Cyberarm Idea, Practical? Options

[Stahlseele]

Aside from even with the Trauma Dapener your stun track STILL filling up . .
And going into physical Overflow Damage. Which you will not immediately notice.
Because of your Trauma Dampener doing it's job, not of stopping damage but of stopping you from FEELING the pain.
And when your Physical Track is full, you go into physical overflow. Your limbs rip and tear from your torso.
And you die. In a pretty spectacular and gruesome way . . And you can lie there and watch it all happen.
Without feeling any pain. Because of your Trauma Dampener still doing it's job. Yay! . .

[Fauxknight]

Aside from even with the Trauma Dapener your stun track STILL filling up . .
And going into physical Overflow Damage. Which you will not immediately notice.
Because of your Trauma Dampener doing it's job, not of stopping damage but of stopping you from FEELING the pain.
And when your Physical Track is full, you go into physical overflow. Your limbs rip and tear from your torso.
And you die. In a pretty spectacular and gruesome way . . And you can lie there and watch it all happen.
Without feeling any pain. Because of your Trauma Dampener still doing it's job. Yay! . .

I think you're mixing the damper up with a pain editor. The damper doesn't make you ignore stun it subtracts 1 from every set of stun. Redlining by only one point causes 2 boxes of stun a turn, subtract one for the damper and now you only have to soak one box a turn. Anyone with 4+ body should make that roll most of the time and will not rack up any significant damage if any.

A pain editor also works here if you only need the occasional redline out of combat (when you feel the need to throw a car or something),but the pain editor prevents the trauma damper from working so you don't really want both.

Come to think of it the cyber set I postet earlier really ought to include a trauma damper instead of platelet factory, but the 15k cost difference is really going to be cutting into the characters budget (As listed the characters cyber/bioware already cost 216,500).

[Stahlseele]

Ah, yes, right, i keep getting those two mixed up for some reason <.<

[Dreadlord]

Don't you have to have a Cybertorso in order to go over BOD/AGI/STR 3 for standard cyberlimbs, and a Cybertorso if you go over your natural stats by 3 for Customized?

SR4a p.343

[Stahlseele]

Yes and No.
Technically, you need a Cyberlimb to get more ENHANCEMENTS than level 3 in there . .
But if the limb is CUSTOMIZED it STARTS AT Racial Natural Max and everything ABOVE THAT would be Enhancements . .
This is pretty much interpreting a rule STRAIGHT BY THE WRITING. Not neccessarely by intention, but perfectly RAW.

[Mäx]

Don't you have to have a Cybertorso in order to go over BOD/AGI/STR 3 for standard cyberlimbs, and a Cybertorso if you go over your natural stats by 3 for Customized?

SR4a p.343

No you can always customize the limb up to you natural maximum and then you can add 3 levels of enchament with out needing a cyber torso.
So cyber torso is only needed if you want to exceed your natural maximum by more then 3 points.

[Yerameyahu]

We usually do 'customize to your *actual* stat', none of this magic racial max stuff. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) But yes.

[Mäx]

We usually do 'customize to your *actual* stat', none of this magic racial max stuff. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) But yes.

Heh, my Sasha would love that as her agility is over natural max, so she would need 1 level less of enchament to reach her augmented maximum agility. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Yerameyahu]

Ahem, your actual *natural*, of course. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Whipstitch]

Darn, you post this just a week or so after I deleted my "Crazy cyberlimb" character sheet, figuring I would never have another use for it. The premise was simple enough: Take a human with 1 bod, agi, and str...

That was one of my first SR4 characters back in early '06 before I bothered joining Dumpshock. That was prior to the Augmentation rules, though, so without optimized limbs the values were a bit lower (don't underestimate good ol' fashioned attribute accessories) but the character was still an excellent combat hacker, since back then Hackers were a bit cheaper to top out given that Encephalons and Simsense Boosters weren't around yet. That was pre-Arsenal and FFBA too, so there was a "Wait, you have how much armor?" moment with the GM, since he really didn't expect to see anything over an 11. A 6 Edge hacker who was virtually immune to pistol grade weaponry was a sight to see prior to SM's Voodoo madness, so relatively speaking the modern tin-man is if anything at a disadvantage compared to my old one. So I've long argued that cyberlimbs have been playable. They just are a niche item that rely on a rather controversial mechanic and suffer by not fitting people's expectations for a cyberpunk game. They really are best for people who are not in good enough physical condition to rely on their meat stats for hard physical activity, but the cyberpunk style handbook makes many people wish they also made more sense as an accessory for their big bad ass ork samurai-- which isn't terribly practical, given you've already paid through the nose for attributes. Lopping off an arm to fit a gyromount and a nanohive can work well, but it's not really for everybody.

[Karoline]

Mr. Tank

[ Spoiler ]

Human: 0
Bod:1 0 Str:1 0 Log:2 10 Edge:5 40
Agi:1 0 Cha:3 20 Wil:4 30 Ess:0.2
Rea:5(6) 40 Int:4 30 Ini:9(10) IP:2

Qualities:
Restricted Gear 5

Equipment:
Right Cyberarm: base cost 15000
Customized Str 6 +4500
Customized Agi 6 +4500
Enhanced Agi 3 [3] +750
Enhanced Str 3 [3] +750
Armor 4 [8] +1200
Other stuff [1]
Final Stats: 9 agi/9 str/3 bod/4 armor/26700

Left Cyberarm: base cost 15000
Armor 4 [8] +1200
Enhanced Bod 4 [4] +800
Other stuff [3]
Final Stats: 3 agi/3 str/7 bod/4 armor/17000

Left Cyberleg: base cost 15000
Armor 4 [8] +1200
Enhanced Bod 4 [4] +800
Other stuff [8]
Final Stats: 3 agi/3 str/7 bod/4 armor/17000

Right Cyberleg: base cost 15000
Armor 4 [8] +1200
Enhanced Bod 4 [4] +800
Other stuff [8]
Final Stats: 3 agi/3 str/7 bod/4 armor/17000

Effective Bod = (1 + 3 + 7 + 7 + 7)/5 = 5
Effective Str/Agi for combat = 9
Effective Str/Agi for most other things = 3
Effective 'natural' armor = 16/16
Effective Agi for full body activites = (9 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 1)/5 = 3.8 = 3 (Can be increased to 4 for a simple 1500)
Effective Str for full body activites = (9 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 1)/5 = 3.8 = 3 (Can be increased to 4 for a simple 1500)

Alpha Wired reflexes 22000

Heavy Military Armor 20000
Military Helmet 10000

Total costs: 129700

Effective Armor: 34/32
Effective Bod for soaking: 5
Total Dice to soak damage: 39/37
Average hits on a soak test: 13/12

And that was with fairly minimal effort towards optimization. In fact, I think I'd redone it with an eye towards optimization but can't find that.

[Whipstitch]

If I was going to min-max a 4 limbs and a torso guy, I wouldn't actually make him a samurai and go all-out on combat, since I think I may have a better idea that I've been toying with as my next prime runner candidate (mostly because I'm stuck GMing 24/7 now rather than playing)-- a combat rigger. With Biocompatibility you can build a 400 bp legal character that has all standard grade limbs, a control rig and just enough bio index left over for a Pain Editor and Cerebral Boosters. And thanks to the capacity rules, you can still have a Nanohive and Control Rig Boosters as a nice consolation prize for your lack of Simsense Boosters and Reaction enhancing 'ware. Throw in the usual cyberlimb tweaking and you have a freak who can fight well via sheer durability yet has a whole mess of points available for Edge, skills, Born Rich and a nice ride. The best part about all of this is that a walking talking tank of a man is uniquely suited to making Ramming attacks and actually surviving after exploding sixes or rerolled misses. This is particularly delicious since the player's first instinct for killing a guy like that would probably be either Direct Spells or vehicles. Obviously, the latter could end messily.

Honestly, there's only two things that are stopping me from springing such a character on my current group:

1. They're all noobs and he would probably kill them. Funny, but not what I'm looking for right now.

2. I can't decide what to name his stupidly dangerous full-size truck and ram plate combo. I'm leaning towards the Pain Train just because I am awfully close to modelling him after Terry Tate.

[klinktastic]

Yo whip, what did you have in mind. I'm working up a rigger myself. Check my post here

[Karoline]

1. They're all noobs and he would probably kill them. Funny, but not what I'm looking for right now.

Never let player deaths stand in the way of an awesome NPC (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

2. I can't decide what to name his stupidly dangerous full-size truck and ram plate combo. I'm leaning towards the Pain Train just because I am awfully close to modelling him after Terry Tate.

It could be called the 'Hammer' and he could broadcast "It's Hammer time!" whenever he is about to ram someone. And, for double meaning, it could be an old butcher truck that was used to transport - you guessed it, ham (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Whipstitch]

I might just call it the Meat Wagon. It'd tie in nicely with his introduction. "The name's T-Bone, like the accident."

[Saint Sithney]

Nice.






...Back to the Redlining discussion, does anyone else think that it's weird that you can redline body or agility?

"Alright arm, you better get super precise now! ..Aaaaagh my heart! That superhumanly tiny correction whilst firing a pistol... has killed me... blech.."

[Whipstitch]

Hey, if the 28P ramming attack doesn't kill 'em, the puns will.

But yeah, redlining really doesn't make sense aside from strength. Oh well, at least redlining is used so rarely that I can just file that away as an oddity, I guess.

[Stahlseele]

*nods* redlining has basically become worthless with the damage you suffer from that.
Else it would have been such a cool and awesome cyberpunk like thing to do . .

[Whipstitch]

As far as Klinktastic's earlier question goes, I'm going to answer here because it's been a while since I worked on the rigger portion of a character. I haven't really done anything but napkin math the 'ware setup requirements I had in mind. I should stress that if you really just want a cost effective chunk of stats, an ork with Restricted Gear: Muscle Toner 4 is probably the way to go for a multi-faceted character. You'll have a LOT more essence leftover to use on things like sweet wired reflexes and tons of muscles. The kind of build I'm talking about ditches the strength and grabs a cybertorso instead of Wired Reflexes-- you can hit an effective Body of 7 that way real easy. Plus, you still have room in all of your limbs to upgrade from Rating 2 cyber armor accessories to Rating 4. The 7 body also makes it pretty easy to get away with using quality non-milspec armor and form fitting body armor combos. That's pretty nice if you can convince your GM that your heavy metal ass is considered less conspicuous than Storm Trooper armor. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

Here's the basic loadout I was looking at:

Cyberware:
2 Standard Grade Full Obvious Arms w/ Customized Body 2, Customized Agility 3 as well as Body Acc. 4, Agility Acc.3 and Armor 2. Stats for both arms: Body 9, Agility 9, Strength 3, 4 slots left for later armor upgrades.
2 Standard Grade Full Obvious Legs w/ Customized Body 2, Body Acc. 4 and Armor 2. One limb has a rating 1 nanohive w/ Control Rig Booster 3 installed. Stats for legs: Body 9, Agility 3, Strength 3, 11 & 12 slots left in the legs for further Armor and whatever else you want.
1 Standard Grade Obvious Torso w/ Body Acc. 2 and Armor 2, with 4 slots for future armor upgrades. Stat total: Body 5, Agility 3, Strength 3.
1 Standard Control Rig. Could easily be Alpha if you want.
Total of 10 cyber armor.

That's exactly 6 Essence worth of Cyber, which thankfully works out to 5.4 essence after Bio-compatibility: Cyberware--truly Dunkelzahn's gift to Robocop fans everywhere. So like any self-respecting wannabe cyberzombie, we have to figure out what we can do with that 0.6 Essence-- effectively 1.2 if it's all bioware.* My first choice? A Pain Editor,** which would leave you at 0.45 Essence. You'll need the Restricted Gear quality, but it will now take physical overflow to knock you out, a trick that's pretty nice to have considering this character will typically be demoting conventional weaponry to Stun when he's in full armor. With a Full-Body FFBA suit, Armor Jacket and all pieces of the Securetech PPC system, you'll have 7 Body and 26B/24I ratings out of character creation. And once in play? Well, get the Face to funnel your first 6k nuyen into Rating 4 Cyber Armor accessories and you'll be sitting pretty with 36/34 scores without even wearing milspec armor.

Total cost of this setup: 38 Gear Points, 10 BP for Biocompatibility and another 5 for 1 level of Restricted Gear, for a total of 53 BP. Realistically you're also going to want Born Rich and the full 60 gear points, which still leaves you with a fairly reasonable 85 BP total cost and 110k+ nuyen to work with. Tight for a Rigger, but doable if you stick to the cheaper ground vehicles. On the bright side, you still have 315 BP to spend while having already acquired pretty workable scores in 3 attributes. You can also probably optimize the limbs a bit more aggressively because I opted for accessories here and there in part 'cuz they're cheap.



*Now, amusingly enough, this means that if you went with Born Rich and ditched the Rigger concept you could actually fit Synaptic 2 onto this kinda build. You'd be just like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator! And by that I mean you'd hit the streets naked, because you'll seriously only have like 5k nuyen left out of the 300k pile you started with.

**Funny thing about a Pain Editor and potentially 5 boxes worth of sensory cutoff: technically speaking, you could combine all of that with the Low Pain Tolerance Quality. It would even sort of make sense: the character presumably could have gotten used to filtering away all boo-boos as a matter of course. Feel free to make a "Bleed my own blood!?" comment if someone manages to actually hurt this character. Of course, you might not want to even touch such min-maxy quality/gear combo given that you're already trying to slip a 20+ armor sheet through. Your GM might try bludgeoning you to death with his sack of dice on principle.

[Stahlseele]

Hmm actually how does this sensory cutoff work exactly?

[Whipstitch]

Sensory cutoff isn't all that great. Basically, you can ignore a box of Physical Condition monitor damage for the purposes of determining wound penalties, but on the downside you suffer somewhere between a -1 to -3 penalty for the use of that limb. It'd really be the Pain Editor and the fact that Low Pain Tolerance is worth a full 10 bp that'd make it worth considering. It's a boon for a Rigger or Hacker though. You can get shot up real bad, turn off a bunch of your pained limbs and still perform pretty well in VR. You don't really need your limbs when you're jacked in anyway so just shut those distractions off.

[Stahlseele]

Ah, i see, thank you for clearing that one up for me.

[Karoline]

Actually, I thought the penalty only came up if you had to do something that involved a sense of touch. Like working on a motherboard would be more difficult because it is harder to tell when exactly you're touching the electronics, but shooting a gun wouldn't because you don't need to feel for where you are pointing at all.

[Stahlseele]

Well, you need to feel wether or not you're holding the grip tight enough.
And wether or not you are allready at the click point of the tirgger.
OK, with the event of Smartlink, you don't need to feel that anymore either.

[Karoline]

Well, you need to feel wether or not you're holding the grip tight enough.
And wether or not you are allready at the click point of the tirgger.
OK, with the event of Smartlink, you don't need to feel that anymore either.

Get your grip tight enough, turn off your senses, and don't relax/tense your hand. And honestly, I don't think you're at that much risk of crushing the gun or anything.

And yeah, Smartlink would make it not nearly such a big deal (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)