I've been looking into reaction booster/enhancer 'ware, and it seems to me that putting a 1 in reaction is entirely viable for a street sam with his heart set on (restricted gear) move-by-wire 2 and a couple of points of reaction boosters.
Am i missing something here (other than the fact that such an investment is going to cost a good hunk of both your money and essence)?

Except for the fact that you're going to wake up dead, no, you're not missing anything. Feel free to dump the stat you use for defense.

I was more pointing out that MBW 2 + reaction enhancers 2 + base stat of 1 gives you reaction 7 out of chargen.

You're entirely correct. Reaction is trivially easy to boost (10 reaction between MBW, RE, and suprathyroid) compared to the other easy to boost attributes (Agility [5], Strength [5], Logic [3]). MBW2 and RE2 boosts your Reaction from 1 to 7, which is only 2 points under the cap. The only tradeoff is that you're dumping 3.6 of your essence on reaction.

Yeah, it does. But you spend a bunch of money, a bunch of essence, and if you're going to roll multiple dodges per turn, you want to have it as high as possible. Or, again, wake up dead.

I have to go with Fatum, here. Sure, if you only make an investment in Essence and starting resources, you can be pretty good, but why settle for that when you can start out at your augmented maximum? Some campaigns have more or less of a focus on combat vs. sneaking/talking/tactics, but when it hits the fan, having a decent number of defense dice really helps.

Personally, I would recommend at least a base Reaction of 3, so you can start out with your augmented maximum. And later on, trade in the MBW: 2 and the reaction enhancers when you upgrade to MBW: 3.

I wouldn't call it a "dump stat," or start it at 1 -- but it's certainly safe (counterintuitively so) to start it at "9-purchased augmentations." So it's a little weird because someone decided to augment up a street sammie murder-machine who started with a Reaction of 2 or 3 or something...but the end result is, yes, still a nicely maximized stat and some BP/karma savings in the meantime.

why would I want Rea 7, when I can have Rea 9? It's THE major combat attribute.

I was under the impression that Agility took the crown for 'Major combat attribute', what with it being the offensive stat in a game of glass cannons.

In any case, it's quite possible to grab MBW 2, reaction enhancer 3 and superthyroid gland (and take restricted gear for each and every one of them) to up your reaction from 1 to 9 out of build (along with the other perks of MBW systems, mainly skillwires and extra initiative passes) then pass the extra BP allowance onto those stats that can't be upped as easily by augmentation. oh, and those three upgrades combined still come out at roughly the same nuyen cost as synaptic booster 2 ( about 160,000 each).

I'm beginning to view having a low base reaction as quite viable for a street sam, if you take the right augmentations and don't mind the essence hit.

definitely no. If you shoot and fail to hit, you can try again next action you have. If you fail to dodge, there might be no next action.

Good advice on the cyber. I don't necessarily agree with you and Fatum that a starting Reaction of 9 is absolutely necessary though, although your argument bolded above has its validity. For a sammie starting augmented Reaction of 7 can be plenty, especially for the tank builds.

You can also leave room for that final boost in game. For a mere 10 karma, the kid can boost his unaugmented Reaction to 2 , augmented 8. Then he can get that Suprathyroid Gland without having had to pay another Restricted Gear tax (on top of the MBW he already took) and take another 5BP from his Positive Qualities.

The character in question doesn't necessarily have to be a sammie, even. He could be a hacker/rigger, perhaps he was an ex-corp spyder - those MBW skillsofts for all the vehicle skills they might need should they have to jump into one of the drones and check it out, hell, with the Pilot Anthroform skillsoft they can even pilot the augmented guard dogs that roam the facility perimeter.

Not a bad idea for a runner, that. The REA 1 klutzy kid who becomes a geek, hacks, studies Computer Studies at the Corp uni, then gets into the corp on a fast track. He signs up for this experimental gear, then loses his job somehow. Maybe he failed to stop a run at the company HQ. Maybe he succeeded, but the powerful Director who had personal interest in the run succeeding took out his displeasure and sacked the poor geek. Maybe the kid got interested in Shadowsea, and decided to go and check out this glamorous life in the shadows ...

Good point. Placing 2-3 in Reaction is pretty much a dump stat yeah, compared to say Agility that you want to get at least 4 in IMO.

Plus he who shoots first lives longest.

Perhaps I'm remembering wrong or have misinterpeted the rules, but I thought that an augmented value (in a stat or skill) couldn't be higher than 1.5 times (round up) the current attribute or skill, so a natural reaction of 1 would top-out at an augmented value of 2.

-D

Augmented maximum is 1.5 times the natural maximum, current doesn't determine any maximums for attributes. On skills it is current that determines how much bonus you can get augmenting the actual skill, however.

"Glass cannons" says it all - since defense is a comparative vulnerability for most character, being as good as you can at it can be a matter of life and death for a character. Offense is important too, but generally, shooting someone (Agility + weapon skill, and usually a specialization and a smartlink) is easier than dodging a bullet (Reaction only, unless you are using full defense).


That's skills, not Attributes.

Just out of curiosity: Does suprathyroid gland really stack with MBW, wired reflexes or synaptic boosters? The MBW rule says, it doesn't stack with any other form of initiative enhancement except RE. So, is Suprathyroid an initiative enhancement, because it increases reaction? What's your opinion?

-CJ

it will stack for the purpose of reaction tests like dodge. whether it stacks for the purpose of initiative is to argue.

Meh, my Fomori troll is bulletproof.

BOD: 13
Exceptional Attribute: 14
Suprathyroid Gland [Att+1]
Titanium Bonelacing [BOD+2 and B1/I2 ]
Orthoskin 4 [Shock mod] [BOD+4]
Bloodcircuit Control System [Damage -1]
Double Elastin [Impact Armor +1]
Reakt [+2 Reaction]
Wired Reflexes 2 [Init+1 / Rea+2]

Total Body for soak: 20 [if I calculated correctly]

Can be offset with a strong Intuition which gives the benefit of making your perception checks even better which helps out with surprise.

only if he kills the target in the first round.

If the target is still grinning after you are done you are in deep do-do.

If you really think that there is no way to get to him, I have bad news for you.
Corps are massive entities very much concerned with their bottom line, and they always have superior force when defending it.

Ideally have both at fairly good level reactions just a lot easier to boost where as inituituin is a lot easier to get situation/gear/ware bonuses to.

If you think that Intuition has an easier time being boosted with Gear and 'Ware than does Reaction, we must be looking at entirely different game books.

Tanks can be taken down, but so can Reaction junkies when the enemy is using wide bursts. And, when it comes to it, automatic weapons are a lot more common than heavy weapons ... horses for courses, I suppose. Tank characters have to invest in Bod and choose certain races (with the Fomori being the most common, I believe), so it's not like they're not sacrificing BP for their tankiness (as are Reaction junkies for their Reaction plus augs).

I can easily see someone who has a poor natural reaction going quite gun-ho and cranking it to the max, so he can be finally faster than others.

I said bulletproof

Not:
-Mageproof
-Pornomancer Proof
-Building to head proof
-Dragonproof
-Hackerproof
-Anti-Tank missile proof
-Thor shot proof
-Drown proof
Etc...

FA SnS

Ok, long coat with R6 Non conductivity.

Base dice is still around 20D6 + 10D6 Armor + 6 nonconductivity

Excessive firepower will always do the job but in SR4 the amount needed to fell a well thought out tank troll nears anti-tank weaponry which is a bit silly.

FA-Modded Gauss rifle, or just capsule rounds with Ringu

While we are at it in the other thread: Nerve Strike.

Anti-tank weaponry needed to fell a tank.

Whodathunk?

There IS a certain difference between an 80 TONNE vehicle and a 300 kilogram bag of meat with armored clothing and soem cyberware.

Regardless of how much of a "tank" you are even a "bulletproof" troll should fear a sniper rifle - and you can make them ignore that.

makes me like the SR3 damage system more with it's "deadly" damage code of 10 boxes damage if you fail to resist.

Sniper rifle. You mean Ares Thunderstruck, right?

If your armour isn't hardened then enough bullets will kill anything eventually. sure, you'll need to invent a gun with twice the rate of fire of a minigun to bring said troll down, but the point remains that he isn't technically bullet proof... just highly bullet resistant!

If you built a heavy machine gun minigun using the rules implied to have been in development, scrapped, then referenced anyway in Arsenal, then chamber it for High Powered APDS (which is probably bending the rules as is!) then added high velocity (which you can't do for two reasons, as HP rounds are incompatible and presumably minigun would be, but we're doing anyway for s***s and giggles), and at full auto the monster gun is putting out 25p -8 armour to our poor troll. That's going to get his attention. Add it to a heavy turret (there's no way a normal turret is surviving that much recoil) with... let's say 3 ammo bins... I'd say that the troll is going down before we run out of ammo. just.

that may even work with a normal minigun firing APDS from a single 250 round ammo drum for all i know, but that would be nowhere near as insanely overkill and rulebreaking

This might go without saying, but always speak to your GM before getting Move-by-Wire to make sure it's applicable to the type of game you're playing.
MBW is one of those things that, in my experience, I've found works really well on paper, but anyone who has tried it at the game table ditches it after a session or two in favor of a new character because missing out on the role-playing stuff is rarely worth getting a few extra die for the combat stuff.

Different stroke for different folks, though. If your game is more combat/pink mohawk or your GM doesn't care much about the MBW fluff, then go nuts!

Actually a Super Sniper would probably have a good chance of doing some decent damage to you, depending on the combat round, but its possible they'd have to take 2-3 passes to kill you.

GM: "You've been headshoted by a sniper"
Munchkin: "Easy I'm gonna soak that with my dices!"
GM: "No you're dead. I'm old school style and I ruled out that a head shot by a sniper riffle means dead."

lol, but a typical Adept Sniper who's REALLY pushing his dice can come up with easily over 25+ Dicepool, subtract about 5 of those dice after Armor Penetration to ignore Armor, leaves you a 20 pool vs the 20 Soak so the Troll is soaking 10p+net hits from 20 dice, if you buy the hits thats still a net of 15p with Ex-Explosive Rounds which means he's likely taking around 7p if he gets a decent roll of about 8 hits on the 20 dice, so it won't kill him fast, but after about 3 rounds of that even a High Body Troll is gonna fall.

As far as whether or not the 25 pool is reasonable for a Sniper, my Sniper is pushing 20pool & I haven't even maximized the available options he has with a single Metamagic I can push him to 24 with my last point of Longarms pushes it to 25.

The troll tank has its advantages to be sure, like pretty much imunity to pea shooter heavy pistols and that sort of thing. Fair doos, he paid the BP for the privilege. So did the Reaction junkie, in another way, it's gonna take burst fire to tag him.

Of course, the flipside to the troll tank is that he might well attract the wrong sort of attention from the law downtown (this is why I tend to prefer orks). Comparatively, the Reaction junkie is a little more low key than the troll tank, his ability to catch flies in his chopsticks aside ...

Naah... Troll will fall to stun (unless he ignores stun somehow) fairly quickly.

What? MBW does not impact roleplaying in the least. There is no MBW fluff that says it is detrimental anymore. They have improved since SR2/3.

This. Roleplaying is primarily about player's abilities, not character's.

In my experience, if the player is always "on" as it were and playing a character which is always super twitched and going through constant seizure, then he winds up playing schtick. That's fun for about a session or two and then, like most schtick characters, it becomes tiresome and folks become bored with it.

There aren't any rules that say you have to play it like that, or even any rules that say you have to play like you're always under seizure. Some folks ignore it entirely, but some GMs impose penalties. Some folks interpret the fluff from augmentation to mean it works the same a Wired Reflexes. Others do not.
In my experience most folks play it that way and it gets old. That's not always the case, but it's always good to check with your GM first for that sort of thing.

Let me fix this for you, and put what I think are the real monikers.



IMO, this is why "Rule Zero" should be ignored, as it is a prime example of how it is abused to the detriment of the players and the game.

So you turn the boost on or off at whim. That is an option in SR4A you know...
Besides, the "Siezures" you are talking about are not the same "siezures" that, say, an epileptic goes through. *shrug*

I am not sure why having 3 or 4 passes all the times gets boring (or old, as you say), honestly (though I do not actually see the need for 3 passes very often as a character), though it is a drastic difference from having just 1. But in that case, just get 1 level of the wires, and improve from there over time. Get a on/off switch, so you do not have to be constantly watching so that you do not kill an innocent person who taps you opn the shoulder to ask a question.

I've seen GM's who say different. At cons even.
None of my players have it so I don't have much of an opinion, but it's been something that has come up in different games I've played so I thought it was worth mentioning.

Gotcha...

Unless titanium Bonelacing and Orthoskin - Then i would allow a soak roll.

A resounding BONG! when the bullet hits the (emty) head and a concussion with -D6 equal to actual damage taken for that amount of hours -and a definite knockdown.

I'm AFB ATM, but I thought that a called shot to bypass armor reduced the attacker's dice pool by the amount of armor being bypassed, so a troll with 10 armor would reduce the attack pool by 10.

-D