Hey a player in my group wonder how Reflex Recorders works for a skill group.

Now, RRs gives a bonus either to a skill or a skill group. The former is easy enough, although you have to have at least 2 in a skill to benefit from the RR (can't have more bonus to a skill than half the skill rating).

It gets tricky when applying it to a skill group though. Can you benefit from it even if you don't have a skill group? Sure, I guess you'd still need 2 in the relevant skill to get a bonus to it, but can this be bought at a later stage?

Or do you need to have 2 in the skill group to benefit at all from the RR? What happens if you break up the skill group later, does the bonus to the skillls in the group still apply?

I would try to think about this logically. If I have some weird computer in my brain-pan that gives me familiarity with the use of every firearm ever produced, am I no longer going to be able to use that when I become slightly more proficient in firing a pistol?

Personally, I would let a character benefit from the RR if they had the skill at 1, since most rounding in Shadowrun favors the PC.

That being said, there is no rule that states that someone cannot get an implant they can't (yet) use. A person doesn't have to have skill in firearms to have a smartlink implanted (or a cybergun installed). You don't have to have any social skills to have tailored pheromones implanted. There is no reason that I can see why a character couldn't get a Group RR implanted even though he doesn't have all the associated skills at 2.

Since this isn't some sort of cheap way to get extra dice, I wouldn't have any problem allowing a group RR to add bonus dice to the individual skills in a group at different levels, given a restriction on the amount of bonus dice pool allowed.

I thought that according to the errata, RRs actually increase the skill instead of providing bonus dice. Or am I not getting something?

VVVV Ah, remembered one change, forgot the other one.

“ e unmodi ed skill rating assigned at character creation
or purchased during game play is considered to be the
character’s base skill rating. Some abilities and implants (as
noted) may increase this rating, creating a modi ed skill rating.
A modi ed skill cannot exceed the base skill rating x 1.5 (making
9 the maximum possible rating, or 10 with the Aptitude
quality). Specializations, spells, and other implants may provide
bonus dice to a skill, but do not change the base skill rating.
 ese extra dice are listed in parentheses a er the base
skill, as in Spellcasting 4 (+2).�

SR 4 Errata

RR provide an Augmenten Skill Rating that is capped and the use of a Skill RR with a Skillgroup is completly undefined.

The text for the Reflex Recorder specifically states that it adds its bonus to the skill, not the Dice Pool.

A skill either has a RR available or it hasn´t. How does it matter if the skill happens to be part of a group?

Cite Calvin: "I got loads of common sense, I just choose to ignore it."