Banned/Restricted Gear, Mainly Enhanced Artwinkulation + ME Options

[Everial]

I realize there are other bio/cyber pieces that seem unfairly stacked, but these were just two that I ... well, I suppose I have a beef with them both. (and abuse them both =\ )

Anyways, suggestions for balancing them?
(I forget to whom I must attribute it, but I remember a GM ruling that ME voids all magic ability, eg.)


[Edit] wow... I messed up, I forgot to add a 'Penalize Both' option, sorry.

This post has been edited by Everial: Aug 24 2003, 01:09 AM

[Ancient History]

I don't see how there's a problem with either of these. It's not like Firepower ammo y'know. Or personalized gun grips.

[Fortune]

Or Chipjack Expert Drivers! :D

[Everial]

I just think the reduced Karma cost is unreasonable...

take the (now-stereotypical?) mage with ME 3... you get a datajack and spend 9 karma for Computers 4 (Deckins 8) and you just became a competetive decker, too... After initiating twice, get an Alpha VCR (I think you can manage lvl 2) and start rigging, too...

and... isn't there a reason EA has become 'Enhanced Artwinculation'?
it's essentially the equivalent of the Adept Improved Ability (I think that's the one that gives extra dice) on most skills... (I'm sure one could generate a hypothetical example in which a Jack-of-all-Trades type character might recieve enough bonuses to almost match the 6 starting power points adepts are granted.)

[Edit] Changed entry so specialization didn't show up as a smiley.

[Ancient History]

Consider: character types who need to spend all their time and money stuffing impalnts into their bodies need to be competitive with otaku and magicians who want to blow all their ahrd earned karma and money and time on foci and skillz and spells and shite.

Plus, pieces of equipment like this are more likely to entice magicians to burnout, or single-direction chracters to step out from specialization and become more diverse, well-rounded characters.

[Daishi]

Enhanced Articulation I like, to be honest. It's not all that crazy, but it is a very useful piece of ware for someone looking to cover a range of bases.

The Mnemonic Enhancer... well that one I'm not so sure about. The reduced karma cost is pretty sweet. Oddly enough, our group once made the ME more powerful by using it to reduce the time to learn skills. I realized things had gone too far when my character became fluent in a new language in about 4 hours... I'm a fan of the extra die for language and knowledge skills, as well as the memory boosts. I think that the ME is great for just that as it stands. Although perhaps at a reduced rate...

[TinkerGnome]

I've not used EA too often, though I don't think it's too far unbalanced. As far as the mnemonic enhancer goes, I don't think it should be eliminated. Everyone in the game world who can afford one would have one, of course, thus making it a balance issue between mundanes and magicly active characters. If it really bugs you, though, there are a couple of fixes that I would accept as a player.

1) The reduced karma cost only works for intelligence linked skills. This covers knowledge and linguistic skills, but also active skills like Biotech, B/R skills, and Computer. These are all skills where the application of enhanced memory are obvious and makes more sense than non-intelligence linked skills like, let's say, Athletics. I might go so far as to extend the benefit to Charisma and Willpower based skills, since both Etiquette and Sorcery seem like they could benefit from increased retention of knowledge.

2) In a game that uses training times, let it reduce the time it takes to learn new skills by a factor of 1+level. So at level 3, your learning times are down to 1/4. As a player of a character who dumps all of his karma into skills, it would let me keep up with the mages who can blow 20 karma in the course of a couple of weeks. I've found my mundane character constantly sitting on karma while he tries to train for skills.

[Laughlyn]

I just have to ask, am I the only one who uses bioware stress levels? Or the only one who doesn't allow you to repair all of the stress (cannot repair light stress)? If you use those, bioware becomes something that is either really expensive or really something to keep in mind with most of the things the character does in every day life as well as running the shadows.

[Glyph]

The problem that I have with the mnemonic enhancer is that, to me, Karma represents how well a character has performed, and giving a character a Karma discount because of a piece of bioware breaks the entire concept of good Karma to me. I let it reduce training times, instead, which actually makes more sense.

Enhanced articulation isn't game-breaking. It gives cybered characters a bit of a break, and like the smartlink, it is distinctive to cybered characters. It is far from broken, though. Even the chipjack expert driver isn't that bad - the character can roll 12 dice for some useful skills, but gives up other possible cybernetic augmentations in order to do so.

[Sphynx]

Well, I've always considered the ME to be out of control until I played a Sammie type character (see, I do/have played something other than a Quickening Shaman). Whereas a Mage type has consistent growth, the ability to become massively more powerful in short periods of time, the Sammie type doesn't. He slowly works on maxxing out attributes as every weak attribute he has is taken advantage of by the GM, then starts working on skills and such incredibly expensive rates that he goes games and games before he gets a +1 to a skill/attribute.

On the flip side, allowing a ME into the game allows Mages as well as Sammie types to become godlike, in quick order, in whatever field they desire.

End result for me was to allow Mnemonic Enhancers, but create some personal flavor to the description along the lines of: Due to the nature of this Bioware, it interacts with a part of the brain that is vital for Magic use. No current solution has been found within the science community, but anyone who has this Bioware installed loses all Magic ability in the process.

Now, Sammies and Mages alike seem to advance at about the same speed in regards to power, due to sammies being able to afford exceed attributes for skill purchases.

Sphynx

[Sphynx]

Uhm... what's the difference between number 2 and number 4? I think everybody is voting the same thing... and there's no option for disallowing both. :P

Looks like most of us agree that ME is out of whack, but EA is just fine.

Sphynx

[toturi]

I think it (ME) is quite alright, if and only if you are playing and applying everything... wound effects, stress points, etc. The damned thing is connected to your brain, for God's sake. A knock out punch/DMSO-gamma sco mix can give you Flashback(-4 Flaw)!
:eek:

[The White Dwarf]

Assuming you follow the faq, and dont allow ME at starting, its well balanced. Enchanced articulation isnt really unbalanced at all, given the way it works with magic, and the pretty decent bio index on it. The whole "xyz is unbalanced" thing seems to happen a lot when people dont use all the stuff surrounding something, as the above said with the stress and wound effect rules having bioware isnt all fun and games. The same could be said of smartlink-2 or a datajack, just for the huge statistical change in shooting success, or the unbeleivable huge array of in character actions allowed by a datajack.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Andvare]

I always disallow dikoted AVS-cyberarms :P .
I will allow everything else, though i usually raise the cost for both.

[Icepick]

Well, here's one of the golden rules of shadowrun.

If the "good guys" get it, then the "bad guys" do too.

[Fortune]

[Solidcobra]

as said earlier: it is good to make the ME nuke mages (no magic with ME) and allow the poor sammies to do something..... a sammy can't be good at combat without the GM bringing in a LOT of stuff he can't handle (Social situations and magic), a mage on the other hand, even MORE powerful in every aspect and steadily growing, is very much okay to play with most GMs.....

the reason: Being good at combat makes people angry at you

no, honestly...... how many GMs do you know that would NOT implement magic and social situations if someone plays a combat monster?

and how many GMs would make everyone target the spellcaster until he is dead or in any other way burn him?

you see my point? good....

[Cray74]

I'm cool with both items of equipment. +1 die to all active skills...that's nice, but hardly an earthshaking effect.

Mnemonic enhancer is POWERFUL, but it let's me finally raise skills at a rapid rate. I always have so many other uses for karma that skill improvement suffers unreasonably.

So, no gripes here, nor any suggestions for nerfing them.

[Buzzed]

Is voting for I and III voting for the same thing?

Is voting for II and IV voting for the same thing also?

Where is the vote to penalize both?

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Johnny the Bull]

Why disallow the ME and EA? It's not like its going to save them in the end. The world sucks, the PC's will die young and the world will go on :)

[Everial]

I already acknowledged that I messed up the poll choices.

[ToThePain]

How about banning the Ares Viper Slivergun...

[Glyph]