I'm thinking about the interaction of cyber/bioware with mages, and what particular pieces would be optimal.

So the challenge is to think of gear that would bring the essence/magic loss to exactly 1 or, if it would be a particularly potent combination, 2 with a maximum bonus to being a magical abilities or a secondary role.

Currently, I'm thinking somewhere along the line of a Pain Editor (so he can ignore that lousy stun damage), rating 3 Cerebral Boosters, and possibly a skin flap for fetishes.

What do y'all think?

I think it depends on character concept, not mechanics. Figure out what the character is and why it is both magically active and augmented. Once you get a good character concept the rest will fill in the blanks.

I'd look for things I can't duplicate with a sustaining spell focus if I wanted to optimize it. Cerebral boosters are slick but assuming a 5 logic a rating 5 sustaining focus and improve attribute logic would do the same. I dig synaptic accelerators, but a rating 3-4 focus will do the same. My favorite would probably be the trauma damper. platelet Factories and genetic optimization.

Don't forget qualities which allow you to ignore penalties for one sustained spell.

- J.

what quality is that. In 3e i'd say focused concentration in that it at least reduced the penalties, but I'm unaware of any qualities that do it in 4e. (though drugs seem to reduce the penalty)

Yeah I thought it was Focused Concentration and it had to be bought twice (20BP) and it would offset the sustaining penalties but I just re-read it and it looks to me like it gets extra drain dice only.

- J.

Exactly. Now you really have to invest in sustaining foci which cost the same as in SR3, although you get less money.

I know Synaptic Boosters aren't compatible with other forms of boosters, but what happened if I cast Improved Initiative and had, say, Synaptic Booster (1) ?

Would the highest bonus apply or only the Synaptic Booster?

- J.

Don't forget that while the increase reflexes spell is essence-friendly, it only improves your initiativce score and your passes, contrary to wired reflexes, synaptic accelerators etc. you still roll your natural REA to avoid being hit.

Unless the mage has some inherent vision enhancements, I'd definitely go for cybereyes.

While the +1 WIL on the pain editor is nice, I suggest you look at damage compensators. They have no disadvantages when engaged and work on physical as well as stun damage. Unfortunately they are less essence-friendly and more expensive.

Highest, but due to synaptics, you can never drop below 2 passes.
if you are not somehow affected by something else. .

Pain Editor is nice if you wish to avoid damage penalties for stun including the passing out from stun overflow.

Trauma Damper is nice in that it shifts damage from physical to stun to nothing.

Unfortunately, they don't work so well together. The trauma damper does however work with the Platelet factory.

I would say that Cybereyes can be a big plus for mages, and simple things that help to keep them alive arent to be overlooked so orthoskin and a supratyroid gland aren't that bad idea, as are skillwires to help offsetting the inerent lack of karma that mages suffer, and a nanohive can be a great addiction too; implants have their advantages and their cost, it's up to you decide which balance of the two is optimal.

List of my top choices. Pick and choose based on need.

Trauma Dampener (Less drain)
Platelet Factory (Even less drain)
Cerebral Booster (For Logic based traditions)
Synaptic Booster (More Stunbolts baby!)
Cyberhand w/ Nanohive, Biomonitor, Orientation System, Auto-Injector
Cybereyes

Ahem.

Alpha-Grade R5 Skillwires. 0.64 essence cost and a Restricted Gear will get you some amazingly re-usable 'ware. Combine it with Personalized, Pluscoded (and probably Skillclustered) 'softs and you only need to worry about Magic-based skills at chargen. You'll only be able to afford roughly 4 'softs, so I'd suggest a close-combat skill of your choice, Dodge, Perception, and Automatics (automatics covers machine pistols, SMGs, and assault rifles - the second most versatile weapons skill in the game [the first being Gunnery]). You also have enough room to toss in some Cybereyes (maybe), a datajack/implanted comm, or some cyber-weapons of a sort.

Tough call. Pain Editor grants +1 willpower and can ignore pain modifiers.
Platelet Factories + Trauma Dampener allows you to heal physical damage (i.e. overcasting).

Take your poison I guess...

- J.

Unfortunately only on Stun Damage, unless there are Errata I'm not aware of.

I have a guideline for my cyber mage balancing at the edge of the path of the burned-out: If cybertech can do it better or without a potential headache, go for it!

Perhaps Rating 4 Skillwires, a Pain Editor and a Skin Pocket (for fetishes).

Yes that's what I meant. However with Metagenic attribute boost (forget the name - still waking up), Genetic Optimisation, dwarf, that's a WILL 9 max for a starting character. Assuming you don't max that out by paying the 25BP, that's a starting willpower of 9 w/ the pain editor, the ability to not fall unconscious once drain goes into physical. Quite powerful.

- J.

Yeah but I overcast all the time. Virtually every spell that I would not overcast with has a light enough drain I can suck up the drain without taking damage anyways.

My last mage had a set of tricked-out cybereyes, a pain editor, and a trauma damper. The pain editor and trauma damper don't work at the same time -- only one can work at any moment. However, the pain editor keeps me from passing out when registering and binding spirits, meaning they won't try to kill me. The trauma damper keeps me from being nickel-and-dimed by small amounts of drain. And if those boxes of drain start to add up, I can always switch over to the pain editor to negate the dice pool penalties.

I thought those reduced "damage" without giving a type (so both physical and stun).

If concept allows, I go with Platelet Factories and Trauma Damper, along with Datajack and image link, maybe a smartlink for that gun you need...

Yes... They do , but they are extremely useful for shunting that physical drain

Fixed in SR4A to Physical only apparently.

- J.

Trauma Damper works like so:

Damage taken --> Damage Converted
1 point Physical --> 1 point Stun
1 point Stun --> Gone

So if you take 5P Damage, you end up taking 4P and 1S instead. If you took 4S, with a Trauma Damper, you only take 3S.

The Pain Editor only lets you do a couple of things...

+1 Will & -1 Logic
Ignore Stun Modifiers
Do not fall unconscious when stun trakc is filled.

Both pieces of 'ware have their respective uses. In the campaign I play in, I'm thinking about having a Pain Editor installed simply because I want the option in case I need to ignore Stun.

Somewhere in the Augmentation Q&A thread someone from CGL mentioned that the trauma damper is not intended to work against drain (or fatigue for that matter). It only, well, dampens (physical) trauma.

so that's not even FAQ, much less Errata and thus not RAW but RAI.
and it would have taken one sentence to make it RAW too. Hasn't happened as of yet, as far as i know(which is, admittedly, about as far as i could throw Lofwyr).
so just by the rules, it does what it says. and because drain and fatigue are stun and not physical, it works on those too.

Right, but still there is no errata for Augmentation.

probably because everything in there more or less works as intended i would say . .

I thought it was +1 Will & -1 Int?

It may be. I don't have my books with me at the moment. I know one of the mental attributes gets a -1 while Will gets a +1.

I may also be channelling SR2's values too. I never did play SR3.

in SR3 it'S+1 Will and -1 Int
Int does not exist anymore in SR4 as such.
Only Logic and Intuition

I intended for Int to be an abbreviation for Intuition, not Intelligence.

This hasn't really been said yet (possibly because it's pretty obvious) but once you start augmenting a mage, you really want to limit yourself to giving up only 1.00 point of essense, but cram as much utility as possible into that single point. Fortunately, most of the stuff mages want is bioware, which is really essense-friendly, but you might still want to get higher-grade ware to cram a bit more into your one point of essense budget.

So... I played around in Excel a bit last night. I ran some numbers for cybereyes/ears, skillwires, cerebral boosters, platelet factories, trauma dampers, pain editors, damage compensators, and skinflaps.

If you're getting cybereyes, it pays to go all the way up to deltaware on your eyes before getting even alphaware in almost anything else. You can buy yourself .1 essense for 4.5k nuyen, which is the cheapest .1 essense savings you can get for any of the augmentations above. Value-add: you really don't want your eyes getting hacked, and delta is hard to hack.

Next up in value is skillwires. Using deltaware, it costs about 18k NuY per .1 essense saved.

Next up in value is going with alphaware for the cerebral boosters, which costs about 25k nuyen for each .1 essense you can save. IIRC, it jumps up to 50k or 60k per .1 essense if you use betaware, but that's still probably the most cost-effective next step.

After that, it starts getting *really* expensive. But it also starts getting situational as you get close to consuming the full point. For example: if you're using .92 of essense, freeing up .02 inefficiently (say for 20k) is better than saving .08 efficiently (say for 30k) if all you're trying to do is cram a .1 essense piece of ware into your build.

please, keep in mind that delta is still supposedly impossible as all fuck to get your hands on.
thins lead to silly situations in SR3.
Delta-Ware Datajack had an availability of 8 hours and cost 2000 bucks or something . .
so it was easier to get than some standard grade ware AND cheaper.
and only because rules said:"no beta/delta on chargen" it was impossible to get . .
something that you can get done in your coffee break in the mall around the corner . .
and in game it was limited by the availability of the CLINIC that was supposed to give it to you.

Nah delta is just hard to get your hands on. Not impossible you only need to get access to a delta clinic and they are not as uncommon as in SR3. IIRC there are more than a handful of black ones out there yet alone the corp clinics.

There's 3, 5 or 8 alone in Chiba District, but it's still impossible as fuck to get into clinics that are capable of delta level cybernetic implantation.

Nah just pricey or long winded. Really I also guess that going in for a datajack or fiber optic hair would be much easier that any R or god forbid F rated stuff.

I thought delta grade is impossible at chargen? Highest possible was betaware.

- J.

Actually the maximum is Alphaware at CharGen.

This conversation makes me wonder if the ware's cost/aviability covers only the acquisition of the thing and the implantation is a completely different expense, if the latter than I think that using the cost/aviability for clinics (Augmentations, p.122), considering the implantation as intensive care until the character has healed from the surgery damage, would be the best solution; also if the aviability of the ware is lower than the one of the clinic I would rule that the clinic can provide/produce it (for beta and delta grades is always the clinic that produces them as they have to be custom-made to fit the user).