I took a look around and did a search and didn't see anything that would answer this question, sorry if this has been asked and answered already.

So, it's been a while since I've run a campaign, and I'm starting one up where half my players are newbies. I'm trying to keep it easy for them but of course one of my players decides hes basically going to turn himself into a Cyber Zombie. He has a Cyber Torso, both arms, both lower legs, eyes, ears. Basically only thing left of him made of meat is his head, thighs and what's inside the torso.

Here's the issue, he want's skill wires and wired reflexes. Reading the description of Wired Reflexes and Skill Wires both make mention of them being rather invasive and making use of neural/nervous system to override the body's natural musculature.

I'm not sure where to draw the line and say "You've replaced too much of your body to be able to use these things". On the other hand it doesn't seem like a huge stretch that both these things could be integrated into his cyber limbs/torso even though neither have capacity ratings.

Looking for a bit of input from you guys. Is it reasonable for my player to have cybered out this much of his body and still be able to use Skill Wires and Wired Reflexes? If so should I maybe charge him a bit extra since those two implants will seemingly have to work differently than they would on a normal meat person? (this is where I was originally leaning)

SR4 RAW: everything works as normal.

How does he even have the money/Essence for all that, at chargen?

Well... have you checked up on his essence rating? You can't "just" go under 0 like that. I don't have the numbers in my head like that. But each limb (in standard grade is 1 essence) The Torso is more, head is less (1.5 and 075 if i remember right) Even with betaware he won't really have space for wired reflexes and skillwires, yes?

Ok, let us assume he has enough deltaware/advantages to cram all that stuff into him: yes he can take both systems. No, per rules he won't get an reduction at essence or cost because he basically is a machine, sorry. (You could always rule it so, you are the gm).

EDIT: Stop ninjaing me *g* (damn i am too slow)... hm have to take another timeslot in here...

Scarily enough, it's not impossible to do at Chargen. Full Alpha Torso, and 2 limbs plus the lower legs is only 3.52 Essence and 140,000. He could still buy Wired Reflexes 1 and Skillwires 5 at Alpha and be at 5.92 Essence and 182,000. He'll have to go with lower rating Skillwires if he wants to fit the eyes and ears, but it's possible.

Kind of extreme for a "newbie" character, lol.

Though now I'm trying to imagine a dude who is almost all metal except for his thighs and head, haha.

And, likeit was said, it's all possible according to the rules. Technically the reflexes and skillwires probably make more sense than the regular ones do since all the wiring is interfacing with other wiring instead of having to interface with biological systems. Not that skillwires make any sense to begin with, lol.

I wouldn't worry about it. Let him be Robocop. He'll find it actually kinda sucks.

So he has a nearly full cyber body. So what?

What does that actually GIVE him?

He's a little tougher to kill. He can cram some extra gear on board that he could have just put in his pockets instead.

No, the really munchkin Samurai have few, if any, cyberlimbs at all. At most a lower arm or something to put in the very few cyberlimb enhancements/add-ons that cannot be obtained instead as regular gear.

Then they'll load up on non-cyberlimb attribute boosters, initiative boosters, etc.



-k

Oh, I wouldn't say that. Tin-men can afford a ridiculous array of skills provided you use all that metal as an excuse to keep your natural attribs low. And honestly, you don't necessarily -need- Wires as badly as most characters do given the rather beastly amount of armor you can stack. Most newbies don't have the prerequisite munchkin-fu to squeeze the most out of a Tin Man, but if you do it right they're pretty nasty even if they do stick out like a sore thumb. I'll grant you that they're a better fit for say, a combat hacker than someone who is genuinely looking for as much dice in combat as metahumanly possible though.

Low natural attributes and cyberlimbs are a rather risky proposition. You have to constantly track when attributes will and when they won't be averaged.

Since he is still in Char Gen, and it's his first char we're doing this a bit nebulously, letting him pick out the gear he thinks he wants, and then we will trim it down from there based on Essence/Money limits.

Thanks for you replies guys, appreciate it.

It is surprisingly easy to have all of your limbs scyber and wind up with an 'average' of say, 8, for Body, Agility, and Strength.

I'm just saying.

Anyway you don't have to worry about dealing with this as a GM. The rules themselves will keep his cyberware down to a reasonable limit. (As a new player I doubt he's using/abusing things like restricted gear, etc.)

That's practically a non-issue compared to half the other situational modifiers out there, particularly if your limbs feature matching attributes all-around and are matched with a cyber torso. I'd like to think I'm a fairly creative GM, but I must admit that I struggle to think of situations where your noggin's Strength and Agility scores will rise up and bite you in the ass. As long as you realize that smashing faces in with your combat modded polymer body is a better idea than biting your opponents you should be in good shape.