What I am looking for: Things that cybered characters (who are no deckers) can do that no other character can do better. What advantage does cyberware give compared to bioware, or magic, that outweighs it's new, massive disadvantages?

What I am not looking for: Fluffy "play what you like to play" or "it's the idea that counts" or "play what is fun". That's trying to wiggle out of a problematic issue. Thanks.

I neither have the book, nor am thinking hard at all, but some benefits off the very tip top of my head are...

Not Reliant On Favorable Background Count.
Not An Active Astral Target.
Increased Condition Monitor.
Bonus Armor.
Attribute Boosts Without BP/Karma Investment/Sustaining.
Concealable Weapons.

No opinion yet on how the ultimate balance falls, naturally.

~Umi

Well, if the character has enough cyberware you can literally reduce him to crippled invalid. Lot's of RP potential.

If you houserule out the need for wireless to tie shoelaces, then cybered characters can:
-reach 25+ armor and 30+ damage soak (that's pretty much unique)
-reach high initiative and defense pool consistently - not as high as adepts, but they can get other things more easily than adepts (like improved attributes or firearms dicepools)
-deal more damage than can be achieved using combat spells

Overall, they're not too bad.

Maybe questions like this can be better answered when more than a miniscule portion of the forum's user base has the actual book to look at.

I've always seen Sams and other heavily cybered characters as average joes who make a choice to replace their nature given parts with unnatural devices, so they can compete in a world with magic.

Having looked of the new core book briefly I see no advantage to using ware; everything costs more, you need tailored pheromones to feel better about yourself, no discount for the mixing cyber and bio (half reduction). What not to love?

Why the hell in a cyberpunk setting is there a social penalty for having ware? Per cannon it's be around for almost 50 years, yet in 5th ed you now feel less (meta)human and thats supposed to be a bad thing.

Because only a minority of the population has cyberware, and because 4 arms and twitchy reflexes make you part of a one-in-a-thousand freak club. You scare people.

Also, try reaching 30 armor on an adept at chargen.

It really seems like the perception that the viability of the Street Samurai has eroded is justified.

And I say that as a player who is largely looking forward to SR 5th Edition, despite things like cyberware hacking, or the introduction of limits. (Full Disclosure: I frequently play Samurai. I largely skipped 4th Edition.)

The problem with Shadowrun has been that awakened threats require awakened counter-measures. But unawakened threats can be met from multiple angles. So, the perception is (accurate or not) that "Magic Wins".

It's an unfortunate perception to foster, and one that I hope is clarified when the rules are more widely distributed.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

A minority of people can use magic yet they aren't told they are freaks or less human. Are you saying that someone who can shoot fireballs and make me do things I wouldn't want to do, aren't just as if not more scary? Ware should be the great equalizer, anyone with cash can get it, it has the lowest entry threshold.

Per 5th ed corebook, your social limit is calculated by ((Charisma x2)+willpower+Essence)/3.

Why would I want 30 armor at character gen, or ever? If I build somehting that can have the much armor it means that I'm planning on getting shot for fun.

High visible 'ware and low essence penalties to social interaction has been around for a long time. Call it being more Machine than Metahuman and losing emotional connections to those around you (which makes you socially awkward as reading people is harder). Also the DataJack, CyberEyes and Cosmetic (NERPS! For You, You, YOU!) mods are the 'norm' amongst most people sporting Cyberware, along with Headware stuff. Obvious Cyberlimbs with blade sheathes, kid stealth legs, horns and what have you are going to ave a negative impact in 'moderate' society, just look at the grief Trolls and Orcs get.

I don't know what you want to do or not, you're saying there aren't any advantages to using cyberware, I'm showing you an example that contradicts that statement: you can get lots of armor and a physical condition monitor a mile long. If that's not what you're looking for, that doesn't make it *not* useful.

Also, mages do scare people, there's just no mechanics (aside from 'prejudiced' negative quality on many Joe Average - works for technomancers too) because you can't tell that someone is a mage most of the time until they start slinging spells. It's usually easier (not always) to identify quasi-cyberzombies.

Also, essence is only 1 fourth of that limit, and limits have little effect on the actual end results. Besides, there's at least 2 good explanations given in Augmentation from SR4: augmentation gives you a "more-than-human", or at least "not-humanlike" perspective on the world, which creates distance. And there's a mystical explanation as well, with your soul not liking cybernetics, which might make you somewhat less pleasant to interact with. That's mumbo jumbo, but this isn't GURPS cyberpunk.

Even if you want to buy into the whole "cyberware scares the Joneses" argument, the negative effects of cyberware on your social interactions should NOT be implemented the way they are. Making Essence a primary factor of your Social Limit is absurd.

I could see treating visible cyberware as a situational social modifier. Why visible? Because it doesn't make much sense for something like Wired Reflexes (which can be turned OFF, remember) to inherently limit your ability to be charming despite that piece of 'ware being utterly invisible to the unaided eye. Why situational? Because just as 'moderate' society might look down on someone with severe body modification, other portions of society won't even bat an eye, and still others may even be more favorably inclined toward them because they have 'ware. If you're a street sam at a cyber club full of extremely cybered people, you should be getting a bonus, not a detriment! Meanwhile, your talisman-adorned eco-shaman (with identical Charisma and Willpower) should stick out like a sore thumb in that place, and most definely should not be having an easier time getting along with the patrons better than you are!

Imagine if Trolls and Orks had a reduced Social Limit across the board. There'd be an uproar, and rightly so, because such a system would unreasonably punish Trolls and Orks at all times, even when they're among other Trolls and Orks! It makes no fragging sense!

And it gets even stupider if we consider bioware. Why should someone who is mildly altered, with entirely nonvisible bioware upgrades, be less sociable? Why should R2 Mucle Augmentation, R2 Muscle Toner, and a Platelet Factory make you less socially adept than the next guy over? This is just absurd, and the ruling seems incredibly ill-conceived.

I can understand the notion of The Uncanny Valley, and that eventually modifications start getting into a region where they become unnerving. But there are already extant ways of representing such fringe cases - such as Cyberpsychosis and other negative qualities - and they don't spill over onto the entire spectrum of 'ware usage, but rather remain tightly focused only on the extreme low end.

Essence being a part of the Social Limit needs to be changed.

~Umi

To be fair, since Orks and Trolls have a lower Charisma cap they do innately have a penalty to their Social Limit even when dealing with other orks and trolls.

It's part of the old "artificial augmentations eat your soul" thing from back when cyberpunk would sometimes use cyberware allegorically to depict the dehumanizing aspects of technology. I personally think it should have been jettisoned a long time ago; Essence is primarily a game balance mechanism to limit how much stuff you can cram into yourself, and should have stayed that way. On the other hand, the situational penalty for obvious 'ware was there in SR4, and the affect on the limit won't come up much - either the sammie isn't a face and won't hit it, or the sammie is a face, and will have tailored pheromones to offset it. Lots to be upset with regarding the new rules; this is low on the list. On the other hand, if they got rid of the discount for combining cyberware and bioware (the lower of the two is halved), then street sammies just took a serious hit.

The more rules that are revealed, the less fun this edition seems. They raise the overall power a slight bit, then hammer everything with drawbacks or limitations, to the point that nothing is really effective any longer. SR4 really didn't have that many unbalancing things; sure, you could make kickass characters, but the only really unbalanced things, off the top of my head, were troll tanks, overcasting builds that could easily soak or heal Drain, possession mages, high Force spirits, and pornomancers. A few simple rules changes would have easily fixed these problem areas. Right now, I am very "meh" about SR5. I will probably wait at least until the first errata to buy it (especially since they are already looking at the power point cost for mystic adepts, which is a major, major potential change).

This. All this crybaby sour grapes grousing over social limits and cybered characters being nerfed has to stop until people actually have the book in hand and have had a chance to playtest the rules in their own groups. Until then, sincerely, you don't know what you're talking about.

Whoa. Is that speculation? Or has this been verified?

That's a huge deal.



Well. That's not entirely accurate. A number of us have played a number of editions of Shadowrun. Or played enough RPGs in general. Or understand the fundamental math that drives the game.

We may not be playing with a full deck (Guilty as charged! ), but we aren't completely without knowledge of what we're discussing.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Right back at you, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm holding my copy of SR5O (one of the perk of being within driving distance from Colombus) and I've playtested it, if shortly.

Chance359 mentioned it in his first post in this thread.

Then let me repeat: That is a huge deal. That dwarfs all the silliness about hackable cyberware.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Me and Lurkeroutthere looked and couldn't find it in his copy last night. could have missed it but didnt see it under any of the listings for essence, or ware.

Haven't found anything about that, but is it really that big of a deal? It's was like that in SR3...

This bears repeating. We're not stupid. Some of us are more or less forcefully stating their points than others, but the points at least have a basis in experience.

The question is a good one: what's the benefit of using cyberware if most cyberware can be replicated equivalently or better by non-cyberware sources?

We build characters, so they're not exactly constrained by the luck of the draw with regards to their birth or abilities. If the adept, for example, can replicate cyberware bonuses without using cyberware, why take the cyberware? If a Technomancer can function as well as the Decker without cyberware, why play the Decker (presuming of course that you can't hack a Technomancer's brain)?

The answer has got to be that somehow, somewhere, cyberware can provide a particular advantage that magic and non-cyber technology can't. Adepts can't be hacked and have a nice array of abilities. Mages have their cool stuff like spirits and fireballs. Technomancers can compile digital spirits. What's the cyber character's specialty? What are his cool toys that no one else can get?

in SR3 you essence +3 for bioware, bioessence index.

Damn, it's been too long :/.

I'm really hoping a line developer will dash in here and tell me I need to learn to read better and that its on p. xxx.

*looks around hoping*

Look at it this way. We're watching transhuman evolution taking place. The security vulnerabilities inherent in cyberware will see it almost completely superceded by bioware between 2075 and 2080. By 2090, it'll be a dead end technology, with any sort of neural interface handled via 2nd generation skinlink. We're witnessing history. Embrace it.

We should probably wait until the 11th before expecting much of that. In reality everything here falls into that category.

I'm pretty sure that was something confirmed weeks or months ago, with a claim that they reduced bio costs some to compensate. Any word on that?

Right. What are his cool toys?

If the answer is: His cool toys are to serve as a punching bag for the Mystic Adept, the CyberMage, and the Hacker, then...

...That's an unfortunate treatment to perhaps one of the most fundamentally important archetypes of the Genre.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Early in development they said they were introducing a bunch of new gear for the core book. Judging by the lack of response to the original question, I'm guessing that never materialized?

Edit: Nevermind.

Mmmmm. Well. The problem is that, in small quantities, super awesome gear/cyber/bio/whatever doesn't necessarily benefit the Samurai. If anything, it benefits the Cyber-Mage. Who eats just a smidge of essence loss, in exchange for sweet-totally-worthwhile-abilities. For instance, some of you may have used an Aspected Earth Elementalist (Who could turn down 1 Million Yen, and earth Elementals!?) in SR3 to good effect following that logic. I know I certainly did.

It's only the COMPOUND EFFECT of lots of Cyberware/Bioware that provides benefits specific to the Samurai.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Which is why the removal of the half-price in Essence for whichever type of 'ware you have less of, as well as the new wireless requirements for cyberware, hit a street sammy so hard. It feels like the player is being punished for investing heavily in 'ware, thus the system seems to favor those archetypes which only invest lightly, such as cyberized adepts and mages.

~Umi

indeed. and heck, by the look of things (at least for the moment), mystic adepts appear to be able to almost triple-dip... they'll be able to take 1 point of cyber/bio to get the unique useful stuff, grab several point of adept powers, and get full spellcasting and conjuration abilities. they'll lose out on astral projection, i suppose. but then, they do have access to spirits that can travel in the astral just fine, and spells that can let them scout ahead if that's important, so...

yeah, i'd like to hear some examples of things that cyberware lets you do that can't be duplicated elsewhere. specifically, things that actually require significant investments such that we're not likely to see everyone else picking up the good stuff easily...

I would add to that list the appearance that the fastest initiative scores are achieved through magic, rather than cyberware. That is also a very significant consideration. Samurai across the sixth world stood up and flipped the table over in rage upon finding that little tidbit out.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

I am doing both. Chance is in my home group, what was your point again?

On the cyberware/bioware split: you no longer cut the lesser of the two Essence costs in half, no.

However, I think it's very worth someone pointing out that Alphaware now costs 1.2 times as much (not twice as much), Betaware is 1.4 times as much (rather than four times as much), and Deltaware is 2.5 times as much (not ten times the going rate), while the Essence modifiers for these grades remain the same. That's a pretty huge boost in overall Essence space available for a dedicated Street Samurai, especially in the longer a campaign goes on (which tends to be when most people express concern about them being outstripped by the Karma-sink Mages, Adepts, etc).

Absolutely, Critias. That's very worthwhile to know. Thank you for adding that.

Let me play the devil's advocate, however, and ask: How does that uniquely benefit Samurai as opposed to benefiting anyone who takes Cyberware/Bioware? For instance, suppose I'm a Mage. By my nature, I'm short on Karma but I have loads of (usually) Cash. Sweet, now I can buy some Cyberware on the cheap. Phew! Less magic loss for the win.

What's wrong with the above?

Note: This is dramatically different than in Shadowrun third edition, where a Samurai could effectively cram close to 9 points of combined Cyber/Bio in, whereas each full point of Cyber/Bio negatively impacted awakened characters. (In the interest of impartial, full disclosure it's very important to recognize that this 9 points of combined Cyber/Bio was not accomplished until a subsequent release: Man & Machine. It's certainly reasonable to expect that Samurai could receive such treatment in a subsequent book.)

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

EDIT: Follow-up Question -- Is Betaware gear available in Chargen, or does it's availability rating exceed the availability rating of Chargen? Because, if so, that would go a long way to uniquely benefiting Samurai as they have a clear cash advantage in Chargen.

Well it is a classless system so its hard to create something special just for street sams. Still yeah mages get a lot of love out of this since a 1 point dip will go a lot further. I kind of wish awakened had double essence costs at the core. They get a lot of bang for their buck out of cyber, more than a mundane I think.

I'm not sure that being critical of SR5 really counts as playing the devil's advocate around here right now. M'just sayin'.

And sure, because it's an Essence discount, in a way it benefits everyone. But remember also that the rules for foci have changed, there are a whole friggin' bundle of new rules related to reagents and the like, there's a bunch of new stuff for the Awakened to do with their nuyen. I'm not sure just how tried and true the old "these guys only need nuyen, these guys only need karma" split is, any more. Also, FWIW, we've already been having some talks backstage about officially re-instating the old "cash for karma" type rules, it's just yet another thing we couldn't cram into the already ~480 page tome, here. So that may mitigate that sort of thing, if that old split is still an issue.

All that said? Even if a mage is out to cram as much goodness (or badness, I guess?) into themselves as they can while minimizing their Essence loss...doesn't that mean they're still likely sticking to, say, 1 point of Essence worth of discounted badassery? And, meanwhile, the street sammie is cramming in 5.99 points worth of discounted badassery, applying very nearly a x6 multiplier to the amount of discounted badassery he's chock full of. So I think, in the end, it's still resoundingly a net gain for folks who are really out to get a ton of implants; the more you get of something, the more you save in total.

And, all that said? I still think the drastic decrease in custom chrome's price was worth pointing out, in a thread otherwise all about how terribly underpowered the red-headed chrome-children are.

Interesting that you say that. I was, literally, just thinking that as I refreshed this thread.



Critical of SR5? Commenting on the nature of Mundane vs. Awakened is hardly unique to SR 5. This is just a continuation of that recurring discussion.

And if I wasn't looking forward to it, I wouldn't be going cross eyed every night writing thousands of lines of God forsaken MUSH code like that little nugget below so I could enjoy it in my favorite text based medium. ;b



Frankly, I think the system (by and large) looks great.

That said, the original question is certainly worth asking, since Samurai are a fundamentally important archetype to the genre. Bringing up Alpha/Beta/Deltaware costs was a very important contribution. Part of the answer will be determining how much of that 'Cyber' is better implemented through magic. For instance, it appears that when it comes to quick reactions, Wires may no longer be king. So that's... a large chunk of Essence that doesn't need to be paid by a Mage.

Therefore, saying that a Samurai may spend Essence on an inferior Initiative product may be disingenuous.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

I take it then that Move-by-wire is not in the main book? Wires had already been obsolete for a long time by SR4. +1 IP +2 reaction +1 dodge and 2 levels of skillwires per rating... MBW has always been flat-out better. I suspect that whenever the cyber book comes out it will redress the balance in that way. That said, though, with the boosted cyber hacking, the downside will probably be worse, somewhat hinted at in discussion elsewhere in SR4 of biodrones... that is, hacker taking full control of your body movements and essentially rigging you. Not good.

Hypothetically possible in SR4 via the Mind Over Machine echo, actually.

But in general, "it will be balanced when <insert splatbook here> comes out" isn't a strong argument here - this is the fragging core book, so if it takes the 'ware splat to bring Sam's up to par what do you think is gonna happen when the magic splat comes out? I'm not at this stage convinced that things are as bad as has been suggested, but I can't say I'm yet convinced that they're not.

Really wish I had a copy of the book...

Forgive me. My brain is a little dusty. I'm mostly coming from SR 3 as my most recent edition, and MBW wasn't always the most attractive (or affordable) option.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Don't know about MBW, but it seems off to me that mages can cast a spell to get +8 init and +4d6 dice. So a 3 reaction 3 intuition mage with that up would go on 14+5d6. A street sam with wired 3 and 1 level of a reaction enhancer with wireless enabled and maxed reaction/intuition stats would be 6(10)reaction +6 intrusion for a total of 16+4d6. That is a crap ton of investing into just being fast while the mage invested into magic and spell casting and 1 spell, and the first 2 have a wide range of benefits outside making you go fast. If you have to wait until the augmentation book to regrain your place in the lore as the fast archetype something is wrong.

That's a drekload of drain for the mage. I mean... okay, sustaining foci, quickening, yada yada, many options for mages to avoid paying the rightful price for their power.

Background count?

Heheheh. Is that the answer? Why play a cybered character in SR:5? Your GM may use a background count.

...Mmmmmm.

I hope we can do better for that.

-Wired_SR_AEGIS

Exactly, everyone's looking at the maximum possible effect of an improved initiative spell, ignoring that drain is now straight force drain, not f/2. Given I don't have the book but my guess is the typical mage tries to cast that spell and either passes out or flat-out dies.

True, but that's at least a Force 8 (it's a 'per two hits' spell as written out by someone earlier) spell probably with between 6 and 10 Drain, meaning that you need upwards of 24 casting dice and 30 drain dice to have good odds of even getting there without keeling over. And Force 8 sustaining foci won't be cheap.

I pose the question differently. As a Johnson, why hire the Street Sammy now knowing his tricks of the trade might be vulnerable to security spiders AND I can use my nuyen to hire more versatile physads or mystic adepts. Well, depends on the job, right? If I'm sending the runners into a toxic hellhole or mana-stripped sterile research lab I want the guy or gall whose abilities and edge don't go down the crapper if there is a background count. Generally, even with 4th Edition's Build Point system and 5th Edition's priority system, the resources you devote to being a magical character of any type (and even more if you want to start with ware or decent gear) limits your skills at char gen. A good Sammie with the basic ware allocation means more skills, more versatility. When I do play, and I want that versatility, Street Sam all the way.