Was wondering if items and/or cyberware that a runner uses can get damaged, and if so, is their a way of determing how?


For example on p. 150 under knocking items out of peoples hands, it mentions that an object could be damaged, but it leaves it up to the discression of the GM, I am wondering if Cyberware and the like can be damaged, and how and when it happens, and how a PC goes about getting it fixed if indeed it does happen.

Thanks...

- DgrenJ

That's pretty much all up to the GM. Some GMs will never have cyberware or armor suffer damage while others will have it happen whenever someone sneezes on you forcefully.

Again, extraterritoriality rears it's ugly head. Why report them to the police (and make no money) rather than treat them and take their money? It's not even illegal, since they can easily declare that it isn't, provided the hospital in question is owned by a mega.

At that point, I'd say the head was rather cute, not ugly. Heh.

Why? Because most people are law abiding citizens and don't like the idea of highly modified super criminals running around?

Besides, letting it slide is going easy on the players, something the Shadowrun Genre frowns upon.

But making illegal gear easily availible for criminals and turning a blind eye toward what's good and right in the interest of making a profit has always been consistent with the genre.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. Access to unauthorized equipment goes through unauthorized channels. Taking that same gear to a law abiding establishment should result in law related consequences.

Even a greedy, criminal, or sympathetic doctor may turn the character in out of fear that it's a sting operation. Paranoi runs deep in the 6th world.

edit: I'm not saying it shouldn't be possible, just that allowing it without any work on the player's part is a bad idea IMO.

And I'm saying that there's no reason for this equipment to be unauthorized or illegal. It's corporate land. All you need is one corporation to allow it in their hospital. I certainly agree that most hospitals would follow laws very similar to the rest of the UCAS, but all it takes is one.
Now, as for making it too easy on the characters, if they're comfortable going to an Aztechnology doctor for all of their work, well, maybe they've got some bigger problems ahead than just an illegal cyberspur.

I don't think most public hospitals are extra-territorial. That's just my take on things though. As far as I know there's no info on which hospitals are owned by whom.

I also think that even extra-territorial hospitals would probably turn someone over as part of professional courtesy. Eventually you'll want the Star to help you with something, and if you have a reputation for harboring criminals that help might be pretty slow in arriving. Again, just my take. Whatever works for each particular group is best.

I think we're almost agreeing. I would agree that MOST public hospitals are not extra-territorial. I would agree that FEW would take the risk of harboring criminals and earning Lone Star's personal ire.
My point is, it only takes one. I agree that they would be rare, my point is that I find it unlikely that there would be absolutely zero such places.

edit: My other point is, considering the doubious-at-best scruples of such a place, even if you can find them you might not actually want to go there.

Getting back on topic ^^

When I GM I tend to describe damage to armour, clothes and weapons more as in game flavour. I assume that most characters either can fix their own weapons or armour or know someone that can do it and consider it paid for with their lifestyle. Perhaps if a character glitches a weapon might malfunction, inflicting a dice pool modifier and requiring extra work to fix. Simply as "flavour" damage, with no mechanical consequences such damage still lends itself to fun GMing.

Lone Star Grunt: "is that a bullet hole... sir?
Runner: "uh... no... I've got some awakened moths in my closet. Ravenous buggers"
LSG: "Well, how do you explain the 9mm rounds wedged in your bullet proof vest?"
Runnner: "These? These're old. Second hand vest you see... By which I mean I bought it at Al Zyers fleamarket. Completely legit, I swear! Obviously some faceless corp goon... I mean hard working office worker working type... um.. yes... he must have sold it there. He didn't want it anymore y'see... cos of the bullets."
LSG:"You appear to have glitched your fast talk check".

I'd only damage cyber ware if a character were to take some pretty hefty damage, but then the character better be on the way to a hospital or shadowclinic pretty quickly anyway or they're dead. Once with the health professionals the ware with either be fixed, or the star called, depending on whether your buddies like you and took you to some place which wasn't about to ask questions about bullet wounds or not.

Most likely situation for your cyberware to be damaged is if you're ever knocked beyond your physical damage track.

Of course, some things are darn near impossible to destroy, like muscle replacement and bone lacing.

I had to skip over alot of the conversation cuz i dont wanna read it all on this ssubject lol but i wanted to put in my 2

Heres some options for getting worked on:

Using brute force to take over the hospital and making the docs work on you.

Finding a doc's family and kidnapping them and then just waltzing into the hospitial and telling him to fix you up or else.

Kidnapping the doc from the hospital and then going to a crappier sinless hospital and taking it over.

Going through a contact and having to waste tons of money to build a customized hospital room and getting a doc to come out and work on you.


How you deal with things after you get the work done is totally up to the players. They could kill the doc, pay him off, drug him and put him back or whatever.

Or you could just go to a street doc, the contact every cybersammie should have at least one of.