Electricity and cyberware?, shortz Options

[Zephania]

I don't know if I'm looking in the wrong places but do tazers/shock weapons or electricty affect cyberware?

If it does, what's the down time for the cyberware and where are the rules for this?

[Cray74]

[Drunk Lu]

I'd imagine that most cyberware would be insulated against standard (Stun) electrical attacks. However, as our good friend above has mentioned, any Physical damage could, conceivably, cause cyberware to malfunction.

And how!

[Omega Skip]

If you want to houserule, you could say that damage inflicted by tasers is treated like physical damage in terms of cyberware damage, but I guess, like Lu said, that most cyberware has safeguards against shock attacks.

Runner A: Spider sense... tingling!
Runner B: For the love of god, just have somebody repair your datajack!

[Entropy Kid]

The rules you're looking for are on pg. 127 of Man and Machine, "Electrical Damage" under the "Cybersystem Damage" entry.

"Tasers, stun batons, electrified fences, electrical critter powers, lightning elemental manipulation spells and so on" are considered to "automatically effect cyberware and may even damage more than one system simultaneously."

This is part of the "Wound Effects" section starting on pg. 126.

[Zephania]

Cool, I don't have that book but I do have a fondness for giving cops tazers. I'm going to have to get it to find out more.

Does the 'ware just fry or does it go haywire is my next question?

[Drunk Lu]

[Entropy Kid]

[Nikoli]

And LS officers have them as standard tack if I recall

[TinkerGnome]

Every time your systems (attribute, cyber, or bioware) take stress, you make a Stress Test. If it fails, your system goes out (bioware acts like it's at deadly stress, cyber stops working or suffers an effect from a table, attributes suffer an effect from a table, I think). Bioware has the added drawback that stress points themselves cause effects, even if the Stress Test passes. Cyberware with 10 point of stress works just as well as cyber with 0 points of stress, provided that it hasn't failed a stress test.

[Thistledown]

I've had a few characters who have to deal with A LOT of electricity, so my GM and I ruled that cyberware can be found in an insulated version, but required a lot of extra money and foresite to set up. Ended up being an extra piece of cyberware (power sink of some kind), and upping the price of everything else by one grade. There was some other rules with it too.

[nezumi]

Just don't forget, SR ware is supposed to be all optical. They seem to be kinda unclear on the concept, as some EMP/electricity attacks work super well and some don't.

Personally, since optics are usually made of glass and plastics mostly (both good insulators), I'd say cyberware isn't going to take a lot more damage than your meatbod (which is made largely of water and has dedicated lines for electricity, both excellent conductors). If a guy is hit by lightning, he has a lot more immediate problems to worry about than his ware, but his ware won't automatically heal itself given enough time. But my view is obviously not always mirrored in the book.

[Lantzer]

Computing and communications are optical, but you still need electrical circuits for actuators, nervous system connections, power supply, etc.

[Zephania]

Anyway, my original idea was to use Tazers etc to take down the sammie and bring him in for questioning. When he got out he'ed still have all the cyberwar problems to deal with-leading to an intresting roleplay challenge for the PC concerned who has relied on brute force and ignorance once too often.