I had a pretty cool SR3 rigger (Thumper) I'd like to port over to SR4 rules. One of her flaws was that she was a deaf/mute. I liked that trait as much for RP purposes as for the extra creation points. She made quite a bipolar character, silent as a churchmouse in normal settings, then once she was jacked in to a vehicle, she would talk the team's ear off through the speakers.

That flaw - err, quality, is gone in SR4, with 'infirm' being the closest thing I see in the rules. It doesn't seem appropriate though, because nothing about being a deaf/mute should prevent a character from learning physical skills. Does anyone have any thoughts for what might be an appropriate houserule for this quality? I was thinking something along the lines of +10-15 BP, with -2 dice to perception and negotiation tests might be appropriate.

Thanks,

Grogs.

Deaf/mute is fairly major, or so I recall, I would think it might be a bit more significant in penalties (but being I have never truly been deaf or mute, I can't say from experience).

Likewise, with the techno advancement right now, someone deaf or blind can technically overcome that flaw with a simple placement of technology. If they're techonmancers, then they already have half the materials they need.

Of course, now they're depending on teh gear, unless they're cybereyes or ears.

Now, if you want to play without those...the old rules can probably be adapted, but I'm not sure you can get as many points since it's 'easy' to deal with.

Meat deafness is only worth 1 BP in SR3 so I wouldn't set it higher than 5 BP in SR4. Meat and matrix deafness may be worth 15 BP.

As far as penalties go, no hearing based perception tests at all. That should be enough.

Sometimes there are perception tests where both sight and sound apply. Thos would be -2 dice. You cannot succeed a sound based perception check at all.

Team communication would be rendered as text in your field of vision. A transducer (described in man and machine) a bit of computing power and a speaker would counter the inability to speak but it still might throw some people off a bit. Go to the racism rules for an idea about how to cover the social problems.

Edward

The entire idea behind blindness in SR3 was that it was of a sort that cyberware wouldn't be able to fix. Otherwise a character could take a major flaw and overcome it quickly with a minor investment.

Since this rigger can obviously overcome her flaw while rigging in SR4 she could overcome it with a simple commlink connected to a speaker and listening device. In other words barely a disability at all. At most a single Build Point for the occassional annoyance factor. ( Aren't the small percentage of riggers that don't have cyberears half-deaf anyway from spending way too much time near some rather loud and big guns? )

I'd say when both sight and sound apply, -half dice, since sound is a large part of noticing something.

When I was converting earlier editions flaws into SR4 for my group, I basically did the conversion of 1 piont=5 bp. (With some minor exceptions with the high point flaws)
So I ended up with the following:
Deaf
Bonus: 15 BP
A character with the Deaf quality cannot hear. The character cannot make Hearing tests, and receives a -4 target modifier on any tests in which hearing is a factor. (Such as Surprise tests.)
The Hearing negative quality is lost if a character picks up corrective cyberware.

Blind
Bonus: 20 BP (10 BP for magically active characters)
A character with the Blind negative quality receives a +4 target modifier for all visual-based tests. Characters with Cyber-replacement eyes cannot take this quality.
Charcters with the Adept, Magician, or Mystic Adept quality may still use astral perception as a form of sight. Such characters receive a +2 target modifier for visual test based solely in the physical world. Characters with the Blind quality cannot take the Colour Blind or Night Blindness negative qualities.

This will eat up your 35 bp limit for negative qualities at creation. The values can - of course be tweaked. I have the modifiers at a -4.. if you want less penalty, say only -2, then it wouldn't give as much..

If you want them to have the flaw and not be able to overcome it with some easy cash investment just have their brains not be wired properly to receive sound.

Maybe they can tell if there is sound or if things are quiet, but they couldn't tell where a sound is coming from, how loud it is, what it sounds like or even if it is just one sound or many.

Something better would be:
Deaf
Bonus: 15 BP
A character with the Deaf quality cannot hear. The character cannot make Hearing tests, and divides their dice pool in half on any tests in which hearing is a factor. (Such as Surprise tests.)
A character with this flaw can NOT hear even if their ears are cybernetically replaced.

Do the same for the blind flaw, and then I might consider it. The reason I say they still can't hear if they're replaced, is they could still turn on a recorder, and play it back for someone who could hear.

I had assumed the sound section of the brain was unrecoverable. This would mean you are def in AR and VR as well. But you can still have soft wear connected to amount pickup to provide you with visual ques regarding detected sound, for example provide speech bubbles in your field of vision and flash symbols indicating sounds the system thinks you should take notice of (such as gunfire)

I would allow such a system make you aware of any sound another would not need to make a perception check to notice and not impact the value of your flaw.

As to being unable to speak, would this be due to defect or the difficulty in learning when you cant hear. In ether case a transducer and speaker patch, or just a fast test output and voice synthesizer would eliminate the problem, so it is the most minor of flaws. Interestingly if it was only due to the difficulty in learning you could possibly speak with the aide of a language skillsoft.

Edward