I had my Combat Medic Mage with both his hands and his lower right leg replaced for gear, not armor. There are so many pieces of wiz gear that IMHO "wasting" slots on armor is kind of pointless. Sure you can get 1 or 2 points of B/I armor, but you can't get anything else. I very much like my RADAR sensor and datajack in my character's left hand and the cyber safety and shock hand in my right. Goes well with the smartlink in the eyes.

@Hida Tsuzua: Mages would all get cybereyes because with 16 capacity, they would take the Essence hit to get ALL of the vision enhancements. My Combat Mage went with Cybereyes rating 3 just so I could get Lowlight, Thermo, Vision mag, AND smartlink.



Bioware is already pretty darn expensive. It's just the Essence cost of WR 3 is too high (like what was said before)

I agree for the most part.

I would kind of like to see Wires/MbW 3 go down to 4E, or maybe even 3.5E, but honestly I think that boosters just need to be 1E per rating, instead of .5.

Wired reflexes "cannot be combined with any other form of Initiative enhancement, except Reaction Enhancers."

Synaptic boosters "cannot be combined with any other form of Initiative enhancement."

Excuse me? Rating 3 Synaptic Booster would be 3 Essence and Rating 3 Wired Reflexes would be 3.5? Why get the Booster when you can spend a little more Essence, but a whole lot less money for WR? Just lower the Essence cost of WR 2 and 3 to more sane levels and be done with it.

I think wired reflexes, MBW and Synaptic Accelerators aren't too bad. A large factor in that is that IPs suffer from diminishing returns. The vast majority of fights are decided by IP:2 and then finished in IP:3. Getting the second IP is really important and the third is really nice. But getting the fourth IP is just okay. If you really must act on IP:4 you can just spend a point of edge. Also in general, going first is more important than how often you act.

The most common rating is the rating 2 versions because it's also the best level you can easily get at creation without significant cost. At lower ratings, you can just take cram or burn edge because you're clearly not a combat character and can use the resources elsewhere. Wired Reflexes 2 is 3 essence and 32000Y. Synaptic Accelerators 2 is 1 essence and 160,000Y. MBW2 is 3 essence and 85000Y along with essence free Skillwires 4 (8000Y and .8 essence value) and Reaction Enhancer 2 (20,000Y and .6 essence value). Wired Reflexes are for the cheap. MBW2 is worthwhile package deal. Synaptic Accelerators are a huge nuyen sink for noteworthy essence saving. I can see arguments for different ones depending on the rest of the character and their goals. Used MBW2 is an amazing deal (4.4 essence and 60000Y worth of excellent ware for 3.6 essence and 42500Y) assuming the GM doesn't shaft you over.

As for higher levels, I agree. The cost of MBW3 and Wired Reflexes 3 is just too expensive in terms of essence. While you can make essence go a long way, 5 is just too much and the only worthwhile option is Synaptic Accelerator 3 for 240,000Y. However that's really really expensive. If you make 15,000Y net profit per run (which is average to nice pay in my experience) that's 16 runs worth of saving. I could see starting with Wired Reflexes 2 and saving for the accelerators, but that's a really long time to wait for +1 reaction and +1 IP. If your pay is much better (40,000Y profit per run takes only 6 runs), then I can see going that way.

Edit- Style

Heheh, I wouldn't advocate both. That would be silly.

I could maybe see lowering Wires 3 to 4E and raising Boosters to 1ExR, so that basic boosters would still be a full essence cheaper than basic wires for about 3x the cost, (you pay an extra 100k or so for the difficulty in detection) and Betaware wires would cost about twice as much as basic boosters for a savings of .2E, and delta Wires would cost about 4x basic boosters for a savings of 1 point of essence.

Maybe make boosters .8E per rating.

hmm... Im going to whip up a comparison table to see what it would really look like...

Radar, datajack, safety and shock takes up 7 slots. Put it all an obvious bulky lower arm and that's 5 slots left over. Then replace your other hand with a bulky hand and your non-bulky foot with armor. That's 7 armor right there, 1 less than you would have gotten otherwise. If you really need space, you can cyberdiabetus with alphaware lower limbs for not that much more. There's some great accessories out there, but when they're out, there's armor. If you don't need the mods, there's armor.

As for eyes, right now you could just buy a set of glasses and contact lens that does all that (and more!) and take your .4 essence for somewhere else. Heck with the money you save, buy a spare set for when your first set is stolen (if ever). Really the changes is just removing ratings from cybereyes, because if the eyes only cost .2 essence regardless of rating, they need to cost a lot more (1000Y difference is nothing) or you'll just buy the highest rank you can. Since they're still competing with a set of goggles, they can't be made too much more expensive.

Reaction Enhancers give reaction though, and not initiative, right? O.o
(yes, i realize we have had this discussion several dozend times already ^^)

Yes, but enhancing reaction (or intuition) enhances initiative.

indirectly, but so do things that improve on intelligence and quickness right?
so is it incompatible with muscle stuff too?

No, only Reaction and Intuition improve initiative, both of which have very few things that actually change them, the main of which are reaction enhancers and the IP boosters and a few drugs.

I still say, it is compatible.
Because it does not, as stated, improve initiative, but one of the attributes initiative is being derived from . .
And under SR3, reaction enhancers and synaptic accellerators worked together just fine, because ini and rea had little to do with each other . .

What happened in previous editions has no bearing on the actual RAW in this edition.

Personally when I see "cannot be combined with any other form of Initiative enhancement, except Reaction Enhancers." I take that to mean Reaction Enhancers are defined as a form of Initiative enhancement. Otherwise that's like saying 'cannot be combined with any form of Initiative Enhnacement, except poodles' which makes no sense at all.

says that on the wired reflexes right?
because that was copied 1:1 from 3rd ed.
in there, it was not compatible with MBW or Synaptic Accellerator or improved reflexes.
Because each of those gave +dice on initiative, which reaction enhancers did not.
thus they were compatible with the wired reflexes. Hell, Reaction enhancers were compatible with basically ANYTHING . . aside from one other implant, i think . .
edit: which was move by wire . .

So: MBW was compatible with NOTHING anything else.
Reaction enhancers were compatible WITH anything else EXCEPTION being MBW.
Wired Reflexes were compatible with NOTHING BUT Reaction Enhancers
Improved Reflexes were compatible with Synaptic Accellerator and Reaction Enhancers and nothing else
Synaptic Accelerators were compatible with improved reflexes and reaction enhancers but not anything else.

Like I said, what was and wasn't the case in 3rd edition doesn't really have much bearing on 4th edition as far as what the rules say.

Rules imply about as strongly as it is possible to without directly stating it, that reaction enhancers are an initiative enhancer. Their compatibility with anything in previous editions irrelevant.

This is a simple fuck up/bad wording.
They are and always have been compatible.
Nothing that adds ini passes may be combined with something else that adds ini passes, aside from drugs. The higher always applies, the lower gets ignored.
Reaction is a purely physical not special attribute which, in combination with intuition are used to derive something called initiative, which has NOTHING to do with the ini passes themselves . .
After your reading, nothing that enhances intuition in any kind or way is compatible with synaptic accellerators either . .

Hey, they've had 2 erratas, a new rulebook, and a FAQ to fix the mistake. I figure if it is still in at this point, there is a reasonable chance it was intentional.

And yeah, sure, that is a possible extension of my reading, but there is nothing in the game that increases intuition except the attribute spell (and maybe a couple drugs), and the only things that increase reaction are the three IP boosters, the adept IP booster, the adept attribute boost and improved attribute, the increase attribute spell, lightning reflexes, and of course reaction enhancers (and some drugs).

Most of those specifically say they're incompatible. So yeah, I have no problem with the interpretation that anything that increases reaction or intuition is an initiative enhancer.

It funny that most players won't settle for something less than the maximum. (You have to have 4 IPs)
Even if the last IP is much to expensive and useless for the price to pay.

It really depends on who you're fighting. If all you fight are 1 IP goons, then 4 IP is fairly overkill. If you're going up against enemies with 2-3 IP however, having that extra IP can be very useful.

Except you can't cast through glasses and contacts. I wanted to be able to cast in almost any condition.

Not really.
How to win a difficult fight in SR.
As a mage:
Spend edge to go first.
Powerbolt your target (maybe spend edge to get certainty).

As a sam:
Spend Edge to go first.
Take your assault rifle and fire a small burst (so you can fire two in one round).
If your target is likely to doge fire a wide if not narrow.
If the target is still up after the first, fire second on target. If target is down, fire second on other target.

(If the enemy get one shot at you, you might be dead.)

So, let me see if i got this right:
you are saying the following:
"The Rules state that A is incompatible with the complete rest of the alphabet with the explicitly stated exception of B. This must mean that C is not compatible with B because the rules clearly state that A is explicitly only compatible with B and thus IMPLY that C can't be compatible with B!"
You can see the error in that reasoning right?
Please tell me you can . .
Because the exclusion of EVERYTHING ELSE IS NOT IN B BUT IN A!
Furthermore, there not being any errata which clears up stupid shit like this as of yet is NOT a valid argument, because this IS still CGL we are talking about here . .
Who do NOT release Errata that they already have and which they okayed to be included in the german books for printing because . . well . . yes, simply because . .

And suppose you're fighting more than one person as happens in 99% of encounters? Or lets say you don't have 6 edge or fight more than a couple of times?

You're basically describing how to take out very small numbers of mooks at a huge resource expenditure.

@Ghost_in_the_System
Well, it depends.
It works the same way. The differance to be said is: It is harder.

Even with four IPs you will get shot at.
(The last IP just lets you take down a guy who might be still standing)

If you get shot at, there are other things to consider.
First:
Are you hit and can you soak the damage. Because it does not matter if you get shot at 5 times if you do not take any damage.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all.

What I'm saying is that (1) claims to be incompatible with all letters except B and (2) claims to be incompatible with all letters. Thus (2) is incompatible with B because B is a letter. There is no implying here at all because (2) says it is incompatible with letters. That's something very important that you left out in your example which completely changed the scenario.

I'll go one better.

If A says that it is incompatible with all wefas except kurgles, and B says that it is incompatible with all wefas, then I can work out through simple logic that B is incompatible with a kurgle, despite having no idea what a wefa or kurgle is.

Edit: And I'm not going to get into a discussion about the quality of erratas, it is irrelevant, the rule is the rule until it is changed, and right now the rule is exactly as I described above.

I mean sure, ideally you'd like to take out all opposition before they get a chance to fire, but if that is always the case, you're either the most unbelievable planner and executor of plans, or your GM isn't providing nearly enough of a challenge. And when it isn't the case, having more IPs gives you an advantage. You could for instance spend the IPs that your enemies have doing full dodges so as to not get hit, then use your extra IPs to take down opponents.

No their not, it's deliberate change in the SR4A.

Losing 1 Magic for Agility 5, Body 5, Strength 4 and 2 points of armor that costs a wobbing 6BP is pretty much a nobrainer, unless you for some weird reason feel that you just absolutely need to have Magic 6.

Why would anyone get Beta wired reflexes or higher? I mean WR2 is dirt cheap so if (very rare in my experience) have enough nuyen that it becomes a problem, why wouldn't you just rip it out and have the doc install the bioware? If you're looking at 160k for IP3, is an extra 20-30k (depending on resale) really going to drive you off? That is, IMO, the best thing about wired reflexes, it's cheap enough that is there's enough nuyen around for me to worry about this stuff, I can just junk it with little guilt.

@PoliteMan
If you got yourself a raiting 3 System you would get 175.000*0.5(It is now used Cyberware)*0.3(Modifier for fencing gear)= 26.250.
(And this is still very much, because the list raiting is including the operation etc. So you might want to add an other modifier.
And I guess the thing as to be recycled too. (SO you might add the Iteam is used modifier getting down to 21k)

@Mäx

As a matter of fact, you are not even loosing Magic. You have to rebuy it.
So if it is a no brainer depends on your level of magic. Granted, if you have 5 or lower it is a no brainer. (As would be the second point)

Sorry, maybe I was unclear. If you've been playing awhile, and you started out with Wired Reflexes 2, and you wanted to lower the essence cost, Why wouldn't you just junk the Wired Reflexes and get Synaptic Enhancers 2. Wired reflexes are so cheap that (when you're buying 160k cyberware) that the 20-30k doesn't make much of a difference.

@PoliteMan

Well, of course. Synaptic booster is in most cases superior to move by wire. (Unless you get your hands on stealing a move by wire beta system.)
This would be an other advantage of cyberware. You may just steal it. No cooling required or stuff. (You would just need a Doc to do the operation. )

Not really, for those massive gains it's extremenly good deal even if you lose the 25BP sixth point of magic.

@Mäx
Yes, but in Game it is quite stupid to drop your magic from 8 to 6.

(Thats why there is the houserule, that the essence loss is always calculated last)
So having to points of essence loss, getting the 6. point of magic would cost 5*8=40Karma and not 30 Karma.
So it does not matter when you implant the ware. It only matters, that you have.
Right now there is nothing better for a mage to get at least two points of ware.
A second hand muscle toner(2) is only about 1.6 BP, compared to 20 BP to get it bought up.
(Yes, this was a better trick, when increasing an attribute was only 3*rating.)

The official rules make it kind of a no brainer, since you get to keep your essence holes and you might replace your ware.
So leave all the physical attributes at one (exept for body 3), than buy up muscle toner, muscle augmentation and reaction enhancer all at raiting of 2(second hand) all for a total of 8000+7000+10000=25.000 (5BP) And an essence cost of 0.96 bio and 0.72 Cyber.
You could use the muscle replacement for 10.000(or 5000 as second hand) instead but you would loose 2.72/2.92 Points of essance this way!
Well, your magic would be down to two.

I think the real problem with balancing cyber IP enhancers is vs. the Adept power. Notably, while the crappiness of a pure adept hinges on the huge cost of the adept power, a single point of ware will instantly un-crappify an adept, and make the IP power suddenly really attractive, because you are now buying from two different pools of starting resources. Generally, a mundane sam will run out of cash before he runs out of essence. He has no backup pool of resources to make up for that. But the adept can get to 4IPs AND get a betaware obvious cyberarm of awesome (or muscle toner) AND still have 0.3 essence left over for cyber, or 0.6 essence for bioware. (AND some cash, AND get a ridiculous DP enhancement via a second power, or more if geas powers are allowed.) (This is more true in Karmagen, where you might actually hit a lot of limits at chargen, than in PB, but nevertheless...)

As to the value of the available cyber:

MBW is actually a good deal, just not MBW3. Unfortunately I think making MBW3 affordable - at least dropping avail to 20 - would actually be a very good thing (in karmagen). However, the MBW is actually a very probably in-game buy, because it's so comparatively cheap, and the availability is now just a (very long) extended test away. In PB, if your starting characters are averaging 3IPs rather than 4, MWB2 is a pretty convincing package.

WR essence cost is way too high, especially when taking the above into consideration. There is never any reason to actually play a mundane character with this ware at all, when you can get all the good and none of the bad with the cyber-adept. WR is really mook-ware, especially now that the MBW2 is such a good deal.

Synaptic boosters are so expensive that the chunk of cash they carve out of your starting allowance means they will basically never happen. I would also tend to think most games will never accumulate enough cash to actually buy them in game, but YMMV, as always.

So, one more solution to the cyberware problem: Give mundanes more cash! If a mundane character, simply by taking the mundane quality, could get to around 400K, then that suddenly opens a lot of doors.

I think part of the problem concerning WR is that they've remained static in terms of essence cost since the beginning without moving ahead with the SOTA. In contrast MBW has gotten much more essence friendly than it was back in 2e. Granted it does different stuff mechanically now than it did back then but instead of being something prohibitively expensive in terms of essence and physical cost MBW is much more doable now.

Wired Reflexes is great to get you +1 or +2 IPs early on in your career. It's cheap, it's effective and you can generally recover the massive essence hole it leaves fairly early on. Combined with edge use a starting street level character can be fairly effective and mook sweeping a room. Later on you can upgrade to MBW and gain the ability to chip activesofts to cover your weaknesses. +3 IPs is generally going to fail on a cost-benefit analysis though.

I think Synaptic is pretty cool stuff but is more designed for boosting subtle characters like intrusion experts and faces where cyberware scanners are going to raise red flags all over the place.

My posts were quite obviously talking about chargen, what with the all of those mentions of Build Points and what not

@Brainpiercing7.62mm

It would amplfy the problem further. Mundanes are superior out of chargen but mages and adepts will catch up.
This is even worse if you get a lot of ware and gear at chargen.

For each power point you pay 10BP. A sam pays less BP for the money to get the ware.

So yes, at chargen you could (if you ignore the availibility too) easy a sam outperforming an adept.
Synaptic booster 3, muscle toner 4, Platelet factory, Cybereyes 4, Cyberears 3, Cyberhand(+Nanohive) and a bit of genetic imporvement(And a lot of other stuff I am too lazy to write down).
You will just be left with 320 BP on skills and attributes, but so be it.

Now lets look at the adept. To even stay in the same area he has to take a lot of ware. I suppose at least 2.XX Points.
Mostly second hand to cut the costs(if he is planning to replace this parts sooner or later). So he will end up with muscle toner 2(second hand), cybereyes 3 or 4 (but not build up to full capacity), maybe a Cyberhand and a Platelet factory too(and a bit of other stuff).
His initative passes he might get by taking way of the warrior+geas and increased reflexes for his two points left.

So yes, your sam would beat him and send him crying for his mama. But look at both if you give them both 100 Karma and 250.000 cash.
The adept is replacing some of his second hand with regular ware and some of his cyber with bioware, because he has the money now.
(Oh, and of course he is raising his magic attribute to, lets see, 5(60 Karma + 18Karma). Now he has 3 Passes too. Along with at least an other 2 Points to use.

The sam on the other hand might raise some skill and attributes. He will get his reaction to 9 or even 10. The same with his agility.
But heare we are talking about a differance of one or two dices.
Increase skill gets you 3 dices for 0.75 Points.
And the adept has a hole set of new tricks. Like masking his aura.
The second the sam has to replace his ware with delta to improve he is left behind for good.

And besides... Sometimes you have no real choices after Chargen. Have had that happen a time or two, in play, with Magically Awakened Characters.

You can just get a clone replacment if you lose a arm, no real need to get a cyber one

Yeah, I know, but sometimes that option is not available immediately, and for the Character I was playing at the time, I really needed those Eyes Immediately.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
Even more a reson to play mages with a bit of essence to throw around without loosing magic...
After the current rules two to three is quite finde. More would tend to upset the GM I suppose.

I haven't actually had the opportunity to play a whole lot (unfortunately) but in situations where your fighting large numbers of goons, that 4th initiative pass is pretty clutch. It means an extra two (or more) dead thugs each turn. It also means that you hurt less for sacrificing one of your actions to go full defense (which is pretty sweet if your rocking MBW 3, cause your total defense pool can be like, 20+ dice)

I feel like the 4th IP is totally worth it based on the costs of Synaptic Boosters, the problem is that boosters are so good that they make any other option somewhat foolish at best, and downright stupid at worst.

I don't like things in games that limit choices like that. I want Wired Reflexes 3 to be a viable option, rather than a n00b mistake.

For mages, you are right, but for mundanes I think the MBW 3 is also a good investment (after CharGen) Not only do you get +6 REA, +3 IP, +3 Dodge and Skillwires 5 your Bioware Essence most likely gets halved. Most other combat augmentations are better in Bioware.

I don't know why some people keep mentioning a high essence cost as being good because it halves the essence cost of the other type of ware. That's like saying it's great that you just spent $1000 on a piece of paper because the rest of your purchase (of no more than $999) will be 50% off.

That aside, the problem is that even with bioware at half price, you're only looking at less than 2 essence worth of bioware being available and no cyberware at all, or alot less bioware in exchange for a few fractions of cyberware.

a) that is for a basic MBW 3, you can always go with a better grade (GM and cash permitting) b) with 2 Ess of Bioware you can do a lot more than with 2 ESS Cyberware.

But you see, I have no problems with the current rules. I think it is appropriate to lose Essence (and magic) when that crops up.
And you do have a bit off essence to throw around. Take a .3 Essence Hit for a pair of Cybereyes (as the character I was playing did), and you now have .7 Essence to throw around.

I've always assumed that to figure out your "full body" physical attributes when you have a/several cyberlimb(s), you added together then divided by 5 for Agility and Strength, and by 6 for Body. Because other than headbutts in combat (which could use the natural strength/agility or the cyber-skull's strength/agility, just like using the agility of or strength of just one limb when punching/kicking someone), all the other tasks one would use strength or agility for really don't utilize the...head...very much. I mean, climbing with your teeth, or swimming with just repeated head movements, or sneaking around...ahem. Just gets kind of silly, seemed reasonable not to factor it into the full-body average for those two attributes. Body, though? Absolutely.

That assumption aside, whether you think they should all be at 6 (which I don't, but I wouldn't argue voraciously against, it's a not-unreasonable stance to take), "averaging" actually does mean adding up all the elements involved, then dividing by the number of elements involved. Suggesting that having one limb at 9 and the rest of your body at 3 means you get a full-body average of 6 is just...silly. And wrong. In so many ways. And results in stupid outcomes, like a second cyberlimb at a lower attribute score than the first one, but still higher than the rest of the body, resulting in a lower full-body average than just the one limb. Which is...man, it's ridiculous, on the face of it.

I don't see hwo that will make a mundane overpowered at chargen. He will be slinging a few dice and dodging quite nicely, sure enough. But he has a really hard time getting that 4th IP, and he can't just spend a point of magic on 4 more dice to attack with. I also find it hard to believe you are going to squeeze all that ware out of even 400K cash.

We know that pure adepts suck, this is painfully obvious. . It's not about keeping up with the pure adept, it's about keeping up with the 4IP cybered adept. Who needs, maybe, 150-160K money to cover basically all his weaknesses with just 1 point's worth of ware.
(Cyberarm of awesome Beta is 0.7 essence. Add 0.6 points of bioware, or whatever.)

The reason the mundane automatically falls behind (in karmagen, I am really strictly talking about the only real and viable chargen method here ) is that the adept has TWO pools from which to pick abilities, whereas the mundane has only stats and money. Most certainly adept powers compare very poorly to cyber or bio in many respect, it's just that you can actually have both that's the problem.


Absolutely not, as I have pointed out. One point of essence loss is enough. And now he only needs very little magic attribute. Geas-learned Improved REflexes 3 is 3 points, so he can just buy magic 4, or 5 if he wants one backup power to get rid of in BC. If he gets Way of the Warrior, too, then that's only 2PPs for 4IPs, and he saves the points on actually buying magic.


As I said, he doesn't need all that. Out-of-combat effectiveness is taken care of by skill and gear, and in combat all you need is initiative, edge, and enough attack and defence dice. That's all easily attainable with either some muscle toner or the cyberarm. Add icing to taste.

Of which I am not convinced.

He doesn't need to upgrade his ware, because he only got the most necessary things. He can spend everything on better gear and training, and put his karma into magic and skills, and initiation.

This is the old issue. I believe I am at least not making it worse by giving mundanes more cash to start with.

The main way to fix this is creating cash/karma transparency via a karma buying/selling system.

Why would you waste cold hard essence and money on cybereyes and ears. Those don't get you anything that contacts+glasses and earbuds can't. Except that arguably they can't be taken away from you if you get captured. But really, if you're captured, anything can be taken away from you.

You are also less likely to forget/lose them. Pickpocketing is impossible as well in case of unworn glasses.