And to deal with those of Force 5 and above? And what about those that offer no resistance test?

To bring it back to the face aspect of this CZ, can you already name some stats? My surged Pixie-Ki-Face built rolls 16d right out of chargen w/o being maxed out. - Okay, I have zero combat skills, but 8d full dodge, 6d concealment and 13d damage resistance.

Not quite, as I'm still trying to pack enough 'wares in there to get -6 Essence. If I can pull that off, I'm gonna have a Charisma of 13 or so (without the surgery to increase it) and as high a Logic as I can pull off. I also want a high Body and Agility, and probably Willpower as well. I'm also going to go for a high Edge, if I can get the karma to work. That's the good thing about having 560 to play with, I guess.

Move by Wire 3 will use up 5.0 points for $175k. Additionally it will give you +6 Reaction and Skill Wires 5. Add in Muscle Replacement 4 for another $20k & 4.0 points. Your at 9.0 points for $195k. From there, use the rest of your money and the last 3.0 points to round out your picks. If you actually find that you can't fit everything you want into that, change Muscle Replacement 4 to the two bioware boost (Augmentation and Toner) at $60k and 1.6 points.

Well, I could do that, I guess. Still, I'm trying to use the optimal 'wares, rather than just that which gets me deep into the negatives.

Every single Spell is affected by the BGC.
Spell of Force 5 goes down to Force 1 on the Target.
While the DRAIN, if i understood right, goes UP by 4 on the casters side of things.
So it's both harder to cast a spell into the BGC and does less when it succeeds.
And every spell has SOME kind of resistance test. Hell, you can even try and resist spells that are benefiting for you . .

The Drain goes up if the caster is in the background count zone, and the spell's Force goes down if the target is in the background zone. If both are in, then yes, the caster is doubly screwed.

Ah, okay, at least half right ^^

Actually, environmental manipulations typically don't have resistance tests, which is why I said what I did about Mana Static. Really though, if a GM pulls that on you without any way to prevent it after letting you play a CZ, you should probably hit them with a chair .

As far as actual pieces of cyber go, MBW3 is actually really nice regardless of role (aside from the essence cost, but that's not an issue for you). A rating 6 nanohive lets you support a lot of nanoware, and is 2 essence for only 60k. If you're aiming at logic being high, you can't go wrong with an Encephalon, the second level of that is 1.5 essence and will set you back 75k. There aren't all that many things that directly affect being a face, so you may as well grab stuff that benefits other roles, especially since you're effectively unlimited in essence. (Obviously get the normal face-y stuff like tailored pheremones as a priority.)

Environmental Manipulations?
Heat/Cold?

Yeah, and light/dark, amongst others. Some of them have tests to cope with the effects of the environmental changes (like an AGI+REA test to avoid falling on Ice Sheet), but the change in the environment itself is unavoidable (even if you make that test, there's still a sheet of ice). Most are a nuisance, Mana Static vs Cyberzombie or spirit is an extreme edge case. Versus a metahuman caster it's a pain in the rear, but it affects everyone, including the original caster.

Well . . if the spell is weak sauce, then it probably doesn't cover much room anyway . .
I'd make it take effect outside of the BGC. So a round hole in the ice-sheet, where the CZ is standing while the spell is being cast.
If he then steps on the icesheet around him, it's his own fault, really ^^
Darkness is more difficult, as even if around him is no darkess, there's darkness around his little patch of light . . (oh the irony)

All of the environmental manipulations I see are tagged Area, so even at F1, they have a minimum 1m radius, which is a non-trivial area. In the case of Ice Sheet, the test is provoked by attempting to cross the ice, so presumably if you're in the area when it's cast you don't have to worry as long as you don't try to move.

Mana static is especially problematic in that it is permanent, so even with your ruling you could potentially pin the CZ into a tiny area for hours given enough successes. (Reduce BC by 1 per hour once permanent. Starting BC equals hits, anything above 5 is guaranteed lethal to a CZ. Depending on how overlapping BC's are handled it could be lethal all the way down to 1.) Really though, I wouldn't ever condone using Mana Static as an offensive weapon, especially against a PC that was specifically allowed going into the game. The intent of the spell seems to be more of a defensive one, intended to reduce or negate incoming spells at the expense of the caster's own casting ability, presumably allowing the mundanes on the team to finish things off.

Mana Static is such an ice offensive spell in all meanings possible ^^
Especially if cast on enemy spirits or wards and the such.
Just good that they mostly nixed the aspected mana static spell *snickers*

Still listed in Street Magic actually...

Oh god, yeah, mana static is abusive enough. Being able to buff yourself and still abuse the enemy at the same time would be crazy. Amusingly the aspected version is listed in the table of spells at the back of the 1st printing of Street Magic. I haven't gotten the reprint, so I'm not sure if that got fixed (same drain code as the non-aspected version even ).

Yeah, I've ran Magicians who were built with no real regard for min-maxing but were able to more than pull their weight anyway simply because they had decent Assensing and packed Heal and Mana Static on a team with no other casters. That's part of why I've always argued why Magicians are probably the best overall archetype. They have some exclusive tools to deal with a particular niche (astral space & Awakened threats) and they can produce a number of meat side effects that either compliment technological solutions or cannot be reproduced through tech at all.

See, and that's the sort of thing I was trying to get at with the whole "What happens to an awakened character who is zombified?" question. Not how do I become a min/maxed mage while being a CZ, but rather what useful things can I do to deal with Astral Space/other Awakened in addition to meat and tech threats?

And that's pretty much what I laid out (and before the lynch mob forms again, I did point out it was very cheesy. But the rules for cyberzombies specifically say that the cyberzombie does not suffer Magic loss from implantation).

Essentially, either a point of adept powers (since your background count doesn't lower your Magic below its rating of 1), or spell defense, which only uses the skill and has no Drain. Casting spells is out because even overcast ones would fizzle, astral projection is possible but probably not a good idea, and any spirits summoned would instantly squeak and vaporize as soon as they came into contact with the cyberzombie's aura. Any cyberzombie, even a previously mundane one, can use assensing and astral combat.

Okay, so I'm working on my stats (unmodified by 'wares, as of yet) - I'm assuming I can get to -6 Essence exactly (which should be doable, I think) - so with 560 Karma to spend, here they are:

Body: 7 (81 Karma)
Agility: 8 (99 Karma)
Reaction: 4 (27 Karma)
Strength: 3 (15 Karma)
Charisma: 11 (180 Karma)
Inuition: 4 (27 Karma)
Logic: 7 (81 Karma)
Willpower: 5 (42 Karma)

And then the two that don't count against my 560 Karma limit.
Edge: 10 (162 Karma, and assuming Edge is effected by Unnatural Vigor)
Magic: 1 (Free due to being a CZ/30 Karma if Magician/20 Karma if Mystic Adept)

As you can see, I'm 8 Karma under the limit. I've got some questions though: does Unnatural Vigor apply to Edge as well? How do I calculate my modified attribute maximums, by adding my negative essence to the normal max or by calculating it based on my new attribute maximums? If I go with SURGE would that increase the amount of Karma I can spend on Attributes? If so, by how much? Also, does Edge count against the total Karma I'm allowed to spend on stats? How about Magic (if I were to go with the abusive route of being an Awakened CZ, theoretically speaking)? I treat them as separate here, as they would be in a BP chargen. If that's wrong, do let me know. Also, if my math in general is wrong, let me know (I hope I'm misinterpreting the "New Rating*3" cost of attributes by adding each increase together, but if not, c'est la vie).

Finally, is this distribution optimal for my priorities of Face/Brain/Combat/Tank?

P.S. On the subject of the theoretical Awakened CZ, would having Foci, Fetishes, etc. help deal with the fact that his Magic is 1, permanently? Are there spells which suffer less from having only a 1 in Magic? Could I attune myself to my Astral Hazing, as I become "...a Domain in [my] own right." and how abusive would this be if I could and did? I'm still trying to get my head around the whole magic system, and I just picked up a copy of Street Magic so bear with my lack of knowledge, please.

Quick Edit:



I'll check this out, now that I have Street Magic. I still need to decide if I'm gonna be that shameless (and if it wouldn't marginalize the other players) though.

Oh, jesus. It's beyond insane to have Edge affected by Vigor.

That's what I thought, but then I thought "How cool would it be to have double digit Edge?" and so I put down 10. I'll probably have to reduce it regardless - I need the Karma for skills.

Sure, anyone can appreciate that, but it's still the difference between nice cheating (okay, 'bending the RAW'), and just killing the other players. God.

Well, the other players are pretty darn powerful, or so they've told me, and they've had about 1250 Karma since the start of the game, and I only (and I say only here with my tongue firmly in cheek) have 1000. But like I said, it won't be 10 in actual play. If you prefer, I can change it.

Ha, doesn't matter to me. I'm just enjoying the thread.

Since you mention, though, I think cyberzombies should probably have reduced max Edge, as a penalty of their evil wrongness.

Or increased max Edge, for the same reason! I kid, I kid. I'm glad I'm not the only one enjoying the thread, though.

Focuses are affected by the background count you generate, so their rating is reduced by 5 - a rating 5 Power Focus (a big, powerful, extremely expensive item many mages would kill for) will work as a rating 1 for you. But the point is moot as your effective Magic rating is (1 - 4) below 0 and thus prevent you from using any magical ability - like activating a focus.


I don't think so - you don't attune your magical tradition to the local manascape, regular practice shift it toward your tradition. But your background count is prerpetually refreshed and keep the same nature no mater how hard you try to alter it with techniques like Cleansing or Geomancy. While a metamagic like Filtering would help you to negate the penalty, it is an advanced technique requiring two initiations, and you cannot initiate more than once because of your low Magic.

Even if you could the benefits would not be that extraordinary - you will get +4 dices for your Spellcasting test and +4 dices to resist Drain, but the maximum Force of your spells would stay 2 (with overcasting). This means your spells will never be able to score more than 2 hits (not net hits), making them relatively easy to resist, unless you use Edge.

And applying the attribute maximum augmentation to Edge feels really wrong and munchkinesque to me. Personnally I would even houserule that the augmentation is limited to physical attributes, but it's your game, so feel free to sweettalk your GM and fellow players !

I had a look at SR2's cybertechnology and SR3's Man and machine supplement to check wether or not they mentioned what effect cybermancy had on awakened characters - they wre ilent on it. But the description they made of the character's astral presence and astral hazing was seriously nasty :

Karma hazing makes the cybermantic character's astral presence increasingly noticeable to astraly active individuals and creatures, who can sense it from far beyond the standard range for assensing or astral awareness. The longer the character survives, the stronger the character's astral presence. It registers as a black shadow, a polluted zone, and he leaves a cloud of corrupted mana in his wake. To all who can sense this astral presence, it somehow feels wrong. Astraly active creatures and individuals either shun the affected character or take hostile action against him, and astral predators my be drawn to his vicinity.

[skips the paragraph on background count]

Cybermantic characters leave ugly-looking astral signatures wherever they go. Treat the astral signature as if it were created by a magical effect with a force equal to the character's negative essence value (round down).

Sooner or later the karma hazing will force something to take an active and hostile interest in the character. This something may be a critter wandering around the astral plane, or a much more dangersous entity with a much more specific purpose.

note : SR2 treated this hotility as a negative essence(4) test. In SR4 that would translate as one (two at most) sucesses needed on an essence test.

Note : the emphasis on 'wrong' is straight from the book, not something I added.

Even if you initiated and took geomancy you'd be incapable of attuning your own hazing, because it requires a ritual at Force=BC, which is more than double your magic. Not to mention that attuning your hazing would be unbelievably abusive, as it would let you cast spells at F2 with a bonus 4 dice, when you'd normally be incapable of using spells at all (BC 4 negates any spell under F4, and you can't cast at more than double magic.) F2 may not sound all that impressive, but if you use edge to unlink successes from force you can get things like armor or other spells that don't require resistance tests with a fair number of successes.

Without being able to attune the hazing, your best awakened bet is probably to go with a couple adept powers (Commanding voice is handy, quick draw can be nice depending on your preferred weapon). Your only other option really is to be a magician and max out counterspelling to make yourself an even harder target vs magic. Theoretically you could initiate and take cleansing to allow yourself to cast, but that would be stripping yourself of one of your most potent defenses just to be able to cast a few spells. If you're allowed to use the optional buying metamagics for 15 karma though, getting filtering would allow you to cast spells reasonably regularly without killing your hazing.

As aI already said, it wont work because the BC is stripping him of 4 points of power, and he has at best 2 (1 surviving thanks to his single point of magic, and a second if you accept that he initiated AND the optionnal rule of taking 1 extra point of power instead of a metamagic technique).

That depends entirely on how you apply the BC from hazing. By RAW cyberzombies can't exist, because BC actually reduces magic while you're in it, meaning the cyberzombie has a magic of zero, and therefore dies. Since that's clearly not the intent, it stands to reason that the cyberzombie's magic rating, and thus anything linked to it, is immune to the BC generated by the hazing. He still can't cast spells normally because spells are a seperate thing which are also reduced by the BC, and a Magic 1 character is incapable of overcoming a BC of 4.

One could certainly argue that any adept power that isn't intrinsic to the character would also be nullified. (Commanding voice wouldn't work because its use has to traverse the BC, but Sustenance doesn't, etc.)

I'll ask about the 15 Karma Metamagic rule - would this allow me to pick up Adept Powers for the same price, were I an Adept (I thought they could pick up Powers rather than Metamagic, hence the question)? Where can I find Filtering? And if I were a Mystic Adept, would I be able to Counterspell? What spells work even with a maximum Force of 2?

I'm assuming that Filtering would let me get around the fact that my BGC is significantly higher than my Magic, for purposes of Counterspelling/Adept Powers. And I'm sorry for all of the questions, but I'm still quite new at this!

An Awakened, dual-natured critter (like a ghoul or a shapeshifter) with 1 magic in a BC does not die. Why should a cyberzombie be different ?

Because the rules for Cyberzombies specifically say that if his magic rating gets drop to 0 for ANY REASON he dies?

Allowing a Cyberzombie to initiate is so stupidly broken I feel like I'm watching a train wreck.

Because dual-natured critters don't (on the whole) die if their Magic is reduced to zero. A cyberzombie, on the other hand, does.

Edit: Lesbian Stripper Elf Ninja'd

15 karma for metamagics is just that, you can't get extra adept powers out of it, only more metamagics. With such a low magic and initiation grade, there aren't going to be very many that are useful to you anyway. Filtering will let you roll a test to let you ignore part or all of the BC. I don't know how ultimately useful it would be, as it doesn't last long.

Filtering is one of the advanced metamagics in Street Magic, and it requires you to already have the Cleansing metamagic. (Pages 61 and 55 respectively in the first printing of SM.) I think the only thing mystic adepts lose out on is astral projection, but dont quote me on that, as I've never played one of those.

As far as spells, mostly you want to look at ones that aren't opposed or have low thresholds.

Probably the cheesiest thing to do would be to go mystic adept, put the 1 point in adept powers, initiate once and take the extra adept powers option instead of a metamagic. As a mystic adept you can still use counterspelling, so you can invest in that skill despite not having any magic allocated towards spellcasting.


Because cyberzombies explicitly die if their magic is ever reduced to 0 by any means. A force 4 spirit would be instantly destroyed by entering a BC of 4, so it's not without precedent. (I see I've been ninja'd on this point, that's what I get for writing out the above .)



Also, this. But it's an entertaining thought exercise .

Alright, I'll check out Filtering and all that. And yes, allowing a CZ to initiate is borked, but an interesting thought exercise none the less.

Any answers to my other questions? Am I calculating costs correctly?

Math on costs looks right to me since you're using the 3*stat costs. (I'm assuming that's what your GM said to use, the vast majority of people that I know use the 5*stat cost. I don't recall if that errata ever got officially moved to the English version.) Standard karmagen includes edge and magic in the stat limit though. It's pretty common house rule to separate them.

Augmented maximums are simply 1.5x the natural maximum. For example an elf CZ with -6 essence has a charisma maximum of 14 (8 normally, +6 for vigor), and an augmented maximum of 21. You likely won't be able to get 'ware that gets you anywhere near the augmented maximums for mental stats.

You don't really need to worry about the cost of your magic attribute if you go that route, as there's no sense in increasing it past the 1 freebie you get with the quality. Don't forget that any adept powers you take are limited to 1 level regardless of their power point cost.

Unnvatural vigor really shouldn't increase maximum edge, but it's technically an attribute, so... maybe? SURGE doesn't effect the amount of karma you can spend on attributes.

You're going to want to jack your willpower and intuition up as high as possible if this will be a long-term character to help with the monthly test to avoid gaining more negative qualities. Doubly so if your drug supply is unreliable. (The threshold has an unavoidable increase of 1 every year in existence. Technically if you can get your total of these two to 20 you don't even need the drugs for the first year.)

well you can't raise your magic rating anyways. Even if you let him initiate.

It specifically says that this Magic of 1 cannot be raised in any way shape or form.

Hah, on top of everything else, 3*Attribute costs to boot?

What adept powers are the most interesting for this? Geas'd of course, right?

Yeah, I'm just meaning there's no sense in raising it cover losses before becoming a cyberzombie. It's easiest to just assume you did the whole thing in one shot. (Because getting 12 essence worth of 'ware in one surgery would be so awesome .)

As far as powers, if it works through the hazing Commanding Voice seems like the biggest one for a face type. Cool resolve would be nice for negotiations. Blind Fighting is pretty nice if you ever decide to fight in the dark. Berserk could be hilarious. Empathic Healing could be useful, even if it is completely wtf-worthy. Linguistics is nice for a social character. Quick Draw is good if you use a weapon that normally can't be quickdrawn (like an assault rifle ). Traceless Walk could be handy. Improved ability is always good. Kinesics is decent. A point of Mystic Armor never hurt anyone (though with 12 points of hardened armor it could be considered overkill).

We're using Karmagen as written in Runner's Companion - was there an errata, or is the 5*Attribute just a house rule? And if I wanted to raise an attribute from 1 to 5 would it cost 42 karma ((1->2=6)+(2->3=9)+(3->4=12)+(4->5=15)=42) or 15? I went with the former, as it seemed the more conservative reading.

And yes, I'm assuming I can do the whole procedure in one shot.

I'll check out Commanding Voice, Cool Resolve, Blind Fighting, Linguistics, and Quick Draw (Berserk doesn't really fit the concept).

Yeah, that's the correct way to do the math, you buy each increase incrementally. (The fast way to calculate it is to just add the increases, then multiply by 3, so 1 to 5 is (2+3+4+5)*3.) 5x cost was printed in the German version, and has been posted by authors to have been the intent, but I don't believe there is any actual errata for the English version out. So, it's sort of unofficially official. If the rest of your group used 3x, then you should stick with that. It's way more powerful, but it's more important to have everyone in the same ballpark than to worry about that.

And I didn't imagine you'd want berserk, it's just funny imagining a cyberzombie with an 'Oh, now I'm mad!' power . Incidentally, I think Mystic Adepts are eligible to take the Mentor Spirit quality, so you could always look through those and maybe find one that boosts skills you'll actually use and might fit the concept.

Wouldn't my mentor spirit have to be force 5 or greater though? And I'll talk to the GM about the German version stealth errata - I doubt we'll use it, but he should know about it.

Mentor spirits don't have a force.

They're super-great great spirits

And they presumably don't like cyberzombies.

Awesome. Though I'm probably right in saying it'd be a freaky spirit that wants to mentor a cyberzombie.

Toxic
a cyber zombie is toxic to the world.
That's what the Hazing/Background count is.. you're corrupting the gaiasphere

I really don't think Unnatural Vigor should apply to Edge. Edge is a sort of metaphysical thing, and the universe itself thinks the cyberzombie is dead, so that would imply that Edge would not be affected by Unnatural Vigor - or, if anything, that Edge should be reduced by it.

That last quote also seems to suggest that remaining Awakened as a cyberzombie is sort of out of the question.

I'm inclined to agree with you on Edge and Unnatural Vigor, actually - though the Awakened CZ makes perverse sense to me. That is, cyberzombies are creatures of magic, in a horrible, mutilated sort of way. They are messed up, to be sure, and the particular brand of magic holding them together is a fell, unnatural sort of theurgy, but this gives them an inherent magic that you can't take away ('cause they'll die if you do).

Edit: If I initiate once would I get 1PP's worth of Adept Powers?