That is, unless you were going for a full cyber body?

1.5 essence for a "shell" (not a replacement) that still comes with physical stats of 3, which would require 99% of runners to pump more money into it to get the stats to match their physical norms. Torsos do have a decent amount of capacity, but you can't put actually useful things like hydrolic jacks or gyromounts in them. Well, I guess you probably could, but they wouldn't have any use. You can pump it full of armor, which I believe the max would be 10 points, but even then it would apply to the 1/5 rule for cyber armor, so you'd get an unimpressive +2/+2 for the expenditure. I guess it's great if you want to add 1 point to your condition monitor and put in multiple free internal air tanks...

Articulated Arm;) And you can alwys go for cyberholsters =)
Also, a Cyvertorso is the requirement to put enhancents higher than +7 in your cyberarms/cyberlegs. While I don't consider Cybertoros a great choice (they are a rather poor one), I still consider them better than Cyberskulls.

I know you're joking, but Articulated Arm is Forbidden isn't it?

As for holsters -- do your characters normally run around topless?

First, the splitting (which is 1/6, not 1/5) only occurs for a cyberlimb's attributes -- a term that has a very specific meaning within the rules. Armor is not an attribute, despite what the FAQ suggests.

Second, it's a viable option for anyone who has the cash to spare and has some really hardcore need to max out their augmented attributes through implants. Without the cybertorso, you can't do that unless your natural attributes are always maxed out. And if you have the cash to get it, why not? Sure, it's not something most people would go after if they were only looking for one or two limbs, but that doesn't mean it's useless.

Third, the biggest perk of any cyberlimb is the storage capacity for other things. I tend to cram mine full of all kinds of things, and you can often end up saving more Essence than you lose depending on what you choose. Assuming, of course, you were planning on getting those implants anyway. Of all the limbs, the cybertorso is also the easiest one to conceal.

If they have cyber torso's they do. And from a none gameplay stand point, not everyone who gor cyber did so because it made them more powerful.

Yes, articulated arms are forbidden =) And quite obvious.
As for the topless: Hell, if I had a casemodded Cybertorso... Drek Yeah, I'd run around topless!

Pockets... without liners can provide access. Just cover the cyber torso with ruthenium and have it look pretty.

Can we say Distinctive Style?

Yeah, but don't have to buy it off with karma.

So in terms of armor, you can put 10 points or whatever the max is in and it will count as unencumbered cumulative body armor?

A-yup.

So you can put enough armor to soak heavy gauss fire on a metahuman body, but not on an APC.

You don't understand, it's not a metahuman body anymore -- it's a cybertorso with 10 armor. Besides, the Ares Citymaster APC comes standard with 20 armor.

He was refering to a full cyberlimb replacement with a total of 22 armor (assuming no bulk modifications) with his remark. And that would be on top of worn armor.

Ya, but then you can armor up cyber limb and a cyber skull and get level of armor that are honestly approaching stupid for being such a small target. Then step into heavy milspec armor, throw on a helmet and shield, get armor spells cast, have spirits possess both you AND your armor, AND your shield, and then see the game break.

I'd just have my armor and shield possessed with the service act as said object and use what ever powers would help. That way your superman of a tank can still function normally with all his skills ect.

For a cost pushing the limits on what you can get as chargen, and all you did was make yourself weaker. Cyberware doesn't increase your willpower, or your stun track, and all the damage you'll take will be stun. Plus you used up all your capacity outfitting yourself with more armor.

If I was the GM and you were the player all I'd have to do is drop a stunbolt on you and down goes the million dollar cyberman.

Still doesn't make you invincible. even if you manage to cram all that cyber in you without becoming a zombie, all you're really defending against is bigger hammers. There are still less-than-lethal options to shut you down. a pair of HE grenades may not get through all of your armor, but it'll do a number on any exposed weaponry you have. Spirits can be banished/disrupted. After your offensive capability is gone, subdual combat can be attempted; you may be a metal monster, but I can find 5 trolls and a particularly spunky dwarf that'll be willing to take you to the mat. It's lame and munchkinny, but not game breaking.

I was figuring his spirits were working some countermagic mojo, but if you can pull it off your way is definitely the simplest.

What makes you think he'd have low Willpower?

10 points of armor is not enough to soak a Gauss cannon - you'd need... um... more than that.

To soak a (Itzcóatl) Gauss cannon hit (with one net hit), you'd need (on average) 134 points of ballistic armor (completely discounting body for the resistance test; count 1 body as 2 armor in this calculation).

Two-Feathers Designs: providing useless Information since '95

Even if some GM was stupid enough to let a player do it, and some player was stupid enough to even bother trying, no amount of Willpower + Counterspelling would be more difficult to get past than ~50 points of armor.

Either way, it's still a silly amount of armor, we all know that.

How about someone's body is crushed and mangled past the point of repair and someone managed to stabilize them. A quick rebuild fix could be a torso. Plenty of RP reasons for one other than using it for min/maxxing.

Mesh

He'll have a lower stun track than physical. Cyber adds boxes of physical track, but not stun. Body is also easier to augment than willpower is.

If you can take full cyber i'm sure a pain editor could be sloted in some place. Almosy need for a armor tank as you'll be turning most damage in to stun anyhow.

That was more my point then anything. Should be in the neighborhood of ~58 points of armor + body.

So, how do we go about changing that armor into hardened armor so that an attack whose damage value doesn't exceed the armor rating does nothing at all (not even stun)?

And, just out of curiousity, what's the DV of a tactical nuke? Not a Matrix nuke, a real nuclear warhead.

Doesn't cybertorso give +2 boxes to the damage monitor now? Even without armor ridiculousness, a full cybered character with a pain editor can be a bitch to take down (6 boxes from cyber + 5 body = 17 P damage boxes, even if he can't soak a gauss cannon he can at least take one and live)

thats where the possession comes in.

1,000,000,000P Fire damage + 1,000,000,000,000 Radiation damage (which is resisted as contact vector toxin)?

While possession does augment the physical stats of the possessed and adds ItNW, this immunity does not extend to the implanted or worn armor. It still is only F*2. Everything above that has to be soaked.

Damage: <DEAD>P
AP: -all
area of effect: varies

Granted, but holding him down and stripping it off piece by piece is sometimes the most accessible option.

Well, something was able to tamp down the effect of that nuke in Chicago. As long as we're theorizing possessed street samurai with more armor than small buildings, can't he do something about that nuke?

How does armor get hardened -- is that generally just a spirit power now? Apparently vehicle armor by default is the same armor that a character wears now (just more of it, usually). You can harden electronics p58 in Asenal, but that just protects against EMP's. Melee Hardening pp151-152 in Arsenal, takes 1 slot, and makes a firearm "hardened" as per armor hardening, not electronic hardening. Couldn't you do the same to cyberware?

Melee hardening has nothing to do with hardened armor. It merely allows the firearm to be used in melee without breaking. An attack to destroy it would follow normal rules. Object of course can always ignore stun damage.

Only certain effects produce hardened armor, such as ItNW or being a dragon/drake. The only reason vehicle armor is considered to be hardened armor is because vehicles are immune to stun damage, so an attack that doesn't deal more damage than they have armor is rendered ineffective as it would usually deal stun damage.

If you seriously wanted to create a damage code for Nukes, use the damage code for frag grenades as a baseline, dreive the TNT equivalent from that and then use the TNT equivalent for a nucler weapon. Not gonna do the math myself, because I think damage codes for nuclear weapons in any game other than a "Culture" RPG setting would be asinine.


Armor doesn't get "hardened". It either is, or it isn't. "Hardened Amor" is a critter power. Some other forms of armor use similar rules (like military armor or vehicle armor). ItNW counts its armor rating as hardened

No.

No.

Really, it would depend on the size of the nuke. SR actually has a very simple in game method to do it. As an example, and gratuitous use of wikipedia and answers.com, the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima, which was actually quite small as nukes go, was equivalent to 15 kilotons of TNT. Or, 15000 metric tons.
Which is 15000000 kilograms.
Taking the square root gives 3872 X rating of the explosives.
Using an explosives rating of 3, which is where other conventional ones begin in the Core Book gives 11616 as the damage code for a nuclear bomb.

This actually makes the strength of the bomb more powerful. The base blast radius for Little Boy was 1.6 kilometers, at -2 per meter that gives a remaining strength of 8416. The shrapnel and severe fire extended for about another 1.6 km leaving a strength of 5216 after 3.2 km.

Although giving a more powerful explosion, the SR core rules quite adequately cover the effect such a bomb would have.

This applies to the strategic ones though, there are lesser nuclear devices that were developed during the Cold War such as the infamous suitcase nukes.

Franky from one piece.

just to get back to the original topic: Doesn't the word shell imply that torso and skull always use the character's natural attributes?

You would think that, wouldn't you?

Not really. It just means your internal organs are preserved, unlike other cyberlimbs where they're completely replaced. Last time I checked, my pancreas wasn't very agile or resilient to physical damage, and I don't think my intenstines could bench press a few hundred pounds.

I can see a case for body given most of the meat of your body is in the shell, but most if not all the muscles are being replaced by the shell. So agility and strength for sure would be replaced and given muscles probably provide most of the resistance to impacts I see it for body as well, though your ability to resist food poisoning probably should be based off your original body.

+ net hits.

The attributes question for cyber skulls/torsos has bothered me for a while, as well. Obviously, natural Body would be used for toxins/pathogens. What concerns me is that if a cybertorso's attributes are a factor in determining your overall value in a given attribute, there's just not enough capacity for it to keep up with your cyberlimbs after the limits of customization top off. Not to mention that you're then almost defeating the purpose of having a cybertorso or skull that you can cram full of nifty doodads.

Or that somehow your cyberskull is as equally important in lifting/bashing/punching/throwing/running as your arms, legs, and chest.

In groundfighting at least it is.

It's one of the many rules where you have to shrug and deal with the goofiness of them, or toss out a quick house rule and move on. Personally I only divide by six when it comes to Body, and stick to 1/4 for Strength and Agility, ignoring the torso and skull altogether. Though if I were really inclined to do so, I'd probably come up with a rule that allowed the Cybertorso to reduce the penalties for red-lining your other limbs, too. But I don't see why it should have a detrimental effect (by increasing the division of stats) of your Strength and Agility. If anything it should do the opposite. Hence the red-lining idea.