Can you use item attunement on your bioware or cyberware or just on your own muscles?

Your innate muscles are not gear, but they could be considered a weapon and vehicle in a way but not really in the RAW sense. On the other hand bioware and cyberware is gear, so presumably you should be able to use it as such. Item Attuned muscle toner ftw or item attuned synaptic boosters for +initiate grade/2 reaction?

I would say no.

All of these are a part of your aura, so that would be a no.

Yeah. Muscle Replacement/Toner?.......No. Synaptic Boosters? LOL. You don't go trying to add VTOL options because your body is "the vehicle of your mind".

However, personally, I would allow Spurs nd other cyber implanted weaponry count.

Jareth... even then though you're better off getting the spurs as a weapon focus. Then implant it as opposed to item attunement. One, you'd need item attunement(cyberweapons, or blades) or the like. to start as a new metamagic. Then you'd need to spend even more karma to attune the item... which is going to be in the 6-8 karma range since it's a cybernetic weapon with some tech moving parts. All for maybe +2 dice at initiate grade 4 or 5.... for 30k nuyen, 9 karma IIRC I could just bond a force 3 weapon foci right away.


Item attunement works best on large complex things which you can't do as foci, or which are unique. Good examples would be say your adepts combat/racing bike. For the truly hardcore, their thunderbird :P. Or small gear that is physically manipulated like AR gloves on a hacking adept. (you can attune the commlink explicitly in the rules... though that only applies when you use them like a modern day touchscreen smartphone per the rules... so AR gloves would also be fair game).


Another common example would be gun adepts... there aren't ranged weapon foci... so while a gun adept could get the gun as a weapon foci for pistol whipping things in melee or magical suckers like spirits to bypass ItNW. Weapon foci does nothing for a pistols ranged abilities... so the item attunement pistols works quite well for adding a few extra dice to your shots, or melee, while not getting the ItNW bypassing benefits.

Item Attunement seems in general not very strong, although clearly at initiate grade 7 or so things are just ridiculous. I was trying to figure out suitable items to attune. Guns are good, spurs are not bad because you don't have to activate them, all those other things meh... Maybe you can item attune a silencer to be even more silent, but this has the downside that you cannot use it with your attuned gun. You could attune contacts to allow you to be even more perceptive even if they have a bunch of upgrades on them already. Similarly I'm pretty sure you can attune cybereyes or cyberears to see and hear better, but then again I'm not sure if that would count as DNI. Maybe if you have reception enhancers then those could also add +1 perception, so it got me thinking about reaction enhancers or various other things. Can you attune hardliner gloves and still get a critical strike bonus, whereas weapon focus hardliner gloves with critical strike is cheese territory and some people would say hardliner gloves + critical strike is already too cheesy. I'm trying to get a better idea of the things item attunement can do, because in general it seems too limited. Maybe if you have a ruthenium polymer suit then you can attune to it and while using it to sneak you gain an infiltration bonus. Or your tools you use to disguise yourself like the face case can be attuned to add +1 disguise.

Btw when I say +1 I mean initiate grade/2 round up...

Cyberware and bioware is not valid for attunement - once you've paid essence for you, the 'ware is considered to be you so far as magic is concerned.

For the most part I agree with you. Muscle replacement, Bone Lacing, etc are definitely out. However, the concept that a few pieces of ware could be Attuned is not out of the question IMHO. A pistol in your arm, possibly not, though it could be easily argued that you aim with your arm, not electronically but it is technically controlled electronically. If you were required to pull the trigger yourself, then OK. However, Spurs, Hand Razors, etc I find completely acceptable. They are not controlled completely electronically, only the sheathing and unsheathing. They are controlled by your arm and therefore I have always allowed them. Nothing in the powers description limits the item because of paying essence in and of itself. That's just an opinion.

mmmkay, some of the things you are suggesting are WAY far fetched. A silencer? You are not using the silencer, your weapon is. Muscle Toner? not a tool in and of itself, so in my game I would rule NO. Tools, weapons, vehicles, etc are all valid items. Try thinking along those lines instead of having to stretch the concept.

Remember:
Street Magic, pg. 54

"Attunement, however, provides no bonus when the item is
controlled through an electronic interface (be it digital, VR,
AR, or DNI), nor does it work on the complex magical auras
of foci, prepared vessels, or enchanted items."

So MOST cyberware would be completely out, as would comlinks, smatgun links, etc.

The value and versatility in Attune (Item) doesn't come from the shear numeric power of it. At least not at first. It gets really powerful when your Initiate grade get high.

falconer
True, weapon foci can be more powerful, especially at lower grades, but a grade 6 initiate being able to attune up to 6 different weapons with a +3 DP modifier for less karma and money than the same weapon foci. Also, the biggest difference to me is flavor. I currently have a high grade Adept I am playing that has Attune Item. Grade 12, so 6 DP bonus in up to 12 items each (he had blades and energy blades (monofilament whip stats with 1 reach) weird game, don't ask. lol). I had a grade 8 dagger expert that had all 8 items: 2 cougar fine blades and 6 throwing knives. All with +4 DP modifiers, and a +4 DP modifier to control his Blitzen.

Also had a samurai type character who had a F7 Katana weapon focus. Can't say which is better, but each character has their own style. It's not always about numbers.

Fair enough, partly I guess I don't understand how vision enhancement works and partly I was being egregious about item attunement to see what people had to say. I know a lot of my suggestions were far fetched, but presumably one could wear shoes that have been attuned which should mean any time you use your shoes you gain a bonus. So stop me if this is too much but infiltration, gymnastics, running, maybe climbing, and perhaps kicking would gain a bonus of some kind. On the other hand I can also see that shoes would only add something when you are using them, like if you tied the laces together and used them as a nunchuck but since you wear shoes and don't actively use them while running, jumping, and kicking it shouldn't add any bonus.

Now I'm still trying to wrap my head around why you can't attune a contact lenses, so I guess it has to do with switching modes on your contacts. Is that how vision enhancement works? Do you switch from low light to thermographic? I can understand how you would need DNI to control vision magnification, so maybe if you had something that was always on passively like contacts with vision enhancement and flare compensation then you can attune to the contacts because you are literally only controlling the contacts with your own eye movements.

DNI is really confusing me actually, the more I think about it the less I think I understand. If you had a cyberarm and were holding an attuned sword in your hand, would you be controlling the sword with DNI? I'm mighty confused.

Not sure if I should edit my previous post or just reply as usual, but I figure since I'm bringing up a slightly different approach to my previous question:

Would an attuned pair of binoculars work by giving a bonus to perception when in use? I don't think it would matter if the binoculars are optical or electronic so long as you manually adjusted them.

If that is yes, then could you wear glasses without vision magnification, but with passive vision mods (like flare compensation and vision enhancement) so that you are only controlling the glasses manually (using your neck, and eyes, and whatever else) by their physical connection to your face as an attuned item and receive a bonus to perception?

If that is a yes then presumably contacts work as long as they have no mods that require DNI or VR or whatever.

Cybereyes do not work, since they require DNI. In fact most cyberware has DNI so it cannot be attuned. On the other hand there is bone lacing and dermal plating which does not have DNI and is literally only used via your own muscular control of your body. Does that mean they can be attuned? Or is there a more stringent definition of gear that rejects cyberware and bioware from being used as an attuned item. I get the feeling that some things would be too powerful or at the very least are unintended, like if attuned bone lacing meant that every motion you did had a bonus to it. Maybe that is not too powerful for a metamagic, but it is certainly a unique and powerful ability compared to other metamagics. I also see that it is not really intended as by gear the writers probably mean lockpicking tools or a really awesome screwdriver or pocketknife or a fishing rod.

Do you wear clothes or do you use clothes? Perhaps instead of the word gear item attunement should have used the word tool (which includes musical instruments as well). If that is the wording change then I think I understand how everyone seems to have interpreted the metamagic. So the revised wording would be "vehicle, weapon, or tool".

mmmkay, I commend you for thinking outside the box on things.

As for binoc's, if they are digital, no go. Regular optical? No reason why not.

Clothes? uh...no. You do not "use" your clothes in tests. You want to turn your clothes into focus? Sure, pick one. Pricy damn clothes though.
Your shoes idea, could work, but I would only allow the bonus for things that mostly use your feet. Gymnastics? No (too much uses the entire body). Running? OK. Jumping? OK, etc. Your other ideas, fishing rod, knife, lock picks, especially musical instrument, all sound perfectly plausible.

Remember, the item must be attuned over weeks or built yourself. You learn the ins and outs of the items capabilities, the feel of it's balance, the sound of it's actions. It becomes a part of you.
IMHO, if what you are trying to attune is not actually used as a major part of the test, it's a no go.

Jareth thanks for responding and I appreciate the compliment.

I'm pretty sure digital binoculars are ok as long as you have direct control over the digital magnification. Like twist a knob to go from 2x to 15x. The magnification is done digitally and not by changes in lens spacing, but is still controlled by the adept directly.

I think if by major you mean the item is a focal point or is central to the activity rather than major, but that could just be quirkiness of my vocabulary. In this case I mean: shooting a gun then the gun is central to the activity so no other item would assist in that activity even if eyes and hand-eye coordination and muscular control are all important elements of the activity.

lol. You're welcome.



Except Attune Item strictly prohibits digitally controlled items. Regular optical should be OK, but digital, I'm afraid not.


Pretty much what I was trying to say.

There is a difference between digitally controlled and a digital display that is manually controlled to gain the benefit. Attune Item specifically calls out Comlinks as Attuneable, for example.

Yes, since the digital binoculars work by digital magnification it doesn't necessarily mean they are controlled through an electronic interface rather than buttons and knobs but perhaps that just doesn't make sense because digital magnification means the number of different modes of magnification are limited by the device whereas optical magnification means you are twisting a knob which has classically infinite states. Real world physics and shadowrun rules are meeting to confuse me, because now that I think about it what are you going to do press 2 -> 2.5 magnification better than someone else? On the other hand in an optical device steady hand control could result in better perception if with heightened bodily control one shifts to a state between 2 and 2.5 that picks up certain information better. RAW I'd say digital binoculars are fine, because commlinks are suggested and they are digital devices so long as you control them using a keyboard you get the benefit of the metamagic.