hey all, i am new posting here but have been reading for a while and playing for a couple years.

i plan on picking this new book up in hardcopy and PDF but in the meantime can anyone tell me if they made changes to cyberlimbs?

like clarifying damage? i always thought it was stupid that bone lacing made you do physical(and good) damage but cyberlimbs never mentioned anything about it. how does having metal laced bones make you do more damage than having a metal arm...

Yeah, Cyberlimbs now do (STR/2)P in unarmed. I heard someone say something about SR4A "nerfing" Cyberlimb armor but I haven't seen anything changed in that respect just yet.

In SR4, Limbs for the first time became not completely stupid stats-wise . . and with SR4.5, the Armor was limited i think. so, we are more or less back at square one.

wow, thats still lame...seems right in comparison to blades but bad with bone lacing. i really think they should nerf bonelacing...

Apparently the partial limbs' armor only counts for half while a full limb's armor would count as normal.

I did some searching and can't find a reference to that rule. All I see is the same wording "Cyberlimb Armor counts as Ballistic and Impact and stacks with all forms of worn armor."

I am yet to see anyone with the updated pdf state that this nerf actually appears in the book.

It appears, completely out of the blue, in the changes document.

As written it makes little or no sense and I don't recall a massive grass-roots movement demanding it's implementation. Unlike, say, Agent Smith.

Sheck the changes document.

I'm pretty sure I saw builds on here where people were getting significant amounts of armor by getting cyberfeet/cyberhands and then packing the armor onto those just to get the benefits. I haven't looked through the SR4A changes extensively, or looked at the new SR4A handbook, but having armor from half cyberlimbs only count as half towards your total seems reasonable to me.

Then Armor should only cost half in not full cyber limbs and take only half the capacity it does in full limbs too . .

To me it really doesn't, as armor takes a really significant part of the partial limbs capasity.
If it takes same amount of capasity to armor my cyber hand then it does for the full arm, i expect the armorring in my hand to be much thicker then the one for the arm and it should provide exactly the same amount to my abstract total armor value.

Huh. Wow. It doesn't appear in the SR4A PDF at all. I hope they fix this for the print version.

Print version of the book are already starting to trickle back from the printers. The time to make changes has long since past.

If it costs exactly the same and takes up exactly the same space, it had better do exactly the same . .

The only reason I say it sounds reasonable to me for armor to count for half in a half limb is because you're getting half the coverage. If my forearm is cyber versus my full arm, for 2 points of armor each for the full and half, the half arm will give me half the coverage even if the armor is at the same thickness as the full arm. So, by my reasoning, a half arm at 2 points of armor would count the same towards your total as a full arm with 1 point of armor. As I understand this isn't RAW, and if I were running a game I wouldn't even bother to houserule it, but I wouldn't get bent out of shape if the devs changed it in an errata or something.

Nope, that would only be a valid point in a system utilizing hit-locations . . if this were to be the case, everybody and their mother would shoot for the eyes/nose/mouth or ears or something like that.

Well, knowing very little about armor, It seems to me the more seams and connections you have between pieces, the more overlap and flexibility is required. A cyberhand could be argued that it's harder to armor effectively without the reinforcement of the entire arm bone structure, tendons, and the like while maintaining flexibility as an individual component.

Couldn't it be that the though the protection is halved due to the limited surface area and gaps between armoring (that wouldn't necessarily exist in a full arm designed as a comprehensive unit with such limitations anticipated and supported by the entire structure), the cost remains effectively doubled (in relation to the full arm) due to the additional engineering required to make it effective at all?

To me, it should be more costly and less effective to piece together a cyberarm (or fraction thereof) of individual components than it is to buy an enitre arm outright.

This is more the real life vs game threshold. Because by a certain mentality, I could argue that a cyberhand's strength actually comes from tendons in the forearm and very little from the fingers themselves. Or that a hand as armor couldn't really interpose itself as an effective barrier without hyper reflexes (and if you can catch bullets, you're better off dodging them). Granted this is getting off point, but I hope it illustrates how at some point you just have to enjoy the game and quit overthinking every aspect.

that isn't in anyway acceptable reason in a totally abstract armor system.

Let's look at that a bit more. An obvious lower cyberarm has 10 capacity. An obvious full cyberarm has 15. Armor 4 takes up 8 capacity in either, leaving 2 capacity in the lower cyberarm, and 7 in the full one.

Your supposition is that the armor is the same thickness over the entire limb, but this would mean that the ratio of capacity used to capacity available should stay the same, rather than the capacity used remaining constant. This puts armor 4 taking up 12 capacity in a full cyberarm based on the amount of capacity it needs in a lower arm, or only 5.3 capacity in the lower arm. Taken to its full logical conclusion, this would mean that Armor 2 would use the full capacity of either as it uses the entire capacity provided by a cyberhand. As this is not the case, we can only assume that while it's likely still the same amount of armor in the arm, it's spread thinner over the entire limb - meaning that the guy with 4 armor on the full limb has thinner armor over their lower arm than would the guy with just a lower arm with 4 armor.

Or to look at it another way, let's start with the hand and work our way up. Bob the security guard wants a cyberhand with a radar sensor and a single point of armor (Bob occasionally has to handle some slightly hazardous materials and doesn't want to need too many repairs from this). After a bit of thought, and a bonus for stopping some pesky go-gang shooting up the corp's property, Bob decides to go ahead and get the half-limb instead, putting another 3 armor in the 6 added capacity this provides because he doesn't want to get shot again - even though the 4 armor he's now planning on will only provide 2 armor in conjunction with his standard-issule armored vest. After another bonus - this time for helping valuable personnel to safety after someone put teargas in the ventilation system - Bob again changes his mind and goes with the full cyberlimb, adding a biomonitor and internal air tank to protect against further such events. This last change - despite adding no additional armor to the limb that was being designed for him - doubles its protective value. Bob's bicep with no armor does just as much to protect him from getting shot as the lower arm that has nothing but armor - and the basic parts needed for movement.

First that wasn't the whole quote and I did not end that as a statement but a question. Please don't add punctuation to my posts. Second, how can anyone argue an acceptable reason in a "totally abstract armor system" based on the concepts of density, mass, minaturization, and even base materials that don't necessarily exist in our real world examples. The game only has to make sense to the point of suspension of disbelief. A threshold that is different for everyone granted, but not a finite line that can be measured in ratio's by comparing capacity of partial to full cyberlimbs. It wouldn't be a penalty if you reduced the capacity and cost, you'd just be buying half the armor.

I can play too. Why does vision magnification take 2 capacity and microscopic vision takes 3 when installed in cybereyes?? What is the weight displacement for an unarmored versus an armored vehicle, and shouldn't that extra mass slow acceleration without further engine modification? If you add armoring to a nautical vessel that wasn't designed with the armor in mind, would it sink or do you assume the additional armor cost/design takes this into account during the installation process?

So regarding cyberlimbs, let's try a different approach. The armor mod costs the same per rating and the same capacity regardless and the actual armor of the hand isn't really halved. If I took a gun and shot you at point blank in the armored hand, you'd get the full benefit of the full armor (or more feasibly if I did a called shot to that specific hand). The armor is halved because in a combat system where it isn't as important to know where as much as it is to know if, the armor rating on a smaller surface area has less chance to intercede and provide a direct benefit overall.

I'm not saying I don't see the point, I'm saying at some level you have to consider game balance and it is unreasonable to assume that if I armor my hand it's just as effective as armoring my whole arm.

The hand doesn't get thicker armor that's more easily penetrated, the hand gets the same armor that factors into the greater scheme of defense less than it would if that same armor covered more surface area.



Uh no, you don't reduce the ratio capacity of other implants that must be smaller to fit in a hand than an arm based on the decrease of capacity available to the partial limb, why should armor be any different? Capacity is a set limit that inherently dictates what will fit and what won't.



You don't piecemeal the arm together like that. Bob would first get his hand, then he'd get the lower arm as it's own, he doesn't keep the hand and then add the forearm, he gets the hand replaced with the forearm and the hand as one unit (thus the increased total capacity). When he goes for the arm, he has to get the whole arm replaced, the armor is added to the entire surface area and due to it's greater ability to interpose it factors more into the overall scheme so he now gets the full benefit.

Yeah, you're right that if armor is going to be less effective for partial cyberlimbs, then the cost and capacity should also go down. You're physically installing less stuff in the partial cyberlimb than in the full cyberlimb, so less material costs and less space for it to take up.

But I still maintain that with the abstracted armor system in Shadowrun, it's reasonable to limit the effectiveness of armor in partial cyberlimbs versus full cyberlimbs. The overall armor value you get is a generalized overall protection, coupled with the implied random location of any shots striking the character. So if you had a full armor suit armored to the same thickness as an armor jacket, it should provide you roughly twice the protection because it's giving you more overall protection. Hence, a partial cyberlimb that covers half the area could reasonably add less to the overall protection of the character than a full cyberlimb.

But to all reports, this isn't even a rule in SR4A, so I'm just saying that it wouldn't bother me if this was made a rule in the future.

Sorry, i don't know where that punctustion came from, i didn't ment to miss quote you.

Reviewing the changes in the errata I recommend that the
hand should have 1 point of armor
partial cyber limb 2 points
and full limb can have 4 points.

This limits insane levels of armor for little essense, but still keeps the spirit of the rules in place.

Omenowl hit the nail right on the head. Using his system, fully armouring a cyberhand uses 1/2 its capacity, fully armouring a partial cyberarm uses just a touch under 1/2 its capacity, and fully armouring a full cyberarm uses just a touch over 1/2 its capacity. It makes sense that welding the maximum amount of armour possible to the cyberware would use up proportionally the same amount of space in it, but applying this to larger limbs results in more armour gained.

It also makes sense if you look at it this way; theoretically, you could make a cyberhand bulky and slap 3 points of armour in it, but it doesn't matter how well-armoured the hand is if you don't get shot there. Omenowl's system meshes the capacity/armour issue with the abstract armour system quite well, imho, and it doesn't have any of the "pay full get half" armour silliness.