I've been messing around with cyberware options for some character concepts, and something occurred to me. On the surface, it seems like the capactiy limits on cyberware really limit your ability to be creative with what you can cram in them.

For example, if you have a human sammy with strength 6 and he gets a cyberarm, in order for the arm to equal the strength of his meat arm (since it starts at 3) he'll have to sacrifice quite a large chunk of capacity to boost it up there. It's even worse if he also wants other stats increased, or wants some armor on it.

But I was thinking, this only applies to the capacity for installed components, which cost no essence beyond the limb itself. If the sammy were willing to spend the essence on it, could you fit more equipment in an arm than the limb would normally allow? For example, if the previously mentioned sammy augmented the stats of the limb, could he still pay the actual essence cost and have a cybergun installed in that same arm? Heck, if he really wanted to blow all his essence, could he find some way to cram half a dozen guns into it for some sort of super gun-arm of death?

While there would obviously be some limits on what's reasonable to put in, I don't see why someone couldn't add more gizmos if they were willing to pay for them, the capacity slots just give you a little "free" space.

If you took a cyberlimb and maxed out its capacity there is no way in heck you could add more cyber that took either capacity or essense to the limb. There is no essense in the limb to get rid of its already gone. Essense reflects nerves and blood and bone and living material.

As far as enhancements. You dont really need to raise all its attributes. You are either gonna shoot with it or punch with it. If you want it to do everything your gonna have to except that it wont specialize in anything.

I havent looked it over in to much detail. Does higher grade cyberlimbs/enchancements give more or take less capacity ??

On a totally unrelated note. I wonder if you hack off both your arms or hands if you would gain the ambidextrous qaulity ? Maybe its a brain functionality and limbs are irrelvant.

Man did they spend any time with the cyberlimb section it seems really fubared. You cant boost the stats on a limb unless you get a cyber torso?? Sythetic arms have pathetic capacity.

If i got 2 lower arms and 2 lower legs and enhanced the armor on them would that mean my guy would have....ooops forgot the torso

+20/+20 armor before he puts on any armor ?? lmao.
W/ armor jacket 28/26 ??
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I'd say you could treat your limbs like weapons. You could have 2 arms w/ maxed out agility and some body, and then you could have 2 more arms w/ maxed out strength and some body. Then you could switch them out whenever, just dont lose them.

Until Augmented comes out I houserule that cyberlimbs just have the same stats as your stat block and that you can't boost the limbs (including armor). It's unrealistic, but the rules for cyberlimbs are so aweful anyway - this just makes them simplified.

Another thing that always bothered me - I've been involved in boxing and martial arts for the past 2 years. I'm not an expert, but I know enough to tell you that the strength and agility of a limb is NOT the determining factor in the accuracy and power of a punch. It's an entire body effort. I can see aiming a gun being the same way to a lessor extent. I've never liked the official rule that if you punch with a cyber arm, you ONLY use the stats of that arm. Aweful aweful rules

problem is, what happens when you have more metal then meat?

hmm, maybe have it so that when the torso and all 4 limbs are replaced you have to buy new physical stats as the meat no longer apply. and the capacity cost can be distributed over the diffrent areas.

still, i would have no problem with cyberlimbs being able to have a benifit from the normal cyberware versions for strength and agility boost (alltho i think they are now semi-bioware so) and only added a bit more damage (pr limb) and changed the type to physical.

allso, with a torso, the lifting capacity would go thru the roof, as you now have hydraulics and so on rather then meat and bones doing the lifting. and no fatigue for long times running and/or carrying

as for the armor stuff, i never understood why they required us to avarage it out. just instead state what the avarage increase in armor will be and then have us multiply by 5 or so if ever the limb only comes into play...

Or the other way around. Some enhancements can only be installed in cyberlimbs, like 'jacks

What booklord? What are you talking about when you say 3+3=6 ? The max enchance rating you can have is 7 for attributes and 4 for armor....

Yeah 8 is pathetic, If you put in any enhancers in your armor your barely gonna have room for anything else. Attribute enhancers are rating x1. If you max one out then poof your down to 1.

That's kind of what I was concerned about. From a utility standpoint, cyberlimbs actually don't look all that appealing, particularly for already strong characters. If you want anything more than a functional arm equivalent to your natural one, you're better off being relatively weak than already strong, as the stock part is closer to what you already have. If you have to spend capacity to get the limb working as well as your old one, you don't have much room for any attatchments.

It seems strange to think that a troll with a robot arm either gets that arm as strong as his natrual one, or gets a good gun in it, but not both. I guess the concept of a "Swiss Army Arm" actually works better if you stuff gizmos into your natural limb than try to get it fully cybered, since you don't need to "waste" space getting it to function at full ability.

whats worse is that trolls have a minimum strenght of 5, yet thier cyber limg is a measly 3.

Shouldn't that be an average 7?

Cyber limb rules suck so bad in this game it almost funny, thats if it weren't so pathetic.

Obviously you can houserule the troll cyberarm.

Base Str : 6
Base Agi : 2
Base Body:6
Increase Capacity by 50%
Increase Cost by 100%


Would work for me

The way cyber limbs were written they are not for use on already exceptional characters. A troll is pushing his luck trying to get a cyber arm strength up to his average (I think they should start at race average stats.

There are a fiew times when thay are worth it.

When your weak to start with.
When you need an arm in a hurry
When you are going to abuse there armor potential (primary use cyber zombies must be obvious)
When you want a specialized arm (like the sniper in GITS)
Whichever reason you have you should consider investing in spares so you can switch out for different tasks.

Edward

Possible House Rules for cyberlimbs

None of the characters in my current game have cyberlimbs. So this has never really come up. But here's a few of my thoughts on potential house rules.

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A good argument could be made that cyberlimbs should naturally provide an unarmed combat damage bonus similar to bone lacing. Probably equivilent of plastic lacing for synthetic and titanium for obvious.

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Another argument could be made that obvious cyberlimbs should have a natural armor rating that costs nothing:

"Check out my new cyberarm. Full agility upgrade with a cyberarm gyromount with strength and body bonuses!"
"Any armor?"
"No, there wasn't room so I had to make it out of cardboard."

Uh, yeah right.
A free armor rating for obvious cyber limb rating might be limb body rating / 2. ( round up)

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Adjusted Armor Capacity Costs

Actually armor itself is completely disproportional. Since Orthoskin can provide full body protection for 0.25 per level. Dermal plating for 0.5 per level. So I'd adjust additional rating to 1 capacity per point of armor because 1 point of armor per 2 points of capacity is a real head scratcher.

Furthermore if the armor enhancement is taken for obvious cyberlimbs then it should add to its automatic armor rating and the armor for the cyberlimb should be considered hardened.

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Another thing you might try is upgrading the cyberware to alpha, beta or delta. I couldn't help noticing that capacity is always essense cost * 10( round up) in the book for cyberlimbs. A strong argument could be made that a delta cyberlimb enhancement would take up half the essence and therefore half the capacity with similar reductions for the alpha and beta.

Also make sure that when dealing with partial capacity points you add them all together before rounding up. For example a shock hand costs 0.25 essence or 3 capacity (2.5 rounded up obviously) and a light pistol cybergun costs 0.35 essence or 4 capacity (3.5 rounded up) But if you wanted both you could add 0.25 and 3.5 for 6 Capacity. ( instead of the 7 for adding together their rounded up values. )

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Whew!!!!
Any thoughts?

wow. there has been exactly one on-topic post, so far.

to bring the total up to two: i believe that's somewhat allowed in the rules, ARKARY. for instance, if you've got a cyberarm which you've already filled to capacity with various cybergewgaws, and you want to install a smartlink, i don't think the rules prevent you from getting a smartlink and paying full essence cost. however, i don't believe you can do that with enhancements that only have a capacity cost; ie, you can't convert the capacity cost of an enhancement into an essence cost.

I didn't check the book. I was going by booklord's post.

My problem with the cyberlimbs is that it really doesn't seem realistic. I'll grant that I don't really know how a cyberlimb works in detail, but it seems odd to me that a cyberlimb starts with no armour at all. They're usually depicted as metal limbs (if obvious) and so should be more damage resistant than flesh and bone. Even if the limb were made of plastic or somesuch, it should still merit a starting point of armour.

My second realism issue is the body attribute. This represents damage absorbtion, but what does that mean in terms of the limb itself? When you start buying a higher body rating what are they doing to it to achieve this? Adding some padding or more bulk? I can't really see any increase in body that isn't also represented as an increase in either armour, to represent plating or reinforcement, or strength, to represent increased machinery in there - cables and motors and what-have-you.

Given that cyberlimbs are generally such a poor bargain in terms of essence loss, I don't think I'd have a problem house-ruling that body and strength could be increased together. I'd keep the cost the same, but the capacity overlaps. This gives you some room to get a strong and solid cyberlimb with a bit of armour which makes sense. Though it opens the door to Str7/Bod7/Agi7 monsters, I don't think that's too unbalancing compared to what else could be done with the essence. In order to get the actual full rating you'd need multiple limbs and a torso which is going to make any reaction / IP boosts difficult.

Just some thoughts.

@knasser

I would say Body represents better quality workmanship, resistant to being banged around and dented. So, denser metals, heavy hinges, better steel-braided cables, etc. Strength would actually be more robust hydraulics, reinforced anchor points to attach the limb, counter weights, etc. Armor, then, would actually be plating outside all of this stuff.

So here is my question in this whole mess: Is armor on cyberlimbs a bonus (like a helmet, thus added to armor value from a Lined Coat for example) or is it a layer (only use the best rating)?

A. So if I have 2 cyberarms with armor 4, and I am standing otherwise naked, is my armor 4/4 or 8/8?

B. And if I put on a Lined Coat, what is it then?

C. What if the rest of me is coated in dermal plating rating 2?

I saw someone posted about being armor 28/26 if all limbs were replaced and armored to 4, but I really suspect that isn't the intent at all (since if I armor my head to 4 and my arm to 4, my head didn't double, and worn armor doesn't stack). It also seems goofy to give a whole person armor rating 4/4 if they only have one limb replacement as well...

Bah!

Chris

From my post aboutt his subject onepage back:

Yeah,

But the rules don't actually say that. It is a nice assumption, but it isn't stated. The averaging rule is under Cyberlimb Enhancements, and Armor is its own entry. Also, the average rule is for tests, and armor isn't a test ("When a particular limb is used for a test...").

In addition, that doesn't answer how it works with dermal plating, or worn armor.

No one from FanPro has ever popped in with an answer on this?

Chris

Armor is part of the soak test. It may be just an a ssumption, but it makes sense and avoids the 28/26 armor scenario. It also meshes with the way adding body to your armor for soak purposes works.

I don't think a ruling about how cyberlimbs interact with dermal plating is needed. Dermal Plating adds to your armor rating, no matter how that armor rating is determined.

The lack of a ruling about whether it stacks or counts as layering is annoying. I would let it stack, because at most you're getting 4 points of armor (by my interpreatation), and cyberlimbs are pretty weak already without making the armor enhancement useless unless you're naked.

FanPro has popped in and answered hardly any questions at all. I'm assuming they're compiling them and will put them in the FAQ when it comes out, and that they don't have time to read every thread here searching for questions that can't be answered by someone just reading a book. I've got no basis for that assumption though.

Ack!!!! your right it 3 or over you need a cybertorso.
1 -2 you don't.

I assumed that you averaged the cyberlimb with the other limbs for all tests including armor. After all they mention averaging Body. It should be noted that several modification dermal plating, orthoskin, and bone lacing would only affect the non-cyber replaced parts.

Is still question how its even possible to make an obvious cyberlimb with no armor rating whatsoever. But this wasn't really addressed in SR3 either I think.

@James,

Thanks. I was pretty much headed the same direction with my own interpretation, and I think it works well balanced like that. I wish there was a hard ruling on the stacking bit though (and the averaging would be nice too).

So, here is where I think we are both headed. A character with one limb (say left arm) with 4 armor has effectively no armor (6 (potential cyberlimbs)/ 4 (armor rating on one limb) = .66 rounded down to 0 per the rule at the top of page 335). Add in rating two dermal plating and a Line Coat, and the character is armor 8/6 for any non-called attack. If someone took a called shot at the armored arm, it would be either 8/6 if armor is layered, or 12/10 if it is cummulative (up to individual interpretation until clarified).

Chris

@booklord,

They do mention Body, but in the section that addresses only Body, Strength and Agility. Armor is the next section... Not to say I don't think it is right, but the rule is not clearly applied to armor as well as attribute enhancements.

Also, since Bone Lacing is a bonus, and you always have at least some meat (torso and skull are just shells) I would let that stack. As for dermal plating/orthoskin, as long as the user still has at least one meat area to be covered I would let it stack. If they totally cybered up, then there is no place to install it. I think a total cyber conversion is probably best handled with other rules though. The RAW look to be intended for a bit here and a bit there. A full conversion with these rules would be sorta weak. I bet at some point we will see rules for terminator-style full body conversions. /sarcasm Yay Chrome Book IX! /end sarcasm Oh wait...

Chris

Baseline stats for cyberlimbs need to die.

The amount of irritating number fiddling that comes when you've got ONE RAW cyberlimb (not to mention more than one) with a different rating than the rest of your body is incredibly annoying. Trying to get a RAW cyberlimb to actually give a character an advantage statswise is incredibly expensive. Trying to get a RAW cyberlimb up to speed with a number of metatypes is incredibly impossible without a cybertorso.

IMG, characters get all stats set equal to their meatbod stats, except strength is set to racial max for things done with that limb. Strength is the only stat you can buy boosts to. If the character changes a meatbod stat, he's got to get the limb tuned up (a few hours in the shop, or a couple of days of tweaking it himself) to balance it back out with his body (he takes a -1 to tests involving that limb while it's out of tune).

I'd be fine with not averaging armor if the armor was counted for the armor encumbrance. After that, you won't want to get much more than 4/4 mostly because you wont be able to move as a 25/25 armored lump.

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