Quick question for you all. With lower cyberlimbs (forearms or lower half of legs), when are stat enhancements or customizations relevant? The book implies that things like a cyberhand's strength is only used when grip matters, like when hanging from a ledge. For half-limbs though, do most people tend to use the limb's strength for combat rolls, or athletic rolls, or only really specific things like dangling by that limb?

On one hand, if a person with 2 strength has a strength 8 custom cyber-forearm, should they get the extra damage of only half an arm of cyber instead of the full arm?

On the other, should a combat sort with 7 strength and agility be penalized for having half an arm of metal that isn't up to the rest of their meat bod?

I could see the first case being a bigger problem, but I could see some combat sorts complaining about having to double the price of a partial limb they got to hold a gyromount just so they won't hit like a limp-wristed average joe.

Anyways, just curious how other people handle this sort of thing since my search fu hasn't turned up any good discussions on the boards about this yet.

No. You would use the normal, calculated Strength of the full arm in combat when using a partial cyberlimb. Biceps and shoulder muscles, and even the back come into play. You only use the partial limb's Strength when no other factors apply.

Only if he has an anchor tattoo and eats a can of spinach first.

...so then for Cyberfeet with Cyberskates, you would just use your natural attributes then?

[ ...heehee, new title... ]

Wouldn't you use Attributes calculated as normal from all the 'parts'?

That's kind of how I saw it, but I guess I could see people getting into arguments about how you calculate the average of the parts (I can't remember, do you round down or round up with the averaging?).

So in the case of the cyberskates/feet or hands, it's not quite as much of an issue in my mind. Running (or skating) doesn't depend so much on the agility of the feet so much as the muscles in the hips, thighs, and calves. But if half the leg is cybernetic, it becomes more of a kind of...grey area in my mind.

Fortune's right though, by the rules, it seems to say the partial limb's stats are only used when it's the only factor.

So the hands when hanging by the tips of your fingers or maybe when you're working with small manual dexterity tasks (though most of the ones I can think of are logic based, so that idea is out probably). Feet when...what? Picking up socks with your toes?

But if that's the case, why can partial limb Raptor Legs increase running speed, gymnastics, and kicking strength? Just efficiency of design, or do half limbs (at least for legs) play an important enough part in those things?

Personally, I'd wish for partials not to need that much of an increase to make them functional, since they cost enough as it is. Raptor legs (strictly speaking a modular set of lower limbs, but the reason for this question) are already avail 12, so no custom stat enhancements, only up to 3 points of normal stats (unless they somehow take their stats from the modular knee 'plug', but that doesn't make a lot of sense).

Anyways, I'm rambling. Cyberlimbs in SR4 just annoy me with how vague they're written and how generally inefficient they seem except as containers, and yet one of the most iconic things in SR art and the genre are people of all stripes with one or more obvious cyberlimbs. So anything to make them a little more understandable and accessible is great.

...you mean a function of the cyberfeet and natrual attribute?

So basically: Adjusted Attribute = [average of ([Character attribute] + [Cyberlimb Attribute])?

Using the Short One as an example [base Strength of 5]: (5 + 3)/2 = 4 Adj Str to add to the Running skill DP for using the cyberskates.

...never quite got the entire hang of cyberlimbs.

For some reason, I was thinking more like averaging of the full limbs involved in the action. So running would average the strength of right leg and the strength of left leg. Of course, because of the same problem with partial limbs being only vaguely mentioned, one way to look at it would be that the cyber feet's (or even lower leg's strength) doesn't factor in, only the strength of the overall limb. So in case of partials, the average strength is just the meat strength. Another way to look at would be that you need to average the cyber part with the meat part like you showed. Not sure which Fortune meant.

Of course, now to muck this all up even more, I just was looking at the core book pg 335 on the right column, the example of George the Mismatched says that he uses "Running + Strength Test using the lower Strength of 3." for coordinated things like running.. This is with full limbs though, so might not be used with partial limbs. It doesn't however bring up the annoying question of when do you average limbs versus using the lower of the stats.

...and this is one of the reasons why I never much bothered with them.

...heck, the Short One is sitting in the corner with her boots off still trying to count it all up on her fingers & toes