Activesofts on Skill Groups? Options

[TeaTime]

So, MrSkillwireDude in Dusk is running around with a nice skillwire setup, including a rating 4 Activesoft of the Electronics Skillgroup, which seems to count as 1 activesoft on his setup. I was not aware of Skill Group Activesofts were available for purchase- I thought only single skills were.

Did I overlook this in a book, or can I push my PC to new heights of RAW awesomeness?

[Tanegar]

At no point in the description of skillsofts (p. 320, SR4) is the phrase "skill group" used. In fact, "Activesofts replicate skills." By RAW, unless they changed it in SR4A, you cannot have a skillsoft for a skill group.

[Ol' Scratch]

Yeah, that's not permitted by the standard rules at all. At best, it could be considered a "clustersoft," which is just code for having multiple activesofts on the same chip. Maybe -- just maybe -- treated as a cyberware package to lower the cost, too. They'd still be treated as individual skills, however.

As an aside, never, ever, ever rely on novels or adventures for actual rules. Or even accuracy with the game world for that matter. Goblinzing dwarfs? Pfft.

[Tanegar]

Additionally, skillsofts have some pretty notable drawbacks that make them, IMO, less than awesome. For one, they're horrifically expensive (Ratingx10,000 nuyen in SR4A, IIRC), and for another, you cannot use Edge with skillsofts. You might grab one or two for those skills that are intermittently handy but that you don't want to spend karma on, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if you're building a character around skillwires, you're doing it wrong.

[Ol' Scratch]

There's two methods to allow Edge with skillsofts. One hardware (Skillwire Expert Driver) and one software (one of the programming options; I forget which one).

Skillwires are really only hideous to obtain during character creation. In-game it should be a lot easier to get your hands on some, either through theft, piracy, or just using more sensible prices than the character balance-obsessed prices. The fact that they jumped form 3k to 10k per rating from the base rules to the anniversary rules tells the real tale there.

[tagz]

Post character creation you should be using the street cost modifications for just about everything. Skillsofts are a great item for this, since, well... they're everywhere. Most corps get them and distribute to their workers, it costs the manufacturer next to nothing after software development so they'll just crank out a ton of chips, etc.

For skillsofts I'd say you could easily apply "Market Flooded", "Price War", and/or finding the software used. That can take the price down by 40% if combined.

Find a stolen used copy while the market is flooded and a price war is driving down the price of the legal ones and you got yourself a sweat deal. Course, that might be harder to find and aught to modify the availability for the increased difficulty of finding a chip with all those things. But if you did, that could be 60% off the base price, and a high negotiation skill can do even more damage to that cost.

[Ol' Scratch]

I'm not familiar with those rules. I must have skipped them. Can you give me some pages references so I can look it up, please?

Edit: Nevermind, right at the beginning of the gear chapter. Stupid side tables always eluding me!

This post has been edited by Dr. Funkenstein: Apr 6 2010, 12:49 AM