Getting wired reflexes 2 doesn't even cost 7 BP. I'm fearing that every non-awakened char will get them - I don't really want the Face and Hacker keeping up with the Sam on IPs.

I also see the same with something like muscle toner, getting 2 points of Agility for just a little over 3 BPs and hardly any essence lost is just a no-brainer, it will benefit a whole host of skills for any char.

I'm considering either just banning that sort of 'ware from non-combat oriented characters, like the magical qualities.

I'm also considering that you need to be fit to use 'ware like that. You need to be strong and in good shape to move at wired speeds, otherwise you're going to injure muscles and ligaments. That way, characters with low Strength and/or Body scores could get augmentations, but they'd take damage when using them.

I don't really want to do anything that makes it worse for sammies (like making it more expensive, making them twitchy giving penalties on social or fine motor skills, etc.), I don't think sammies need to be nerfed or forced into a 1-dimensional combat machine role.

I haven't started a SR4 campaign, so I'd like to know how you other guys are managing it?

I've found that BP get pretty tight, even with a non awakened character.

If your hacker wants to be really good at hacking, 7 BP that could have gone into computer skills are a massive chunk.

Same with almost any non-samurai type, at least in my group. They are scraping the bottom of their BP for that extra point of skill somewhere, while trying to keep enough cash to purchase a fake SIN and a few months of a lifestyle.

Look at it this way

Dodge 2 - 8 BPs

Wired Reflexes 2 - 7 BPs, the +2 to reaction applies pretty much anywhere your dodge would, and you get 2 extra IPs too.


Pistols 2 - 8 BPs

Pistols 1, Muscle Toner 2 - 7 BPs, you get an extra dice to pistol tests compared to above and 2 extra dice for all other Agi skills.


If players want their chars to have any sort of combat ability, they'll hit the cyber route in a big way.

Capping maximum successes at Skill x2 (as suggested in the BBB's "Grittier gameplay" section) helps limit some of the absurdity that comes from pushing attributes.

I expect the downsides of cyber will be better fleshed out when Arsenal comes out. Even with the existing penalties, I don't have a huge issue with it, though... between the Essence cap and the fact that you can only spend 50 BP on equipment (including your 'ware) there's not a huge amount of room to twink out with cyber alone.

I agree. Your Face doesn't have to be a social butterfly to the exclusion of all other abilities.
And yeah, in many cases getting some 'ware will be a quicky and easy route to improvement. That's cyberpunk. But I think you're underestimating the effect of finite essence. And wires 2 costs a lot of essence.
Personally, I suggest you give it a chance, as-is, and see if its as much of a problem as you think. I suspect it won't be.

BIIIIIIPPPPP !
Says the cyberware sensor ...

A face who don't want just to be "street level" need to have bioware instead, and the cost is 80 000 Y for level one.
I Agree those piece are quite powerfull, but can have drawbacks - and they help with game balance. Because adepts and magicians are powerfull too.

I kinda like that the street sam is being partially phased out. You can still make a dedicated combat character, and he'll be much better at his job than a dedicated hacker or dedicated face, which is how it should be IMO. That you can now make other character types (decker, rigger, face) and have them also be useful in combat is nice.

It blurs the lines between archetypes even more, which is a good thing in a classless system.

I think that wired relfex is a raip off.

Wired Reflex are the cheapest because they cost the most essence and are not compatible with other initiative boosters.

They are to SR4 what boosted reflex used to be to SR3.

I can think of many reasons why a PC wouldn't want Wired reflex. But if you are, say, a combat hacker, they are a good option.

I like their niche and have no problem with it.

The "Face" in my game spent the money on Alpha-grade Wired Reflexes 1 and Tailored Pheremones 3 at character generation. He's hardcore skills and contacts past that point (As he's one of the few that knows Attributes are cheaper to raise after creation in my game), with a 'combat survival skill' of Pistols at 3.

Personally? I don't have a problem with it at all. It eats in to his essence, reduces the amount of Cyber/Bioware he can get later on, and allows him more of a capability to survive when combat hits the fan.

It also helps that's he's more-or-less a total coward IC, prone to talking his way out of everything, and only resorting to turning on the WR when the shit hits the fan and he has to dive behind some boxes and fight from cover.

The point of a point-based character generation is not to find the most optimum combination, but to pick what makes sense for the character and have some roughly balanced characters (hopefully) thereafter.

Bye
Thanee

Cyberware is good for you. If they didn't want non-awakened characters to be tempted by body augmentation, they probably wouldn't have set the game in a world where it existed, honestly.

Complaining that cyberware seems almost required to survive is kind of an absurd argument. It's like being upset that knives aren't as good at killing people as guns, and hence everyone will buy guns. To which I say, "Well... YEAH."

I'm not too knowledgable so I might be missing an important piece, but...
Wouldn't level 3 deltaware Wired Reflexes be off limits to beginning players? If that's the case such rampant use of the implant could simply be limited by keeping the players poor after character creation.

Obviously this doesn't address the availability of basic level 2 wire at character creation, but it does add "story element" balances to levels higher than that. If the GM can keep the monitary rewards to a reasonable level, and keep the financial pressure on them in other ways, than the average decker/hacker or "face" would be far more likely to spend their hard earned cash on the gear for their favored role. Only the dedicated "tanks" would spend truly high dollar amounts on such radical degrees of Wired Reflexes. And if the player of a non-combat character is willing to sacrifice his specialty to do so, more power to him. And that's the way it should be, I think.

In SR4 cyberware is the low-end, grimey option that is only used by the people with the big budgets when there isn't really a Bioware equivalent available. Deltaware Wired Reflexes 3 is effectively a defunct item. Technically it still exists as an option, but it would be like putting a blueprinted and balanced 650 bhp engine in an '82 Chevette. A costly, peverse idea who's only utility is serving some offbeat fetish.

P.S. I do think however that the Essense cost of Synaptic Boosters are a smidgen too low. But only maybe about 0.2 or 0.3 Esssense/level.

Any non-awakened person without decent cyberware DESERVES to DIE.
They're just that stupid you know?

Stupid like a fox!

Slim's been a lot of fun. But he'll be getting Synaptic Boosters shortly as I've saved up the cash. I just haven't figured out yet if he's going to try use a favour to bridge the cash gaap to get level 2 instead of just level 1.

Very unlikely he'll ever get cyberware though. Not just because of the Negative Quality, because I could buy that off. But I'm playing him as not likely the idea of foreign bits stuck in him. He might not ever get non-cultured bioware either. Not sure on that yet.

Considering that shadowrunners perform dangerous acts of corporate espionage, theft, and sabotage for a living, I think that most runners should have more combat ability than most people. But merely having wired reflexes does not put them in the same league as the street samurai who specializes in combat. The sammie will usually have augmented physical attributes, heavier armor and weapons, and higher combat skills.

If you copy the prices over from SR3, a dose of Jazz (serving up the same benefits as Wired 1) costs 40 .

Anyone still think 11k and 2 points of Essense is "cheap?"

That's why most of my multiple IP goons are on drugs!

('ware is rare in my games)

If you can afford it, 'ware and awakened characters make a pretty scary combination. Even with only the core rules.

But I don't think its to cheap.

It's also possible that the whole "wired reflexes can be turned off" thing will become more important in the future. Bioware doesn't have that option. If the rules end up presenting us with something along the lines of a composure test (with penalties equal to 2xBonus IPs or something like that) when you're wired up and get surprised, I can see wired definitely having an advantage.

Is it worth 3.5 essence?

I dunno, you tell me how much it's worth to not accidentally shoot a friend in the face.

EDIT: running Alpha Wired 2 costs you 2.4 essense and 64000 nuyen. If you did it beta, it'd be 128000 and 2.1 essence, roughly half the cost of Boosted 3, and only .6 more essence. Yes, you're out one IP, but your boosting can be turned off. Wired 3 is a bit of an oddity, math-wise.

There is also the issue that wired reflexes is old technology. It's costs, avialability, and benefits in comparison to the other options reflect that. Heck, just look at wired 3. There is absolutely no reason (apart from storyline) for it to even exist, as nobody looking at justt he numbers would ever take it.

@Cynic Project

You are arguing that Wired are too expensive in terms of essence?

And Smokesin opened up this thread by arguing that wired reflex are too cheap in terms of and BP.

So apparently the item isn't so desesperately weak or strong if such conflicting POV can be expressed.

What's being left out of this argument is that fact that the physad version of WR/SB is stupidly overpriced. A physad is almost always better off specializing in a small skill set, and taking Synaptic Boosters instead of spending 2 or three Magic on Improved Reflexes.

I hate that. I dislike the fact that the rules push magicians and adepts into getting bioware purely for mechanical reasons. There's not even a real trade off (in a long-term sense), given how cheap synaptic boosters are, essence wise.

The argument that 'magical characters can be uberl33t over time' rings false with me. It isn't cheap to increasee the Magic attribute, especially past 6. For example:

Going from 5 Magic to 8 Magic (about equivalent to a street samurai upgrading all his stuff from standard to betaware, in my view) costs:

Magic to 6 = 18 Karma
Initiate Grade 1 = 13 Karma
Magic to 7 = 21 Karma
Initiate Grade 2 = 16 Karma
Magic to 8 = 24 Karma.

Total: 92 Karma.

That's a WHOLE lot of skill points and quite a few attribute points for a non-magical character. A Magical PC gets no additional anything. A mage, for example, gets a higher Magic attribute, which is useful...but ultimately, it's 3 extra dice for his area of expertise. A physad gets a bit of a better deal, and can pump up dice in his area of specialization, or get generally tougher.

The thing is, 92 karma's a LOT, given that I hand out 2-5 karma per session. A non-magical character who's careful with his money will do pretty well, gear wise, in the course of ~20 runs.

Ultimately, it comes down to individual taste. In my own game, I decided that the gulf in effectiveness between wired reflexes, synaptic boosters, and Improved Reflexes was too high. Rather than re-write both Synaptic Boosters and Wired Reflexes, I opted for a simpler way to handle it:

Synaptic Boosters cost 1 essence per level. Improved Reflexes cost 1 Magic per level. With Street Magic coming out, I may adjust the Improved Reflexes cost some, to something like 1.25/2.5/3.75. It all depends on what they do with Geasa.

These changes, though, worked well for me. It's not an automatic choice for a mage in my group to take Synaptic Boosters-1 or -2 and a power focus in CG. YMMV.

Edit:

I wanted to add one thing to the discussion. Take a physad, created according to book rules, and take two street samurai, created according to book rules. Sammie 1 has WR-2 at start. Sammie 2 has SB-2.

Advance all three to 200 Karma, and assume they earned net 10,000 nuyen per run. In my own game, that's 50 runs, or 500k.

Work each character up, min-maxing as best you can. In the end, I found that street sammies /far/ surpass physads at this level. Ridiculously so.

This is a big point. I've got a face character, a former DEA undercover cop who go stranded by Crash2 and had to go native for far too long. He's got no cyber or bio b/c it is a fingerprint, just like a tattoo or scars. He spends cash to avoid having any distinguishing marks and to be sure he is 100% generic meat.

Why in drek would a character who bothers to take "bland" and use disguises to avoid getting ID'd get cyber that raises alarm flags?

Folks with cyber also need to spend resources on licenses. Want to walk into a high-end Corp Enclave? You can bet they've got a doorway MAD scanner and will expect your ID to include legit licenses. Maybe it's just my GM but if a scanner pulls up any Restricted or Forbidden 'ware you're ID gets a double- or triple-check so those SINs better be extra meaty.

Me, I just go wherever. If I need to go to the Corp Enclave armed, I bring my taser and the best fake SIN+license (which says I'm an independant bonded courier, justifying my presence just about anywhere and why I'm packing). A pulsar taser can take out most threats faster than a pistol and doesn't get the same level of evil-eye from the boys in blue.

Saying that there's a hard system cap on the amount of essence that a character has is true (although higher grades of cyberware let you get at least some of that "back," in the sense that you can use that space for something else later). Saying that there's an infinite amount of money out there for your PCs to end up with may be true in the philosophical sense, but philosophy and practice often differ from each other.