One of my players is playing a doctor who is a bit enterprising.
He is gearing up and scrounging funds to run his own bio/cyber-clinic.

What level of facilities does one need to install the various grades of equipment?
Augmentation specifies that both Beta and Delta ware require tuning and crafting to the specific user, but I found the details for these adjustments (aside from the price tag) nebulous or non-existent.

I have already mentioned to the player that setting up a Delta-clinic would require millions of as well as some high level backing. However, Alpha and Beta are within the range of possibilities.

Any insight into this matter would be appreciated.

As a rule of thumb, I'd just take the price mods of the grades as a general guideline, so a single facility able to process alphaware would cost 200k , one for beta 400k and one for delta 1 million.
Add the costs of specialised staff, medication and care (with the same cost mod) and everything above alpha becomes the realm of playing a successful streetdoc instead of a shadowrunner (and therefore unusable for regular games).

Your not a streetdoc at all at that point, you are a successful cybersurgeon with admitting privileges, a payroll, leases, equipment maintenance contracts, PR people, an accountant, an attorney on retainer, etc.

It is going to be hard to figure out why you are risking your neck shooting people in the face for money....

He was a successful cyber-surgeon before.
However, certain habits and activities that he indulged in lead to a "fall from grace".
He doesn't seemed to be aimed at regaining a respectable career or becoming that what he was.


This seems like a reasonable starting point for the discussion.
If he has a million or so on hand and decides to go this way then retirement may be in the cards for the character as a PC.

He has also explicitly stated that he wants to be able to install cyber/bio ware himself to reduce the cost for his team and for himself.

First of all, alpha 'ware does not require specialized equipment.
Everybody who does cybersurgery offers alphaware in SR4.
All hospitals offer betaware as well.
Keep that in mind before demanding price increases for the equipment.

Setting up shop as a street doc and offering standard, alpha and betaware isn't that hard, though the question remains wether running such a facility leaves enough time for shadowrunning.
However, depending on the type of facility, this can lead to a full-blown campaign of it's own.
For example, he could be the only provider of medical care in a part of the barrens, which would almost automatically draw him into conflicts with rivaling local gangs and such.
If your group is interested, this may be worth looking into.

When we're talking about a clinic, however, this means that he'll need a lot of employees.
Assisting surgeons and physicians, nurses, medical-technical assistants for the lab, radiology and other installations, janitors, launderers, cooks, accountants, IT guys, security personell.

If he wants to offer services above standard, he'll also need a healing mage.
If he also wants to offer nanoware, he'll need a specialist for nanite programming as well.

Then, a clinic requires an appropriate building to set up shop in.
Former hotels can be easily converted.

Medical facilities will also have to be bought several times if he wants to treat more than one patient at a time.

All in all, a full-blown shadow clinic will inevitably cost millions, no matter what grade.

How do you figure? The fluff examples of shadow clinics and street docs is basically a seedy looking room, the doctor and perhaps a nurse or two perform whatever operations you needed.

Now if you were setting up a HOSPITAL, that would be a different story. Clinic != Hospital.

No offense, kzt, because you're hardly the lone purveyor of this silly idea, but...well, it's a silly idea.

A major thrust of Shadowrun is that a doctor could end up in the shadows just as easily as anyone else could. Do you only ever play Gutterpunk X that was born a rat, lives like a rat, and is only ever gonna be a rat? If you do, more power to you, but that would bore me to tears after, oh, the first time. So you write the backstory and you have yourself a doctor that's a shadowrunner now. I mean hell, give him the SINner quality and tell your GM he's a doctor. Booyah! You have yourself a doctor that's a shadowrunner now.

The game is there so you can play characters you like and are interested in. It's no harder to figure out why a doctor is running than it is anyone else.

Those two statements have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Every Car mechanic can change your tires as well as your engine, but they still require different tools. Simply because everyone who wants to work in a specific field has all the special tools doesn't mean that there aren't any special tools...

So your backstory is that you are Damon Knight. Cool so now we have a trillionare that is a shadowrunner. Cool. Next week we'll develop my new shadowrunner, whose concept is that he also happens to own Sader-Krupp.

RTFM.
Augmentation makes delta-grade surgery entirely dependent on the skill of the surgeon, as long as a medical facility or even only a shop is present.

Granted, the TN rises from 4 to 20 and you have to prepare the implant in advance instead of using off-the-rack parts.
But the equipment used is just the same for all grades.

By RAW, it's the personell that makes the difference.
And of course, you need higher-grade implants in the first place.
But that's it.



Well, that's the example for street docs.
A shadow clinic, on the other hand, is still a clinic.
There was a floorplan for one in Sprawl Sites and it looked like a scaled-down hospital.
You won't have as many patients, therefore you'll need fewer beds.
But patients still have to recover from major cybersurgery.

A shadow clinic, where you can get personal augmentations implanted, is quite different from a street doc who stitches up people after a firefight without asking questions.

There's certainly particularly seedy shadow clinics, but the OP didn't sound as if his player wanted to set up one of those.

You may want to take a look at the table on p.175 of Augmentation to get an overview over the services offered by various medical providers.

To give a further reference :


It's unlikely that the OP's player wants to run a general hospital, but he certainly wants more than just a seedy looking room.

Anyway, i've done some research, digging through the rule books.
If i would want to set up a business like that, i'd probably deal with the rooms according to the expanded lifestyle rules in RC.
Comforts should be middle at least, better high.
Necessities should be middle to high with the Workspace Quality included.
Neighborhood and Security as desired, Entertainment low-middle at best (unless you want to include a full-blown wellnes centre, of course).

On top of that, you'll of course have to include some of the equipment from Augmentation.
A single medical facility is said to enable you to treat up to 8 patients at once, while providing a Rating10 medkit.
For the start, this may be sufficient, but one should keep in mind that tailoring beta- and delta grade implants or growing cloned organs on your own also uses up space that will not be available for patient treatment.
If you really want to offer advanced services, you'll need more than a single facility, especially if you want to provide genetic treatments, which will take up space for an extended period of time.

Note that elite shadow clinics usually offer geneware, betaware, basic hospitalization and intensive care, nanoware, nanocybernetics and magical healing.
If you want to offer all of these services, you should include a couple of rooms with hospital beds, at least two facilities, several nurses, a magical healer and some other surgeons and physicians.
Other services may be taken care of by drones and contracted workers, as covered by the lifestyle costs to run the practice.

Also keep in mind that at least one nurse should be present around the clock and that at least one doctor should be there to respond to emergencies as well.

A successful cybersurgeon wouldn't "fall from grace" to run the shadows. He might get extracted by another corp and have his illicit activities used against him as blackmail to ensure compliance. But to actually operate a cyberclinic would require too much time and money input from the character for them to still operate as a shadowrunner. If your character really wants to do this, and actually has the money, I'd say its just time to retire them from the game.

Thanks for all the input so far!

This segment:
in particular was giving me issues with its ambiguity.

With a proper medical facility and a cyberware shop and lots of time on his hands, I wager our doc will be capable of at least properly chroming up the sammie.

Any thoughts on how much cyberware would cost if you could eliminate the costs normally tacked on such as surgery, after-market markup, etc?

Damn, i overread the "some very expensive components" part.
Sorry, Dragnar.
Guess i should've read the fucking manual a bit closer.

However, these components are required only for beta- and delta grade ware.
So while alphaware just requires standard facilities or even just a shop, your idea for increasing the prices of medical equipment according to the price increase for 'ware grades may be a good starting point.

I think he means once his doctor is set up with his own medical facility and gets up a decent client base, there isn't alot of point in the doctor risking his life to shoot people for money when he has virtually risk free income (likely larger income) operating on people.

There are totally reasons for a doctor to be forced into the shadows, but there is rarely a reason for a practicing doctor who owns his own clinic to run in the shadows (While still having his clinic in operation)



It says "Tailoring a cybernetic implant is an involved process that requires a medical facility or a cybertechnology shop, some very expensive
components..." which indicates that it is talking about expensive components which go into the implant, not the shop/facility. Which makes sense. It is these mystical 'components' which advance regular cyberware from basic to alpha to beta to delta.

Power to you man. But now everyone who wants to is playing the CEO and majority stock holder of a AA or AAA mega or other major world power and although we are using the same mechanics rules, man did the game just change... Shadowrun, The Game of Thrones and Espionage

Alternativly:
Of course Damien Knight is a Shadowrunner, he was replaced when a hacker and a doppleganger got in and changed all his accesses and took his place back during the crash and he was forced out onto the streets with no SIN or access to his own wealth. Now the choise is in the GM's hands: are you a crazy person who thinks he's Damien, or are your really Damien.
A question for the advanced class: Does it matter if the story is true?

I would point out the PC in question was made for the game, most likely using the rules, I had a vetranarian (specialising in Paracritters) who had turned to Shadowrunning in my last game. He was a good medic and after a very small amount of karma he was also passable with a pistol and some light computer work. He also had broader background in magic, Threats and parazoology the the teams mage. His presence got the team some interesting runs cause every so often the Client asks if the Fixer knows anyone who has experiance with live animals (etc etc), guess who comes to mind? You cannot make a Trillionare with the rules and anyone like this "has fallen on hard times". Don't beleive its possible? Don't allow it in your games.

Yes once you've got a 1.2 million nY (a number I pulled out of the air just now) fully equiped betaware facility and a fully functioning staff and patients you are probably done shadowrunnung the same way someone who buys a small private island in the Carribian staffed with a personal army is probably done shadowrunning.

Seeing someone being able to apologize is rare, especially over the internet, so no hard feelings.
And it doesn't even matter too much if you interpret the price hike as "special tools" or "special (more expensive) nanite feedstock to better integrate the ware" or whatever. It was just meant as an quick and usable abstraction anyways.

I don't see anything concrete on how much those mystical 'components' would cost, so I think I am going to make a rough guesstimate and say that without labor, beta and delta wares cost half as much as the list price for these just for mystical 'components' and parts (assembly required).

Why do we have field doctors in the armed forces, where they could get shot at instead of taking those skills to a civilian hospital?

Why do some doctors chose to go to third world countries and treat the people there instead of staying where its safe and they can have all the comforts they want?


Not everyone runs for the same reasons. There are as many different reasons to shadowrun, as there are players and characters in the game.

And not every shadowrun is about shooting people in the face for money.

I like shooting people in the foot for money, for instance.

You can be facetious all you like, but in a nutshell, yeah, if that's the character and game you want. But the idea that just because somebody is technically skilled at doing something other than shooting someone in the face they can't possibly have any reason to be a shadowrunner is ridiculous.

Corporations employ gunbunnies, don't they? Why doesn't your street samurai just get a job?

I mean, he has 14 dice when he shoots somebody with a pistol/automatic/longarm/taser/whatever. There's no way at all he'd just be running the shadows.

What characters do you play? I'm genuinely curious, not setting you up or anything. If you don't recognize a character with skills that would make them a competent physician, what do you allow them to be good at?



You might be right about what kzt is getting at. I'm sure he'll correct me if you are.

But to answer your question: because the player wants the character to do that? That's why we play these games, isn't it? To do shit that we think is cool? There are shadow clinics and cyberdocs all throughout the fiction and fluff. Okay, now you're one of them, but it never really was just about money for you. You like the action. You like sticking it to Ares every chance you get. Go.

Well, for quite a few of them, the military probably paid for their education and chance to practice medicine so they have a set amount of required service years.



Hush, it makes one feel better when you backstab other shadowrunners to think that they're all in it for the money.

And isn't -that- a wonderful reason to shadowrun?

"Congratulations on your graduation, and with honours too, I see. School is over now. We made you a loan, Doctor, you really should have read the fine print. You work for us now, and we need a few ...favors..."