I have some issues with partial cyber-limbs, mostly the fact that they don't have enough capacity to do anything with and that they need a cybertorso to get beyond +3 to any cyber enhancements. My proposed house rule is this, and I'd like to hear any opinions about it.

1. Partial Cyber-limbs do not need a cybertorso to go beyond +3, but can match up to the characters attribute rating. So basically, what this would mean is, if a character had a natural body of 5, he would be able to get his partial limb up to 5, because his frame could support it. This would apply to any of the enhanceable stats.

2. Partial Cyber-limbs attribute enhancements only take half as much capacity as listed for a normal full limb. This wouldn't apply to cyber-weapons, armor, gyromounts etc. just attribute enhancements.

My reasoning behind this idea:

There isn't enough room in a partial limb to do crap with, and I don't see why a half an arm would be penalized this much. I always want to make a guy with some muscle toner and maybe a cyber hand or lower arm, but then I look and there isn't enough room to up the stats at all. This would make more sense than the common houserule of lower arms going off the agility of the upper arm or other rules like that. The character would simply be able to buy his attribute like he should.

Sounds reasonable to me.

I like it. The current RAW for cyberlimbs is lacking and not well thought out. The only change I really like from SR3 is that now you can't cram all kinds of devices inside of them. That was so broken.

EDIT: Well, you can still stuff headware into a cyberlimb. And I think that Bone Lacing should give a bonus to the maximum enhancement limit before a cyber Torso is needed.

Sounds like you give a solution to a problem that would not be there in the first place.

Well the example of the body of 5 was just an example. I guess a more realistic one would be a character with 7 agility thru muscle toner being able to match up. Not a problem to tons of people, but to a person who want s to make a cyber guy it can become an issue.

A full cyber limbs strength or body or whatver enhancement would obviously be bigger, I'm not sure where you are coming from there.....

The rules are vague about this, that is what I am trying to cover. If you have a lower cyber-arm now and try shooting, does it us ethe agility of the character or the agility of the arm? This seems to me undefined, I am trying to just make it make more sense.

As far as aiming and firing... say, a pistol... It requires the full coordination of all the muscles of that limb -- from the fingers, all the way to the shoulder.

So, RAW, you'd still use the natural agility of the character (not just the lower arm)... but I would consider a houserule that used an average of the two, in cases like these, to be balanced and fair -- if a bit complicated. You'd set precedent to using some weird fomula for calculating the above with only a cyberhand.

Example of weird formula: [(CyberHand Stat + Natural Limb Stat*2)]/3 round down.
Or, for lower limb cyber : [(lower limb stat + natural limb stat)]/2 round down (easier to do).

Not very elegant

As the rules now stand, you would use your normal agility.

Makes kinda sense, since your whole body is involved for shooting.

Apply that logic to a character with lower cyber-legs running.

I think we're miscommunicating

My response was directed at the "whole body" statement.

Using Squinky's example (slightly modified) with that logic, a character with even two full cyberlegs wouldn't use his cybered attributes because the "whole body" is involved in running -- much like the "whole body" is involved in shooting. Which isn't what the rules intended.

And we are talking about houserules...

But your comment may have just been in said passing, and I took it out of context. In that case, sorry for being anal

For things like attacking the SR4 book says to use the limb involved, not rounded attributes. Their example has a guy named Critical George with Body 3, Strength 4, Agility 2. In it they say he has a left cyberarm with body 3, strength 7 and agility 3 and that if he punched somone in the face with his left arm he'd use his 3 agility for the attack test and his 7 strength to determine damage. Now this doesn't mention shooting but if you can punch someone using only the limbs stats I don't see why shooting would be excluded.

When it comes to doing something with multiple limbs the example says not to round(thats just for whole body doing something it seems), but to use the lowest value on the limbs involved. Critical George uses the lower strength value of 3 when running since he has a cyberleg with body 5, strength 3, and agility 3. This would apply to a character using a two-handed weapon as well I would think. But to make things clearer i'll just quote the rules passage.

"When a particular limb is used for a test(such as leading an attack with your cyberarm), use the attribute for that limb(natural or cyber); in any other case use the value of all limbs involved in the task(round down). If a task requires the careful coordination of several limbs, use the value of the weakest limb involved.
The attributes of partial limbs(including cyberhands and feet) may be enchanced, but the attributes only apply to test directly involving those limbs(such as a strength test when gripping something with an enhanced cyberhand)."

I like the sound of the house rule though, cyberlimbs really could use a bit more work balance wise and clarifying some things.