Broken Cyberware—too good Options

[Eyeless Blond]

What do you think are the most broken pieces of cyberware/bioware/nanoware in the SR3 books? In this case, "too good" means that it is too beneficial in some manner, whether by being gamebreaking or unprecedented (and for some reason undesirable) benefits, providing an effect that requires everyone to have it (or everyone engaging in some particular task, if you can defend the position that not everyone engaging in the task should need it), or renders an entire class of gear (cyber or non-cyber) worthless because of its existence by being strictly or almost strictly better than it.

The canonical example is the VCR, which provides the ability to vehicle-dodge at all, provides a raft of extra dice, and provides heft RN reductions for many vehicle-related tasks while providing mild TN reductions for most of the rest.

Another canonical example is the mnemonic enhancer, which provides the unprecedented effect of directly modifying karma costs.

Enhanced Articulation has been called Enhanced Artwinkulation for years, and has been for a reason. Just about every non-Awakened has this mod (except maybe the brain-in-a-box-style rigger), so I think it may be too much.

Others?

(Note: This thread is an offshoot of the SR3R -- Shadowrun Revised project. The project is being hosted elsewhere, to divorce concerns over copyright from Dumpshock, but topics like this I feel are perfectly fine on these boards, and may help garner more responses. If you prefer, you are more than welcome to register on the SR3R forum and post there; we would love to have more fresh bodies working on this project.)

[Fortune]

Trauma Damper!

It is a must-have for any spellcaster or summoner.

[Glyph]

The VCR is like a cyberdeck as compared to a terminal - yeah, it gives unbeatable advantages, but everyone doing that job is going to have/use one. Just like smartlinks - a -2 to TN's? Ultra-powerful, but every sammie will have one, and even lots of regular mooks will.

Enhanced articulation is a must-have, like cybereyes and smartlinks, but I'm not sure I would say it's unbalanced, since it is still, all said and done, only one dice, compared to the multiple extra dice that adepts can get from improved ability. I would say there is a difference between "extremely useful and lots of bang for the buck" and "destroys game balance".

I agree on the mnemonic enhancer, although the erratta weakened it significantly. Still, I would prefer for it to do something like shorten training time, rather than reducing Karma cost.


For gear, the Ares Alpha is kind of a big offender, because with that extra recoil compensation, why get another assault rifle - ever?

And what runner doesn't wear form-fitting body armor, given how it stacks with other armor in such a unique way?

Gel packs also annoy me, even if they aren't that effective, because I don't see the logic of armor being treated as hardened armor if it doesn't cover your whole body.

[Straight Razor]

the auto-injector bio-mon combo is a must.
don't know is i'd call it broken. nothing like your own personnel field medic.
though with every mage on the planed having heal, it is par.

how about mono-wire in the finger tip compartment. that is a cheep 9S con12

the armor spell.... iv got mages walking around with 16-12 armor
mana bolt/ball... i kill you and go home. nuf said

O this is cyberware never mind

[Eyeless Blond]

Ooh, yeah, the Trauma Damper; I can't believe I forgot about that one!

The auto-injector bio-mon combo I'm not familiar with; how does that work?

I nominated the Math SPU 3 in the other thread; what do you think about that one? Ever since it came out I haven't seen a single character who wanted to be serious in the Matrix who didn't have one. The only real problem I see there is that it actually might *be* necessary. There are so many demands on Hacking Pool--more than any other pool in SR--that taking the SPU away may take away any "safety net" there is in decking.

[Stahlseele]

autoinjector/biomonitor works like this:
monitor registers you being hurt and sends signal to appropriate injector which then proceeds to hook you up with whatever it is the injector was loaded up with . . kamikaze, or novacoke or something like that *g*

[Kagetenshi]

[Kyoto Kid]

...well I had a character exploit the Chemical Gland. She was a real looker - elf Charisma 8 with the Human Looking edge who had Negotiation specialised in Seduction - and had Arsenic (which was allowable in 3rd ed) as her toxin on the spit vector. Called it her "Kiss of Death" At least her victims died happy...

...as for other broken bio, until the reprint of M & M, the Mnemonic enhancer was way to good a deal for anyone to pass up as it subtracted its 'total rating from the Karma cost to learn or improve a skill. Heck nearly every character in our group had one at rating 3, even the mages and sammys.