Emphasized the ones I feel are key, and puts Italics on the mandatory ones.
In addition the below ones offer a excellant cost vs benefit.
Tactile Sensitivity
NanoHive 2
*O-Cells 6
*Universal Nantidotes 6
O-Cells help against diseases
Nantidotes against drugs aka bunraku person does not get intoxicated but can act so.

WMS

I managed to get pathogenic to 5, which has the same effects as the nanites, without the drawbacks.

Draw Backs?


Rating 5 Pathogenic Defense costs 50,000 essence cost 0.5

Rating 6 O-Cells costs 15,000 essence cost 0.0
Rating 2 Nano Hive costs 20,000 essence cost 1.0
Plus
Rating 6 Universal Nanidotes costs 15,000 essence cost 0.0

Package costs 50,000 essence cost 1.0

The nanohive based items give 6 vs toxins when yours does not.

Please expand upon your "perceived" drawbacks of O-Cells.

WMS

Dietware. Keeps the body at the weight the parlor owner wants it to be.

I had a former buraku TM before. She wasn't actually a terribly effective character due to implants impacting on her resonance, minimal strength and body, and her well entrenched bliss addiction. It was a fairly gritty game, as these things go.

Re: Silky skin. Surely the benefits of this would be undone if she was beaten or otherwise scarred in the course of her duties.

Not really; I believe part of the 'mod involves better healing, with less scarring.

I don't have my books to hand, but IIRC the silky skin enhancement removes prior scarring, but will be disfigured by subsequent wounds. Page ref, anyone?

Augmentation P. 63.

Fancy quoting the text, Fuchs? Else, I shall when I get a hold of my books.

Basically just says that after treatment, it can be disfigured again. Nothing about how easy or difficult that would be. But I think symbiotes might have some effect as well.

They are correct if she is working a BDSM Parlor then Silky Skin is a wasted augmentation.

If part of her punishment by the Mob Boss is to have injuries inflicted on her then, gear that aide in the regeneration of such injuries would be higher priority.

Tactile Sensitivity would make for less damaging injuries but at a greater intensity of perceived pain. Ie rubbing coarse items IE burlap would be sensed by tactile senses.

If the Mob Boss wished to permanently disfigure or make a freak of her, then some of the animal like features, like Hair Growth.

WMS

(Disclaimer - working the character angle, not the "what can I stuff in most effectively" angle)

A 430 Build Point runner couldn't find a way to escape from a Bunraku Parlor? Not with the combat 'Ware or with the other skills she possesses? It really just doesn't seem to fit. I find it hard to believe that anyone who ever called themselves a "runner" would allow themselves to be taken hostage and dealt with so easily.

An easy escape doesn't have to include kicking someone's ass. It could simply be lying your way out (easy with that Charisma / 'ware), running, hacking, even squirming out of bonds (elastic joints are good for something, right?).

While I hate to harp on "realism" in a tabletop RPG, the character you've put together simply couldn't be held by this kind of thing against her will without a big ol' cranium bomb or some other, real threat. Simply being captured, and put in a cathouse; well, I'm pretty sure they don't keep her under armed guard all the time.

Psychotropic style conditioning would work as well, but then the character wouldn't be much of a 'runner anymore. Plus, having that much ware would have made your character kind of Joan Rivers creepy, instead of this super cyber sex kitten you seem to be going for.

Personally, the only cyber a mob boss would install on an enemy in one of mine is a set of Cement Shoes. Unless it's important for the character to be alive for some of this revenge thing, why didn't the Capo or what have you just have her whacked instead?

However, if you are dead set on this concept, you may want to develop it in a couple of ways:

1) Make the character's life valuable enough to justify these lengths - such as encrypted headware memory or something. Maybe a relationship to the mob boss's wife's side of the family or something where he COULDN'T just have them killed.

2) Give the character a real reason to stick around in a Bunraku Parlor. Even with P-fix chips and all, there is still inevitable downtime where they are expected to be resting in some way, and someone as capable as a 'runner would find a way to get out. Its not exactly a supermax prison. A Kink / Micro Bomb would be appropriate, as would maybe a hostage situation or something similar.

3) Ditch combat 'ware. If they had it before hand, it just makes them a risk, and more likely to get a lead injection. Trauma Damps and other things look good, but don't convey anything other than a twinky rationalization for the combat gear, when compared to relative cost.

4) Give your character a BTL / Drug addiction, or some negative qualitites. Surely there is some kind of negative fallout with always being hooked to a p-fix. Isn't that a BTL in itself? Your GM hating those is his prerogative, but they do seem to leave out quite a bit in the game.


If you've done these, then cheers to you. All I see in the thread however is a listing of 'ware and such.

I disagree. Runners are not supermen, and p-fixes go a long way. And if you call being in a parlor "dealt with easily", then I think you have a really sanitised idea of such a place.

10 -15 girls, some management, and a few goons? Even if you have a couple of really nasty guys in there, shackles on the walls and vault-like security on the entrances and exits, it's till easier than an average extraction, with even less qualms about shooting up the proprietors.

I don't mean that someone inside would have an easy time dealing with the trauma of being in one, I'm arguing that someone who has real experience as a runner in some capacity would be extremely difficult to keep in these circumstances for any length of time, especially with the listed augmentations. Like I said, getting out doesn't mean kicking someone's ass, and there will be downtime off the P-fixes, lest the ownership degrade the product quickly.

Someone kept in one of these place for any length of time is sure to have some genuine issues, any way one cuts it. Conditioning takes time, usually, and breaking a character is pretty tough either way.

I think you are underrating the power of the p-fix, especially when we start cutting it with some off the shelf drugs.
Hell she's listed with a sleep regulator. How hard is it to add a few lines of code that ensure that someone doesn't wake up until they're needed?

"Hey Von, we need to bring this unit down for 'maintenance'"
"Ah you're right, well make sure you double it's narcoject dosage, heard that's a nasty one."
*Leans in close to Bunraku slave*
"Sleep well sweetie, you got a busy day tomorrow"

Slave gets her needed brain downtime, bunraku parlor keeps it's equipment from running away.

Everyone goes home happy.

er... wait.

Is anyone disagreeing that a former Bunraku sex slave is going to be a whole world of messed up? She should certainly have some serious mental issues.

I dunno if you've looked the character over or not, or even looked the cyber/bio list over, but, well, actually, here is the stats without history:
http://blds.wikispaces.com/Sweetheart



She didnt have elastic joints when she was captured. Those were added in by the parlor, mostly so when she was manhandled, or beaten, or even had her arms locked behind her, it was a simple matter of re-socketing them, insteading of waiting for them to re-set.



Putting her in a locked room, on a chain would be sufficient, I mean, her strength is 1, after all?



Where is the sex kitten part? Also, almost everything she has is bio-ware, not cyber, and she still has over 2 essence, so its less essence hole than many characters I see.



It amused him to have her sent up to a Bunraku Parlor. Maybe he was sick of whacking pretty girls, and wanted one to beat around instead? I am sure, if you want to tell stories of Mafia Don's whacking girls, I won't stop you.

This is kind of like asking why Arnold Schwarzenegger's character doesnt die in the first 6 minutes of the movie. Because then they'd have made a different movie?



Her family will accept her being turned into a meat puppet and repeatedly raped and beaten, but not killed? Nice family.



She's not in a Bunraku Parlor, note how the thread title is: "The Great Bunraku Parlor Escape" ie, she's out now.



Trauma Dampener was suggested in this thread, as something the parlor would install, to allow her to work more often. I didn't have it at all till it was suggested, and further, calling this character twinky is borderline retarded. Its possibly the worst combat character I have ever seen in my life.

Honestly, whats she do? She has 7 dice for automatics, 6 agility and 1 die of automatics, she has a 3 reaction and a 3 body. Her dodge is 1, and she has 1 initiative pass. If you shoot her, she has a grand total of 10 boxes of health, and beyond platelets to drop 1 box, and Trauma damp to shift a box to stun, whats she do other than lie on the ground and moan? She doesnt have any hand to hand combat skills, either. Further, she has spent money since her escape, and thats where the muscle toner comes from, for example, and thats about the extent of the "combat ware" IMO. If I was making a combat character, she'd have agility 8 and a customized cyberlimb for agility 11, and automatics 6(machine pistol). Hello 23 dice firearms. She doesnt.



I feel like I'm repeating myself, but thats ok, the GM disallows negative qualities, so I have none.



Well, I am still building the character, thats what the thread is for. Its not 'due' until next wednesday, so it seems reasonable to make it as well as possible for what I want it to do. I dont see any real reason to behave like its some kind of twinked out combat character, though, or accusing me of some sort of hidden agenda to make up excuses to get cool gear. I'm paying build points for all this stuff, and most of it isnt going to be helping me, for the most part.

Silky skin is cheap, at 1500.

Slap it on every few months, it feels good for the customer, and I bet it looks even better than regular skin when its whipped, bruised/etc.

The O-Cells and Nantidotes lose rating everytime they fight off a disease or toxin, and gain rating back at a rate of 1 per week.

The Pathogenic fights at 5 dice all the time, no stopping.

Ok, lets do a quick little history. She's in a runner team, lets say they are all young, Sweetie is 18, and fresh-faced, and they are out to make some money and do some good. They hear about X which is harming neighborhood Y, and set about stopping it. They do so, and move on to Z which is harming A, etc. Turns out they are working for the Yakuza, whacking local Mafia operations. Mafia catches them, murders the others, but Sweetie begs for her life, and she's pretty persuasive. They bring her to the don, she begs more, he, being a nasty person, but not without a sense of humor, gives her her wish.

Since the rest of her team is dead, they sure arent coming to rescue, and her contact isn't exactly Loyalty 6, why would he go up against the Mafia for some 18 year old? He wouldnt.

Everyone in the parlor knows she's a great liar, and con artist. Big negative modifiers to con them, and hey, I hear gags are great, lets use one. SO she spends a lot of her time gagged, she's a locksmith, but has no tools, and even if she picked the wrist restraints, the door is on a lock that needs a hacker to unlock. Her strength is 1 and she cant fight at all, so she isn't overpowering any guards, and when she's with a client, she's p-fixed.

A couple of years later, a couple of Mafia guys decide to use Sweetheart in a job, and let her out for a test run. It works well, and they buy her contract from the Don.

And a data filter!



I'm sure not. She's gonna be skittish, jumping at shadows, and very meek around the mafia guys, for sure.

Hell with that. Just feed her 400 calories a day. Here is your ration of dogfood + vitamins. Enjoy.

You can twink outside of combat. Just imagine a Magic 3 social adept, well skilled as well, on a Corp Negotiation team? Scary!

...... I just had an adventure idea!! *begins to scribble it down*

But anyway, with the lack of negative qualities thing, that really sucks. This character screams for a few, for RP purposes alone (and point whoring of course). Then positive qualities become even more point intensive, and there's no way to gain a little bit back here and there and add some oddities to a character. Sure, some of them are fairly twink (like the 15 bp negative quality that makes your cyber cost more? Makes sense, but anyone using magic/adept/techno character is going to take it!). However, there's nothing cooler then realizing that your mage is never going to go off into the woods to gather reagents because he has Incompetent: Survival. Or how about the wheel man with Incompetent: Navigation? He relies heavily on grid driving and his commlink to help him, but Discord help us all if we're ever off the map. And that's just one neg quality. Sure, it's point mining. Big deal. Let your characters point mine a little bit. That's more handles you CAN grab, and if not, so what? If they've taken the full 35 worth, there's gonna be something there that you can use to bite them. I just hope the mage I'm running now never get's hit with a stray silver bullet... ah, allergies!

Well if we assume that the p-fix chip/data filter functioned as designed than yes, I guess she could get out of there without too much bad shit banging around in her head.

Of course having that leak back from time to time, especially when she's using simsense, that might be an interesting RP angle.

I'm sure not, as in, I'm sure not saying she won't be messed up. She WILL be messed up. She's a train wreck. Not getting points for negative qualities doesnt mean having none.

Also, her willpower is 2. I think when she started, it was 3-4, but over the last few years its degraded significantly.

Well, I twinked her socially, I guess, but it isnt like she's a pornomancer. I mean, I didnt even buy an emotitoy.

From my background there will be limit to the number of times Silky Skin can be applied to the same area etc.

400 per day calories will insure she becomes less than useful in a short time.

As for White Slavery hits on Google, Try the same search using UFO, you will get even more hits.

White Slavery is much posted/talked/rumored but very little is fact. Yes there is Slavery still in todays world but in such small numbers compared to bygone days it is non existent.

As one whose maternal genealogy has a very long and detailed history of slave owners/ownership etc. Controlling Slaves is harder than we can today understand. We saw glimpses during WWII and VNW.

As for the disease resistance items *shrugs* different POV.

As for you gear and concept if you GM buys into it more power to you

WMS

Actually... National Geographic did a whole issue on modern slavery a couple of years ago.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0309/feature1/
and some official numbers and analysis:
http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2003/
and the most recent report:
http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2007/

The numbers will make you vomit blood if you have any semblance to a soul.

Of course these report choose not to differentiate between "white" and "people who aren't human beings" slavery but I consider that a strength not a weakness. Now, if by white slaver you're all talking about Americans getting abducted and forced into slavery in America. Than it appears the numbers are either quiet small (only 111 convictions for trafficking in persons last year), vastly underreported (smart crime orgs don't get caught, much), or some combination thereof. Considering the dystopian nature of the Sixth world I figure the UCAS a whole might fall within a Tier 2 (Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the Act’s minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.) or Tier 3 (Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so. ) classification for combating slavery in 2070. With extra terroritality and Z-zones... That might even be a moot point since there are so many places outside of their juristiction but inside their own borders that all a slave trader needs to do is drive to the wrong/right part of town and ply their trade.

I'm not a dietician, so I dunno how many calories is actually acceptable, but the point is that if you are controlling the girl to the extent you are, you dont need a slimworm to keep her in shape, it isnt like she's out ordering pizzas

Hmm Augmentation page 107

Hmm interesting POV/reading you have on the above.
Go and read the description of O-Cells they are designed to deal with pathogenic organisms. In fact they are beefed up White Blood Cells aka lymphocytes.
They act like basically pathogenic armor so a rating 6 set will protect absolutely against the below except where noted:
Botulism: 4
Influenza: 2
KSV-5: 5
Tuberculois: 3
VITAS-3: 6
ADS: 4
MADS: 3
Croisade: 4
Ebola: 8 reduced to a rating 2
Gamma-Anthrax: 8 reduced to a rating 2

Now are your correct that Nantidotes degrade after nullifying Toxins and regain power rating at 1 point per week with a Nanohive.

So O-Cells act like Armor, any disease equal to or less than the rating of the O-Cells never gets a start ie no disease resistance test.

Pathogenic Defense adds its dice to the disease resistance test. So even with a rating 5 your girl can still come down with VITAS-3, while O-Cells she will never come down with VITAS-3 unless she "bleeds out".

Kinda like the armor vs the dodge pool discussions in many threads here. Ie would you rather roll to see if you resist the damage or never have to roll unless its power is greater, and if you do roll its power is greatly reduced.

@DocT
Again the numbers of Today do not even compare with the numbers of history. Yes it can offend even today but again vastly different scales. And yes I have a soul too.

Slavery in today's world comes in many forms even some that are not recognized/called as such. ie Economic Slavery for one.

As for vomit blood, "when you have seen the elephant", it puts a better perceptive on such.

Go to PI and see the conditions there, in Pakistan, India, South Korea, North Korea, and so on.

WMS

400 calories is below starvation even by today's standards. Most people lost weight when they take in around 1,200 to 2,000 calories a day. At 400 calories rapid tissue cannibalization takes place, fat in areas that do not normally lose fat do. At 400 calories a day with in one month she is ready to be zipped into the body bag. Skin and bone does not describe the way she will appear. Also even with Pathogenic Defenses her immune system will be so devastated from lack of calories and nutrients a common cold will kill her.

The WWII Germans Military thought they controlled the Death Camp prisoners, they too were wrong. So unless you wish to have similar conditions you will not be able to achieve similar control.

But again if your GM buys into it, more power to you.

WMS

Yeah, 400 calories a day = you die after a while. ~1,500 is probably as low as you want to go.

My point is 400 calories was a random number I threw out, because I dont know(or care, actually) how many calories it takes to stay in good condition. If my GM buys into what? 400 calories a day keeping me alive? Whats with the aggressiveness?

Who cares how many calories a day it is? Again, it isnt like she can go order up 20 pizzas and eat them at her leisure. Whats the big effort to make a big deal about caloric intake? Why dont we pretend I said 1500 calories and call it even? I'm NOT a dietician, and I didnt spend 30 minutes to research on google, either. Because I don't care.

If we were talking about a Vegas showgirl who went back to her place after every show, and pigged out on McD's and Dairy Queen, and Pizza, I'm with you on dietware, but we ARENT.

And how is this "more power to me". We're talking like I'm trying to get away with something here. The character has 55 bp sunk into money, and essentially most of those are wasted on basically worthless bioware and cyberware that doesnt help her primary concept(FACE) at all.

I don't MIND wasting bp on the concept/story part of the character, but I do resent being treated like I am powergaming, somehow, here. If I was powergaming it wouldnt because I didnt take a slimworm, and had a trauma damper on a body 3 face who cant fight or dodge.

I'd have platelets and a trauma damper on a soak 24 samurai with synthacardium 3 and athletics 4.

*boggle*

Thread Jack!!!!!

WMS

Thread Jack!!!!!

WMS

What? It's the truth. If I had an elaborate medieval style torture dungeon under my house, just speaking hypothetically mind you, and I had an attractive female prisoner there I abducted from a Renfaire back in Feburary, again just hypothetically mind you, I'd anticipate problems, which I wouldn't hypothetically need, mind you, if we went below ~1500 a day.

What? It's the truth. If I had an elaborate medieval style torture dungeon under my house, just speaking hypothetically mind you, and I had an attractive female prisoner there I abducted from a Renfaire back in Feburary, again just hypothetically mind you, I'd anticipate problems, which I wouldn't hypothetically need, mind you, if we went below ~1500 a day.

You can also go the other route and argue a high-class call girl as per the New York Governor scandal. Stay in the business long enough and you invest money in that business - salespeople and PR people are notorious for this.

1,500 to 2,000 calories is an approximation produced by and for North America. Other factors include type of calories, activity level, metabolism and so on. Pro-athletes, bodybuilders and the like will have higher caloric intakes while the standard cubicle groundhog might require half that.

The catch? Your average soda has roughly 190 calories, mostly from sugar. Fast food, a staple of the American diet is usually fried and high in saturated fat. </diet aside>

-Siege

I was thinking mainly about economics. Dietware means that you can use lots of cheap food to feed the parlor girls, and do not have to worry about anyone overeating and gaining weight. I would think this would be more cost.effective in controlling weight than measuring the calories you deal out, and then compensate for weight loss or gain.

I suppose some of the aggression comes from the defensiveness. What I think WMS is saying (I don't want to speak for the guy, though) is that it doesn't matter what we say here on the board, and that the final call on all of this is up to you and your GM.

Frankly I think the character concept is pretty hokey, but if you like it, by all means, play it and have fun with it, don't take my word for it. Just because I don't like it or some others disagree with some of your finer points doesn't mean you should ditch something, or get defensive about it.

I know I've created my share of corny characters. So what?

Either way you have a solid idea of what you want to do, and that's more than most. At least you aren't really trying to min/max the character much.

The nuts and bolts of how much someone eats in a day when held captive is more or less superfluous, especially considering you weren't going to be playing the character in that state anyway.

You know what else is hokey? Almost every other shadowrunner I have ever seen. Yeah, an elf samurai with tons of cyberware, who runs around killing people, thats logical.

heh. I dunno, I guess we all have lots of different ideas of whats hokey.

If I had a slave girl in my basement, I'd research on google before creating a diet, so she'd live the full four years her history claims she survived.

Of course, in the interest of this thread, and post, it is so completely irrelevant. I am actually laughing out loud.

Comedy gold.

Sure we do! That's the beauty of it. And I gotta agree. The Elf super-sam with all the cyber running around geeking fools. Thats just.. bad comedy. Seems like the Special Forces have a surplus of guys these days who are short on cash and warm fuzzies from The Man.

I really like the "regular joe" approach to characters, I just never bought into the bunraku thing very much, and when it's applied to a character as a core theme, my mind goes running away with crap.

<shrug>

I say go for it.

Yep, my group worked the characters out together, so its all gonna work out. =)

I had a sprawling post about slavery, the relief work I've done in Vietnam and the PI, and a number of other choice bits.

And a whole section telling Dreadpiratekitten she should ignore the calorie counters because that really didn't seem like anythin that interested her.

Than DS went tits up and ate it, probably in the interest of removing my more colorful off topic comments.

Thank you intertube gods

And see! It all worked out in the end right!

Well, the thread did what it was supposed to do, which is help me build the character. =)

Yay! Now help me build mine, 2 threads over.

I'd suggest adding some Inoculations (Augmentation page 134) to some common STDs. Very cheap (300 nuyen each for level 6) and definitely fitting the character concept/background. I think I bought about ten of them for one of my characters (who was also a former bunraku joygirl).

Wait, could these inoculations replace the pathogenic defense?

Lord lifting, save me ¥48000! Please!

Inoculation 6 against the 10 most common STD's = ¥3000, meaning I save ¥47000, which lets me buy Activesofts and Linguasofts. Oh, the joy I feel, I cant even describe.

jklst14, I love you.