said the reason they included it was, and I paraphrase, "because we couldn't think of a reason not to" with "(without looking like prudish Americans)" written in between the lines. Of course a few days later, the same guy was complaining about how they didn't have enough room in the book to fit everything they would have liked in, too. Which is exactly why it's so pathetic it's in there at all. Not because of the actual content, but because that space could have been used for something useful.

[Synner]

[Ol' Scratch]

Oh, right, right. I keep forgetting how important and constantly requested it was to hear players snicker "heh heh, I got a cybercock!" versus, you know, all the other myriad and actual game-related things that could have been put into the book instead. Nevermind that cybersex organs could have easily been written in as a single sentence under cosmetic surgery, too. They fully deserved -- nay, demanded -- multiple paragraphs all their own.

Hopefully the next company that gets the license will correct that philosophy in future books.

[The Jopp]

My only gripe about Augmentation is that even though cyberlimbs have become BETTER they are far from what their description implies.

1: Availability
For trolls and orcs with exceptional physical attributes (compared to the common man) the availability becomes killing.

2: Cost
Very popular among the poor it says, even though the base price runs between two to four months middle lifestyles

3: metahuman unfriendly
Not automatically tailored to average metahuman attributes but must customize even the most basic limb for high cost.

End result: Too hich cost for non runners (and for some reason I see non runners as the companies big customer base). Too high availability even for those with real SIN’s.

[Ol' Scratch]

I agree, the cost is high compared to how commonplace they're supposed to be amongst "the poor," but they are still cheaper than a cloned replacement. Not by much, again another hit against it, but they are.

I agree about the other points though. Particularly Availability (the way they're handling it is all kinds of fucked up) and the lack of baseline stats for metahumans. That said, the actual rules for the limbs themselves are scores above previous rules for cyberlimbs were. They're not just storage compartments for cool gadgets. They're that and more.

I just wish redlining wasn't as brutal as it's listed as. Some discouragement for using it was needed, sure, but it's something I couldn't justify myself using in almost any situation.

[Blade]

The stuff is good:
- lot of new stuff, most of them available and useful without being too powerful.
- Most of the augs allow the player to customize his character with a special ability or "power" rather than just max out one skill/attribute or another.
- No "must-have" (implants that some kind of characters need to buy to be good at their job) except for the encephalon for hackers (but I guess it helps non-adept hackers to get on par with magically augmented hacking skills)
- Mages and adepts aren't necessarily the best in every field anymore, and mundanes can have their own funky tricks.
- Fluff in the stuff! Good to remind players and GM how people in 2070 can look like and to add flavor to PCs and NPCs. Mentioning it is good, but adding it to the equipement list is making sure that the players will notice it and maybe even buy it.
- new horizons, but still cyberpunkish (not too many transhuman/post-cyberpunk tech)

The fluff is... mixed:
- Interesting and well done scientific explanations. They give a ground to those who absolutely need them while not going too far to avoid being ridiculous in some cases.
- Some interesting info about corporations, and how these augmentation techs are used.
- But it lacks atmosphere. The fluff is still too far from street-level. The shadowtalks are mostly flavorless. Most of the time it's just '>I agree, >I disagree' with the occasional archetypal '>I like tech (cyberguy), >Tech is baaad (shaman), >You're stupid, >No you are'. It's good to have ingame content and shadowtalks in rulebooks, but they lack the charm of the 1st edition sammy crazy about this new gun, or commenting the advertising blurb. Oh, except for that anecdote about the BattlePez. It took me a few seconds to figure it out, but it made me laugh out loud.

About the penile implant, if you're so much sorry about "losing" a few lines of text, just replace it with :

[Ol' Scratch]

They were complaining about a lack of space for more interesting content, too. Despite their apparent need to feel like they have to defend their addition of cocks and tits as if they were the President of the United States defending some dunderheaded decision.

[Fortune]

[Mr. Croup]

[Ol' Scratch]

[Ol' Scratch]

[Mr. Croup]

No need, in your opinion.

I'm still trying to work out why you believe the idea to be juvenile. If you really don't like the idea, don't use it, but i'm certainly against the idea that only "juvenile brats" would use these implants in their game for a "cheap laugh". Why can't an adult of sound mind use them as what they are - roleplaying aids - without being chalked up as infant-minded?

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Synner]