Merlin
"Random-Elf"
Kevin Flynn

Did you see a Different Robocop movie than I did?

Murphy...
And the Female Cop... Been so long, I can't remember her Name off hand...

There were only two PC's in that Movie...

And the Female Cop is the PC of the GM's wife, whose character sucks, but she gets to succeed because she's dating the GM.

Gyromount is nice if you absolutely need that RC, but in general having a full body agility of 9(or 10 for elfs) is just better then having one arm with agility 9 and can be gotten with use of resricted gear instead of the arm.

So? It's an evolution, towards more anime aspects, which is just what happens. You also don't find the 80s Japanophobia anymore. The game evolves, and in a game with biodrones you might as well also have full borgs.

I think that after metavariants, infected, free spirits, AIs, available bioware, and the transition from mainframe-and-cables to smartphone-and-middle class consumerism, saying that cyborgs aren't "cyberpunk-pure" enough is a bit weak.

None of those things were available to PCs in ye olde times, but that's all changed now. I think that to a large degree, GitS has gone on to develop cyberpunk where Neuromancer left off - it's not a carved in stone genre.

The whole "implants make you inhuman" theme has been watered down; technology looks friendlier now (thank, Apple), and there are just so many kinds of PC that are far more inhuman than a cyborg (pixies, dryads, AIs, free spirits, fomori vampires..) that saying that full cyborgization is something for Bad Guys Only because it's an Inhuman Aberration sounds like a very thin argument.

Uploading your consciousness to a computer seems like a bridge too far (although AIs are more or less already there..), but I think that having an actual brain in a jar somewhere gives you a real tether to the physical world, just like a rigger or hacker.

I'm just agreeing that I don't see 'it's hard to make the Major!' as an important complaint, that's all.

I can complain about those, too, to the same end. "None of this other crap is cyberpunk either," while true, has little to do with 'ware. My point here is that "fixing" cyberware by making the game even less Shadowrun is probably not the way to go. There are already several transhuman games on the market. They're not Shadowrun, but honestly neither is this.

I was thinking, that if you want to make cyberware desirable, that's one way to go. And I think that playing a cyborg is actually more reasonable than playing an AI.

I rather like the idea of just having the bonus range on cyberware be somewhat better than that on gear, like the cybereyes giving a bigger bonus to Perception than the goggles.

It's nice when you can consider a trade-off; "do I want to spend Essence for more power?"

In that case I'd go for the nostalgic route: ban all races not in the core book. Being an Elf or a Troll should be special enough for anyone.

Besides shooting people, what else do you use agility for? Heavy Weapons, Longarms, Gunnery and Assault rifles generally take 2 hands, so that’s a reason for full body agility. Combat Axes, Escape Artist, Gymnastics, Infiltration all use full body agility. Palming you can probably pass off as a 1 handed activity (with your cyber palm). Forgery and Locksmith also use agility but are very rarely used IMHO.

The question is not “is full body agility better than one armed agility”, because no one will argue that one arm agility is better. I will cede that point. My point is that 1 armed agility is much cheaper, and nearly as useful. A pimped out cyber arm runs around 40,000 and 1 essence but gives you 9 one handed agility and 5 full body agility (assuming 1 agility). This saves many many BP (to start, having a 5 agility base is 40BP). The idea is to save money and BP to spend in other places. That is why the “arm of awesome” build is good.

Edit: How else do you get 11 RC without gyromount, gyroharness, tripod, or bipod? And remember that SnS spamming is 90% of all combat, so more SnS rounds downrange = more dakka = better. Thus getting more RC is important.

Preemptive Edit: Yes a few guns can hit 11 RC without the above items, due to inherent RC, but not many.

The reason you go with the arm is that it's cheap as hell BP wise. Muscle Toner 4 with Agility 5 gets you 9 agility overall for ~46 BP (buy agility to 5 and 30000Y for the toner). Cyberarm of Awesome gets you 9 agility for shooting fools and 5 agility for everything else for ~5 BP (~25000Y for customized cyberlimb). You could almost become magical character for the BPs that saves you (Magic 1 to Magic 5, dropped down to 4). Being a troll, ork, or elf can change these values (especially if you factor in body buying), but the values shouldn't be too different.

I must admit I don't know how many "true" street samurai use this. But nearly anyone who isn't a focused magic character or technomancer gains a lot for a small BP cost. Slap an arm onto a PC and he becomes a decent shooter (dice pool 14+) with a modest autoamtics (SMG) of 1 (3) for a 5 BP quality (which can you drop if you're willing to live with a slightly subpar arm) and 11 BP. Then you can take drugs, get a mage to cast increase initiative on you, or use Wired Reflexes 2 and you're decent combat character.

In addition, you'll have a 9 body cyberarm that odds are will increase your average body score so you have more encumbrance for armor. There's also mods like armor, gyromount, and whatever else you feel like. If you're going some variety of two-handed weapon (i.e. something that isn't just for SnS spamming) or need every single infiltration die you can get, you might want to pay out the 40BP for those 4 extra dice you'll get with a "natural" agility. Otherwise, cyberarms are tempting.

Overall, I like what SR4A did with cyberarms. It made them arguable for wide variety of characters. In earlier additions they were expensive jokes except for NPCs with unlimited budgets and the odd decker who wanted to hide his 1 million cyberdeck someplace safe other than his brain. Cyberdiabeetus (replacing your hands and feet with armored cyberhands and feet for +8 armor for virtually nothing to a mundane) is a weird side effect of all this. Though it also gives mundanes a niche, non-magical DV sponge. It's not great niche and some mages can still win there (possession by a high force spirit) but it's at least not trivial.

Edit- Got some armor values wrong

Again, that has nothing to do with 'ware. I'll say it again:

Fixing cyberware by making the game less like Shadowrun and even more like anime is not really fixing anything.

If you want to talk more on the last bit rather than the first bit, we probably need to start a new thread and bribe the mods.

I've been thinking about how to make cyber much more attractive, but mostly have been drawing a blank. Everything else that I have thought about has been thrown around.

One thing that hasn't been thrown into the mix, that I know of, is using the idea of cyber suites, but rather than having the Essence cost multiplied by .9, have it multiplied by .8 and have it that ANY logical group of cyberware can be put into the mix rather than specific items that make no sense at all... or are totally worthless*. Also the cost would the cost of the items. You still have to buy them separately, but because they're being installed at the same time you can reduce the number of connections leading to the brain, and therefore reduce the Essence cost.

Now for this to be done logically, the cyber that is included in the package deal must be at least 3 different systems and they need to have some related function to one another. For example, the "Cyber Security Special" would have a Commlink, a Math SPU, a datajack, and a Simsense Booster. The synergy in this example should be self evident.


* == Urban Kshatriya would be a good example. Street Sams are lining up to get this piece of shit? I DO NOT think so!

That's a good point, KCKitsune. It *never* made sense for suites to cost less, but more flexibility in selection combined with a useful level of Essence cost reduction might work well. That solution would require quite a bit of GM oversight, but doesn't everything?

You would have to define what Shadowrun is like, then, first. And why "anime" is not like shadowrun, when some anime is the most shadowrun you can get in a fiction package that doesn't have the SR logo on it.

I think the main problems with Ware are actually individualized, rather than systemic. Namely: 95% of ware is crap. You do, of course, need to underuse or ignore cyberware scanners as most GMs do so that you can actually play Shadowrun. The most common issues ware has are:

1) Why would I pay some of my soul to have this implanted? Good example: cyberears less than rating 4. Just wear earbuds! Yeah, you can come up with convoluted excuses to take away someone's earbuds and make them pay a trivial amount of nuyen for new ones, or go through an entire scene without audio enhancement on occasion, but really? It's never going to be worth it.

The fix here is simple - make sure implanted XYZ is always better than just carrying an XYZ. This means it either needs to be more good, or be as good while being something that actually noticeably benefits from being hidden. Also, a lot of it falls under (2) or (3) as well - you want to remember that "having an X in your skull" is generally extremely niche compared to carrying an X around.

2) Incredibly niche gear. The problem is that carrying niche gear costs you a little nuyen. Implanting niche gear costs you a generally over-large amount of a very finite resource - essence. A good example is the Sleep Regulator. Yes, it might occasionally be useful - but not nearly often enough to justify .15 essence, especially when Long Haul exists.

The solution here is also simple: niche gear either needs to suck less or be GREATLY reduced in essence, so people can use it to take up the last .05 essence they have with goofy party trick ware.

3) Gear that just sucks. It's not that what it does is useless, it's that it does way to little or costs way too much. A good example is the cyberskull. It's not useless - you can do stuff like put armor or cool toys or whatever in it. It's that it costs a lot of essence and money and does comparatively little. Another example is Muscle Replacement, which costs a whopping Rating essence. Again, it's not useless - just overpriced.

The solution is simple - make such things either more good or less expensive.

The main problem here is that the only way to actually accomplish this is going to be to go through ware line by line and fix each and every piece of crappy gear, which could take a while and be difficult.

UmaroVI,

1) I don't think that cyberears are bad at all. Even rating 1 is good because you get audiolink, audio recording, and 4 capacity... and so far the only audio dampeners that I have seen are either cyber or the adept power. I have NOT seen a dampener listed as a gear item

2) Sleep regulator is not addictive, so is much better than Long Haul

3) Cyberskull... yeah I agree with you on this one. The capacity of the cyberskull should be made higher

Honestly i think one of the better fixes for the cybereyes and ears problem is to just do away with the ratings in cybereyes and ears and give them either unlimited or very high capacity. I agree with your assessment, if your paying essence for something it should be curb stomping better then it's non essence equivalent.

Just to amend that statement a little: if you're *choosing* rationally to spend Essence, it should be something worth that. There's no reason that implants should, as a general rule, be better than non-implants… technologically-speaking. If an implant *is* better, it has to be due to some kind of 'faster/more direct connection to the body/brain', not simply by virtue of costing Essence.

This is what you said, I'm just pointing out that we don't want general power creep from people with radar sensors in their arms. It's the same exact sensor.

Cybereye capacity at the high end basically is unlimited already. The only things you'd want that won't fit are the eye laser systems, AFAIK.

The implants have to meet demanding standards. The gear doesn't. To me it's quality control, research, testing, etc to a very high standard vs what you can buy from a sidewalk dealer in NYC.

That being said, I find it hard to justify holding home rules to a higher standard than the book rules.

I'm not really sure what your definition of Shadowrun is then..

I think SR has changed a lot, because technology has developed in ways they didn't anticipate. Instead of huge mainframes and wired networks with hidden access points in the Barrens, we have ubiquitous smartphones for everyone. Cybernetic implants have been put on a slow burner somewhere while genetech has become really hot.

My point is, I don't really believe that handling cyberware in an "orthodox" manner is more authentic or better. It's just staying confined in the expectations of the '80s of where tech might go.

I get the feeling cyberware has stagnated in SR, while bioware, geneware, nanoware, magic and gear have all been going forwards. If you want cyberware to look exciting, it should be pushing the envelope, not simmering on a back burner. Cyberware was developed before bioware and all that, because it was somehow easier. So now cyberware should again be the first way all manner of new augmentations enter society, only to be emulated by bioware later on.

I feel like the transition from enhancing the body to being able to connect a brain to an entire artificial body, to uploading the brain to a computer entirely, should be making progress. I think transhumanism does belong in SR; it's one of Evo's big working areas for example.

One problem is just that cyberware used to be the thing fundamentally enabling decking and rigging, but it lost that. Somehow, the Booster and the +2 Rig don't maintain that feel. Skillwires are an area that cyber still enjoys major coverage over bioware and magic, for example.

And yet, you ARE Buying Implants from the Street Dealer, Just like Equipment. What else do you call going to the Mall for a Datajack and a pair of Eyes?

if the rig, and the booster effected all rolls while rigged in, instead of just driving tests, they might be more 'must have coolness'
Another thing that bothers me is that, RIggers need every single skill in the game. WHen jumped in, if you're in a fly drone, trying to sneak by someone, you use the same skill as the infiltration expert.

I don't know what you do, but when Stuffer Shack has a sale on surgery, I assume the price of Soylent Green is going to have a temporary drop soon.

The nice thing about Gyromounts is that they negate Movement modifiers to shooting too.
If you negate your bursting RC and your -2 for Running, then its basically a free +2 to your ranged defense rolls.

THATS the hidden benefit of gyromounts.

Shadowrun once had ubiquitous smartphones, too.

However they took a turn straight into GitS-land, copying that form of AR and wireless brain-hacking, instead of pacing themselves and introducing smartphones as matrix tools with slightly better access to a more traditional VR matrix backbone, rather than a badly designed conglomerate of All The Computers Ever.

They leaped ahead from our world rather than their world, and it shows. With that leap, they changed the general theme from desperate stagnation and decay to one of frantic change and constant upgrade. Shadowrunners talking about full body replacement? What the hell happened?

Actually, for some reason I thought cyberears couldn't have enhancements higher than their rating; I was mistaken. They do in fact suck, but for different reasons. A better example would be implanted grapple gun. Now, sure, there might be the occasional time where having a built in grapple gun is useful. But .5 essence for a "once in a blue moon" trick is ridiculous; just carry a grapple gun!

For 2: needing to stay up for obscenely long periods of time (remember, you don't even have to make any rolls or take any penalties until you hit 30 full hours without sleep) is rare. Long Haul is certainly not as good as Sleep Regulator - but is it really worth .15 essence for a somewhat better version of something that's only rarely useful?

I don't know, but I think that it's useful. I mean if you're going to have Long Haul in the game, then why not have Sleep Regulator.

Personally a large percentage of my characters have sleep regulator for flavor reasons as well as their occasional usefulness.

I put a sleep regulator on my Combat medic mage for exactly those reasons.

^^^^^^
Yes, I'm sure some people would take cyberware that gave you +1 to Con rolls against domestic cats in June for 2 essence if it fit their character; that doesn't make it not overpriced.


In the game? Sure, just price it appropriately.

.15 is a fairly insignificant amount of essence, and I think you'll find there are a large number of people who get sleep regulator fairly often. Long haul has serious down sides and isn't something that can really be a regular part of what the character does.

And it seem fairly... trollish to compare .15 essence and a fairly useful ability to 2 essence and an obviously useless ability.

My point is that people would take it, then post smugly about their moral superiority, not that Sleep Regulator is actually that bad.

.15 essence is a lot for an extremely niche ability. You could be getting something, like, say, +1 to one of your most often used skills all the time for 2/3 that.

How often have all those Sleep Regulators actually come up, in game, in an "I would be taking Sleep Deprivation penalties RIGHT NOW if I didn't have sleep regulator" way, Ghost (playing by the actual sleep deprivation rules in Shadowrun, in which you are fine and dandy for 29 hours and 59 minutes then start taking effects)?

*shrug* It's never come up directly as sleep deprivation, but definitely comes up very often as having extra time to prepare for runs and makes extended tests faster, or allows for extended tests to be taken on days in which I'd otherwise have been too busy thanks to the extra hours of saved sleep.

Admittedly all those could have likely been done by being a rules lawyer about the sleep rules, but I'd rather not pull that kind of crap.

Well, you can get in and out surgery at the Mall... THE MALL... Don't know about you, but I have yet to see a Mall that is sterile and antiseptic.

Maybe not the mall as a whole, but I've certainly seen individual shops in some malls that could likely meet near hospital standards.

I find sleep regulators VERY useful for anyone who needs to make lots of extended tests. Basically, this means anyone regularly using technical skills. Negotiating the black market and doing stake-outs also involved extended periods of wakefullness.

Stake-Outs are a major reason to have them. Also, they allow you to control your sleep patterns COMPLETELY! As any soldier will tell you, the ability to pass out and wake up instantly is a really handy skill to have.

I also use them in my stories quite often for some characters who are exceptionally well read despite their relatively "stupid" manner of speaking. Lots of time to read with full mental energy is handy for a lot of things.

However, if you lack them and need to do long-term work short-term, there's always Long Haul. My Magicians carry a few doses with them just in case. It was also a major plot point in one of my stories.

Sleep Regulator used to be crucial back in SR3 for anyone who used build/repair/coding in their down time. It's still very useful for the same reason but the current rules don't support it very well.

You get yourself a 48 hours day. Thats extreamly usefull.
Of course if you just drive to A and shoot things up next run it does not help.

Sleep regulator was a bad choice for comparison. The fact is, many character types can gain benefits from not having to sleep as often, and the threat of addiction makes the anti-sleep drugs kind of leery, rules-wise.

Pink-mohawk style games are less likely to benefit from sleep regulator, sure, but they can still be useful.

I've always started them at the characters natural attribute score instead of 3's across the board.

This. However, I add a percentile cost difference based on metatype. Humans and elves pay the normal going rate. Dwarves and orks pay 25% more, while trolls pay a 50% premium. This is only the case for standard cyberware, though. Alpha/beta/deltaware is always customized to an extent, so the racial cost modifier is already covered.

Alright, to cull the drift a bit, let's try this.

Go through the basic SR4 book and flag the cyberware that you think needs to be worked on.

Then post the list here, and why you think item X needs to be improved. It can be as simple as 'Goggles do it for 10% of the Nuyen and no essence', but, there should be a reason for everything you flag.

That'll help us figure out what the 'bad' ware is and, from there, solutions can be crafted.

(I have a mental list, but I'm curious what other people will trot out.)

Can't say for Robocop, but if I'm remembering T2 right there were 3 PC's. The Terminator, John Connor, and Sarah Connor.

Goggles can be taken away, easily. If they're taking away your eyes, then you're in bigger trouble than you probably should be in.

Then again, you might be a really bad agent for the CIA in Mexico Aztlan.

Hmm, lets see...
Datajack - Trodes are cheaper and no essence
Sim Module - non-implanted sim module does the same thing more cheaply and for no essence cost
Cybereyes - Goggles do the same for a fraction of the cost and no essence
Cyberears - With one or two excpetions earbuds replace for no essence and minimal cost
Muscle Replacement - way too high essence cost and not nearly enough nuyen saving compared to muscle toner/enhancement.
Sim Rig -
Grapple Gun -

I think those are the main ones. Didn't include implanted commlink because the basic reason to get it is to prevent it being lost/stolen/taken, which it does do quite well.