I play on an Online Shadowrun 3e game, so there are some house rules that don't jibe with the main book. Most importantly that essence holes don't exist in the game. Remove your ware and your essence heals.

That aside here is the situation. I want to have some surgery done on my character. Installing Cultured Tailored Pheromones 2 and a Beta Smartlink 2. I'm trying to avoid overstress. So what I would be doing is having my high bio-index ware re-planned with x2 reductions and the new ware plugged in. The problem is, I have to submit all the surgery stuff myself. I can't make heads, nor tails of the surgery rules. So, I came to the experts for help.

My NPC doctor is the Elite Cybersurgeon from Mr. Johnson's Little Black Book. So that will show you the stats of a doctor I have access to. My current Essence/Body Index are:

Essence : 6 (5.06)
Body Index : 0 (6.95)

Would someone mind typing out the step by step T#s and surgical times so I can calculate the cost and do the rolls? I hate bringing work, but I can't get anyone else to help me with this mess. Thankfully, this will be my last surgery.

IE: First you do the surgical plan. You roll X vs Y plus Z for x2 reduction
Next....
Etc

Thanks in advance all.

Sorry, I don't even remember the 3rd edition rules anymore and I, uhm... still haven't unpacked my old books. That being said, I know for a certainty that I have never owned a book entitled Mr. Johnson's Little Black Book.

from what i recall offhand (books in other room), you start with a surgery plan. the plan is very important, and takes the most time (and has the options you want). once you have the plan, the doctor makes a few cuts, then you go to healing (magical healing will help a lot here if you can get it).

im not clear on what your actual essence is, how many other implants does your character have at this point? remember that your availible index for bioware is equal to remaining essence +something.

First, find out what rating medical center you have access to (p144) (or resolve that in some fashion). For two positive options, you need at least… um, Standard Illegal, which is the bottom level. Your surgery planner also needs at least two levels in (Knowledge) Medicine. Though now that I look, you actually need Alpha/Bioware- or Beta/Cultured-equipped (as appropriate for the higher of the grades of 'ware involved).

Second, obtain or create a medical profile. This is a (Knowledge) Medicine (4) test with a base time of 48 hours, and your character must be present for a quarter of the total time. If you're concealing implants from the profiler, use the rules on p145. This step and the next two are optional, if you don't mind dying horribly on the operating table.

Third, calculate your surgery planning time for removing your current bioware. Base time is 60 hours for transimplant surgery, multiplied by six if it's cultured; if the removal is to be done with positive options, remember to add the multiplier for the threshold modifier. Remember to choose two negative options. TN is 4 plus the number of positive options you chose, which is probably none since you're just removing 'ware and don't need anything special to get the hole.

Fourth, calculate your surgery planning time for implanting the new bioware. Base time is 60 hours for transimplant again, multiplied by the threshold modifier for your positive options (which I don't have time to look up) and the 6x cultured bioware modifier if applicable. I'm pretty sure the modifiers are additive. Choose two negative options again, TN 4+positive options which will make 6.

Fifth, obtain the new implant you're going to install. You can just put the one you took out right back in in hopes of getting positive options, but keep in mind that removing Bioware incurs a permanent Stress point. You can alternately obtain a normal organ to install so you don't need to make the surgeries back-to-back, but I'm assuming you aren't doing that.

Sixth, take Deadly Stun.

Seventh, your surgeon will roll Biotech (specialized if appropriate) with complementary dice equal to medical gear rating. Base TN is 4 modified by the appropriate surgery location, conditions, or patient condition (in particular, for this surgery you're guaranteed to have Bio Index, so apply that modifier). If you're removing cultured bio, it's an additional +1. Your surgeon needs at least 3 successes to not incur negative options. Base time is the TN, reduced by any successes not used for options (so probably any above 3). Take Physical damage based on the bio index of the removed 'ware according to the table on p151; this is base index, not modified by options or grade..

Seventh, your surgeon will roll Biotech (specialized if appropriate) with complementary… you get the idea. Base TN is 5 modified by pretty much the same things as above, modified by your new Bio Index total and an additional +1 for it being your second procedure this session. Your surgeon needs at least 3 successes not to incur negative options. To get you the two positive options you want, the surgeon needs 5 successes, and additionally at least one success must beat the TN by 2 (beating by 1 will give you one positive option). Take physical damage based on the bio index of the installed 'ware according to the table on p151; this is base index, not modified by options or grade. Note that when you go into Deadly or overflow due to surgery you autostabilize and don't risk permanent damage, though you still may need to check for Magic Loss. If these two operations would put you over your overflow, well, I guess you're doing the surgery in two phases.

Eighth, roll for healing time.

Congratulations! You just survived an encounter with the Shadowrun surgery rules! Hopefully.

~J

Wow.

Now I'm not that upset I missed 3E entirely. Com-pli-cated!

I was going to complain about you judging the game based on what is probably its most ass-backwards advanced ruleset, but then I realized: we're consulting three tables that are all within about five pages of each other, a fourth further away if you need to look up the Bio Index for some reason, and making all of five dierolls, two of which are essentially the same as another two. The only thing remotely complicated about the process is deciphering the pervasive lack of organization that is Shadowrun's trademark.

~J

Yeah, i LOVED to play through the operations in 3rd. It is always funny to look at the faces of the players when they need to rely on something they can't influence. (They bribed the doc with huge amounts of cash to be "EXTRA-Careful" and made sure they had a insanely detailed medical dossier. And then the dice fell.

Always funny to have situations which could permanently change your character (for better or worse). Surgical rules are exciting.

They can influence it—of course, not every team has a doctor with Aptitude: Biotech at their disposal.

(This is another flaw in those rules. They go from punishing if you didn't come prepared with medical contacts to downright abusable if you build a solid PC surgeon.)

~J

1) My post was made mostly in jest. I wasn't judging the game; I enjoy 4E, and enjoyed 2E back in the day; I'm sure I would've enjoyed 3E as well had I had the opportunity to play it.

2) The idea of my character suffering major drawbacks due to "downtime" events that he can't control (unless, like pointed out, he came with solid medical contacts) does not sit well. Especially if I have to slog through 3, possibly 4 tables to find out whether or not my character is suddenly screwed. I'd much rather roleplay out my character attempting to sneak past security, getting into a running gunfight with ghouls than whether or not the doctor is aware that he shouldn't take out my spleen when I get some new bioware.

3) It sounds like an area of abuse for vindictive, cruel, or sadistic GM's. I say that being almost wholly ignorant of the whole thing, mind you...for all I know there's a chance of surgery resulting in puppies and rainbows and unicorns.

4) I like numbers!

The three tables are just lists of modifiers or effects; they don't encode multi-step operations or anything (so no "look up your subtable in table A.1"). The fourth is only if for some reason you didn't write down how much bio index your implant takes up.


This, on the other hand, is accurate. What SR3 desperately needed was an apportionment of 'ware costs into intrinsic cost and implantation cost (so as to be able to usefully derive a fencing value for used 'ware), but what the writer gave it was a whole bunch of detail (good) which is interacted with mostly by NPCs (not good). Moreover, it significantly increased costs and risks for a basic part of the game which had a previously-fixed cost and risk. I'm not in the least defending the rules, at least in their application to 'ware implantation (stuff not previously assumed to be cheap/safe like trauma surgery or stress repair is fine), but it's ultimately not a complex system.

~J

Ahh, thanks for clearing that up. It sounded a lot like some more 3rd edition bashing.


Those bonuses are all Player's seem to dream of getting when they look at the rules, causing GMs to limit them as much as possible.

Some benefits are essence and/or bio slots, 5% per success essence/bio index reduction, tougher implants and one less prone to stress. I've seen players dream of getting 95% essence reductions, then getting further reductions due to implant grade.

That's quite the dream, seeing as how you'd need nineteen successes with the highest die being nineteen above the TN. That said, Doc Funk posted an analysis once of how much reduction you could realistically get with enough access to medical facilities/personnel, and it was pretty impressive.

~J