Awakened characters: Will you give them Cyber?, For that matter, will you give them Bio? Options

[Wireknight]

It depends on the character. Given that, I'll at least elaborate on a few of the characters and the reasons why they have cyberware or bioware, starting with minor examples and scaling up to "abomination against nature".

Silver Star is a talismonger, a sorceress who lost her eyes in an incident that semi-retired her from Shadowrunning. Her sole augmentation is cybereyes, entirely for replacement purposes. This isn't to say that they lack features, but they were not elective surgery. She would never elect to get cyberware to improve her abilities, but chose to when the alternative was to remain blind for a month waiting on clonal replacements, or undergo surgery hours after being blinded. Essence ~5, Magic 8, Grade 3 Initiate.

Twilight is an assassin, a hermetic magician who had boosted reflexes, hand razors(non-retractable) and cyberfangs implanted both to make his appearance more intimidating and make himself a more effective combatant. He doesn't care about things like the sacredness of his aural template, and decided the hit to his magical powers was more than worth the edge he'd get in return. Power is power, and losing some to magic, but gaining more to cyberware, just ultimately means his aggregate power is higher afterwards. Essence ~3(+/-; he's become a vampire), Magic 10, Grade 7 Initiate.

O'Neill is a Reach Fuilleach operative, an adept with extensive high-grade modifications that aid his job as a general high-end doer of violence for the government of Tir na nOg. In addition to being a highly initiated adept, he's equipped with muscle toner, muscle augmentation, boosted reflexes, synaptic accelerator, retinal modifications, smartlink, skillwires, chipjack expert system, orthoskin, and lots of genetech. While he's got pretty impressive cybernetic augmentations, the bulk of his augmentations are bioware, genetech, and nanotech, as they're all more Essence-friendly, allowing him to maintain his Tir ethos without compromising necessary flexibility for his position as one of the Tir's defenders. Essence ~4, Bio Index ~5, Magic 9, Grade 8 Initiate.

Pierce is a former Firewatch combat mage, a hermetic magician who underwent a process of training and cyberware/bioware augmentation so that as his magical power increased, augmentations would normalize it out and improve his combat capabilities. He's got the works; boosted reflexes, synaptic accelerator, smartlink, tactical computer, cybercommlink, muscle toner, enhanced articulation, trauma dampener, cybereyes, cyberears, cerebral booster, mnemonic enhancer. Firstly, he was being trained as he was being augmented, so ultimately had little choice in the whole affair. Secondarily, he understands that sometimes it's not magic or technology, but the careful balance of both, that makes are more effective battlefield presence. Essence ~2, Bio Index ~2, Magic 6, Grade 5 Initiate.

I'm not the type to play characters with unreasonable bias against augmentations, but I've got a number of them who simply have no need, within the focus of their particular self-designated roles, to undergo augmentation. My most physically dangerous character actually employs spells and adept powers to the point where he exceeds the capabilities, naturally, of someone with very extensive augmentations.

I have a mage-fixer who handles magical and social situations, such that any cyberware that'd really help him with his task can be handled just as easily with a pocket secretary. I have an adept that, as a knife-fighter, really has never had a reason to indulge in augmentations to boost her physical prowess. Adept powers more than cover any particular combat ability she might need to do what she does best. The rare shamans I play(or shamanic adepts) are less likely to pick up augmentations due to philosophical reasons, and none of the ones I currently count as characters are possessed of any cyberware or bioware. My most powerful character, a magician adept, has some nanotech, but hasn't opted for hives, filters, or any other such augmentations. The boost to the longevity of his nano-augs wouldn't be worth the loss of magical power and Essence.

[Shockwave_IIc]

I think that considering that shadowrunning is frequently your job, and that it's somewhat dangerous and your life depends on it. Wouldn't getting yourself a little augmentation the smart thig to do? I mean for a Non-Anti Non-Pro awakened character then about a points worth would be very much in the world of acceptable no? Of cause if you have beliefs or medical conditions that effect your reasons for not having any then all is good there too.

But in some instance's it's a requirement to have some types of cyber. An Adept with improved Cyber combat would be pretty stupid if they didn't have the likes of spurs or razors. And its a double benefit if you take a pair of them.

[Traks]

[DrJest]

My taking part in this discussion is a bit of a no-brainer :D but I did want to comment on one thing:

[Grinder]

[Shockwave_IIc]

[Crusher Bob]

Huh? What's that 2 for 1 bioware thing? My copy of MM says "reduce magic rating, by bio index and round down"...

[Edward]

Of the 4 magicals I have set up 2 had cyber

In order of creation

Stealth shaman with a shotgun as primary attack, had SL2 and a couple of other bits to approach essence 5

Athletes way adept, specialist in edged weapons (gm ruled there was enough of an edge on my hocky stick to qualify for the skill) no cyber because he could never afford it before and never felt he needed it once his career started moving along .

Rich kid mage with far more dollars than cents had some crude things done to his body in the name of fashion including cyber eyes that display moving images on the front (as well as the normal display link) whiskers on his face and modified sweat glands, he did have a level 3 mnemonic enhancer, a data jack lowlight vision, an image link and 30mp of headwear memory for the magic point wasn’t completely wasted. Unfortunately the gm ruled that character to unprofessional unfortunate given that the rest of the team was a bunch of complete Muppets that character would have fitted in just fine.

Last is a purest wouyen that will not allow his body to be sullied by implants.


The problem is that the rules will allow you to take 5 points of magic loss and geasa them away to something that wont hurt you much at all (the book states that an implant can be used as a talisman geasa, just choose something you wont want to remove or upgrade and your fine. There is nothing preventing somebody from taking a adept and loading them out as a samy and keeping all the magical powers intact. A single point of magic loss (all I would ever take) is no big deal, at 2 points you have some very impressive internal kit with no practical loss of magic. And it can go much further.

I do see this as a balance issue but even without that it violates one of the core aspects of the game world, that implants harm your magical potential. It is hard to justify all that is maid of magic and tech not meshing well when there is no reason in the rules that the sec mage cant have all the same wear as the rest of the HTR squad. Talisman geasa (especially on your ware) is really no trouble at all

The only thing that stoped me doing that to my characters is that I believe it is a cheep trick and not in keeping with the way the game should be played.

My GM actually returned us to something approaching the 2nd ed magic loss and geasa system, it took some getting used to but I believe it makes a lot more internal consistency.

Edward

[DarkShade]

in our games while we allowed the awakened to use cyber and bio it was heavily penalised <much more than canon, adepts lost a point /point of cyber for *each* ability>.. then again in our game adepts had lots more points anyway so 1=1 cyber would have been insane. Full mages could do what they liked but generally took a very serious & very noticeable PR hit with other mages.. more than a point wasnt worth the hassle of being semi ostracised from society.. mundanes already dont like you, nor do the cybered, alienate yourself from the other awakened at your peril.

DS

[GentlemanLoser]

"The gun adept I'm using to try and get into a game at the moment is a dual pistol wielder following the Magician's Way with an Enhance Aim at Force 4 (a Personal Extended version if a GM will permit it) on a sustaining focus. Smartlink II would do him no good at all because you can't use SL or laser sights when dual-wielding "

:)

Yeah, I've been lookig at that, and doesn't it say something that Spell casters are better two gun users than Sammy's or Addy's?

[toturi]

[Mr.Sinister]

I made a backup-char Dwarf Aspect Shaman with Alpha Dermal Sheathing 2 so he can take bullets a little more. It cost 0.8 essence/1 magic, I grabbed a talisman geas so he can still cast level 6 spells. Even if he loses the talisman and has to cast those level 6 spells at level 5, they're still pretty good. If he needs magical healing, the target number is 5 instead of 4, which is also not too shabby. If he initiates, he can lose the geas. Seemed worth it to me.

In my mind, it's harder to put cyber/bioware on an adept compared to a full magician or aspect. But, that's just me.

[CanvasBack]

Ok. I like what I'm seeing so far. A few thoughts.

One, if a physical-adept uses geasa to offset magic loss due to cyber, than he or she can't take geasa on those lost magic points to make their powers cost less, yes?

Two, it seems like cybering up your mage/shaman/adept will make them less vulnerable to being damaged, yet harder to heal if they are damaged and potentially could accelerate burn out.

Three, using implants as a talisman geas seems pretty risky if your GM is using the stress rules for bio and cyber.

Four, if your GM or you as a GM are using M&M for the surgery rules, are you also checking for magic loss based on the surgery required to get the implant?

Five, beyond background, there seems to be two main motivations to getting implants. One seems to be getting a datajack, headware memory, mnemonic enhancer and the like to enhance the Awakened's downtime activities (learning new skills, researching spells, et cetera). This way seems to have minimal effect on the magic score. The other school of thought seems to be what I'll call the "combat mage" archetype (Anyone remember Sprawl Sites?). Substantial essence/magic rating is exchanged for cyber to put the Awakened on par with a sam. This is just an observation.

Six, giving a human awakened character implants (at character creation) is much easier than the other meta-races. It seems that way under either the priority or point system rules anyway... It would seem especially difficult for Elves and Trolls. Has anyone come up with a fully awakened elf or troll that they cybered up AT character creation? How did you do it? It seems like if you wanted good cyber you'd have to get a high resources pick and sacrifice attributes and skills but if it can be done I'd like to see it.

Overall, I'm satisfied that giving cyber to the awakened is a viable character creation strategy and can mitigate physical disabilities acquired in the field. It definitely gives more potential to the family of Increase Cyber Attribute spells. Any constructive comments on my latest ramblings would be appreciated.



8)

[Demosthenes]

[DrJest]

[Cray74]

[Shockwave_IIc]

That sentence all depends on the placement of the brackets.

as writen it's Magic [6] - Bioindex/2 [say 1.99 becoming .995] thus magic is now 5.005 rounded down.

the way you say would be writen as

[Moon-Hawk]

[DrJest]

Phew!

[Shockwave_IIc]

it's nice to beat someone as opposed to be beaten. :D

[shadow_scholar]

The first character I ever created on my own and played was a Physical Adept (2nd Ed) and the character was just so damn slow. I was alway going last, always getting tagged before I could act or had to chase everyone as the firefight turned into a fireflight. I hated it because I wanted in on the action. Yeah, straight roleplay is cool, but sometimes I just want to knock the crap out of somebody, especially since I had spent so much on Killing Hands. So the next Phys Ad I made had a Synaptic Accelerator, Cybereyes, Smartlink, and something else (I can't recall, it was so long ago). That left me with 4 Magic Points (this was before I even knew about a geas) and I enjoyed playing that character much, much more. It allowed me to actually participate in combat in a group full of wired sammys and I still got to use my magic. Since then I haven't played a Physical Adept. Erm...excuse me...it's just Adept now.

But right now I'm creating one to be used as opposition for the PCs and that errata about Bioware opens up new territory. Last night planning the guy out I was torn between going with the expensive Improved Refexes 2 or just getting him a Synaptic Accelerator 2 (and losing 1 pt of magic) but since I found out about the errata, I'll definitely go with the Syn Accelerator to buy him some more juicy toys.

As for the gun adepts stuff, I always found using a Smart Link II much more beneficial than using two guns. You get all those recoil mods (if you don't compensate) and you raise you TNs too much for using two weapons, but then again I never used the magical enhance aim. The main reason I always dug Smart Link II so much was because of the negligible +2 TN it adds to called shots. Basically you set your TNs at the regular base 4 (-2 for Smartlink and +2 for Called Shot) but you raise the damage level by one category, and you get to aim for spots not covered by armor. Run some nice EX Explosive ammo or even flechette and aim for the head and they're typically toast, unless they've got bone lacing or some form of skin armor, which is rare.

[DrJest]

Not that I want to cause trouble for your players, but you, uh, you know a synaptic accelerator and boosted reflexes are compatible, right? :D

[Moon-Hawk]

Add reaction enhancers to that. It's a pretty slick combo.

Synaptic accelerator and boosted reflexes aren't quite as fast as wires on the average, but they do have a higher high-end roll.

[mfb]

slightly lower essence cost, as well. wired is still the best, if you want to lay out the cash and essence.

[Garland]

And you can get the option of turning Wired off, if that over-caffeinated feeling is getting you down.