You know, I'm looking at the entry for Shiva Arms, and it strikes me as strange that they don't really offer much in the way of tangible advantages. You can hold extra things. You can make multiple attacks (as if mere dual-wielding wasn't gimped enough already - now you can split your dice pool even more!). And that's about it.

Satyr Legs, by contrast, give you an increased movement rate, a +2 Strength bonus for kicking, and +2 for gymnastics, including gymnastics dodge.

Shouldn't Shiva Arms give something similar? Like, I don't know, +1 on unarmed blocking and grappling tests per extra set of arms, +2 to resist being disarmed, and +2 to climbing tests? Or is that too much? What does everyone else think?

Glyph, your list makes perfect sense to me. I don't know why four arms wouldn't help in all those ways.

Peter

Well, four attacks is useful if you have the dice pool to pull it off. If you can manage to hit with multiple attacks, your overall damage will be increased.

That said, I think the primary reason is that a)if they where realistic they would be too powerful, and b)giving a bunch of small bonuses for one quality is a record keeping nightmare.

I had a troll in my group with this advantage. I gave him +2 dice for unarmed combat tests when he wasn't splitting his pool as well. I figure if reach gives you bonus dice, extra arms should as well.

Even with that your right that the combat advantage is only so-so. Though a very strong person could conceivably deal considerably more damage against an oppoent he could hit with all 4 attacks with, such an opponent isn't likely to be much of a challenge in the first place.

A pistol adepts with a huge pool firing 4 guns at a time might do better. I'd have to run the numbers on it and see. Probably only breaks even on the amount you would have to spend to get the arms and ambidexterity for them though.

Well you could give them a momentary bonus for using all 4-6 hands to strike with a one-handed weapon adding an additional +1DV per pair of hands

You try rappelling down a building while carrying a baby and firing a rocket at a helicopter with less than six hands. And you can't drop the baby. Apparently, babies don't bounce on concrete. I learned that one the hard way.

Its a shame that to Subdue a target you must maintain the grapple through complex action, so no firing with your extra arms while dragging the target out/Choking them out.

Ever since I surged my set of crocodile jaws, I've found babies quite easy to carry... in my mouth.

In arsenal there is a semi-auto grenade pistol. With air burst the scatter on that is next to nothing, so your actually attack doesn't matter much. Shiva arms would let you put 8 white phosphorus grenades down field in 1 IP.

The other thing worth doing with them is using a very tiny attack at to ablate a defense pool.

Splitting the Dice Pool a couple more ways is not really that much of a penalty ... if you are already planning on dual-wielding. And nothing says you have to split the Dice Pool evenly.

But the biggest advantage to four working arms, at least firearms-wise, would have to be the Suppressive Fire possibilities.

problems arise with cybering up those arms . . 6 arms, 2 legs, torso and head would ammount to about -10 to -15 essence or something like that on standard grade . .
the arms alone would cost you your life and any other upgradeability . .
and how much does it cost to use bio/cyber-muscles with this?
do i have to pay more, because i have more limbs?

Oh yeah. If anything, I would have one SMG be the ''damage weapon'' and the other one be the ''suppressive fire'' weapon. Don't need so many hits to toss out a wide burst to keep folks pinned down, and a nice, high Agility, reflex recorder, and the like, could make them hella gunners.

Ever gone into a fight carrying an Ares Alpha, a ballistic shield, and a vibrosword?

i think fluf wise also there arent many people who would be adult runners who were borne with 4-6 arms so it would be a question of knowing how to use all your arms yes its natural but its still new neurology or physiology to be used to so there's no penalty to having it because your probably more used to it but not to the point of full bonus giving integration..... and you can always take ambidextrous and such to mitigate penalty for dual wielding

Can't say that I have, no

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Seriously though one item I can't belive the left out of augementation was extra cyberarms! Why should those changelings get all the fun?
Extra cyberarms cost 15,000 nuyen and .5 essence each. They are in all other respects the same as normal cyberarms.

You can also get synthetic versions for 20k... but really whats the point?

How much for the custom dual-wield gyro-mount (troll-sized)?

If you need to give extra arms a mechanical advantage, then the player isn't being smart enough.

Laying suppressive fire to keep their heads down whilst lobbing grenades over their cover.
Pinning a guys arms, and still being able to drumroll punch him in the face.
Carrying all four of your unconscious team-mates out of the building (this is what augmented Strength is for. Remember that Strength 8 is superhuman. That means comic book levels of carrying capacity).
Drive-by on a motorcycle.
Not having to drop your pistols just to ready your combat axe.
Dual wielding miniguns.

I was going to carry on with that list, but then I stopped, re-read the last line, and realised that nothing else will top that. Ever.

Seriously people.

Dual. Wielding. Miniguns.

Apart form duel/tri wielding gauss rifles.....

Better yet, keep the gyromounted minigun at waist level and shoulder the gauss rifle. One for the mooks, one for the hard targets.

Make custom grenades that are essentially 40mm chainsaws. Then modify three 40mm grenade launchers to fire full auto. Then modify three regular chainsaws with a laser from a crescent laser axe laser. Then tri-wield full-automatic chainsaw launchers with underbarrel laser chainsaws.

or you could be sensable and tri wield gauss rifles with underbarrel miniguns or LMGs-MMGs (the weapon has to be smaller so so by RAW it shoul work and as there blet feed the half ammo capacity isnt an issue plus with a grenade launcher on a articulated weapon arm or a balista missile launcher on his back or both this might just be over kill. I have to make this troll now needs an epic strength and body.

Looking at this again, compared to the Satyr Leg's stuff(only two of which really count for anyone-the running speed and the gymnastics dodge-the third you need Unarmed Combat to use effectively and a +2 Strength basically equates to one extra DV and a bit better knockdown chance), Shiva Arms are in and of themselves made of more awesome with the things you can do with them. Now, style-wise I prefer the Satyr Legs, but with actual utility, I think Shiva Arms kinda have this one in the bag by a longshot.

Only if they're underbarrel gyrojet miniguns.

That's doable I think if not the laser minguns will have to do.

I'm not saying that being able to carry lots of different weapons, and easily switch between them, isn't a big advantage in and of itself. But it still bugged me, from a logical standpoint, why an extra set (or two) of arms would offer no mechanical advantage in those areas I listed.

Although unarmed combat, I remember a discussion of martial arts maneuvers, when I said you basically had to choose between the super-high damage codes you could get with unarmed, and the defensive advantages you get from two weapon style. Cain replied that he suddenly saw a use for Shiva Arms. Daaamn. Now that would be pretty overpowering. Dunno, though. In a way, it makes sense. You normally can't get two weapon style because you use both arms in unarmed combat, but two sets of arms? On the other hand, it's not like they have centuries of developing four-armed fighting styles, and the person with four arms still has a normal person's ability to coordinate different tasks. So I could see the benefits I suggested before, simply from having an extra set of arms, but getting the advantage of always-on full defense? I'm not so sure about that.

it would make cowboys much more hardcore . . as they more or less could fire all their ini parts even with single shot weapons only with 6 of them . . heck, they could be shooting and readying another . . basically full auto Revolvers O.o
but the cybering up part is still dumb . . and no, in unarmed you can not grapple and still hit someone according to the rules, as both hitting and grappling are complex actions, so either or and niether both

There is a picture in Augmentation showing a Runner with 4 cyberarms, but as you said it doesn't actually say anything about them

Put military grade armor on him and he becomes a Battlemech!

"Oh, the walking tank behind me with the two miniguns and two gauss rifles... we call him Masakari."

I figure the problem with getting extra limbs as cybernetics was/is that you wouldn't be able to control them well because your mind isn't wired for it. (as a friend of mine pointed out, this isn't how neuroplasticity works, but it's not like there's a lot of realism at work here.) So you could get them installed, but you wouldn't be able to work them.

Meanwhile, you can get all the metagenetic qualities as genetic augmentations.

So when I want to make multi-limbed cybernetic people, I just give them shiva arms as a genetic upgrade first, to provide the necessary neural controls, and then get with the installing of the new limbs.

Now what about shiva legs? I want to give my troll an extra set of legs, darn it!

4 legged walker mechs, ahoy!

Ok, now my brain actually did break.

Are y'all sure there aren't any rules for additional 'ware limbs in Augmentation?

I'm certain that the CZ in augmentation has extra cyber arms.

I'll check my book when I get home.

it's binky ^^

At the cheap price of 375000 for four and 750000 for six arms

The two advantages I could think of is you would get to fire two assault rifles if you want to split your dice pool. It also would however allow you to fire two long narrow bursts w/o needing to split your dice pool. I might also be inclined to say that you can grapple and then be able to make unarmed attacks without needing to hold the grapple with a complex action.

the extra cyberlimbs picture could also have just been articulated weapon mounts with some nice styling....

it would be totally worth it, if cyberarm gyromounts would stack with each other so you could finally do the minigun without penalty . .

OK, I lied. I actually can think of something cooler than dual wielding miniguns...

Four Ruger Super-Warhawks.

Just think about it... SS means that the weapon can only fire once per pass. So you fire two shots with the first pair, splitting your pool, then two with the second pair, splitting your pool two ways again. Theoretically no recoil because it accumulates per weapon. All dice pool modifiers are applied to the pools separately... so that's four shots with a dice pool of (Skill 7 + Agility... say 9, gives us 8 per pool, +4 for smartlink and specialisation to each pool...) 12 for each shot, which is plenty enough to hit land some kind of a hit on most targets. EX-EX gives us 7P, AP -2 for the damage. I think we just served up a big old helping of "OWWW!"

Naturally we'll be adding a customised four armed duster coat and a stetson hat to this ensemble, for extra "freakin' awesome."

mentioned that some posts upthread i think . . full auto revolvers basically, even with single shot weapons ^^

Actually, unless you are specially trained, it is difficult to use two arms to do different things, let alone four.



And you'll never get them to with that defeatist talk.

that's what ambidexterity is there for . . and you CAN in fact, get that perk for each pair of arms individually . . so you could have 6 arms with the top 2 being ambi and the lower being ambi and the middle getting confused with each other all the time . . kinda like the one darkwing duck episode with the 6 arms ^^ "Nr.6! Stop that!"
and if you do decide to get 4 or 6 cyberarms, then why not optimize them to offset the missing ambidexterity?

The Smartlink bonus doesn't apply when firing a second firearm in the same action.

I keep thinking about this one. Doesn't cyberlimb armor stack? I don't have Augmentation handy, but what's exactly the rule on stacking cyber armor?

I think in SR3 they averaged it or something, but in SR4 it simply stacks.

So, someone with 6 cyberarms could have 24 points of encumbrance-free armor. Before putting on anything else.

Yeah, although six cyberarms would be a heck of an Essense cost.

... and we run up against a rather odd glitch in the Essence system.

With Delta you can just barely squeeze in an entire 6-armed centaur. But, really, why leave yourself so vulnerable to magic when you can be a six-armed centaur cyberzombie with Arcane Arrester, MBW III, and tri-wielded gryojet miniguns with underbarrel laser chainsaws.

and we are back at binky ^^

Looked at my copy of Augmentation and can't actually find anything about bolting cyberarms on. Only articulated weapon arms, which could explain the artwork, maybe.

I don't see any real good reason why extra limbs can't be bolted onto a cyber torso... Still, it's not like it's going to happen at my table.

Incidentally recoil stacks despite weapons being held in secondary (or tertiary) hands. I had an ambidex gun bunny, who could send an absurd amount of lead downrange, but his obscene pistols dice pool was reduced to about 3 dice with his second shot with his second gun by pool splitting and a -3 recoil penalty.

yes RECOIL does stack . . Recoil COMPENSATION from Gyromounts or at least cyberarm gyromount seems NOT to stack . .
no, there's no rules for more than 2 cyber-arms, or legs while we're at it . .