Cyberware Limits, What about surgical options on Essence? Options

[ShaunClinton]

Hi guys,

Scanning through a whole bunch of posts on Essence costs for cyberware and practical limits I never saw any mention of the Surgery rules in M&M and how they relate to Essence costs.

Even using the rules exactly as written (which I don't, but close enough) it is pretty simple to get 2 or 3 reductions on most cybersurgery... especially if you get it installed in a superior facility.

Once you start talking about deltaware and adept-surgeons and the like then you can make even greater Essence reductions on implantation. In fact some of our PCs struggle to believe you could run out of Essence and take the cyberzombie plunge! Deltaware with 4 reductions means that you can get 20 Essence worth of 'ware into a normal guy!

Anyone else use said rules or what?

[Karaden]

Can we get a page number on those rules?

But one thing to point out, is that 20 essence worth of deltaware.... well, if you have several million :nuyen: to burn on cyberware, then there are much larger questions to be raised here. Even deltaware of fairly cheap stuff is a few hundred thousand.

*edit* also, you may want to put this in the SR4 forum.

[Kagetenshi]

Why would he want to do that, seeing as it's a question about Man and Machine?

~J

[Karaden]

My bad, thought it was a question about Augmentation.

None the less. If someone really wanted to be a cyberzombie, it would be really easy to just -not- buy deltaware, or use subpar clinics.

Of course saying something like 'you could just buy 20 points worth of deltaware and not have to worry about essence' is kind of stupid. I mean deltaware costs what? 10 times the normal amount? So what would normally be 100,000 worth of ware would cost you a full million, and if your looking at 20 essence worth, your looking at many millions of nuyen. If the person can afford that, you really have to ask the question: why in the world are they not just buying a nice house to live the rest of their days in comfort?

[Kagetenshi]

Now that I've got my books and some time (ok, that's a lie, I don't have time but I'm replying anyway), I would also seriously question the assertion that it is "pretty simple to get 2 or 3 reductions". I don't conclusively know that it's hard, though, so let's run some numbers.

First off, let's take a look at what's required to get 2 reductions. To achieve this, the Surgery Test must yield 5 net successes, with the highest success beating the cumulative Surgical Threshold. Making sure I'm properly giving the odds of succeeding at both of these tasks is something that would take more time than I have right now, so I'll be more verbose about my work than usual. The total Threshold Modifier is +4, so the doc is looking for 5 successes against the base TN, and one success against the base TN +4.

Then, let's see how we can muck around the base TN. We start with TN 4 (Install Cyberware), assume a Medical Facility (-2), for a TN of 2. We'll add on extra doctors as needed to keep the TN below 3, since there's no limit provided. Magical care is not cost-effective in this artificial scenario. We'll be generous and assume that the patient goes into this unawakened, no bioware, and with 6 Essence. Since Deltaware is being implanted, TN is +6, so we hire on six more doctors with Biotech 4, and then an extra four doctors to bring the surgical threshold down to 2 (hey, I guess I shouldn't have worried above).

Now we build our chirurgeon. Theoretically he can have infinite dice at his disposal, provided he'd spent infinite karma first, but we'll assume that he's merely world-class (Medicine 10, Biotech 10). If this ends up being easy, I'll see what the odds are for cost-cutting.

So he starts off by creating a Surgical Profile. With a TN of 4, it's pretty trivial—>99.9% chance of success (I'm keeping more precise figures in the background to calculate overall success chance). We'll assume here that the patient is totally honest about his or her medical history. This will cost 200¥.

Next up is the procedure, which is a test against TN 6. Unless I missed something, there is no way to reduce this TN. This has about an 83.9% chance of success, and will cost 72*8*2*2*2*100¥, or 460,800¥. Note that this cost doesn't factor in the doctor's skill, so we can't save money that way.

Since this is a delta-equipped facility, we'll be looking at eight complementary dice. This gives us TN 2, threshold 5, 10 primary and 8 complementary dice.

Now it's finally time to go under the knife. Success, as it happens, is nearly guaranteed. 99.999%. The overall procedure has about an 83.8% chance of success, which isn't too shabby, I guess I was wrong.

The overall cost of this will be 200¥ (surgical profile) + 460,800¥ (surgical plan) + 1,600¥ (10 doctors with Biotech 10—does this seem low to anyone else?) + 400¥ (Mr. Legendary Doctor—also a tad low, I'd say) = 463,000¥.

Then there's the multiplier for gear use. It's unclear what this applies to, but assuming it applies to all of the doctors, that brings the total price up to 473,000¥. I have to admit that this is chicken feed compared to what the 'ware itself is likely to cost.

Maybe sometime when I don't have stuff due I'll see if the numbers are any saner for non-godlike chirurgeons.

~J

[CircuitBoyBlue]

[Karaden]

Well, given that he said came up with about half a million -per operation-, not including the cost of the ware itself. I find it hard to believe that you would be able to increase how much you make by 100k a year or so that would make this an 'inventment' and not just an expence. So yeah, sure, if you can drop about 10 million on wares, and can expect to incrase how much money you make a year by one or two million it just might be an investment. On the other hand you've managed to earn 10 million already, do you really need to increase your income when you can easily retire?

*edit* I suppose the point here is that sure, if your willing to spend a massive investment, you can manage to get a good amount of cyber in you. But for the same investment you can buy yourself a life of comfort with money to spare.

[Kagetenshi]

The major flaw is that you first have to have all of the money for the 'ware and implantation—I'm pretty sure the usual wisdom that the surgery rules are a short trip to dying on the table still applies if you don't have gobs of cash, though the lack of limit on assisting doctors may make that not true. On the other hand, it would start stretching credibility if key installations and major executives didn't start having bodyguards with ~20 standard-grade-equivalent Essence worth of cyber…

Edit: I did come up with plus half a million per operation, but if I remember my multipliers correctly a set of Deltaware Wired Reflexes already costs 4,000,000¥, while Delta MBW-IV would cost ¥16,000,000 (which probably would never get used—the "you get this, you die" rules make it a bad investment in general. Though I guess you need to implant it in someone to get data from the field, and this would let you cram in some extra standard-grade 'ware at the same time—research projects aren't subject to the same cost-benefit analysis as normal products). It's still a meaningful percentage of the overall cost, but on many big-Essence items it doesn't even account for half of it.

It should be noted that the numbers I gave were for a 10% reduction, or 40% of total. Each additional 5% reduction except for the third (which hits the 6==7 bug) increases the chance of failure to make the plan correctly and doubles the cost of the plan, which is most of the cost, so I guess it is expensive after all.

Ok. I am no longer participating in this discussion until this paper is done.

~J

[Fortune]

[Fortune]

[FrankTrollman]

[Kagetenshi]

[Stahlseele]

[ShaunClinton]

I actually don't use the rules entirely as presented in M&M, simply because of an early misconception that persisted and was then seen to make more sense. However, the spirit of them is preserved and the main difference between Kagetenshi's example and my use of them is that I only allow one extra doctor to assist.

Onto Frank Trollman's points:

To me these rules are over-complicated, which is probably why you didn't get too many people shaking their fists at you. The concept of excellent surgery reducing essence costs stretches all the way back to the original Street Samurai Catalogue - it makes sense and personally I don't like the way it was trimmed out in Augmentation (but myriad Edges/Geneware were introduced to tinker with Essence costs instead - those I do like).

As for having 0 Essence cyber, surely only a fool would follow such a literal interpretation of the rules. In our own game we limit the reduction based on the type of 'ware, with the maximum reduction to 5% of cost only available on deltaware from the best clinics. The open test part of the equation isn't really that limiting if you throw a lot of dice at the problem - and it only needs one to explode a couple of times for some spectacular reductions.

I very much disagree with your final three points Frank. I use the system, I think it is good (if flawed) and I won't thank you for writing it out.

Other matters (Karaden):

I hate arguments regarding costs and why 'runners don't just invest in permanent luxury lifestyle. These are presented time and time again to remind us that like to play large that we should be retiring our 100+ karma characters and drip feeding the interest off of our 100,000 nuyen nest egg to keep us in stuffer shack soyburgers for the rest of our days. Not everyone chooses to play the sort of game where the main aim is to escape the streets. A lot of runners have powerful enemies, the sort who won't let you sell your dermal sheath and move to the beach - if you do they'll show up and their bullets will blow huge holes in you. Not to mention the thrill of being faster, stronger and tougher than the next guy. Plus the risks involved in being the fastest, strongest, toughest and always having to stay ahead of the curve lest the next guy bury you to make a name for himself.

Personally in my campaign the PCs have accumulated around 1000 karma and a vast quantity of cash has passed through (and accumulated in) their hands. These characters haven't went on a "Shadowrun" in almost a year, instead they have enemies to take care of and watch out for, personal quests to resolve and goals to accomplish. They won't retire or stop because they don't know how, or they wouldn't be safe or they just can't resist helping a friend in need.

SR3 is far from a perfect system, and when the current campaign wraps I doubt I will use it again... but it works. Sure, we've exhausted its options and exposed its flaws times too numerous to count. But till the day the campaign finishes we'll keep houseruling and fudging our way towards the inevitable end! Hey, we've even co-opted a bunch of stuff from SR4 to keep us going.

[Kagetenshi]

[ShaunClinton]

Hi Kagetenshi - based on my (and my players) interpretation of what Essence means to us it just doesn't feel right that you could have 0 Essence cyber, so we don't do it. 5% or 0% is fairly indidental in our experience. A character with 5% reduction can have 120 Essence worth of 'ware which is fairly brutal for most purposes! If you think otherwise, fair enough and good luck to you. I think that with SR being a game there will unavoidably be areas that haven't been thought through well or implemented as intended and see part of my job as GM to ensure that these faults don't interfere with the game.

There is a pretty hefty list of things that are wrong, but I'm short on time so I'll rhyme off a few and come back later with more:

TN6->7, Jumping, Vehicle Collisions, AV Ammo, Flechette Ammo, Naval Weapons, Movement/Cover, Action Distribution w/High Initiative (aka The Initiative Highway), Irresistable Forces, Cyberlimbs, Unavoidable Draws, Stealth, Open Tests, Centring, Anchoring, Cyberzombies, Surgery Rules :wobble: , Astral Barriers, Tensile Strengths... the list is endless!

[Moon-Hawk]

[Stahlseele]

someone had better start explaining what this tensile strength is about . . i somehow allways read that as tonsil strength which brings along the not nice image of a troll tongune <.< . .

[Fortune]

[Stahlseele]

yes, i know . . we've got the obviously obligatory elven high charisma adept bitch played by a big burly guy with more of a beard than Al from the show Home-Improvement in our gaming group . . *shudders* <.<

[tisoz]

I see one real limit to how much essence can be shaved. Each surgery requires a Procedure, which is where one lists the positive options (in this case essence reduction) desired. Each 5% decrease is a separate option. The greatest number of Positive Options that may be listed is limited by the Surgery Skill Rating of the doctor (which given infinite karma could, unrealistically, be infinite) up to the rating of the Medical Equipment used.

The Base rating for the highest listed equipment, Delta grade equipment, is 8. In M&M.136, it is stated Max Rating: The maximum rating of medical gear available to players is 6. Though certain facilities in the world of Shadowrun may have higher ratings, they are beyond the reach of shadowrunners.

This hard cap of 6 limits Positive Options to 6, therefor, Essence reduction to -30%.

[Stahlseele]

[FrankTrollman]

[Stahlseele]

so technically speaking no medikit of level 8 for players ever?
or antidote/tranq patch of level 8? o.O
hrm . . will have to rework my shadow-doc concept greatly with this bit of missed information <.< . .
But Standard Grade Medical Shop(Clinic) would still be evailable up to level 6?
And an Alpha Grade Medical Shop(Clinic) Level 6 would be available too?
Heck an Beta Grade Medical Shop(Clinic) Level 1 would still be available then? x.x
there has to be something i am doing wrong O.o

[Fortune]