I'm now creating character companions for a NAN character and i'm hitting a dead end. I'm hoping one of you guys can help me with the design. The concept is of a NAN street samurai type character named Iron Horse. True to his name he'll be augmented with a variety of cyberware/bioware, mainly limbs. The idea i had was to create one limb for shooting and one for melee. However this is beginning to cost me both in essence and nuyen. So the latest idea i had was to change one of the arms into a retractable shield.

To cut down on the cost i was looking at an obvious lower arm cyber limb. 10 capacity, add a rating 4 armor onto it (8 capacity) then maybe dermal plating (can i do that?). However, this doesn't seem like a cost worthy piece of armor. If i'm not wrong that's, at best, only 8/8 ballistic/impact armor. Yet i'm thinking maybe i am right cause that's better than a ballistic shield (6/4).

I'm lucky that the gm is allowing us to have 1 free item regardless of restriction/availability. As long as we can explain it. I went with move-by-wire. When all is said and done i have 1.492 essence left. My final question is, i wanted to create this character as an adept as well. Correct me if i'm wrong, unless i invest 6 magic at chargen, i won't be able to have any points to spend on adept powers, correct? Could i just get latent awakening thus start at 1 magic sometime in the campaign or would that be striped down by my low essence? My only reason to become an adept was for heightened concentration and adept centering.

Dermal plating's strictly bodyware, not a cyberlimb accessory IMO.

That's not really how Dermal Plating works, but there's no reason you can't just get an armored cyberlimb and pretend (fluff) the armor bonus as coming from your 'shield arm'. Mechanically, SR doesn't care where your armor comes from or where you get shot, unless someone makes a Called Shot.

Adepts with cyberlimbs and Wires are usually a very… cost-ineffective idea, yes.

I've only been around for a few weeks, and I've never played, but even I have figured out that going full-on, head-first into cybernetics does not mix with adepts, at all.

Say you start out with an Essence of 6 and Magic of 6, and have minor cosmetic surgery to remove a mole, which lowers your Essence by 0.01, to 5.99. This results in your Magic dropping a whole point to 5.

So your character, with an Essence of 1.492, would have to buy the Adept quality (5 BP), 4 points in magic (40 BP), and the final 6th point in Magic (25 BP), for a total cost of 70 BP. After applying your cyber/bio ware, you would have a final Magic of 1 (one), and thus a total of 1 (one) Power Point worth to spend on adept powers.

It is very much not worth doing. You are more than welcome to anyway, of course, just bare in mind that you will be giving up a lot for very little in return.

I made an Adept/Cyber character for a PbP game. Not maxed out completely, but could give you an idea of what is possible.

"Lefty"

An extensible shield (+2/+6 or +6/+2) for 8 capacity would offer the same advantage on average as +4 armor. I´d allow for simple shield type exchanges.


I do believe that we can create something that works a bit too well...

Oh yeah, I never said that Adepts shouldn't have cyberware if they want it; only that trying to heavily mix the two doesn't work out.

Although I never considered going a single full-arm replacement; looks like it works rather well.

Yeah, that's only losing 1 Magic. Cyberlimbs *and* Wires? Suddenly, no Magic.

ya, i know this. What i was going to do was get the latent awakening quality. Then with karma rewards i would get my first initiate grade then get adept centering. My question was whether or not i understood how essence/adept magic works. So essentially if were to get latent awakening i would have a -5 magic. I was under the impression a stat couldn't start at negative.

Street magic pg25
When the gamemaster decides the character has Awakened, the character immediately gains a Magic attribute of 1. If the character has an Essence lower than 6 (due to implants or other causes), he still starts with a Magic of 1, but his maximum Magic attribute is adjusted according to the Essence loss. If the character’s Essence is less than 1, he has lost any chance to be Awakened.

Right, you'll get a 1. And your max will be 1.

Playing a Mystic Adept in Missions with both Wired 2 and a cyberarm.

He's initiated twice and currently has a Magic of 4, and heavily relies on a Power Focus 3 when spellcasting. His Adept powers are all passive stuff.

It works out fine if you play it as a street sam with a side of adept/mage, not so much as a adept/mage with a side of street sam.




-karma

Hehe, yeah, I can imagine!

Yea, I just wanted the starting point for heightened concentration and then get adept centering. Eventually that is.

So there is no other way to add armor to a cyber limb other than the armor 4 rating? Maybe I should go back to my original idea and make the second arm for melée. Add two hand weapon style and offhand training for the defense. Was thinking a sai for the disarm bonus effect. Ideas???

If I ever played an Adept, I would only get 1 Essence Point worth of Cyber/Bio.

If you're playing a full Magician, then getting 2 points is easier to justify because you need 'Ware to just survive.

I recently made a troll cyber/bio-adept for a PbP game, but it was 480 BP chargen.

I went with 3 Magic and 3 Essence of Cyber/Bio, but it cost me a DREKLOAD of BP. The big thing was that I had to buy Magic up to 6 (65 BP), just to have 3 PP worth of Magic left over when all the ware was packed in. That 'ware also cost about 60 BP!
There were definitely a lot of other things i could have spent all that BP on, but meh... the character was kind of a pet project of mine for a while, so I'm glad I get to finally try him out.

I'm looking forward to 40+ dice pool to resist damage and a base 16DV -3AP punch (that doubles against barriers). _{YES! I KNOW A STUNBOLT CAN TAKE HIM OUT IN ONE SHOT! STOP PISSING ON MY PARADE!}

It all depents eavily on the concept, for my Gillette build i just desided that wired reflexes and move-by-wire cost too much essence and Synaptic booster cost too much nuyen, so i went for adept to get her extra IP:S, ofcource someone could say that way costs too much BP:s, but those you have at chargen essence is kinda hard to get back.

What about the armor add-on pieces from Arsenal? Shin guards and forearm guards and such. They can be used to evoke a similar feel to a cyberarm (so can a nano-tattoo sleeve) without costing Essence. That leaves you able to mix MBW and adeptness more easily.

this is the innovative thinking i was looking for... good idea. I'll have to talk to my gm and see. Makes me wonder if i could just get a "weapon slot" and buy the shield separate and then attach the two.... hmmmm cyber version of captain america?