What do you think? I've got work to do so I can't look it up before we game tonight, so I punt to you all and see what kind of concensus (or canon ruling) may be found.

Thoughts?

Personally, I tend to rule any bonus capped as long it is not noted explicitly as an independent modifier:
Otherwise, the general caps wouldn't work.

IIRC, the lacing takes place within the bone matrix. This means that it's internal to the organs (yes, bones are organs) and not simply "on top" of it. Since it is quite likely that this is where density increases via bioware would also work, it certainly could be mutually exclusive much like muscle replacement vs. muscle augmentation/toner.

Jay

It was in SotA63 as GenTech: Calcitonin.

Still you're increasing the body, which has a maximum of dum dum dum 9 in a human (augmented ofcourse). Body can still only max out at 9 no matter how many augmentations you put on it. Hence the whole augmented maximum thing going on with the rules.

Actualy there are pro's and cons to each Ravennus.

Bioware Pro-

You get extra dice to reduce damage with.

Cyberlimb Pro-

You automaticaly get a bonus box of health.
You can install armor in your cyberlimbs which will give you the same effect as some of the bioware.

and by the looks of it have no listed problem with bone lace. that is if they didnt errata it in...

He is assuming that isn't the case, seeing as the implants do not improve the Attribute in all situations.

Think of it this way...you have a glass which represents your attributes.

You have your standard attributes normaly that fill the glass half way up. And beside it you have a pitcher of water. With almost another glass full of water (definately more than what your glass can hold with the amount of water you already have in it) in it for when you are resisting damage. Now you can pour that entire pitcher of water into that glass, but that glass is still only going to be able to hold so much the rest is just going to be wasted as it spills everywhere.

Just beause your adding it in certain specific situations does not mean the rules suddently no longer apply.

Only thing is with this I don't see where he's getting this +6DV to attacks.

And there is nothing in either or those (direct quotes from the book btw) that says anything about increasing the DV of melee unarmed attacks.

I believe the theory is, no matter how much you amp up with machines and such there is only so much stress the human or rather metahuman body can actualy take and this would be represented by the racial max. Like you COULD get two cyberarms with a strength of 21 and theoreticaly you could lift a building out of the ground, but your cyberarms would tear out of your sockets because despite being able to lift that much your body can't support that. Hence the max attribute limits.

True, with cyberlimbs you get an extra damage box with each.

However, with capacity costs you would spend almost all the capacity in cyberlimb on armor just to compare with bone density/bone lacing/orthoskin for the sake of damage resistance. Then you wouldn't even have enough room to buy up the attributes to comparable normal meat limits. Hell, it's far worse if you are an ork or troll. Also, don't forget that the armor ratings get divided between the rest of the limbs, the torso, and the head.

-Ravennus

Ah my bad there. Missed that in the table...especialy since it wasn't included in the descriptions. My appologies.

+6DV and its physical. Yup thats rather impressive. But also not overly impressive either. Max of <EDIT> 14DV base on a unarmed attack with a absolutely maxed out troll. And with a average of 9DV. For a essence cost of 2.7 with standard ware and a cost of 120,000 nuyen. And its physicaly impossible to get inside of chargen so the cost will be even more for that combo. Yeah not overly that big of a concern in my opinion. All ballances out in the end. Thanks for the info btw


<EDIT>Sorry forgot to round up so yes it would be 14 instead of 13 DV thank you hyb for pointing out my mistake.

Thats the thing I see wrong with your view. To you cyberlimbs should be the end all be all. To me its a trade off of advantages.

Bioware allows you to increase what you have. Your natural ability.

Cyberware allows you to augment your natural ability.

There is a difference there, however slight it might be.

I'm not that strong, I could pay alot of money to increase that, or i could buy a cyberlimb and augment myself with better agility, strength and some body and a little bit of armor, or maybe a gyromount so i can shoot alot better, for cheaper (generaly).

Its a trade off. Do you want to hit your peak or do you want to be able to do things metahumans can't do?

why do that remind me of the days spent, reading and re-reading m:tg cards to see if i could find some way to abuse the wording?

as for the suboptimal cyberlimb stuff. thing is that your trowing away all the limits of meat and bone and going plastic and metal. it should be atleast compareable if not better out of the box.

i would have found it more likely that limbs are made to max human specs and then tuned down based on the user. then as the meat gets stronger one just retunes and presto.

thing is that the way cyberlimbs in SR is handled dont interface with the combat system. instead they should just say that a cyberlimb is able to match the abilitys of the rest of your meat (may get a bit hairy when going borg tho), but as its made of metal and plastic have a internal storage capasity for stuff that you normaly cant have implanted.

this way cyberlimbs have a place in the game without having to do crasy maths just to add some extra armor on it (instead its armored up when the person gets any dermal armor or similar).

Well think of it from the corp prespective.

If they make cyberlimbs that max out metahuman potential, they're going to be expensive even if we tone them down. Or we could make a average cyberlimb that, well, we can sell for cheaper and sell add ons to and get more money in the long run through increased sales and sales of add ons.

I generaly don't agree with your perspective (not saying its not a very valid pov just that I don't agree with everything in it). I like the dynamic between bioware and cyberware that we have now. There are costs and benefits to each and I like that. Each does things differently as well. (I miss my MBW's though )

Well, it still doesn't change the fact that the cyber/bioware is adding to body and not adding to the pool. This seems pretty straight forward in relation to hitting the attribute cap.

Then again, for those who don't like attribute caps, they are definitely free to ignore said caps and allow these pieces of ware to break the now non-existant cap.

I guess I'm talking more about full body conversions in SR.

As for just buying a limb, there is absolutely no question that just buying a single limb and enhancing it will bring bring you nowhere near the potential of just enhancing the meat with cyber/bioware. Also, don't forget that the attribute enhancements to the limb only apply on select rolls, and only when using that particular limb. It's not a blanket bonus to your stats across the board.

I don't want cyberlimbs and cybernetic conversion to be the end all and be all.
For that, I'll crack out my CP2020 books and play some real cyberpunk.
I just want the option, more for flavor than for anything else, to be able to have a cyborg character that's not horribly GIMPED (game mechanics wise) compared to meat characters. I think cyberlimbs should have advantages over meat parts, and I have not yet heard or read any substantial proof of such once you factor in the mechanics (namely capacity).

As it stands now, a cyberarm gyromount in one of the only reasons you could possibly want a cyberlimb. Sure, you can get a cyberlimb for flavor, but it will be a waste of nuyen.

Also, cyberlimbs are not as cheap as you might think in SR4. Someone else on this board posted once about it...
To make it short, the most nuyen you can start with now is 250k...down from 1 million in SR3. That's 1/4 the max starting... well, cyberlimbs took a similar hit in price, but that means they just cost the same percentage of your max stating money.
Then, once you start paying 2x the nuyen for it to be Alphaware in order to save on essence...as well as all the enhancements and attachments. It gets pretty pricey, and with no clear comparison to bodyware or bioware.

Either way, this is just my opinion. You have yours, and I have mine.
It's just more and more evident that Shadowrun isn't really part of the cyberpunk genre anymore. You have to approach it as it's own game and genre.

Also, as for +6DV not being unbalancing....an ares predator only does 5DV -1AP. That means, that the average human with a strength of 3 and the previously described 'ware will do and 8DV lethal punch. No matter how strong your bones are, I have a hard time imagining that an average strength Joe could punch harder than a bullet from a 10mm heavy pistol.

As for the troll in your example.....you do realize that at 14DV per punch, he's hitting harder than an elephant rifle or sniper rifle, even once you factor the armor piercing modifiers. Hell, his punches have more raw power than a Panther Assault Cannon (the armor piercing doesn't really make up for it, as at 14DV....no one will be wearing that much armor).

In any case, it's evident we're not seeing eye to eye Shadow_Prophet, and can probably both continue arguing our points. For the sake of brevity, let's just leave it for now.

As for the original poster's question on Bone Lacing/Density stacking, I suppose we will have to wait on a clear answer from Fanpro on modified attribute limits. Until then, I can see it going either way.

-Ravennus

You couldn't have a Power over the level of your Magic Attribute. Since you couldn't have a Magic Attribute of 6 because of Essence loss, you could not have Critical Strike at level 6.

I could have sworn I saw one. Bleh. I'll look some more