First off, hi all, been a bit

Here's my dilema:

I've always loved the adrenaline pump, but the rules scare me. I understand its potential power, but have never tried it on a character because:

1: It takes ten minutes to "reload" and be used again. This could be troublesome, might as well just buy a permanent upgrade for that essence. But I can live with this.

2: The stun damage you take for it is too much possibly. You roll 1d6 per rating, and when things are done you take that in stun unresisted. Things can get pretty hardcore. A rating three pump can get you up to 18 stun, and then ten minutes later when your buddy spooks you......the pump comes on again and kills you


So, I'm still thinking of trying it, at level two. I'm looking for ways to make it work without houserules. Kinda like a dedicated build that focuses on this element. Some way to control it or make the stun more manageable?

Oh, and I can only use stuff from SR4A

Any ideas?

Ask if your GM would allow you to spend Edge to reroll the damage when you come down off of it. Put as many points into Edge as possible. Same with Willpower + Body (?), or whichever two the Test is for remaining calm.

EDIT: Wil + Cha, Composure Test.

I'm in he same boat as Squinky, I think it's an interesting piece of ware, but the downsides are pretty harsh. I was thinking about getting it for a bioadept but when I reread the rules I was like umm... no.

I actually started a topic on the offical forums. Link

I think you can put the pump under chemical control: IIRC, there is a drug that triggers the pump and another one that negates the adrenaline effect. So you can get an auto-injector and stop the pump before it deals too much damage. A trauma damper or pain editor should also help you with the damage.

Aye... one can control the damn thing with some drugs... cheap ones, even. But also: Yeah, as written the damn thing is near-unusable. First of: "Unresistable" doesn't belong in this game, in my opinion. Some people just have better bodies and can take more.

I would advise the gm to lower the possible stun and maybe even lower the variation. Maybe make it (Rating +1W6) Stun. Can be dangerous, still unpredictable. But manageable. And let them roll defensive against it. Just like toxins: Just Body (If he had systems to clear the adrenaline it would take down the effectiveness of the pump).

So the damn thing is at least usable with slight loss of stun over the course of a evening fighting and killing.

Better body/mind => bigger condition monitor => can take more

I know in 3rd you could stop it with the drug MAO not sure about starting it up. Not sure about 4th afb atm.

wow adrenaline pump sucks.

for .75 x rating you get +str, reaction, agility, body, willpower for Ratingx1d6 turns with a serious chance of killing yourself.

for .9 x rating you get +str, +agility, +reaction, +initiative
for 1.2 x rating you get all that and +body (bone density)

The stun should be 1/2 of your roll, or at least partially mitigatable.

On the bright side, it's only psychologically addictive. And the doses are free. Pretty good for a "Drug".

Why is adrenaline not physically addictive

There'd be a lot more adrenaline junkies in the world if it was.

How is the adrenaline pump better than say K-10?

Especially K-10/dopadrine cocktail?

I mean okay it's guaranteed 18S at the end, that sucks.
But the benefits are SO much better.

K-10 costs 900 Nuyen a DOSE. I mean besides the fact that it's guaranteed to "roll" MAXIMUM on 3d6 every time.

Dopadrine/K-10 Cocktail is a veyr interesting idea because it negates the negative, balancing effects of a 16F drug for the cost of 15 Nuyen and an Availability 2 drug. I wonder if other GMs feel that's legit. I personally would have a problem with it. I've taken two "conflicting" drugs in real life and they don't just balance each other out like that. There are horrible side effects. And obviously none of the drugs I took was even close to being the equivalent of K-10.

Speedballing. Not a good idea at all.

Just ask John Belushi.

John thought it was a great idea..

right until the day he died

the AP is 100 times better then k10 Alone. Why? Because it has no chance of putting your character into Endless Berserk. `
Now AP vs the K-10 Dopadrine Cocktail is another matter but still AP is better. The cocktail question will come down to your GM thought on it (Little matters like Addiction, and tolerance (aka don't mess up that dosage!)). Further Laying aside the legality factors. No matter what your gm thinks on how that should work 18S unresisted damage is way worse then a couple d6 resistible damage.

The damage from Adrenaline Pump is unresisted, but you're still right.

The adrenal pump is dubious.. especially given it's. availability and legality
If it was easy to get, then I could see it being sort of a poor man's combat implant.

But it's not.. it's price/avail ratio make it seem.. just a little strange.

Of course it works, and I've mentioned it before.

And of course there's a downside; two actually:

1) 18S damage, unresisted at the end of the duration.

2) The fact that you speedballed increases the threshold for Addiction Tests. If you survive, you're almost guaranteed to become addicted (you'd need about 5 Successes to not become addicted [4 from K-10, +1 Speedball]) - and you won't survive long addicted to that.

How about roll a number of dice equal to duration, each hit gives 1 point of stun dmg?

Given that you have to get it activated and its on a cooldown, it would probably be balanced if the stun damage was removed entirely. Or reduce it to a flat low # like 2 unresisted stun per level of AP.

You cant' even chose when to activate it.
Which seems weird, how hard would it be to link it to your DNI

The Adrenaline Pump becomes a lot more useful, if you allow the damage to be resisted. Even then it's not exactly great.

Bye
Thanee

Pretty hard, given it's bioware.

Well, it seems there is only houserules for me then.

I thought about it and I thought a fair ruling would be to allow more control over it. For every level of it you can use it for 6 combat turns (that 1d6 maxed) and can end it when you want. That way you have some control maybe?

Other than that the simple ability to roll to resist would be nice

I don't know though, I proposed this to my GM today. I just have fears of it being overpowered if it is tinkered with.

Doubt it, it's almost a better deal to go with other bio/cyber

Allowing a normal Resistance roll just body or set stun to 2 boxes per unresisting.

Really the adrenaline pump is a concept piece of bioware.
Like cranial bombs, and the datavault.

it's something to take with a special character concept, as a long term balanced piece of bioware someone markets? it's pretty much worthless.

I highly doubt it, unless you make it completely unreasonable.

Just allow a Drain Resistance check (Body + Willpower), and it is still far away from being overpowered.

The biggest constraint is still the racial attribute maximum, and that you can achieve it permanently without any Drain or so involved (and not even that much more expensive).

Bye
Thanee

This is one of those things I really have to agree should have been addressed in 4a.
Make it a flat smaller amount of unresisted or allow player to resist. It makes sense and still maintains some balance.

I've always liked the adrenaline pump concept, but I don't think of it as a common use piece of 'ware like adept's boosts. Instead, I think of it as a last resort to be used when you're heavily stunned already and may go down anyway. Hit the adrenaline pump, and you not only get a boost to str, agi, rea, and wil, you also ignore all modifiers from your current stun damage... and you won't go unconscious from maxing out stun damage. That provides a substantial advantage when survival is on the line. Is that worth the cost? Whether it is or not, it can be interesting.

Mesh

That's all well and good but how do you address the composure test needed to resist the pump going off when you get surprised? If you could control it at will it would be very nice but it seems like a ticking time bomb otherwise.

The answer is a clear no.

It might work, if the AP boost could exceed the augmented maximum. It is simply way too easy to get Agility, Reaction, and Strength up with permanent enhancements. Not using those and instead having an AP, which won't be used most of the time, is clearly not good.

Bye
Thanee

It does have some other advantages. 1 You don't drop from the stress track maxing out. As anyone who uses stick'n'shocks will tell you thats a serious advantage. 2 It adds to Willpower, not a lot of ways to defend from mana based spells. Anything that gives you some extra dice to roll on that test is good times.

Who here hasn't seen a running crew cruise around with super stun weapons? (DMSO/Narkojet, DMSO/Lael or the much hated Stick-n-Shocks?) Its way easier to stun someone out and offers a lot of advantages. You can alway kill someone who is out cold. But you generally can't unkill someone. So AP is an invaluable tool against users of the non-lethal weapon sets.

So your telling me with a straight face that you think its a good idea to risk 18S unresisted damage so that you wont drop from your stun monitor filling up, congratulations you didn't drop unconscious, you just died.

I'm telling you with a straight face that I'll risk 1d6 of Unresisted stun damage so i won't drop from stun monitor filling up. Nothing says you need to have a rating 3. In fact you cant actually start with a rating three baring certain qualities. How many combat you seen that last more then 3 turns?

But the Rating 1 only gives +1 to those stats.
That's pretty mediocre bonus.

Still, stacked with other things it's potentially cute.

Well, there is always a Pain Editor for that.

Rating 1 AP is 0.75 Essence and 30k¥
Rating 2 AP is 1.5 Essence and 60k¥
Rating 3 AP is 2.25 Essence and 90k¥

Compared with...

Rating 1 MA/MT & PE is 0.7 Essence and 55k¥, is permanent but lacks +1 R and +1 W (or +1 I)
Rating 2 MA/MT & PE is 1.1 Essence and 70k¥, is permanent but lacks +2 R and +2 W (or +1 I and +1 W)
Rating 3 MA/MT & PE is 1.5 Essence and 85k¥, is permanent but lacks +3 R and +3 W (or +1 I and +2 W)

The Reaction bonuses can be achieved with Reaction Enhancers for an additional +0.3/0.6/0.9 Essence and 10/20/30k¥.

So, in the end, we are looking at slightly more Essence loss (depends a bit on whether there is more cyber or more bio inside as a whole) and some more ¥ for a permanent increase of almost the same level with no downside.

Especially the higher Rating APs are extremely bad. The Rating 1 might be usable, at least it is significantly cheaper (about half the cost).

Bye
Thanee

What about using a mage friend with Control Emotions to trigger your pump?

what if I had MT and MA, does the AP stack?

That's a pretty cool ability. Although not useful all the time, it has the potential to be a powerful ace in the hole in an otherwise losing scenario.

Mesh

i like this idea.

regardless, i think it all comes down to fluff-
rp-
would a dude in 2072 possibly get some crazy ware to make him
super pumped,
he wants to be Jason Statham in Crank!?
sure, why not-
does he know the disadvantages?...The player might, but the
Character, unless he has been reading his Monthly medical 'zine,
prolly not.

I personally think the damage resistance could be too easy to negate any of
the drawbacks(Troll's/Dwarves anyone?)
I do like the Edge use to reroll the the stun damage taken dice though. Though that could
end up shooting you in the foot, unless the GM would let you take the better of the two results,
which, blah.

Only up the the augmented max

Sorry but you can do better with a autoinjector cheaper lower essence maybe a higher cos long term but even then youd have to be doing a lot of drugs.

maybe the character is opposed to drugs?

Street Doc 4 years ago:"Hey Pal, you don't want Wired Reflexes or Reaction enchancers, that stuff is old hat! What we have here is
something brand spanking new, kicks the adrenaline in overdrive! You want that edge over the competition? The leet
use this!"(sells AP)

Present day Surgeon Generals Warning:Adrenal Pump is known to cause heart failure, Aneurysms, erectile dysfunction, and drowsiness after use. Use with Caution.

My prob with drugs is that it is so open for different interpretations depending on GMs. And well, it seems kinda cheesy to me

They need some ruling clearing up but RAW they stack with them selves and that includes the IP drugs but the IP drugs don't stack with any other IP boost. How is drugs cheesy but vat grown super adrenalin (also a drug) not? Hell you could likely just by rating X super adrenalin it would be better than the implant...

Erectile Dysfunction oh man... I knew that Street Doc was cheating Liar. LOL

I guess it feels cheesy to me in comparison to other "boosts".

Cyberware and magic give you a tangible cost. Ie essence loss, drain, power point usage. Drugs have a set of rules that will not be enforced unless your GM enjoys micromanaging. In my experience at least.

I like how the two of three options presented that you liked were all from me. It makes me feel validated somehow.