This doesn't work for all character types. I've built up magic characters who only managed one or two Initiations, Magic 5 or 6, and not much reliance on foci. If you "take the magic away" from that character by forcefully implanting cyber, then you've basically told me I'm not allowed to play the character I built and poured time into, which is a way of telling me I should abandon all that work and re-roll the character I want to play again. Preferably under a different GM who does't tell me to roll what I want and then force me to play an entirely different character.

There's also an amount of "Suspension of Disbelief." Say my cybered up street sam is captured by a corp. They may physically remove the cyberware and bioware... but what impetus do they have to replace that with anything, let alone regrowing normal body parts for me? They're either going to throw a bomb/virus/disease/other control method in me to "encourage me to see things their way" or they're going to harvest the ware and sell the rest to an organ legger - sorry, donate it to their medical research and study programs. It doesn't make sense for them to say "We don't like you, so we're going to carefully surgically remove the cyber from around your spinal column and grow you a new arm for free." Even if it's a criminal empire, they're more likely to leave an unmoving pile of leftovers in a cement block after pulling the good sales from the soon-to-be-corpse than to be nice enough to leave somebody with a likely vendetta to build up and become a challenge against them.

What a great story! I'd sig it but out of context on a gaming site it would seem odd.


When you think about it perhaps one of the big fallacies behind run remuneration in the world of Shadowrun is the unspoken assumption that gear cannot get lost or damaged under combat conditions in terms of making runs make economic sense.

We tend to run under the assumption that it can, but since most people are aiming for the center of mass it'll require a glitch or critical glitch before something gets damaged. Exceptions are when the gear is a bigger target that the person wielding it such as when you stick your gun around the corner to fire via smartlink.

Basically we agree on the examples you gave. Ipso facto it does work for some character types. In SR3 their are rules for destroying bio/ cyber stress etc but they suck. Magical character in SR4 can at least regain Essence loss with a lot of cred, in SR3 their fragged bar geas which does sofen the blow considerably.

On the Suspension of disbelief I take a harder line. It has to make sense and going to soft and letting the PC not suffer or die can be as bad as being a jerk ref you mentioned. If their is no real threat/consequence, then there is no real challenge and so no real success/sense of achievement.

Otherwise known as "Bang your dead!" "No I am not, bang your dead!." "Right am taking my ball and going home.!!!!"

As said on this board so often- its finding the balance of your group were everyone has fun.

As pointed out by others, there are a couple of points that has to be taken into account with regards to destroying the character's gear.

1) Are the players aware that this can happen? And are they OK with it. Personally I'm somewhat OK with it, but as a player I'd like to know that this is the premisse within the game, because then I'll plan around it and try and be prepared for something like that to happen.

2) Why are you doing it. Is the gear causing problems, or is it to create tension or greater realism? If a given piece of gear is causing problems with the game, start off by having a word with the player off-game about the problem, unless the players are OK with the occassional destruction of prized gear.

3) Why is the opposition electing to target the gear, rather than the user? A trained sniper with an anti-material rifle might elect to target the decker's gear, rather than the decker. But the typical security guard isn't likely to elect to pull a precision shot at a cyberdeck, if they can put a bullet in the head of the decker, or more likely, the scary looking cromehead sporting serious armour and wielding a big gun with deadly precision. And why on earth would a Corp. Mage be equipped with a "Demolish Foci" spell!? Why? It's not like foci are super common, so why does the Mage know a spell that is so situational specific. Personally I prefer there to be a fair degree of "realism" or internal logic within the game setting in my games.

4) What's the in-game effect. I'm perfectly fine with causing some tension in a game, and I don't have any real problem with forcing players to do something that doesn't fall within their normal specialization. But it's one thing to throw an unexpected ward or background count at the mage, or to put up some jamming zones, or shoot down a drone. It's one thing to destroy a 250k piece of equipment, if the game allows the players to acquire this kind of money within a few runs. But it's another thing to take out a piece of gear that is liable to take 50-100 runs for the character to replace, and force them to function at significantly reduced efficiency until it can be reaquired.

Basically, IMO you need to tailor gear destruction to your game and players. The more specialized and the harder gear is to replace, the harder gear destruction hits the character, and the more it impacts the game.

Now, I'm not saying you can't fairly de-power certain archetypes. If you have a long-game, then you could, say, have one mission to sabotage/destroy an experimental weapon facility, and as a side effect you release an awakened bacteria throughout the city, creating a background count that depowers magic in the city until it's fixed or blows over. You can have put drills to the cyberware during torture, which wrecked special subsystems (nanohive, hidden gun or smuggling compartment, etc.). Bioware and some cyber would be harder to depower. The big breakage, though, like Wired Reflexes, are either "kill the runner" or "toss a bomb in his head."

Gear casualties from last session:
Everything Darkblade owned minus what he was taking to the meet, and his motorcycle. Most expensive was probably Ares Alpha and APDS ammo, but most personal was the loss of thousands of hours of MMORPG saves lost with his SIN. (He had to be talked out of rerolling after this, in spite of the fact that he lost about 25 grand worth of gear tops, most of that the bike and SIN.) All this was impounded by the Knights and is effectively unrecoverable.

Everything Darkblade was carrying on his trek through the sewers needed an extensive clean and disinfect.

Darkblade's helmet, damaged to to exposure to extreme cold.

Darkblade's pistol, jammed with river mud and needing a full strip and clean.

Himori's Chameleon Suit, sprayed with acid (-l armour, chameleon coating needs to be replaced).

Himori's guns, all jammed with river mud (again, solvable by taking them apart and cleaning every bit of them) and damaged by acid (Replacement components required, most notably stock on Ares Alpha which took the brunt of the attack). Should have brought an AK.

Himori's hair, damaged by acid (regrow).

My spare burn link, compromised by calling Darkblade during a high speed chase (I didn't know, alright!)


So yeah, I wouldn't say that gear is magically invulnerable and sacred in our game.

Yeah... Our combat Mage lost about 4 or 5 Foci a few sessions ago. A Spellcasting 5 Focus, and several Sustaining 4/5 Foci. He also lost a Power Focus 2. At least he still has his Ally Spirit.

Also, you could have a replacement or encourage the runners to have some DIY runs to get the replacement gear. That is if you want to be a nice GM.

Well, when you play Strip Magic Poker at Le Grande Risqué in the backrooms across the table from Dahlia the Delightful, you need to have less tells.

Ain't that the truth.

Entertainingly enough, our Prime Runners (with a couple of newbs being broken in) tried to break someone out of a Europort Prison. Four of them were captured. They kept (and executed) the character who killed the guards (a Low-end Orc Hacker), issued Criminal SIN's to the rest (High End Street Sam (Human), High End Combat Mage (Human), and a Low End Bounty Hunter/Street Sam (Dwarf)), and kept all their high-end gear, including the aforementioned Foci. Only 2 of us got away (the Mundane Triad Lieutenant, and the Occult Investigator Mage).

The Release of the three was brokered by the Triad Lieutenant for consideration and favors... He had to serve one up for the slaughter, though, to appease the Corp. So sad to be an Orc at that point.
Good times.