Possible? I am under the assumption the augmentation limit only relates to permanent augmentations ala bioware/cyberware and magic.

No, augmented attribute maximum represents the absolute most a character may have in an attribute regardless of source unless that source specifically says that it goes over the augmented maximums (such as the strength enhancement of Military Grade armor). Drugs or any other "temporary" attribute benefit can not exceed augmented maximums.

Far as I know Patrick has it right. Only two things I know of off hand that let you break augmented max are the military grade armor and redlining a cyberlimb.

Yep, they both got it.

Though I do have a related question about drugs that one of my players asked and I'm not 100% on.

The rules state that Initiative boosters such as Wired Reflexes, Wove By Wire, Synaptic boosters are not compatible with any other type of Initiative enhancement (Exceptions for Reaction Enhancers on WR & MBW).

So, lets say someone takes a drug that increases the character's Intuition by 1. Since Initiative is taken by Reaction + Intuition, would that +1 to Ini stack with, say, Wired Reflexes 2's +2 to Reaction and thus Initiative as it is not modifying Initiative DIRECTLY, or would you only use the higher of the increases? My money is on using the higher of the scores but I wanted to see what the general consensus was.

I think they stack for that purpose. I'm fairly sure the 'no stacking' rule is only talking about IPs, not the reaction or init boost that they might provide.

Don't forget possession!

Tyro why are you chumming the waters? Do we really need this frenzy? Unless you were being serious in which case please refer to the updated FAQ and feel free to disagree with whatever it says.
Also to be on topic, at least in my campaign, I allow drugs to stack IPs with wired reflexes. etc to the max physical IPs of 4. I don't allow the drugs to boost stats beyond the listed augmented maximums though. Most of my players are too worried about addiction to abuse this and it allows NPCs a little more freedom and makes drug crazed trolls scarier. All good in my opinion.

Chumming the waters? I'm not familiar with that phrase.

I was under the impression that possession allowed you to break the augmented stat cap, as I've seen it so stated a number of times on the boards. I generally ignore the FAQ; it's woefully outdated and full of stupid rulings.

Since Reaction Enhancers do not grant any IP's that would not make make much sense.

1. I allow drugs to add to IPs. I think it's just silly that a dude with Wires and trippin on combat drugs isn't faster than a guy just with Wires. Faster is faster, I don't see why drugs magically don't work on people with existing IP augmentations. (Up to the max of 4, of course. There is only so much the body can handle.)

2. The new FAQ explicitely says that possession is limited by the vessel's augmented stats. Which is a giant pile of lame. I can see the reasoning I suppose (even possessed by a god, a body is a fragile thing), but it sucks that a heavily augmented street sam and joe smoe on the street are exactly the same when possessed by SATAN!!! I liked the old interpretation that a possessed individual was a different entity than the sum of its parts.

Hmm, good point. Not so sure then. Not something that comes up real often.



So why not have wired reflexes stack with synaptic boosters? Faster is faster as you said.

I would imagine the reason drugs wouldn't work with standard wired reflexes or boosters or anything is that the reflexes mess with your nervous system, which means that the drugs might have trouble affecting them. The boosters similarly change your brain some, and so might make it less likely that the drug will affect your brain IP wise (since that is the same part of the brain that is being messed with)

Edit: Also, it's a game. You can just accept that some things are done for game balance over real world physics.

Woefully outdated? It came out like a month ago, or were you unaware that they released an updated one? Although as many people will tell you there are still a few stupid rulings within it. I don't think the possession augmentation restrictions are one of them, though I don't want to get into that here. If you have your own ideas about possession and its implementation then please refer to the Possession Spirit Tactical Manual post from a while back, you can read the whole flame war in there.

No, they didn't release an updated one a month ago, they updated (some part of) it a month ago. That could mean they fixed a typo, or changed one of their general questions, it does not mean they completely went over the FAQ and updated everything.

I have read the old FAQ and the new FAQ, they completely went over the FAQ and updated most of it at least and there's a number of new things in it. If you want to argue its usefulness at least read it.

I did read over some of it, but haven't read the old FAQ, so no idea what was and wasn't changed. I was just pointing out that 'updated one month ago' does not necessarily mean 'a complete revamp one month ago' or even 'more than something minor was changed one month ago'.

I did notice them directly contradict what the rules say at least once though in the few sections I read.

Tyro, chumming the waters comes from the act of adding blood and bait to the water to attract sharks. I've used it here to mean something similar to adding fuel to a fire or other sayings meaning someone is doing something to either cause a problem or make an existing problem worse. What I meant was the whole possession breaking the augmented attribute max rule has already been turned into a flame war we didn't need restarted. Just a joke that fell flat due to communication problems. Stupid written word, being all inefficient for communication.

Yes, as I said there are still a number of rules discrepancies within the FAQ, but the FAQ itself has been completely revamped and updated, so the excuse that "it's too old to be useful" is no longer valid. I like the rulings of the FAQ and I use them, I know others on dumpshock do not. If you are one of them then that's fine, I just want you to be aware that it's better than it used to be.

Possession does increase the vessel's Physical attributes by it's Force.
Possession does not state it is an exception to the augmented maximum rule.

This is one of the few things the FAQ actually got right.


There are quite a few people who have argued against this for one reason or another, but it is RAW. The opposition's primary support comes from Ghost Cartel's stat blocks, which contain numerous rules errors, possession stats being merely one of them.

The max is 5 IP -- fairly easy for a 3-times initiated technomancer to achieve in their real meat body, I have no idea how street sams, magicians or adepts are supposed to get up to 5, though.

No, the max is 4 unless you have one of the two things in the entire game that specifically state they let you go to 5, and both of them are available only in the matrix.

Though to be fair... using one of those 2 things with Drones grants the Drone 5 passes in the meat world while it is controlled by the hacker/technomancer...

The technomancer trick will grant 4 Meat passes and a Matrix pass in a round, but it takes more than 3 submersions to get there...

Just Sayin'

Keep the Faith

I wasn't aware the FAQ had been updated; I've been rather out of touch. My apologies to anyone whose toes I've stepped on.

I considered mentioning that drones could go super fast by that method. Still, makes sense, drones are mechanical, they should be able to handle going alot faster, given that they operate at the speed of electronics as opposed to our slow biological speeds..

As for the spirits and breaking augmented stat caps, I suggested this: Tagz's "Spirit Burn" House Rule. Haven't had a chance to try it out in game yet but I think it would work out well.

Anyhow, I know and love Dumpshock's tendency to go off on tangents, but could we maybe swing back to my question earlier (since Nukeman's question already has been)?

Nothing that increases your derived initiative score can be combined with WR, MBW, or SB unless specifically stated to do so (Reaction Enhancers), including anything that increases your Intuition or Reaction and anything that boosts Initiative passes. This is done so that IPs remain both extremely important and difficult to obtain a lot of. You can house rule drugs and whatnot stacking with the 'ware but you throw game balance a bit out of wack in doing so and make it way too easy to get max passes.

Um, Patrick, you might want to edit your post and put in the missing "not" on your first sentence. Just saying, as it is VERY confusing otherwise!

Edit: Or, more likely, I read it wrong! DOH!

Thanks all. That's what I figured but wanted to hear from a few others.

I would look at the 'fluff' of how the cyber and bio do the jobs, and if they achieve the same effect through different means, they I do allow them to stack, even if the books suggests against it.