Seriously, according to Augmentation, the availability rating on the customization necessary to bring a cyberleg's stats up to match my starting troll's physical stats is +13. If the availability on a cyberleg were zero, I still couldn't get a proper leg. And it costs 1500Â¥ per point, so that brings the cost of a pair from 30K to almost 50KÂ¥. You'd think it would be just a matter of using bigger hydraulics or something. But the availability is the big problem for me.

And then I'm looking at the optimizations. For 5000Â¥, you can tweak the settings for your chosen line of work. Sounds easy enough. But the availability is not 4, it's +4. So I can't even use the Restricted Gear quality, since the availability of my legs has become more than 20. I guess I could drop one of the stats by one. *rolls eyes* So let's say I spend the extra five build points to get my hands on some restricted cyberlegs (what are they, permit-required?), and I choose not to optimize them (because nobody knows how to tweak legs that have this much power?), because I can upgrade them later. I'll just take my five thousand nuyen to a cyberclinic and... the availability on the software is 21. Legs (4) plus attribute customization (+13) plus optimization (4) equals 21. You'd better have a talented fixer.

First of all, am I reading this right? Am I missing something?

Second, what are your recommended house rules? My GM is kinda hardnosed about the rules, so if you have any suggestions to make things sound perfectly reasonable, I'd appreciate it.

And while I'm at it, why does it cost 1500Â¥ per point up to your natural attribute, and only 250 or so above that?

Personally, I have always treated it like this: the extra nuyen cost is there, but it does not start adding to availability until you have reached the base racial stats...Not RAW, but, it is the only way that makes sense...

Trolls are generally a very small portion of the population. It could be that this is part of why it's so difficult to get limbs that match them. Of course, orks are typically more common than dwarfs but the latter will typically have lower availability limbs, so... whatever.

I would just let standard cyberlimbs start at racial norm for agility and body, strength at racial average +1, and go from there with optimisation. When i saw that EVERY Cyberlimb started at 3/3/3 i thought to myself: Well this is one rule no GM would enforce. Can't be right, they meant for humans ONLY, of course *g*. Of course for Cyberlimbs i would enforce the +25% costs for trolls. More mass, better servos.

You'd be amazed at how many RAWdoggers we have here that will tell you that rule is in the book so it must be correct and you must use it or else your game is shit. I'm not one of them, and I'll agree with you that this is a bad rule.

mostly because the 1500 increases don't take up capacity, i figure.

Even if troll goods are more difficult to find, how could they be that difficult? They're legal. All the other legal items that have an availability of 12 are highly specialized gear. Breakable tooth compartment, sim rig, gecko gloves, cybertorso... or a Huey. And you'd think augmented limbs would be fairly common. I mean, you're getting new legs, why not build them stronger, faster than before?

If you start the availability at troll average, you save eight points. But if then you stopped at average, your new troll legs wouldn't be any harder to find than human legs. Hmm, I think I'd rather go with a flat increase per meta-race, and no increase for customization. Or maybe a flat increase for any customization. I don't think it should be any harder to find a STR 10 troll leg than a STR 9 troll leg. Okay, maybe a little bit. Attribute increase divided by 3?

Human limb: 4
Elf, ork, dwarf limb: +2
Troll limb: +3
Attribute increase customization up to natural attribute: rating total above human average (3) plus racial bonus / 2

This gives my heavy duty troll leg an Av of 10. But my troll is several points short of maxing his attributes. This means an average troll can find a leg at an Av of 7. But since almost nobody plays average trolls, the real Av is going to be between 8 and 11. Reasonable? Should it still be higher, and reach into that restricted range (12+)?

Wait, I just found another WTF. Body and strength increases above your natural ratings is Restricted.

"Sir, I need to see the permit for your cyberlegs."
"What?"
"They're clearly stronger than the rest of your body."
"But I just went through chemo. I just need to get back in shape."
"Tell it to the judge."

Good luck with your GM. I had never really looked at the rules that closely for cyberlimbs but I have to say, "That's messed up." See if you can get your GM to agree that Rule 0 should be in effect.

err, availability only comes into use when there is black market involved, iirc...

so for most trolls that have their papers and medical coverage in order, i would suspect that there would be no problem getting a fully matched limb...

now for a sinless troll out in the barrens, the story may well be a totally different one...

err, availability only comes into use when there is black market involved, iirc...
And starting characters have a limit of 12.

Few shadowrunners have their papers in order. Oh, except for the fake SIN. Which can't be used at chargen.

Umm no. Body,Agility and Strenght increases above your metatypes natural-maximums is Restricted, for the same reason that mucle toner/augmentation is(whatever that may be).

Hmmm, the whole purpose of cyberlimbs, is to help some unfortunate accident victim to overcome his handicap. Bending steel bars, or kicking in bank vaults is not a primary design.

Anything above that level of stat is going to be a "special" model, perhaps even SOTA to get to those numbers. I have no difficulty with a GM deciding that they are less available (actually I see nothing wrong with a GM deciding the other way either). If there is an important reason that you want a high powered cyberlimb, explain to the GM that this is important to you beginning character concept, offer to wash his car, loan him you girlfriend, or whatever. Most GMs will make an exception if the players feel it is important, as long as you don't go over the top (str 10, ag 7 cyberlimb is not a character creation item)

Ah. I read it wrong. Thank you.


I have no trouble with customized cyberlimbs being harder to find. What I do have trouble with is the availability being on par with the rarest of legal items. And that's with the attributes of my current character, who doesn't have anything maxed. My plea is going to be that the legs are central to my character concept, and if I can't get them, I may as well scrap him. Sounds kinda whiny, doesn't it?

materials that have the same capabilities as troll flesh and bone may be hard to come by...

especially ones one start to consider weight...

I gotta go with the 'price for being a cybertroll' side of the argument. Couple of reasons.

1) As others have said, trolls are the least common of the major metatypes, typically making up less than 1% of the population.

2) The fact that this 1% also requires cyberlimbs that are significantly different in terms of scale than 'normal' also contributes. Elves and humans would be largely interchangable and an average Ork isn't a whole lot bigger than a large human so those two at least are fine. Dwarves are a bit of a sticking point but this can be addressed by the fact that dwarves are reasonably well represented in the tech fields however so it would make sense that dwarves would get more attention.

3) As a demographic, trolls are pretty damn poor. Urban trolls typically survive on a crap salary as a security guard, as long as it isn't anywhere that the clientele would be put off by a troll, as manual labour assuming that management didn't decide that drones were cheaper, or as a gang member. These aren't the sort of people who have health insurance, doc-wagon contracts, or savings accounts. If there is a demographic that typically can't afford to buy your product, then you don't market to them or make products to suit their needs.

4) Like Orcus said the whole purpose of cyberlimbs is to replace normal bodyparts that have been lost due to an accident or disease. Even if a troll did have health insurance and could afford a replacement limb there isn't really any need for it to be any stronger than 4 or 5 to support his weight and let him live a normal life. He won't be as strong as he used to be, but he'd still have use of the limb.

5) There is also a lot of fairly entrenched racism against trolls. By 2070, most people have accepted Elves, Dwarves and even Orks into the larger society. Trolls are still big mean scary monsters though. A troll with big shiny cyberlimbs is even scarier.

A couple points to consider (though not much help for the huge scary troll Samurai at the table)-

1) Without going into customized cyberlimbs at all, you can get one up to Strength and Body 6 using just enhancements (without needing to plug it into a cybertorso). That's only 1 less than the average for Trolls.

2) With customization, you can get average troll Strength and Body on your cyberlimb without going above the Availability 12 cap on starting gear.

3) Combining the two, you can actually manage a Cyberarm or leg with Strength, Agility, and Body all at the Troll's unaugmented maximum - and it can even be fit in the capacity allotted for a Synthetic Cyberarm. Going with an obvious Cyberlimb leaves you 7 more capacity for other toys to be put into it.

4) While possibly still somewhat poor by Runner standards, the above capabilities are more than enough for normal users. And this is - as others have pointed out - for the least populous and most discriminated against metatype.

Let's face it, Cyberlimbs basically suck compared to other enhancements, except being cool (and that is debatable).

So if a player makes the choice of actually taking them for some flavor reason (and after making sure, he does understand the ramifications) I would not screw him over even more by enforcing high availability and a huge jump in price just for being a troll (or orc, since the tougher members of that race got similar problems).

I don't know, i kinda like my Sasha's cyber-arm with agility 10, armor 2 and gyromount.

Which is kinda hard to achieve by RAW. So Sasha is an Elf (or any other non-Troll with either Genetic Optimisation or Exeptional Attribute) to reach an augmented maximum of 10 for Agility.
You have to buy a customised Cyberarm with starting Agility of 7 and Cyberlimb Enhancement Agility +3 (that's 21750 Availability 8/9)
Adding to this Armor +2 and gyromount accounts for another 6600 . This also costs 1 point of essence in total and you get an additional box on your damage track.

I agree, this is a pretty good bargain. But what are the downsides to this?

You made the choice to play an agile character (being Elf or spending another 45k and 0,2 essence / 20BP for being able to reach Agility 10).
So it is expensive or you lack the boost of an orc or dwarf for Body. But by picking a cyberarm you abandon the bioware path of boosting agility (or pay double). You give up the options of Orthoskin (or again: pay double). Bone Lacing/Density? Out!(unless I missed a ruling on this) And you are stuck with a Body /Strength 3 Cyberarm (unless you pay for boosting this aswell).

For certain character concepts this tweaked arm might be a pretty good buy at chargen, if you plan on utilizing a high agility across the board it won't. The bioware solution is more expensive: 30BP for Agility 6 instead of 3 (obviously less if you plan on cyberarm + high agility anyway), 5 BP for Restricted Gear and +4k for Muscle Toner 4.

The gyromount is the main selling point though.

But looking at a Troll (or Orc) with average Strength and Body the price goes through the roof. Not even accounting for availability issues, you screwed yourself out of a lot of nuyen just to break even with average stats. Let's not even think about a high body/high strength char. And a Body 8 / Strength 8 Troll with a Body 3 / Strength 3 Cyberarm ist just wrong. Hi there Willy Weakhand.

Yes i admit that getting muscle toner 4 for overall agility 10 would have been cheaper(that arm ended up costing 32 650 and 1 point of essence), but i wanted her to have a cyberhand so i desided to get all advantages i could out of that hand and make it a nice for shooting somebody to face for money.

Both of those work just as well even if you have a cyberarm according the RAW.

I recall an issue from SR2-3 of certain a player in my group that wanted to adapt troll limbs to their tiny human frame. The baseline 3 stats might be just a simple way to explain why you can't just walk into the cyberclinic and point at the troll bits with your good arm and yell "I want that one!" Also avoids the argument that comes from explaining to a player that his human cyberlimb starts out at 3, and no you don't care what the base stats on that one are, and no you don't know why you couldn't just buy a little arm with that high of a strength, and no the store doesn't sell armor piercing arrows.

Cyberlimbs aren't perfect, but I'd err with the explanation that trolls are under represented. Evo might have some better options for a troll player looking for a new limb, but that's up to the GM to handle in game. I don't think it merits a rules rewrite, a GM can handle it easily on a case by case basis to suit the play style of their games.

I'm remembering a comic I read, where the robot character completely fails to intimidate the Hero's Girlfriend. She points out that he was built by the lowest bidder, his limbs don't have any more strength then was deemed absolutely necessary to do his job, and he's mostly plastic and not titanium. In short, she could snap him like an action figure, because he wasn't built milspec. Turns out he was built to cry, though.

I get why the limbs would default to a average score of three, and why it might be really hard to find tractor-pull grade limbs to bolt onto a Troll. On the other hand, (pun intended) even a 1% percent population is a huge market for somebody, and it would be easy to justify a higher percentage of those Trolls getting themselves shot up because of their penchant for security work. SOMEBODY has got to be chroming Trolls, you just gotta find the guy.

The Availability limit for character creation makes some sense to me - it's the reason my Rigger's van doesn't yet have an assault cannon - but once the game is in play it can be gotten around with roleplaying and dealmaking. The easiest way to get cutting-edge, highly-illegal gear has always been taking it off the smoking corpse of the overconfident wannabe who thought he could double-cross your team.

Bah, just another way the Breeders keep a Trog down.

Yep, and damn proud of it!