So i've been somewhat frustrated lately as the game becomes more and more hostile to ware and augmentation while at the same time continues to throw new toys at the magic using set. I look at additional spells and improvement to things like trodes but when I look at the ware catalog it's more or less the same as when i first started playing the game in second edition. As such i'm trying to compile a list of ware that needs a bit of a shot in the arm or improvement and then format a series of house rules to apply the same.

First thing: Drop the first aid/medicine modifier for lack of essence. I've worked on enough bloody people to know that having them bleed less would actually likely be helpful, or at the very least not hurt my chances any more.

Datajack - The venerable datajack gets reworked withs ome of the same tech that allows trodes to work better taking advantage of it's direct link to a users brain to provide the full DNI 2.0 experience: Datajacks now allow users to take and additional free action and a complex or two simples in regards to the matrix or other online devices.
Problems with implantation: We'd need to codify what can be done with these actions, if instructing your drone to fire is ok why wouldn't instrucitng your cyberarm to fire? (i'm actually pretty comfortable with this, but others might not be). Also some way for technomancers to do the same would have to be implented through echos or complex forms or something.

Smartlink - An implanted smart link's better tap into your hand eye complex allows you to ignore the pentalties for shooting FROM cover.

The Macro Echo allows Technomancers to take an additional non-combat, matrix task with a -2 modifier every time them spend a complex action (including matrix actions). That sounds like close to what you are looking at.

All very interesting suggestions...

My personal Favorite would be to apply the Essence Loss from Implantation as a penalty to ALL Spellcasting DP's (Rather than Just Healing Tests) targeted against the Character. But that is just me.

The problem with 'Ware interacting with healing is that it disrupts the body's natural healing processes. So I understand the penalties to First Aid/Medicine Rolls. It is just HARDER to heal a person with only 0.1 Essence. I am not really sure how to counter that issue without having complex 'Ware rules for repairing the "damaged" 'Ware that should be represented on the character when he takes Physical Damage. There are, of course, optional rules in Augmentation that might address this in some capacity, but they do not go far enough. *shrug*

I do like the idea of applying the Essence Loss Penalty to all the spells cast against the character. Those with severely reduced auras from ware would be harder to form that magical connection that you need to cast a spell with.

Agreed...

The datajack idea seems very complex and probably overpowered. It would significantly mess with the existing AR/VR initiative system, and giving an extra full IP (and what, is that per Turn or Phase?) is also way too strong. If you want 'real DNI' to have an advantage over trodes, then just make one stronger and/or the other weaker. +2/-2 to Matrix tests? +2/-2 Matrix initiative? Etc.

However, that would only be for mana spells. Physical spells, and especially combat spells, which "create" an effect, then unleash it (any elemental spell, knockout and such), wouldn't suffer from this issue, I think.

Change the cost/benefit ratio so that tech is always more efficient than magic?

Make technological equivalents for all the stuff that only magic does?



BTW, are talking cyber specifically here, or augmentation in general?

The problem isn't the ware. The problem is the magic.

Ware means your body type is now "abnormal" so standard procedures are less effective. Fine.
Magic means your body type is so abnormal that science doesn't understand how you work, BUT standard procedures work just fine.

Wireless > Sniffing > Encryption > Decryption OR Wireless > Jamming > ECCM.
Magic Communication. You are a unique and special snowflake.

The cold war is still being fought on the technological side of the house, but it's pointless because the war is over. Magic won.

Awakened are the Übermensch. They don't check their guns at the door. They don't get their communications jammed. And they can replace your hardwired datajack with body glitter.

Harry Dresden may get beaten up in every encounter, but we don't even bother making the Six Million Dollar man anymore because that wouldn't even be a fight worth watching.

Cyber is replacing something that works with something that works better at a cost to the thing that works.
Magic is just putting something great on top of something that works with no downside to the thing that works.
Magic wins.

The problem is that there aren't enough effective countermeasures against magic. And the scarcity of magic in the general populous of the SR universe, makes most magic countermeasures just as scarce. The others are not very reliable, like background counts. Sure, they exist, and can be pretty common, but most facilities wouldn't be built to make use of them, baring their research.

The problem is not magic, it is the mage.

It start with the rules to magic loss. There is no reason not to take two points of ware. (Since you just pay the points you have lost, which might be not that much Karma)

Just compare adepts to sams. (Since mages are hard to compare)

A pure adept can't outperform a sam for quite a long time. (And at this point the sam has a lot of skills besides killing) (Changed a bit with way of the adept)

But add in two points of Essence loss and everything changes.
If you have a latend awkening, it cost you shit. Might even take three or more.
Lets but it simple: Give the adept only Cybereyes, Synaptic booster 2, muscle augmentation 3(alpha) and a cyberhand for the nanite core.

It is quite the ware you need, so the hell with the rest. (You want to walk through cyberwarescanners anyway)


Overcasting is an other glitch. Just decrease the drain resist pool by 1 for every point of overcast. (Or even better overcast force counst double. So a for a magic 4 mage a force 8 Stunball would be resisted like a force 12 stunball.)

Introduce range modifiers for casting. I ain't that easy to focus on a point at the horizon.
Level 6 mage casting force 12 stunball? I do not think so.

It is not the tec response to magic, that causes the problem. It is the magic rules itself, that are causing the problems.
Because they do not really limit the players. (Yeah, the damage is physical now, so what?)


If you overcast to your double magic attribute, you shoult be frying yourself. The point is: You are not.
If you take ware you should be limited. You are not.
Etc. etc.

You do realize that the penalty for lost essence on first aid test is at worst a -2? This is pretty much negligible for a skilled medic. I think it should stay.
Now for magic healing the penalty can go to up to -5, this is more substantial. It would be a major fluff change to remove that.

As for the new magic stuff, I'm pretty sure most of it has been around since SR2, Just as most Bio and Cyberware implants.

This largely depends on what spell you actually cast. A Force 12 Napalm Spell is 13 drain. I call that frying yourself.
You are, you have a lower magic attribute, which affects your casting DP, and your maximum force. You have to start initiating earlier to be able to raise your magic attribute.

Another thing that I'm reminded of, healing awakened characters/critters. I believe there is a -2 penalty to use first aid and medicine on awakened lifeforms, due to the effort of not interfering with the awakened properties. In Augmentation it is suggested that a specialization can be taken for awakened persons to compensate for this.

Which is why you sadly never see mages casting napalm. They're horrendously expensive in the drain category, and actually less effective than a stunball or something similar.

1 DP isn't that big of a deal for the benefits you can generally cram into a single point of essence (or 2 DP for 2 points of essence) and for 90% of spells a super high force isn't very important.

This is very true, unfortunitely. One thing I've considered is implementing a reduced effect stunball/manaball. Specifically, the way it is handled in the Food Fight 4.0 starter encounter. For those unfamilar, the stunball in that scenario only does damage based on hits, not the force+hits. It reduces the power of oft used spells, and makes some of the higher force, physical spells more attractive.



Also a good point. Most characters only need a couple of options in combat, and the other spells only need as much force as necessary for the situation, which is usually fairly manageable by a weak caster.

@Dakka Dakka

But Napalm Force 6 has a drain of 10. So...


Well. Lets even say they got your Magic to 5 before you got two points, they have to pay 45 Karma to rebuy those two points.
So you pay 45 Karma to get 2 Points of ware. This is dirt cheap.
This would be the cost to get from 8 to 9.
So what is better two points of ware or one point of magic?

One way to limit overcasting is to limit to 1.5 times Essence rather than double. This limits uber magic.

Another thing to do to limit magic is that a mage can only initiate so many times. The limit would be Essence. So a mage who gets 2 points of 'Ware can only initiate 4 times rather than 6 times. This also limits his magic to double his Essence rather than unlimited as is now. If for some reason a mage with level 4 initiate dips below 4 Essence he loses his most recently gained meta-magic.

Part of me wants to say that is too restrictive, but another part of me thinks that's fine: It isn't like sammies have unlimited essence to improve with, why should mages have unlimited initiation/magic?

The problem with magic may be partially that we are wired to think of it as powerful and/or to not want to decrease the power of something. We'd rather raise something else up to match it than bring it down.

Which is exactly what leads to break the system. (Thats what we know)

But I have to fight not to argue that way.

With enought money, they pretty much do.
Starting with Biocompability cyber, helps too.

But a Sam with plenty of Experience and a Chunk Ton of Money can get Delta Grade Cyber and Bio combinations that result in 18-29 points of Effective Essence Loss (Dependant upon Qualities and such). THAT is a chunk of Essence. Let the Mage Try that one and see how it falls out.

Mages are generally more Versatile, though.

And at the risk of having Yerameyahu berate me again We have very little trouble in the way that magic integrates with technology at our table. They both have their ups and downs. Some campaigns, we have more Awakened than NonAwakened. Other times the UnAwakened far outnumber the Singular Awakened Character. It's all good.

Obviously, you should do what's best at your specific table. If initiation abuse is a problem, you'd tone it *down* as a general rule.

Personally I love Magic and have no problem with it being better than technology in the long run, however I have an issue with it being the only thing in the game with unlimited advancement. Sure as a GM you can just say no to the Mage wanting to initiate further, but in my mind that is a cop out. So instead of leaving it uncapped in my games I cap it. It is still plenty vicious, but GD's, and IE's are not unkillable. Ridiculously powerful yes, but killable. I always see Ghostwatchers arrival as a fluke, and a huge expenditure of resources to secure something he wanted. As to the essence issue, well in my games Mages and Adepts rerely get cyber or bio because well it is a kick in the pants against other awakened (so Mages don't look at it until they can afford delta grade), and Adepts have a power discount based on their initiate grade, which means every magic point they lose to cyber in the end costs them more.

As to Tech not getting better, well trodes and easy access to non invasive methods tells me that it is getting better. What I think you want is a firm commitment to the aesthetic of cyberchic, or a real advance in cyber. Problem with cyber is that it is limited by the meat. They really need to move into the area of full on cyborgs and rigged clone bodies for doing meat things to keep the borg sane. Or a brain pod with changeable bodies, hrmm.

Well yeah, sure, if you're giving the sammy access to infinite money, then to compensate you need to give the mage access to infinite karma, which I'm sure we all know who would work out better.

Also keep in mind that an improvement from regular to delta gives you double the amount of usable essence at ten times the cost. With magic however, you're generally looking at a much better cost:improvement ratio, since initiations only go up in cost by 3 karma at a time, and magic scores by 5 at a time (which admittedly gets expensive, but so does a single piece of delta ware even before you consider things like availability of delta clinics).

You also need to consider that each time a mage initiates, virtually all of their initiate abilities get more powerful, and each time a mage increases magic, virtually all of her magic abilities get more powerful. For a sammy, getting a new piece of ware may give her an extra point to a pool or two, but you very quickly run out of things that give dice to several pools thanks to maximums on grades.

Another problem is that it is easy to unbalance the amount of karma and nuyen given out in games. If too much karma is given out, then the mages advance more, with the adepts quickly hitting limits of maximum skills, eventually requiring them to spend over 30 karma for their last point in a skill, which is more than the mage is likely paying for another initiation. If however there is too much nuyen being given out, the mundanes will generally be given a slight nod, but not much of one because there are plenty of expensive goodies the mage can get as well (geneware, high grade bio/cyber, not to mention possibly drones or other things), so the mage isn't at too huge of a disadvantage. This brings up what I think is the biggest problem:
The space between the parentheses represents everything mundanes can do, and the space between the brackets represents everything an awakened can do. AKA there is nothing a mundane can do that an awakened can't with the exception of spending that last .99 essence (And I guess cyborg and cyberzombie). Sure, they wouldn't be as good of a mage as if they focused purely on being a mage, but they'd be basically as good of an X as a real X, but also have the benefit of having magic.

Simple change:
All Spells have to overcome object resistance of highly processed material for anybody who has even the least amount of cyberware in them.
And then you still get to resist with your normal willpower(+x) . .
That would make casting spells at cybered people much harder. Yes, all of them, the beneficial ones too. Makes physical spells/elemental spells/indirect combat spells more worth taking too.

And everyone in the world gets a datajack and is immune to magic. That's a bit too much I think.

You could scale the object resistance threshold based on Essence spent but that just seems to make low magic characters even less viable without really impacting mages who can shrug off all but the highest thresholds already.

I don't know how that makes low magic mages less viable than giving everyone with a datajack 5 free hits on magic resistance tests.

Perhaps a nice middle ground is that for each point of essence lost, all spells targeted at the person are reduced by a force of 1, which is similar to how a mage would lose a point of magic for losing a point of essence. This would make low magic mages viable through overcasting.

Perhaps, but the healing spell mechanic of reducing dice pool would work a lot better, without nerfing them too badly.

That said, I think GM's should just be more aware of Background count and the fact that killing a chicken can temporarily increase it (according to fluff)

I don't know where you get that killing a chicken is remotely close to enough to create any amount of background count. An example of a rating 1 background count is the scene of a violent crime. I don't think killing a chicken quite counts, even if it is technically violent and might be a crime.

Edit: That said, alot of what shadowrunners do could be creating BCs of 1 all over the place.

Well, it's not a permanent background count. I just remember one of the pre-chapter stories being about a mage muddying the astral space by killing a chicken at the scene, to hide the astral signatures for a little while.

Edit: But, I could be wrong. I can't seem to ever find it again, no matter how hard I look.

Not in any of my books. I could perhaps see performing some kind of ritual that involved sacrificing a chicken being able to create a slight BC for a bit, but I'd think that it would carry the signature of the person performing the ritual as well as not be strong enough to hide a signature.

Now, if you set off a bomb in a crowded building, that would likely hide your signature for a while.

I find it amusing that a thread about how to improve ware becomes a thread about balancing magic.

Cyberware giving a defense against magic would be an improvement, no?

Maybe, i'm not sure. I don't think cyber's judge fail should be based strictly on magic. I specificly picked out the two items in the OP becuase they are items that have gear equivalents that does the same job exactly as better. That strikes me as wrong especially in the case of trodes vs datajack. Logically a datajack should be better, the game just hasn't seen fit to explore how.

That's the story of SR4. Everything that was cyber-only got a gear equivalent. Ultrasound, radar, smartlink, etc.

Well in the case of radar and ultrasound it makes sense to me there should be a gear equivalent but datajack is all about getting the best hardware to wetware connection you can.

Hmm, I see what you mean. Kind of like how smart goggles used to be less effective than an implanted smartlink system.

Well, to get back on that track, I'm not so sure it needs it. It is one of those things that exists largely for flavor, like the silky skin bioware. It has no mechanical advantage, but you might take it to show just how concerned your character is with their appearance, and it is something that NPCs get.

In the case of datajack for example, you might get it because it is that tiny bit better (tiny enough to not give a DP bonus) than a trode net, along with the fact that it is impossible to misplace.

That said, if you really want to give cyber an advantage I suggest dropping the power of the gear as opposed to raising the power of the ware. Why? Well, quite simply because if you increase the power of ware, you decrease the power of things that don't have access to ware like IC, agents, AI, and sprites. For datajack vs trodes for example, you could give a -1 penalty to all matrix actions while using trodes to represent them not quite relaying things at 100%. You're more or less using inferior equipment.

I do think there should be more little gadgets and ware that give unique bonuses. But you have to be careful with bloat and something being too good. Just more options and synergies to work with so that something can be cobbled together for a character. This would help out magic character but it would I think help cyber characters more, because there is only so much cyber a mage can scoop up and cyber characters can scoop up more of it.

The problem with suggesting this is that it needs a lot of creativity to come up with a lot of things that you might sometimes want but not always want. Not two weak, not two strong, just right. It is like saying all you need to do to solve this problem is to solve this problem.

The other thing is that lower than 6 essence and higher than 6 essence might give some advantage and disadvantage to remain hidden from astral. I would go with, every two points of essence bellow 6 subtracts a dice from the searcher's dice pool, and ever 2 points above 6 essence (and maybe magic) adds a dice to the searcher's dice pool. Negative essence instead adds dice to be observed in the same way essence over 6 adds to the dice pool of observers. This is because a black astral taint is more easy to see than simply a dim aura. It is a small bonus or penalty but it is small tweaks here in there that you need to make or else you overshoot your goal.

It also occurs to me that quickened spells, and anchored spells may have been something that could have gone some way to give mundanes some of what magic has. But there are all kinds of obstacles from them being useful and from them being something you can just pay have done. The main limitations as we probably all know are stealth, being vulnerable to targeting from astral, high karma cost for something that can be destroyed or diminished fairly easily. Also because if a quickened spell can be tracked back to the caster to bite them in the ass. You can not cast it on yourself because you are mundane. A party member can not do it because it costs lots of karma. A NPC will not do it because unlike foci it can be tracked back to its maker and it also costs lots of karma cost. It was just a thought. I think they successfully made quickened spells interesting but not overpowered so it is hard to mess with that equation, but here is me trying anyway.

Maybe a mundane or anyone else could step in to pay for the karma for a quickened spell being cast on themselves, and then the spell is only linked to the person who stepped in, to pay karma. It could need to be a tattoo magic maybe, or not. The ability to allow someone else to pay for a quickened spell would probably be a new metamagic. New toys for the kid with the most toys but it could help magic spread the wealth some.

Something similar could be done for other items. There are a rare few items in shadow run that are anything like any of the magic items from something like D&D but they do exist in the shadow run universe. Getting magic active through barriers would still be hard but that would just mean sometimes you have to leave your vorpal blade at home.

I picture a sort of permanency spell that counts as double karma when being quickened (can still pay up to twice karma force, and it will then count as double) but then the spell does nothing other than preventing any quickened spells cast before it from being dispelled before it is fully dispelled. It would also stop more spells from being quickened on a person or an object until the permanency spell is dispelled. The double karma part may be too good. Because then you could load up with a lot of low level but useful quickened spells and then toss a really high force and high karma permanency spell on top like some sort of capstone, and then all your little spells are safe and the average enemy would just slag you with manabolts than tangle with removing a high force quickened spell in the middle of combat.

With that use in mind, it being something that effectively allows you to spend less karma on a lot of little quickened spells, permanency might cost double karma, or double karma points of karma spent over force.

Lets take a look at it.

Depends on how much spellresistance you get per point of essence loss and how it interacts with counterspelling.
Plane bonus dice for each point of lost essence would be quite nice. (But you should really watch the line of sight for counterspelling!)

The issue with trodes/nanopaste/skinlink is the same as the issue with magic. It was adding something great without taking anything away.
There is no real reason trodes/nanopaste/skinlink should work with VR. You could limit it to AR only. Personally, I'd limit it to command only, AR with cybereyes, and VR with a datajack. If you want AR and VR, get the eyes and the jack. I'd also allow AR with goggles and wireless, but VR needs that jack.
There is no reason MULTIPLE trodes/nanopaste/skinlinks should work at the same time. You could classify trodes and and nanopaste as skinlink devices as well and have only one work at a time. I can think of a half dozen reasons why they should interfere with each other and why two people using skinlink devices should not touch other. It also seems to make sense that if you're using a skinlink device and I touch you, I have the same link to that device that you have.

Well, one could go into encryption.
On second thought, let's not go to encryption. It's a silly place.

I wasn't aware that you could wear multiple trodes at the same time, and am even less aware of any reason you might want to do that.

As for skinlink devices, there is no reason two people with skinlinked devices shouldn't touch each other any more than there is any reason that two people with wireless devices shouldn't come within signal range of each other. Yes, if you have skinlinked enabled devices and touch someone that also has skinlinked devices, you could access those devices, but with no more ease than you could access them if they were wireless devices.

Except that if you are wearing skin-linked devices you might have skimped out on the rest of your security suite. But that`d be your fault anyway.

As far as I can tell, in the '70's people tend to go out of their way to avoid physical contact with anyone, so even bumping into someone on the street might be a little odd. Let along prolonged contact in order to skinlink-hack.

I'm Curious... Where did you infer this from?

I haven't really seen anything that says they avoid physical contact any more than in modern times. That said, even in modern times about the only time touching someone you don't know well happens is shaking their hand.

A skinlink device, to the best of my understanding, is sending high voltage, incredibly low amperage current through my body, much like a violet wand does. It needs to have enough amperage so that the signal very reliably gets through but NOT enough amperage to start causing pain or damage. And it's easy to say OUCH when you suddenly brush against metal while holding a violet wand.

I don't want to think about holding two violet wands or touching someone else who is also holding a violet wand.

By the way, for an example of the power levels we're talking about, I normally use a violet wand on Halloween. I'll stand outside with a glowing florescent bulb (the long tubes) in my hand. If someone else grabs the tube the section between us glows brightly. If I let go, it turns off. But if I touch you, it's like a carpet shock that doesn't go away.

All that being said. There doesn't have to be a reason. The matrix doesn't work like any protocol we know. The NAN doesn't make any sense. None of the rules or fluff hold up to scrutiny. One simply says "This is the way it is" and that's that.

What the hell is a voilet wand?

Just an inference based partly on how society is going already, and the little fiction I've read. That, of course is general, and more likely in upper class society, but it's always been that way.

Not quite right... It is using the ambient electrical charge of the body to trasnmit data along it. Not quite the same as what you have above.





As you can see, neither description is what you describe.