Since you're talking about commlinks, and said "have" instead of "had," I'm assuming you're talking SR4. I wasn't, and I thought I was pretty clear about that.

Don't think of it as a stat boost; think if it as a really cheap SKILL boost. +3 agility = +3 dice to almost any combat attack, plus a lot of other skills. +3 strenght is +3 running and some other stuff. That's really nice.
Some folks (say, anybody who fights in HtH, or works as a sniper, or just has to run down other low lifes / evade the cops) would want that over an extra 2 IPs.
Plus, being able to bench press a motorcyle does more for you "street cred" (and intimidation rolls) than being a twitchy guy who needs to get in a dozen gunfights to earn a rep.

As I said, SR4 and 4A made things like contacts and glasses an acceptable alternative. However, my SR play goes back before SR4 when things like goggles were actually less beneficial. That being said, if my character has the money and the essence to spare (for whatver reason), there is something to be said for having them hardwired and not something that can be found/taken away as easily. In fact, I think I just came up with a new effective use of the Magic Fingers spell (take glasses and/or contacts if you can detect them off of someone).

As far as the Reaction vs. Agility thing goes, you have to keep in mind that Agility is basically the default stat for anything that requires coordination. Palming, Infiltration, shooting, punching, lockpicking, balance and more is all Agility. Heck, if you want to be a truly capable with a wide variety of weapons you're likely better off hard-capping Agility rather than trying to cram in high levels of both Close Combat and Firearms into your build. Defaulting to 10 agility can make you into quite the generalist.

I will take +2 combat ACTIONS over +3 skill any day of the week. Plus, shooting first has its perks as well.

And going full defense (with a higher dice pool) and shooting the opponents afterwards isn't bad either.

Arguably, no.

Mapsofts are just digital maps of areas that periodically download the latest official versions from the Matrix. You can take the time to "create a custom map" through the "interactive interface", but from the sounds of it I would interpret that to mean that you can add points of data or information that otherwise would not be on a general purpose, every day usage map. You also still need to take the time to read and understand the map. Compare that to the Orientation System.

My reading of this is that the orientation system is a much more in-depth system. It's more than just a digital map, it's a full position tracking suite that displays in your HUD. It contains a gryoscopic compass (handy when you can't access GPS) and specifically works to keep you oriented in mapless areas (like secret corp research facilities) by projecting pertinent data like distance and direction traveled directly into your field of view. On top of that, its integrated mapping software is designed for usage in unmapped areas, as opposed to mapsofts which are merely customizable pre-existing maps. And if nothing else, the maps made via orientation systems are in 3D (as opposed to the simple 2D mapsoft versions) because your orientation system can also detect your vertical distance traveled via gygroscopic forces.

Now, combine your orientation system with a radar sensor and you can suddenly make 3D maps and floorplans. So you've snuck into an Aztechnology research center via (what else?) a sewer, and after crawling through some vents you find yourself in a broom closet. Your rating 4 radar sensor can see through the walls and door (eatting up, say, 8 barrier penetration) and you can now see unimpeded for 100m, or until the next wall. You are able to see the entire hallway beyond the broom closet, everyone and everything in that hallway (even Invisible or camouflaged) and you can also see through the walls on the opposite site of the hallway (eatting up another 8 barrier penetration) and can now see the entirety of the rooms behind those walls and everything in them as well until you reach your third wall (which your remaining 2 barrier penetration can't beat). You can also now map the entire scene into a flawless floorplan via your orientation system, as well as patch the data to your teammates.

Plus, you can sense in all three dimensions. You can see through the ceiling to the level above, as well as through the floor to the level below. You can make floorplans of these areas as well, noting potential threats at the same time, without ever actually stepping foot on either of these level. The only possible inhibitions are really thick walls and radar jamming.

~Umidori

my fav is leonization treatment. Seriously who doesn't want to live forever, or at least add 60 yeas back onto your life.

worst. adrenal pump, so much cool wrapped in a pile of fail.

I've always interpreted this as taking the higher of the Reaction bonuses and IP for Initiative purposes, but using the full Reaction enhancement from both Reaction Enhancers and Wired Reflexes/MbW/Synaptic Boosters for all other Reaction- based rolls - such as: Dodge Tests, Vehicle Tests, Full Defense, and others.

Agi is great for many. REA is great for everyone. You can easily make a mage with 1 agility who will kill easily and still be able to defend himself from attack. Not so without reaction. You need much less reaction to be able to dodge a hit than you'd need body to soak damage. And the latter can be more easily boosted with armor.



One advantage of cybereyes is that they are less likely of being taken from you, no hassle about cleaning lenses or maybe loosing them, and extremely high capacity.
Glasses etc. are good for mages, but for cybercharacters taking cybereyes is a no-brainer unless you're really short on cash.

Quite the contrary IMHO. Visual Aids have very limited use for mages, since only purely optical enhancements allow spellcasting. IR and Lowlight vision for example are right out.
Mundanes however suffer no penalties for using visual aids instead of cyberware. While cybereyes are cheap and less removable, sometimes you may still want to use visual aids, especially when the character has one or more inherent enhancements.

This is a thoroughly disappointing item for me too.

I had to create a sammy for a relative newbie and thought he'd get a real kick out of being able to change his arm to suit the circumstances. On the face of it it really excited me too and I thought it was going to be great. So, he has his standard arm, a bike tool kit arm, a medikit arm and a grapple arm (I thought I'd leave the uber-cool drone hand as something to aim for).

So what difference does it make?

Medikit - "I pull my medikit out of my bag and try to patch him up."
Medikit arm module - "I pull my medikit arm out of my bag, swap it with my current module and then try to patch him up."

In both mechanical and thematic terms, it's less convenient, not more.

You might think it's better for being open to remote piloting, but normal medikits are too (and in my game other toolkits have the same functionality - why not?).
You might think that it helps by not having to carry the manual equivalent, but most of them (such as the medikit) doesn't include a hand for doing non-medical stuff and if you want to use another attachment you have to carry that anyway.

As Mongoose asserted, there is no reason any of the cyberam modules cannot be replicated for handheld use (and realistically this version should have hit the shelves long before the cyberlimb version) so even the grapple hand and the drone hand are extravagantly pointless.

Essentially, a cyberarm module is a tool that constantly occupies one of your hands between uses. Instead of carrying a bag of equipment on a run you're now carrying a bag of arms that need to be switched every time you need something different, which is no good at all when every second counts.

I keep racking my brains for a way to make modules beneficial and thought maybe eliminating wound modifiers would make sense (especially useful for med-tests on yourself!) but although the task is being done by presumably undamaged machinary it still requires the character's skill and concentration which should both be hampered by injury.

So what then, bonus dice? Reduced threshold?

If anyone can see some functionality that I've overlooked, or can think of a good house rule to make these things more use than hindrance I'd be really glad to hear it!

Merely switching hands is a bit iffy, yeah. But switching arms has it's uses. One with armored one with razor coverage for grappling and one smoother one for cuddling your girlfriend..

Best Item: Cyber-arm

Made my first character last year, and I had to make an ork street samurai with a cyberarm featuring gyromount, spurs and a silenced hold-out. It's not necessarily the best bit of gear, but it illustrates the "inhumanity of man" paradox that is such a cool theme in Shadowrun, and in a very graphic way too. So it's a favorite for fluffy, not tactical, reasons.

Worst: Nanocybernetics

Horribly broken and hard to control, the only thing I would get is blue goo - In my chronicles I handwave how most of it works because the rules are hell. Again, definitely not the 'worst' augmentation, but the one I like least from a fluff perspective.

See, for example, Manuel in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. He had about seven prosthetic arms. One was almost indistinguishable from a real arm and was for social occaisons, one had some sort of electronic tools instead of fingers for computer work... I don't remember all of them but he swapped them out pretty frequently.

And for those who need hands to do things? If they can dodge well but can't take down much of a threat on their action phase then in combat terms what you have are long-lasting wastes-of-space.

Good point that dodging is easier than damage soaking (in terms of attributes) but the widespread applications of agility cannot be ignored. Don't forget the infiltration skill is linked to agility and with that you can bypass a lot of nasty encounters altogether.

I have long said this:

Infiltration > Dodge > Armor.

The Raptor legs are now one of these modules, if you have legs you can swap out for better running/kicking, or instead go for the more normal look, etc. Also remember, the stuff published in the books is what the corps make. They make this to either turn a profit, or to make their employees more useful in a cost effective manner. That being said, Shadowrunner usefulness is something that they rarely consider when designing cyber.

Personally, I think the best use of modular cyber is beyond the pre-made modules. For example, I made a street doc with 1 cyber hand (modular setup). He has 1 hand with hand razors, snake fingers, and is basically built as a surgery hand. Another hand has gyroscopic stabilizers. Etc.

In fact, I was VERY excited to see modular cyber finally make its way into SR. As far back as SR2 I had a GM that allowed me to come up with modular eyes (bear in mind, eyese didn't have the capacity they do now). The premise was that the ocular casing and nerve connections were standard, but the core lens unit could be swapped out.

Depending on how bad your situation is, cybereyes can be pretty easy to take away from someone, and when they are taken away, that leaves you pretty well screwed.

Basically, if someone can take your contacts, they can take your eyes too.

How do you figure? I've seen people (myself included) whose contacts were knocked loose fairly simply. Yet, I'm fortunate enough to have never seen anyone's eye popped out. Contacts are much easier to lose or get thrown off then an eye is.

...and anyone capable of taking your cybereyes is also capable of taking your meateyes...

As a general rule of thumb, I'd say any time someone's in a position to start removing cyber parts -- be they eyes or otherwise -- you're screwed enough it doesn't matter which bits are meat and which are metal, by that point.

You ever roll to see if your contacts stay in during a run?
Besides, if that were really a problem, then the contacts would be made full eye contacts like clubbers or makeup people use.

Also, yeah, I do think it's more likely for a captured runner to have their cybereyes electronicly disabled along with the rest of their cyberware than it is that their captor will slice up their eyeballs just for giggles. Once someone gets physical access to your PAN, they can switch you off, brother.

Once you are captured all bets are off. And no, I don't make players randomly roll to see if they lose a contact. However, what I was talking about it something akin to either a Magic Fingers spell, or a Disarm attempt (using a thwack upside the head), or something along those lines. Mid combat your contacts are more vulnerable. From a captured/helpless position you are hosed no matter what. Similarly, it doesn't matter if they are contacts or eyes if your PAN is hacked; but then you are helpless from a digital perspective.

Yes, but if your contacts are hacked, you can still see.

First off, most of that Gear will inlcude an Image Link to allow a Smart Link. so if your lenses are hacked, they can be turned opaque and you won't see anything until taking them off.

Additionally, advanced cyberware grades have quite better device ratings and allow for better defenses. Given Strong Encryption, fixed DNI admin and internal routing, having your control of your cyberware subverted is pretty much never going to happen.

Yeah, but you can get along without your lens. You can't get along without your cybereyes.

And I thought we were talking about basic grade cybereyes. No one has mentioned this as being deltaware eyes, or even alphaware. Doubling the cost takes alot of the glamor out of 'it's a cheap piece of cyberware' argument.

Basic cyberware is what? A rating 4 device? Not all that hard to hack into. Of course most people will just have it linked directly to their Pan, so if someone grabs your commlink, then they can just shut off your eyes with no difference between if it is basic or delta grade.

But yeah, they'll need to take your commlink. But then again, this is the same level of defense your contacts will have, so we're once again in the situation where if one fails the other fails, but if the contacts fail you can take them out and still see, but if your cybereyes fail you are blind.

I guess it's sort of a game specific thing. In my games, there's a lot more subdual and non-lethal (or simply overwhelming) force where capture is a major concern if you botch a run. In those situations, the options are usually: flip sides, wait for help or escape. If someone shuts off your eyes, that can really limit your options and put you in a bad bargaining position.

And, the threat of imminent death is a pretty good means of subverting control of your cyberware. The old "you have six seconds to comply..5...4..." works wonders on people who like to keep living.


Maybe I'm just prejudiced against cybereyes since I can't imagine a techno-future where goggles are not HOT and FASHION. Besides that, the air is probably toxic enough to burn your eyes without them, so walking down the street wearing wicked tech googlies is more likely the rule than the exception.

Actually, I'd say that reaction is a great stat if you want a false sense of security. Wide bursts are great for knocking dodge monkeys down a peg, and unless you're going all in on being a combatant (which, contrary to popular belief, isn't necessary for every character at every table), you're unlikely to be good at dodging AND soaking damage. I've gotten away with playing characters with completely mediocre 3-5 Reaction scores plenty of times. Ideally, you keep your nose out of the samurai's business. And when that's not possible? Use Edge to get the drop and take 'em out with your nice Agility score. Ultimately, high Reaction is a luxury stat for all but drivers whereas agility is a prerequisite for meat combatants and infiltrators.

Boy, lots of replies...



True, cybereyes is more useful for mages than lenses. If you have racial darkvision of some sort, it's not that much of a problem. Your smartlink and vision enchancement will still work, even if you can't zoom in with the lenses and still hit with spells. You could always bring some binocs tho.
But many mages abhors cyberware and simply will not take it, in which case they have at least 1 better magic and lenses/glasses.

For other characters it's mostly about what you can afford. Adepts are probably better off with lenses as well.




You still have hands with average agility. Infiltration is a valid point, but then again invisibility spells can make up for that alot.




And then they can take your meat eyes as already mentioned. Point is, most people are more likely to take off glasses or goggles than ripping out eyes, cyber or not.
Also, for fluff reasons, cybereyes is probably more comfortable than lenses. And then it's the capacity thing.




You'd naturally want BOTH good agility and reaction. And armor as well. A good sammie probably has all three. For a mage however I'd rather have Reaction 5(augmented) Agility 3 than the other way around. You can use edge on infiltration as well so that's a moot point. But when the time comes for mr random mook you overlooked to shoot you, having those extra few dice can make a world of difference - quite frankly life or death.

Again though, not everyone is a mage. Mages are honestly the only archetype that can genuinely hope to get away with a craptacular agility score and even mages benefit from having enough to consistently score a hit or three on an Infiltration, Palming or Gymnastics test. Further, the Edge issue is not actually a moot point since Edge can guarantee you go first unless the grunts start using up their rather limited pools of group Edge in response. Meanwhile, you can still use Edge and fail an Infiltration test. The only way to minimize that possibility is to be a Mr. Lucky, burn Edge or have a decent Agility or Infiltration score to back up your Edge roll to begin with.

Or have Masking/Improved Masking, a couple Physical Camouflage spells active, ruthenium polymer coating on whatever you're wearing, and a spirit's Concealment power. Nothing like having a -20+ to Perception Tests to see you.

A well-built mage can sleaze through a lot of things, its true, but they have to sustain spells and use services to do so and still have to contend with wards. It's certainly manageable, of course, but mages are frankly stupidly powerful in whatever niche they decide to put their minds to-- to be honest, they don't really need Reaction either, since Possession cheese can take care of a lot of things if tanking is what you have in mind and even the materialization traditions can make themselves very hard to hit even before you factor in Reaction.

But again, as I have implied earlier, there's more to the game than Mages. If I was forced to choose I'd rather take great Agility and average Reaction on a Face, Infiltrator or Adept than vice versa.

I thought of one maybe decent use for modular limbs

Modular limbs sketch

What meta wouldn't want to carry around a set of human hands?

Don't get me wrong, modular limbs themselves rock. Being able to take of an obvious limb loaded with all sorts of illegal / combat oriented stuff and pop on a nice legal syntetic limb is great. Its the stuff that is designed to go in them that sucks. Cyber-Skates? Really? Your telling me no atheletic gear compnay makes inline skates with boots any more? Or better, ones with boots and nice wide smart-wheels, so that the wheels can re-configure as "smart soles" when you want to walk?

As for the Muscle replacement vs wired reflexes debate; Muscle Repalcement 3 is less than half the cost in Nuyen. Of course its not as good. But if you have a 20K cap, used Muscle Replacement plus some other stuff could be the way to go. Not a common situation for a PC, but entirely reasonable for an NPC. Like some weapons, some implants are mostly intended for NPC use.
I always thought it would be fun to make a "redneck cyberzombie"- somebody who somehow had access to cybermancy, but no cash. Something like 10 essence worth of cyber for under 20K¥... what's the best options there???

Do they really have to list every piece of cyber gear as a normal gear as well? Of course skates are out there, your GM just says $100 and you move on.

The real irony behind that is the amount of overhead required to make a cyberzombie in the first place to strap such a small value of cyber into.

So, human hands. . . is that the 2070's version of Jazz Hands?

Yes, it was there, I took it

And an implanted commlink is still a favorite piece of gear, just from coolness value. Now, the pro/con argument for it for shadowrunning is long, but for everyday use, what else would be as cool?

If you're refining your rituals to push the lower limit of essence a further notch down, it makes sense to skimp on the hardware budget of a likely-to-die test subject. If he croaks off, you haven't wasted hundreds of thousand nuyens of deltaware.

It would make much more sense to describe such things as normal gear items, and then have rules for adapting gear in general as cyber-limb accessories. You buy the gear, and want it in a limb, so you "pay" X capacity plus a 100% markup in cost, and move on. It both makes more sense, and it would convey the impression that such things are custom / limited production items.

Plus, listing anything as a cyber item implies it somehow draws functionality from the fact that it is cyberware; that's great when the item is wired reflexes, but silly when its a pair of rollerblades.

You might wanna take look at Arsenal page 62

Darn, beat me to it.

Now I have to make a Barrens cyber-roller-derby team, if for no other reason than to take the "silly" out of that sentence...

Team?

Don't you mean Gang?

And I'll see you a Roler-derby squad and raise you a Barren's Style Blood Brawl Street Hockey squad.

I didn't stutter.

And why would they be? The Core states that any vision enhancement paid for with Essence can be used for targeting - why should IR or Lowlight be different?

As for hacking - minding that cybereyes obviously use DNI (unlike the goggles/glasses/contacts most likely), being so close to the brain and said brain already possessing whole nerve clusters dedicated to vision only, I can't imagine cybereyes being that easy to hack. Even if you use wireless, why would you need high Signal rating for them? And by the rules in Unwired, in most cases, you have to be in the implant's Signal range to hack it - that is, up close enough for you to be able to shoot the target instead.

I was talking about external visual aids. Those only work if they are purely optical. IR and Low-Light Vision cannot be achieved like that AFAIK.

The rules say very little. Binoculars and vision mag say they can be optical or electronic. The optical devices like magesight goggles are optical but can't take any mods. Every other device and enhancement says nothing about whether it is optical, electronic, or both. I guess since they specified you could say everything else is electronic, but that means not even goggles with just vision mag can be optical, and I think we have those today.

But yes, I'd stick with IR and low light being electronic, unless someone can show me low light optical of today.

Low Light Vision is, by definition, electronic. The proper term instead of night vision goggles or low light vision goggles is Light Amplification goggles.

They operate by using very sensitive visible light detectors - so sensitive that they can pick up light we can't normally see. The data produced by these sensors is used to create an amplified digital image of the low light conditions, which is then displayed on a small screen in front of the user's eye. This amplified digital image is essentially a digital feed of the ambient conditions with the brightness levels notched up so that the user can actually see the surrounding area in proper contrast. Such an image is fairly bright, which is why current LAMP screens are enclosed in goggles - the brightly lit screen would give away a user's position if the light were not contained.

In the world of SR, they may have found ways to miniaturize the system enough to make it fit in contact lenses, but the very fact that the light is being read electronically and translated into a new digital image ruins its usage for magi. The same is true of Theromgraphic and Ultrasound vision - they electronically produce digital images of what they detect.

~Umidori

You could do low light with purely optical. All it is is collecting more ambient light and focusing it towards the lens. Plenty of animals have this vision naturally, so I'm sure an optical equivalent could be made. Magnification can also be done optically (In fact usually is IRL).

As for IR... hmmm, no, don't think it is possible to do optically. It might be possible to... no, you couldn't even get UV light to work.