At the time, Boosted Ref was compatible with Synaptic Boosters. The key "balancing factor" was that you could never remove boosted refs again - but since you got the 1million at chargen, you never really needed to, anyway.

However, in SR3, getting to 3IPs reliably was really sufficient, and 4IPs was absolutlely aweseome. It's not nearly like that anymore. The kings of initiative could get to something like 8+5d6 or so.

@Seriously Mike
Thats 16 BP for one pass, if I remember correctly. One pass is also easy to get with a bit of drugs and rock and roll.

That it is essence friendly does not have to be a good thing.
It depends on what you plan to do with this character. Like I said, due to the silly rules on how to raise magic, starting with lower essence can come in handy...

I personally think the whole thing is grossly overpriced, especially for something that is essentially a requirement for most characters.

If I were to redesign the system, I'd definitely reduce the costs dramatically and I would likely try changing it so that they simply gave you an extra Simple Action each turn per rating, or something similar to that. Reaction Enhancers would be the "speed you up" aspect of the rules, boosting your Reaction and thus the order in which you get to act, while the current reflex boosters would be a "do more with what you got" thing. 'Course, I'd also add more things for you to do with those extra actions, like making it a wise tactical decision to reserve some of those extra actions for later in the initiative turn so you can actually react to what's going on rather than only acting. Probably adding some kind of defensive bonus to them or whatever.

Anyway, with that said, I agree with the majority of people here. 2 passes is enough for most runners, 3 is expected for anyone who's supposed to be the group's muscle, and 4 is there just so you can have something to upgrade to in the future (even though one of the only methods that's actually reasonable to obtain is the Increase Reflexes spell; losing 5 Essence or 4 Power Points is ridiculous).

Hopefully in Shadowrun 5e they actually take a step back and think things through rather than just continuing with the legacy lunacy for aspects of the rules like this.

There are ways to mitigate the Essence or PP Costs.

Synaptic Accelerators are 1.5 Esence for 4 passes (Expensive, but not too horrible)
Wired 3 or MBW 3 can come down to as little as 1 Essence with the right combination of factors (Highly Expensive, but doable).
Improved Reflexes 3 can be reduced to 2 PP for the simple cost of 10 BP and a Geas on the power.

They really are not all that bad.

@Ol' Scratch
You go at it the wrong way. It is not a requirement, it is very usefull. Very usefull things should be expensive, if you want any kind of balance in the game. (Or you will end up with every character looking alike, because there is one way and one way only to go.

How's that work?

Way of the Adept: Warriors Way or Walking the Ways. Choose Improved Reflexes as one of the affected Powers, and you get a 25% Decrease in cost. Add a Geas, and you get another 25% Decrease in Cost. Total Discount is 50%. So, Improved Reflexes costs 4 PP, discounted by 50%, results in a cost of 2pp.

Sorry, but it pretty much is. As made evident by the sheer number of characters that grab at least one rank in them and by the even larger number of people who tell others to grab at least one rank whenever they post a build lacking any. Sure, you can choose not to take them, but you definitely pay the consequences for doing so. It's also why there's so many different ways to achieving it. Two different ways with cyberware, one with bioware, one with adept powers, one with spells, at least three ways by drugs, and that's all just off the top of my head.

If it wasn't a virtual requirement, the game could live with just one or two ways of doing it, like most everything else in the game. But no, they made sure everyone could do it no matter their role or archetype.

Ahh - I've been meaning to pick that book up

Yes, but you do get +1 Reaction in the bundle as well. That can go into Reaction-based skills like Dodge or Pilot.

Pick it up, worth the price and the author is giving out errata!

Please confirm that we are supposed to use weird the math of The Other Game. Normally this would only net a 43,75 % decrease. 2.25 PP for Improved Reflexes III is still great though

Which makes it optional. It is as easy as that.
An other example: If there would not be a trodenet and AR would not be an option for hacking, than a Datajack would be mandatory for a hacker.
If you go on and say, that nothing in the world can be accessed without a Datajack, than it would be mandatory for every character. (No driving, no ordering food, etc)


Sorry, but there are also many different ways to get a bonus for agility. There are many different ways to get pain resistance. Etc.

A combat skill is mandatory for a SAM. (Well, I guess you may even get around that, but you would need a very special group to do it)
A magic attribute is mandatory for a Mage.

Mandatory means without it, you can't build the character.

Initative boosters are as mandatory for a streetsam as smart link. It is a good, cheap boost in Power. Thats why you take it...

Yes, yes, everything is optional. Even in your example, a datajack wouldn't be "mandatory" (see below) because you have to choose to be a hacker first. Thus it's not mandatory, but optional. Ditto for your street samurai and magician examples. Being a samurai, a hacker, or a magician are completely optional character roles. You're not required It's not mandatory to do any of those things.


As an aside, you're the only person who has used that word.


Oh, now they're cheap, too?

Anyway, continuing on with this logic, as well as jumping back to your "a magic attribute is mandatory for a magician" bit, building up your Magic attribute is completely and utterly optional. It's a good, cheap boost in power, sure, but you don't actually need (<-- keyword) it to be a magician. Magic 1 for the win! Who cares if you suck and are all but useless as a magician? That doesn't factor into the equation at all.

(Hey look, I can be pedantic about exact wording, too!)

Regardless, the main point is this: Having more than one initiative pass is something all characters benefit from, and not having more than one is a serious detriment in the game. It's not like Agility which only benefits some characters. It's not like Magic that only benefits some characters. It's not like a Datajack which only benefits some characters. It benefits everyone who has to engage in combat -- no matter the type of combat; physical, astral, or matrix -- at any time, which is a major aspect of most games.

All discounts in the game are ment to be added up first and then applied to base cost(see initiation/submersion rules for examples)

Even if it were 'mandatory' by your new and interesting definition, what do you want to do about it? Give everyone 3IPs innately? You'd just give everyone X fewer BP to compensate, which is functionally identical.

You Add, not Multiply...

Most. Not all. Cybersuits work differently, I guess.
And I am not certain about X-compability with Grade.

Augmentation errata was supposed to clarify that essence cost reduction do work that way and fix the cost of the suites, but it still hasn't been released in english and the German errated book has the completely bizarre ruling that the suit modifier is added, but others are multiplied.
So who knows, but i would personally use the addition method for essence costs reductions too to stay consistant with the rest of the system.

We do the exact same thing...

If the totals aren't balanced for you upon switching to a consistent system, just alter the numbers. It's a lot easier than keeping the RAW numbers and fighting with the addition/multiplication stuff.

@Mäx
Well, I guess it is always the question what is still out there to be released.
If you add everything together you may get down to 20% of the essence costs. (50% Grade, 10% Quality(cybercompability, 10%Genware, 10%Suite.)
This would bring down MBW 3 from 5 to 1 point. Thats not that bad however, but if there would be more to come, it would crash.
If you use "adding up", you need always hard caps to prevent reaching 0. Everything under 50% can be a problem.

I'm fine with everything be multiplied, for that reason. It's still consistent, but now you have diminishing returns from stacking like a monkey. But what I meant by the last post was along the lines of 'if it's a problem, reduce the % modifier'.

This only really matters for GM build "super killing machine" NPC:s, as PC:s are never ever gonna afford deltaware-suites.

That wasn't my term. And no, I spelled out how I'd change it earlier in the thread as part of a change for how they worked altogether. As in not just a change in price or Essence/Power/etc. costs.

That said, 2 Initiative Passes is roughly considered the baseline. If you have less, you're identified as being somewhat crippled. If you have more, you can consider lowering it a bit since its nice but not necessary. If you have 2, no one says a thing. You see it all the time in posts around here, too. Most recently here.


Not to mention that GMs are, by the rules, the only ones allowed to design new cybersuites. It's not a PC option, nor do any of the established suites include Move-By Wires. But that's just a minor nitpick.

And none of the existing suites are available in delta.

Though they could be, if the market was there. And it would be, for the ultra elite.

Actually, 'ultra elite' is almost the opposite of 'the market is there'. Not unless the cost is 10x, 20x.

Delta is excluded largely because delta implants, by their nature, are all custom designed for the implantee. "Custom built" and "mass marketed" are pretty much exclusive terms, at least in this case if no other.

Maybe... probably... But nothing stops an organization creating/implementing a Delta Grade Custom Suite for someone willing to pay the price. The expense alone will keep it out of everyone's hands but the Elite that it is intended for.

It was just the theoretical maximum, if I have not forgotten anything.
It is down to 20%, which is still OK for the costs.
I would only be a problem if we go for the next book and find something like" coat your ware in XXX and get another 10% reduction etc.
If you look at the books it stated with only 50% by the grade in the core book. Than an other 30% in the augmentation.

But I can't help it, somewhere I think I have read rules for creating cybersuites...

There are rules for it. It's just GM only.

Yeah, but I'm sure there is no shortage of players coming up to their GM with any set of cyberware that their character has, which could conceivably fit any kind of theme, going "Can this be a cybersuite? Can it? Can it?"

My personal take on IPs is:
1 IP: support character/non-combattant
2 IPs: most characters without combat as their primary focus
3-4 IPs: combat-oriented characters

On the lower end of things, getting an extra initiative pass is fairly cheap - either 3 BP for a spell, 1.5 power points (before geasa or ways or what have you) for an adept, or 11,000 for an augmented character getting wired reflexes: 1. So for a character with another specialty, I don't really consider getting 2 IP to be a crushing burden, especially since I think most characters should be able to handle themselves in a fight (note that conversely, I think most combat-oriented characters should have at least some basic ability in sneaking and socializing).