I really like the look and layout of the new edition. The art is for the most part very good, and the addition of pictures for quite a bit of the gear is a definite positive. The writing is much better than I have read in recent sourcebooks (not meant as a slam to the freelancers; it should be taken as a compliment), and I have really enjoyed reading the fluff as well as the rules. The changes in rules look good to me. One good thing now is that using light or machine pistols is actually a viable idea for the first time since 1st edition, and mages are no longer all-powerful.

Questions:

1. Can a cyberarm gyromount be installed in a cyberhand, or is a full arm necessary? I know the hand has enough capacity, but does the gyromount need reinforcements through the arm?

2. What is the benefit of having a commlink cybernetically installed? Just the fact that you don't have to carry it around? Also, what purpose do datajacks serve now?

3. Is bioware avaiable in alpha/beta/delta like cyberware has been, or am I misreading the rules?

4. The rules say a character's maximum magic rating is (natural magic max [6] + initiations, but the initiations can not exceed the magic rating). So the natural max magic is now 12? What if I had a natural magic of 4 and an initiate level of 2 and wanted to increase my magic? would I pay the cost of rasing my magic to 5, or would it cost as much as raising it to 8?

1) Well, gryomounts aren't my thing, but if they're listed in the cybernetic section for implantable goodies, then you can put it in either. I know that the arm is bound to have more room, but if you want to minimize body alteration, you can stick to the hand. *shrugs* You'll need a better techie for that question.

2) Ultimately, the cyber-link is for the true commlink addict. You always have it, you always know where it is. No risk of theft without a chunk of flesh being ripped out, etc.

Also, it's less conspicuous if you just have to to something with it, as you can now work it mentally instead of physically (unless you're a techno or already had such options in the first place). Beyond that....again, a techie question (I'm more mage, but I do know how to click on those spiffy VR/AR links I keep getting advertising a good time).

3) If it's not cultured, I believe bioware also benefits from the ratings. Cultured is basically at its best, and being personal, can't be supped up beyond advancements in bioware knowledge.

4) Unless you're a special race or you've been butchering your magic attribute, everyone can have a potential of up to 6, and can start lower but train it up to 6.

When you initiate, you can push the boundary further. It would be possible, if crazy, to heavily cyber yourself while initiating to the extreme, getting a 5-6 in magic while being very much robot (granted, if you ever hit 0 during this modding, you are burned out regardless). If you're doing this, I will either be afraid, or I'll pull out your duracells.

Only paranormals are known to have the habit of breaking this rule. Then again, they're paranormals, and they are 'not normal'. Case in point being dragons.

1) It can be installed in the hand. Some GMs have restricted it to the arm because of the problem of reinforcement, butt he rules don't require it.

2) Headware is a lot harder to steal. Datajacks are still useful for accessing nonwired systems. Many older systems and high security systems will not be upgraded for financial or security reasons.

3) Yep, you can get bioware in grades. It's really freaking expensive and the essence costs are so low already that it doesn't save you much.

4) Every time you initiate you can raise your magic rating. So if you initiate once and raise your magic to 7 you are now limited to initiating 7 times. If during that time you initiate against and bump your magic to 8 you'll be able to initiate 8 times.

so when you initiate you choose between gaining a new power or increasing your magic attribute? i haven't read that section thoroughly yet.

5. How are skillsofts stored? Can I buy 20 activesofts, upload them all to my datajack's memory, and cycle through them as I see fit?

The number of active skillsofts one can run is limited by the sum of their ratings compared to twice the skillwires ratings. One can have any "reasonable" number of skillsofts in memory, but only use a limited number of them at one time. Rating 3 skillwires, limits one to two rating 3 skillsofts at one time, for example. Switching skillsofts requires an action, though I can't remember if that's a simple or complex.

You can hide or download skillsofts in other nodes, as well.

Initiation does both now - you can only do it up to your natural magic attribute (So for the starting classes, the limit is always 6).

Your natural can only go to 6, your initiation can only go to 6 (and thus raise your magic by 6 points) but only if you already have all 6 points to start with. Think of it as a separate attribute that is limited by the value of your magic attribute.

Technically, you can initiate after the 6th time to gain extra options. A rating this high, however, is very, very, powerful. You are the sort that can get the notice of extraplanar beings and dragons and insect spirits and so on.

The SR book takes into consideration powerful but not neccessarily god-like characters. The Street Magic book will probably look into that to some extent.

Cold-Dragon: not true. Initiation does not raise your magic attribute in SR4. It raises your maximum, but you still have to pay the karma. Thus the limit of initiating grows as your magic rating grows.

Of course, the cost of going that high is astronomical, and there's almost certainly something better you can do with the karm besides going from initiate grade 6 to 7, requiring going from magic 6 to 7. IIRC that's a total of 42 karma (21 for initiating and 21 for raising magic). In other words, it's enough for 8 specializations, or raising a skill from 0 to 6.

Initiation does both now - you can only do it up to your natural magic attribute (So for the starting classes, the limit is always 6).

Your natural can only go to 6, your initiation can only go to 6 (and thus raise your magic by 6 points) but only if you already have all 6 points to start with. Think of it as a separate attribute that is limited by the value of your magic attribute.

Technically, you can initiate after the 6th time to gain extra options. A rating this high, however, is very, very, powerful. You are the sort that can get the notice of extraplanar beings and dragons and insect spirits and so on.

The SR book takes into consideration powerful but not neccessarily god-like characters. The Street Magic book will probably look into that to some extent.



the magic attrib is 6 max now? I thought you had to have 6 in order to initiate? hum I have to reread it again, and how does it work with magic adepts?

I guess most of these questions will be answered in street magic if it ever comes to print.

A gyromount should require an entire cyberarm. After all, if it's just in the hand, how does it prevent the recoil from bending your elbow and shoulder and throwing your aim off? I think a gyromount must run through the entire cyberarm in order to stabilize it.

They're answered in the main rulebook; initiation can be as high as the current magic attribute, and no higher. So unless you have less than one essence, it's always possible to raise your magic high enough to initiate. If you have magic 6 and initiate grade 6, you could always just raise your magic one higher and raise the initiation cap to 7. In fact, here's the RAW paragraph from the book; you really need to read it more carefully.

Okay, I remembered wrong. I've been trying to get into SR games. That's not exactly easy in some places. Lack of use makes one rusty.

Initiation increases the cap you can raise it to then, but the max is 6 as per the attribute creation rules thingamajig for making characters (notice it costs you extra for that 6th point and all, like with the physical and mental stats). Nothing raises your magic above 6, not even positive qualities if I recall correctly.

The technical theory of mine is that the races can only hold so much potential before the magic would make you 'combust' (or mutate, or something potentially painful or awe inspiring). If you were to go to a non-metahuman standard (turning into a dragon, becoming paranormal) then one could say your potential is higher. As mentioned earlier, however, it costs a LOT to take your magic above 6. Magic is one of those things where learning can take years to develop (unless you're a very active mage), and that's probably part of the reason elves are commonly expected to be magical to some extent, since they got the years to do that (or they did before, now they are probably more likely born with the potential already, or they took the quik-sorc classes at the academy of pointy ears and wands).

Don't mind my elf-teasing - I think it's cute. And of course I'm rambling (which may just encourage one to buy the book than listen for me to ramble).

Dude, initiation raises the natural maximum. That's kind of the point of initation. Given enough karma, a random mage can have 15 initiation grades. As long as you have more than 6 magic, not natural magic, you can go above initiate grade 6.

Fine, I'll reread the entire dang magic section again then.

I could have sworn it was otherwise, but we'll see...

- later -

*sighs* once again, I think Emo smacked me across the head with a wooden plank. By the wording...

Strictly numbers-wise, making a starting character (using a human in this example) with attributes less than 3, skills less than 3 or skill groups less than 2 is counterproductive in a BP:KP ratio. I was hoping that this edition would take a more becks-like approach to character creation to stop the min/maxer in me from thinking about how to get the most out of every single BP, but it didn't work like that. What other min/max ideas have been brought up? Links to threads would be great, but not necessary.

Becks is just a different system with different min max choices. Without going completely random or almost choice free there will always be almost room for min maxing.

Cyber commlink is also good for a dual-lifestyle character. You know, the secret identity type. The non-cyber one is the public, "legal" profile...Joe Schmoe, nothing special. The cyber one can be easily hidden among other cyberware (hell, from the way the book describes it, I think mine's going to be built into/onto my datajack), for concealment purposes. Plus, if you can swing it, it gives you a plausible deniability if questioned. "What? There's a commlink built in my cyber? All I wanted installed was a jack... I'll have my surgeon's license for this! For all I know he's been snooping on me for the past 2 years!"

Seems the original posters questions have been answered... but maybe someone can help me with mine?

I have a player with bone lacing (aluminium for what it's worth) which means that his unarmed attacks do Physical damage. Is there any means for him to do stun damage with an unarmed strike? Intuitively I think not and I can't see anything in the rules, but I'd be grateful for your thoughts.

We did consider maybe some kind of house-rules, dropping dice to pull his blows or something...

The whole thing started when his team-mate punched out a troll. If he'd been using physical damage, say a knife or a gun, the troll would have been going strong, but as it was stun damage, figured off the troll's Will instead of Body, said troll went down like a sack. Hardly seems right to me.

He could use subduing combat (pg. 152 for description).

Otherwise he could start carrying around a stun baton...heh.

Edit: Or hope his DV dosen't exceed the defenders armor.

Bone lacing makes it more practical to shove your fist up someone's nose, so ultimately it lets you do physical damage through the sake of knowing you are not going to bust your wrist punching Mr. Troll.

I can't see why you couldn't simply do stun since you could before in the first place. It's just 'pulling your punches' as mentioned.

But I wouldn't want to upset the RAW. It might slap me for physical damage. (Sorry if that was too rude for the moment. I've just had a lot of RAW moments going, and it's sorta becoming a theme).

regarding the gyromount... first of all, the thing is in the WRIST. this would include most cyberhands, the same way a cyber-forearm will include the elbow, and the cyberarm include the shoulder. As it wont fit into a synthetic cyberhand, and from the art, i would say these things are a bit obvious. like wearing an oversized wristwatch.

now, its F legality, no permit possible... so you may want to cover it up. except that it has to 'pop out', meaning that covering it makes it useless.

I dont see the gyromount being usefull, except in a modular housing that would allow you to swap out different hands/arms.

i suppose the hand version and the forearm version are different models with teh same end result.

Thanks Squinky, Cold-Dragon and Kyoto Kid...
I did look at the rules for subdual combat, although that seems more like grappling someone and putting them in a choke hold, a little different from punching them in the face or kidneys.

I figured that bone lacing allowed a punch to do physical damage as the Sam in question has nigh unbreakable bones thanks to the 'ware and his fists weighed more. I'm erring on the side of letting him inflict stun damage by pulling his blows, and not imposing any modifiers, much like an adept's killing hands power.

I don't want to get into a debate over the realism of it all, as then it might open a can of worms about the whole stun/physical damage seperation. This is, after all, a game, and that is simply a game mechanic, for all that someone could break some unfortunates limb with a well placed unarmed strike in real life.

On another matter entirely, it's been quite interesting to read the discussion about the cyberarm gyromount. For my two pennies worth, the RAW permits a mount in a cyberhand going by the capacity of a cyberhand. For all that the pictures show the mount fitted into at least a lower arm replacement. How the thing looks on a character in the game is really just flavour, much as comlinks can look however you like.

The big disadvantage of the cyberarm gyromount mounted in a cyber hand that I see, is the hand having only a base agility of 3, and no space to put improvements. If you're going to be sticking a piece of 'ware designed specifically for gun bunnies into your wrist you'd probably also want to boost the dependant stat for shooting straight.

so by the rules, a starting character can have an attribute at max rating and the rest at 4, or two at 5 and the rest at 4. how does this work for metatypes? say an ork starts with max body and he also wants 7 strength, is that possible? Or he wants 7 body, 7 strength, and 5 willpower, how abou that?

I believe you're thinking of skills, not attributes.

When choosing starting skills you are restricted to maxing out only one skill (6), or buying two skills to close to maxed out (5). Then you can have as many skills at 4 as you like, provided you have the build points.

The limits on attributes are the number of build points you can spend on them (200 by canon), and the racial limits.

(*note* the 200 build point cap doesn't apply to the special attributes, Edge, Magic or Resonance. Just the Physical and Mental ones)

Your orc can indeed pump his body and strength to max, although the final points will cost extra build points, potentially limiting his other stats.

It seems to be a desired change, otherwise they'd have upped the capacity or copied the sentence from M&M.