I want to get into the illegal devil rat fighting scene, and to get an edge I want to give my devil rat titanium bone lacing and orthoskin, with options towards implanting a cyberweapon. Do I use the listed prices or what?

PS: Not actually looking at this in game yet, but I so want to do it at some point. Maybe train up a swarm of cybered up devil rats...

In SR5 gear costs for Trolls and Dwarfs is not affected by their size even though lifestyle costs are so that implies the raw material isn't the primary cost so much as the technical skill required to develop and produce the 'ware.

I.e.: the additional cost of the metal for a Troll cyberarm is negligible and you're really paying for the research team spending 4 years creating the software, chipsets, hardware designs, etc.

So...I think it's full price

You want to have a Y450k rat don't you?

I wonder which Mega produces Cyberware for Devil Rats...
there is no Market for such 'ware.
For Attackdogs maybe but at an extremely high cost for there is such a slim Market...

with a slim Dance
Medicineman

I would say you are looking at a big price hike as this would have to be custom built for the task so probably Beta/Delta cost hike just for basic stuff.

Also to date, most critters don't respond well mentally to this, though in a pit fight this may be a bonus if the critter is a bit psycho, but handling in the down time will be problematic.

And spirits help you if it chews it way out of whatever you are using as a cage. (could be an adventure in itself to recover though. )

Also if this is what I think you are wanting to do, if it's a Triad game, Don't.

They will probably have a mage nastrally perceiving or spirit watching for shenanigans like spell boosting and if they see loads of dark patches (cyberware or other essence damage) in the rats they will alert someone.

Ben FuelDrop, I just wanna say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening?

"Bio-drones."

~Umi

@Xystophoroi
You DID see that the errata actually put ware under lifestyle-cost and as such applies the Troll-Size to the ware cost?

the 4th edition rules required deltaware for most critters, and especially paracritters, if it was available at all.

what the 5th edition rules will say is anyone's guess.

bahahahahahahahaha

Hmmm... Spurs or Razor Claws? or maybe both?

I would also agree. I'm pretty sure the majority of the cost isn't for the wires, steel, and titanium. It's for infrastructure necessary to manufacture the equipment, and installation costs.

Since it needs to be custom-sized to rats, that means you're using the beta-ware rules. I don't think deltaware is appropriate; that's cutting edge technology.

I'd also argue you may find the effects and costs don't translate perfectly. Titanium lacing may be more effective when applied to a light-boned rat, while rats don't know how to properly utilize wired reflexes, so they won't get the same benefit.

poison gland, poison release through spit, bite wounds will incapacitate any enemy.

You are missing the obvious add-on: Monofilament Tail so that the tip can be whipped out and a short length of Mono wire revealed to slice and dice.

it's deltaware because everything has to be custom made for the critter, not because it's so advanced.

basically, they don't have enough data to reliably design implants that will not instantly kill your subjects. and while most people probably could care less about devil rats being killed, they probably care quite a bit about losing the investment of the surgery and the training time (for obvious reasons, you don't install them in a juvenile, and if you want the critter to be trained you start training from birth).

on the other hand, some crazy hackjob 'ware that kills 99 out of every 100 devil rats and turns the remaining one into an uncontrollable bloodthirsty murderous fiend is probably less of an issue for a devil rat pit fighting ring than it would be for, say, corporate security needs where you don't want it to try and murder everything it sees. so i could certainly see options below deltaware being a theoretical possibility for those purposes.

(obviously handling said crazed devil rat is a concern as well, but i expect most handling would be done while the rat is unconscious, since i don't anticipate any training being done once the implants are in. either that, or an insanely heavily armoured drone is the handler, since armour can reduce it's attacks to stun and stun does nothing to vehicles).

Actually in 4th ed a biodrone could use any bioware or cyberware a character could and if it was something with a short lifespan, the cost was 20% less since they could use rapid prototyping on the critters (like say, a devil rat). Also, and most important from an expense standpoint, it did not need to be deltaware. Check Augmentation pg 152

Running Wild, P 24-31 gave a huge update on biodrones versus what Augmentation laid out.

and let's have a look at page 151:

"The use of paranormal animals as biodrones has yet to be
perfected."

"So far, the only success stories have
involved the simplest of biodrone control implants, the orientation
destabilizer."

and page 152 as well, for that matter:

"The current generation of biodrones are almost exclusively
models using augmented normal animal species. It is widely rumored,
however, that several megacorps are already developing
genetically-tailored hybrids and unique organisms to serve as
templates for biodrone implantation."

(bolding added for emphasis. note that the exceptions are not paranimals, they are genetically modified normal animals)

"The gamemaster has  final say on whether a specific
implant—be it cyber-, bio-, or nanoware—is available."

so even on the stuff that *is* being researched, not everything is available.

furthermore, the 20% cost was for genetic augmentations on stuff with short life spans. not everything. just genetic.

and as has been mentioned, running wild has further updates. pages 26-27 in particular deal with how it tends to cause insanities, which can be minimized but not removed, discusses the fact that some are too complex for critters to use, discusses that paranimals are at best very rarely augmented at all (not to mention won't be compatible with the cheapest ways of augmenting them, since you can't vat-grow paranimals).

where does the stirrup interface fit into that?

And yet, still not Deltaware. I know awakened critters aren't generally augmented and that the critters getting the 20% discount are generally of the short life span variety. Next time I'll just leave it to the no deltaware part with some page numbers and let interested parties do their own reading.

Why would a critter being Awakened make any real difference?

Mechanically speaking, implanting 'ware into an Awakened critter would of course impact its Magic rating and any related powers, but their magical nature alone shouldn't really be an impediment to implantation. Sure, a Hellhound with gutted Essence isn't as inherently dangerous as one with full Magical capabilities, but that'd be the tradeoff of giving it cyberware.

~Umi

seriously, read the material.

it's not just "20% off", it's only for one specific type of augmentation.

and actually, if you carry on reading in running wild, for awakened critters it is deltaware.

Damn it, why can't the megacorps manufacture standardized illegal cyberware for awakened rodents?!? it's such a huge market!

Yeah, I'm thinking this idea isn't happening any time soon.

That's okay.

It can go on the shelf next to the box full of drone-to-Mech conversion attempts that have piled up over the years, and the lead lined crate full of all my attempts at building a T'skrang without twisting the rules' arms until they cry "Uncle!".

~Umi

T'skrang is easy with the changeling stuff, isn't it?
And "Mech" . . if you include a WH40K Dreadnought into this category, it works too.

A 40K dreadnought should be easy. Is it written that replacement limbs have to be the proper natural size and form ("Kid Stealth" legs beg otherwise)? If nothing else, put a rigger in a cocoon in a walker.

The SR4 Troll-Size Exoskeleton. Armor it up, done.

You'd think it would be, yeah? Except that pretty much everything available gets you "close", rather than entirely accurate.

WARNING! VERY LONG POST! PROCEED WITH CAUTION AND PATIENCE! YOU MIGHT WANT A DRINK, OR A SANDWICH OR SOMETHING!

-------

T'skrang are aquatic reptilians. Okay, seems easy enough. Then they need Gills, Tails, Snouts, and Scales at a minimum.

So gills are easy, right? Metagenetic Gills work just like the Gill bio-implant from Augmentation, so there ya go, now you can breathe water and air alike. Except that according to Earthdawn, although T'skrang do possess gills and can breathe both air and water, they can't stay underwater indefinitely - they're limited to ten minutes (like a certain Mighty Pirate, coincidentally) before needing to surface. Every option for Gills in SR is an all or nothing affair, meaning you have to compromise somewhere.

If you take the full gills, you're inaccurate because you can breathe forever. If you don't take gills, you're inaccurate because you lack gills and you can't stay under for ten minutes.

If you try to substitute in the rules for the Extended Volume bioware, you can get close to the proper functionality, but EV normally caps out at Rating 3, which gives "the average person" just over 3 minutes of air, which falls well short of the canonical 10 minutes. You could extrapolate out a Rating 11 or Rating 12 version, which would give you just about 10 minutes of air, but that's a big jump in Rating, and at that point the secondary effects of the EV (which you shouldn't even have in the first place) become completely absurd and make you essentially immune to Fatigue. Furthermore, any substitution or modulation of rules beyond their normal parameters isn't strictly "legal" and depends entirely on GM interpretation and allowance.

"Why not just take the gills and breathe forever?", some are likely wondering. Well, that's the best and easiest option - but it doesn't change the fact that it is an inaccurate approximation. Like I said, I can get close to what I want, but never quite there.

-------

Okay, how about Tails? Should be simple, yeah? They've got four different tail options for Changelings, after all.

The Balance Tail gives you bonuses to balancing, the Paddle Tail gives you bonuses to swimming, the Prehensile Tail is an upgraded Balance Tail that also let's you use the tail as an arm of sorts, and the Thagomizer allows you to make attacks with the tail.

Problem. T'skrang tails are described as having all of these benefits. They help them to balance, they help them to swim, they operate both reflexively and are under conscious control to act like arms when wanted, and they are routinely used for attacking.

Subsequent problem. Changelings can't choose all of these options together.

Now, the Thagomizer is listed as being a Prehensile Tail but with the extra ability to attack, and the Prehensile Tail is listed as being a Balance Tail but with the ability to be used as an arm, so a large part of the problem is in fact mitigated because you can take a Thagomizer and get all the effects of the other two tail types in one package. (Although the price listing is clearly wrong for the Thagomizer - it should logically be more expensive than the Prehensile Tail, since it gets all the benefits of one plus the ability to attack, meaning it should be 15 BP rather than 10.)

Unfortunately, the Paddle Tail is listed in a vacuum of sorts, with no rules on how or even if it can be combined with the other tail options. Its listing as an option under the larger Functional Tail positive quality implies mutual exclusivity of the various options - especially since instead of buying up your tail's attributes piecemeal by paying for the Balance bonus and then paying separately for the Prehensile bonus, you pay for them together in a single package and can't get the benefit of Prehensility alone without also getting the Balance benefit.

Now, a savvy GM might say "Okay, looking at the numbers, each different bonus costs 5 BP, so if you want all four benefits, just pay 20 BP." But now we've hit the problem of the solution being not strictly legal and hinging entirely upon GM interpretation and allowance.

-------

Now for the "snout". Logically, the closest equivalent would be a bird's beak - and wouldn't ya know it, Changelings can have beaks. Huzzah!

For a mere 5 BP, you get a 10% lifestyle reduction, and +1 die versus Ingested Toxins! Oh, and also you suffer -3 to all Social Interaction not conducted over the Matrix for being a Freak. So.. uh... wait... why is is this a Positive Quality, again? I guess you do technically get +2 to Intimidation tests, so that's... something?

Oh, and if you're feeling like throwing away even more BP while you're at it, you can get yourself a Raptor Beak, allowing you to use your hideous, hideous beak like a pair of Hardliner Gloves on your face! Or you could just buy some Hardliner Gloves, but why would anyone do that?

There is technically an alternative. For the character of Simon Andrews - a season 4 Missions NPC who is a T'skrang in all but name - they opted to model his Snout using the Deformity negative quality instead (presumably at the 5 BP level, although it isn't stated). This saves you 10 BP, but unfortunately you suffer double Freak modifiers (-6 Dice for social? How do you FUNCTION? You have to pump Charisma and Influence substantially just to roll a single die! And that's before situational modifiers!). Fortunately that also doubles your Intimidation bonus to +4 dice, so again that's at least something.

Oh, and also "Depending upon whether the deformation affects sensory or motor functions", you also suffer -2 dice to your perception (or -1 die to all Physical Active Tests if you opt for the 25 BP version). So for some strange reason this particular negative quality has a secondary optional malus tied to it? Who determines if it applies? The player? The GM? Why isn't this a separate entry, with a separate cost?

In the end, I'm not sure the 10 BP you save via this route is worth all the extra penalties. And of course, you also lose out on the 10% Lifestyle discount and the +1 to Ingested Toxins.

Ultimately, I just kind of sigh, shrug my shoulders, chalk these annoyances up to the price of doing business as a T'skrang, and move on.

-------

Finally, we have scales. Okay, no, I get the pattern now - this sounds simple, but it's going to be complicated isn't i...

Huh? Scales is just a simple -5 BP negative quality with no strings attached? Seriously? It even accommodates for the broad range of colors that T'skrang can come in? Well damn! I guess you gotta luck out eventually, neh?

-------

So that's the basics. Changeling III with 30 points of Positives: +5 BP for gills (if you insist on the 10 minutes limitation, impose it personally I guess), +20 BP for a full-package tail (not strictly legal), and +5 BP for a "Beak".

As for Negatives, we've got -5 BP for the scales, now we need another -10 BP worth, chosen however you want. Unfortunately, the choices available for Negative metagenetic qualities are pretty badly limited, and tend to have either cripplingly bad effects or to be horribly expensive, or both. And that's when they aren't outright Incompatible with other qualities.

I'd probably go with Unusual Hair (Scales alone doesn't mean you're completely hairless, after all - and it also doesn't model a T'skrang's head ridge) and Extravagent Eyes, personally. (Of course many GMs hate Extravagent eyes because legally it doesn't have any negative mechanic tied to it, so once again we're back to hinging upon GM interpretation and allowance.)

Speaking of eyes, since T'skrang are aquatic they really should have Underwater Vision for another +5 BP. Except now we're over the 30 BP Changeling III positive limit, and we can't really exchange anything out. The only option is to forgo the Beak in favor of the Deformity route, giving you 5 BP back for Underwater Vision and eatting up -5P of your unspent Negative points, taking up the slot of Extravagent Eyes.

-------

~ End Recipe ~

Gills +5
Tail +20
Underwater Vision + 5

Deformity -5
Scales -5
Unusual Hair -5

Charisma + Influence of at least 7 to have even a single die on Social tests (although I suppose you could just rely on Matrix communications?). And at least you get +4 Intimidation?

This kind of encourages min/maxing, because at this point you might as well just pump your Charisma and Intimidation really high and grab a rank or two of your other actual Social skills for when you want to talk over the Matrix. It kind of means that every face-to-face human interaction you have you're going to be trying to terrify people into doing what you want, but at least you can function that way.

Of course, this assumes GM cooperation on at least two major points. The first is the compound bonuses for the tail, the second is that the GM might try to saddle you with -2 to your Perception Tests because of the wording of Deformity (despite the fact that a T'skrang snout is not the same thing as a “Picasso” face (that's the book's name for it, not mine!) and shouldn't realistically affect your sensory functions).

And I guess the swimming bonus of the Paddle Tail can be acquired via another route, by taking the non-metagenetic Water Sprite positive quality, but then you're switching out the secondary effects, exchanging the +50% swim speed bonus of the tail for +100% time before Fatigue onset while swimming and diving. It also precludes the combination of the two effects, which would be rather nice for a T'skrang both mechanically and lore-wise. So you can overcome the special Tail allowance problem, but at the cost of sacrificing other options, which sucks.

-------

So now all we need to do is argue with people over how to interpret the rules for the usage of the Thagomizer function of the tail - particularly if splitting your dice pool to make multiple attacks with multiple limbs! (You now effectively have 3 limbs, and the rules don't handle odd numbers of limbs gracefully!)

~Umi

It's fascinating how many people fail to parse a simple sentence like "Trolls ... have the disadvantage of having their Lifestyle costs doubled to reflect the costs of adapting everything they use"

Now do Obsidiman! Do Obsidiman!

Troll + Human Looking/Remove Horns + Granite Shell?

Depending on accuracy, Obsidimen can be either ridiculously easy or ridiculously hard. The major obstacle isn't in modeling their individual physiologies, but in modeling their collective nature.

Okay, just brainstorming here.

Life Span - T'skrang always had roughly the same lifespan as a human, so having a Human based Changeling works out fine. Obsidimen, on the other hand, can live to be over a thousand years old (although much of that is spent in a dormant state). I have no clue where to start on modeling that. Are there rules for Immortal Elves that I could look up for reference? Aside from that, the only thing that even seems to come close is repeated Leonization, but that's external and unnatural.

Life Rocks - How exactly do you model having to physically meld with a giant boulder for decades or centuries at a time? First notion to enter my head: the Symbiosis metagenetic quality, but that doesn't quite work. Okay, tying back into the whole "dormant state" aspect, Vampires have a thing where they go into stasis when they are deprived of oxygen. (Speaking of Vampires, maybe give Obsidimen Immunity to Age? In fact, that's probably how Immortal Elves work, now that I think about it, and that doesn't quite work for Obsidimen. Crap.)

Okay, uh... maybe some specialized Spell, like Petrify? (That brings up a strange thought - can a Magician Petrify themselves? You have to be conscious to sustain a spell, and I think Petrify renders you unconscious. Maybe if the Life Rock was a sustaining focus, or if the spell was Quickened?) Other possible spells - Shape [Material] / [Element]? Obsidimen aren't actually made of stone - their flesh is tough and stone-like, but they do suffer from wounds and they do bleed.

If someone gets Petrified, can you use Shape Stone to rearrange their flesh and meld it into the Life Rock? (Without killing them? For that matter, if someone is Petrified, then blown up by a grenade or something, can you use Shape Stone to put them back together good as new? I really hate the Petrify spell for exactly this sort of reason.) And if you can have a Shape Plastcrete spell, can you also have a Shape Flesh spell?

What about Blood Magic? I should go read up on that, see if any potential options lie in that direction.

I dunno, this seems far too complex to manage. If we just want to make an individual character into an Obsidiman, we could say they just have a normal human lifespan because they don't a Life Rock to commune with.

~Umi

Maybe it's the sleep deprivation talking, but I just had a potentially fantastic idea!

FuelDrop! Forget augmenting Devil Rats - build a Rat Man changeling specializing in controlling animals! You can be a modern day Tesso!

~Umi

Was that aimed at me somehow?

@Umidori
Minor Nit-Pick, but Trolls can't take human looking as far as i remember.
But there is the Troll Giant Meta Variant which comes looking like a gigantic Human without Horns.
Give that one Granite Shell and Dwarfism(?) and you have a human looking smaller Troll with Stone-Skin.
Well, as human looking as something with Stone-Skin can be anyway . .

Given that you were the one quoted and the one who apparently still believes trolls have to pay extra for ware, one might think so...

Giants are definitely a bit too tall, being about 9 foot, while Obsidmen average 7 foot 3 inches.

Fomori might work, although I can't exactly be sure.

They're described as being slightly smaller (which is good, since even normal Trolls are too tall at about 8 foot 2 inches), and they're said to lack dermal deposits - but oddly it doesn't say whether they retain their horns or not. The fluff about them being more attractive and facing less prejudice makes me think they probably do lack horns, though. As for their magical resistance, on the one hand it doesn't really fit for an Obsidiman, but on the other hand it's not glaringly out of place either? You could explain it away as some quirk of the mana levels not being high enough, or some other magic mumbo jumbo. I dunno.

Really, it'd probably be simplest to just base it off a normal Troll and say that your particular Troll was rather shorter than "average" before SURGEing into an Obsidiman.

Oh, unrelated, but I just thought of another concern - physical sex. Obsidimen are sexless, and only choose to follow "gender" behavioral stereotypes as a way of interacting with other races with less confusion and more comfort.

Which makes me wonder, with the option to have cyberware sex organs, why has there never been a character option for being a eunuch?

~Umi

So I decided to double check this deltaware necessity in Running Wild and what do I find? No such thing is claimed in Running Wild. It does say, on pg 29, that if you want to use VGI for your biodrone, you need to use either a Betaware or Deltaware clinic due to the nanites involved. But that is it. Doesn't say the cybernetics or the bioware itself needs to be deltagrade. The cost example given also makes no mention of deltagrade cybernetics or costs.

So to reiterate, if you want to bio or cyber up your rats (not your devil rats without GM permission), go right ahead. It does not require deltaware. It does require a beta or delta clinic if you want to use VGI to keep down the chances of them going insane but if you don't care about that, use whatever clinic you have at hand. Honestly, if you are making pit fighting animals, the insanity is a bonus. Genetech enhancements get a 20% cost discount (Augmentation, pg 152) and using VGI will give you a 10% essence discount on all implants (Running Wild pg 29) but you will need a more expensive clinic.

Yees . . . i have no clue at all, how i could even BEGIN to THINK that Trolls pay DOUBLE for Cyberware ind Bioware, when it's explicitly MENTIONED IN THE ERRATA.
Where they put the Cyberware and Bioware UNDER THE LIFESTYLE COST AND EQUIPMENT THEY USE.

No, seriously, i am as surprised and astounded as you are at my utter failure of reading anything else out of that . . No idea how i did it. I must be special or something to clearly see something that nobody else wants to see.

The problem, I think, is you're just not understanding each other's exact meaning.

Technically you do pay extra for cyberware and bioware as a Troll, but you don't actually pay double.

When you buy a Cyberlimb as a Troll, you pay the same price anyone else would. "But how does it get adapted then?" Simple - every month you pay your Lifestyle costs, which for a Troll are already double normal. The costs of adapting any and all cyberware you implant are automatically "paid for" in the form of that extra Lifestyle cost.

Now, realistically it doesn't make much sense for someone living a Low Lifestyle to be able to adapt 50k+ cyberware out of the mere 2k they pay each month above what a human would pay for the same lifestyle. But that's exactly what happens, because Lifestyle costs are an abstraction.

So yes, a Troll does "pay" more for cyberware, but only in the sense that they have increased Lifestyle Costs to deal with. No, a Troll does not pay 200% of the cost of every single piece of 'ware they take - they pay the same price as everyone else per item, because the adaptation of any and all cyberware they get is covered separately by Lifestyle Costs which are already paid for.

~Umi

@Umidori
That sounds like a reasonable way of thinking of it . . but it's not what it says or how it works i am afraid.
LifeStyleCost is a monthly fee while buying stuff with your money is not but an up front once a time thing.

As written(stupid as it is) you, as a troll, pay 200% for cyber and bio.

Stahleseele, I'm not sure if english is your original language, but the quote is broken down like this:
This is the disadvantage.
This is the in-world "fluff" reason for the disadvantage of the Lifestyle costs being doubled, which are separate from Gear costs (which bio and cyber are subparts thereof).
This is a further explanation and specificification of where the lifestyle doubling comes from. All of that adapting of cyber and bio is reflected entirely by the Lifestyle cost doubling.

It does not say all gear costs are doubled as gear costs are a separate thing. It's some pretty bad writing, as there's no need to explain their explanation, which is obviously causing confusion because it is conflating gear costs and lifestyle costs, but everything after "to reflect" acts as an explanation on why the Lifestyle costs are being doubled, and not saying that Gear/Bio/Cyber in general are being doubled.

hmmm... did a bit more digging, and you're right that it's not in running wild...

it's in runner's companion. page 85.

"Most enhancement technologies available to metahumans are
not available to sapient critters at similar Essence and nuyen costs.
Metahumans simply never designed cyberlimbs and implants for
other sapients, many of whom possess vastly different anatomies
than their closest non-paranormal relations, and surgeons experienced
in operating on them are few and far between. On top of
these difficulties, few sapient critters go in for augmentation—loss
of Essence will cause them to lose Magic, which might eliminate
their powers altogether.
Sapient critters can only accept deltaware bioware and
cyberware implants, and even all replacement limbs and organs
must be cultured (see Transplants and Organ Replacements, p.126,
SR4) from the character’s own cells. Sapient critters can accept
geneware and nanoware without difficulty."

so geneware is fine (as are nanoware augmentations... not that there's much of that).

apart from that, even for sentient critters, it's not frequently used, and needs to be deltaware.

bearing in mind that for non-sapient critters, augmenting them means you are both reducing their effectiveness in the area you chose them for in the first place, and that you are making them less psychologically stable (and you can't use the less expensive methods of production, since you can't grow paracritters in vats)...

and also bearing in mind how much of the litter discusses the fact that augmenting paracritters of any sort, sapient or otherwise, is uncommon...

i'm gonna have to say that this is very very very likely to be the case for non-sapient critters as well. if they haven't even really developed non-deltaware options for the stuff that reacts well to being augmented, i very much doubt they've developed non-deltaware options for stuff that develops psychological problems.

I agree with this breakdown. The entry is telling the player that they suffer a Lifestyle modifier, and then why they suffer it.

Even if you were correct about the intended operation of this rule, what it actually says does not match that, Linguistically speaking. (Also, if you were correct, why would this have been changed in an errata? The original complaint was that Trolls paying +50% for every piece of gear - including cyberware and bioware - was far too restrictive. How does changing it to +100% do anything but make things worse?)

~Umi

Those rules are specific to the "Sapient Critters" listed as playable advanced character options - Naga, Sasquatch, Centaur, and Pixie. I wouldn't just automatically apply them to other critters - even ones with the Sapience power - without citing a second separate entry somewhere else, if only because of Runner's Companion's extremely narrow focus on player-characters.

~Umi

I could kinda see animals being used to test augmentations before releasing them to the public. After all, it's better for a lab ape to die horribly from a horrific malfunction than one of your customers, right?

This of course means that there are probably cyberzombie Gorillas out there somewhere...

That sounds like a fun run concept.

Players get hired to steal a "secret prototype" from a small and remote research compound in a deep jungle, Johnson flies them out to a nearby location, sends them in the rest of the way via ground. Upon arriving they find the place torn to pieces with bodies everywhere, the "prototype" missing, and the main gates forced open from the inside. Project data off the computers clues in the Runners to how deep a pile of monkey drek they've landed themselves in, and now suddenly they are the ones being hunted.

~Umi

sure, they'll use animals to test cyberware. what they won't do is test it on paracritters, which costs orders of magnitudes more that regular animals.

furthermore, i've *already* quoted my proof of paracritters not commonly being augmented. we have several quotes already that tell us there is no reason for standard grade cyberware to even exist for most of them, because people don't use it.

the ONLY rules we have that actually discuss "here are the costs of augmenting awakened critters that are not mutated metahumans" is in that section of runners companion. and they go out of their way to stress how rare it is even on sapient awakened critters, which typically won't go berserk when you augment them; something you cannot say for non-sapient critters. every passage that discusses augmenting awakened non-sapient critters goes out of the way to tell you that this isn't something that is done.

and if it's almost never done, you're basically talking about custom-making it for the specific critter. it probably only even exists at *all* because there are most likely research labs that want to find an efficient solution, but the simple fact is that you're spending a lot of money to destroy the main reason you spent money training and breeding the paracritter in the first place, and making them harder to control. which is why nobody is mass producing it, which is why you have to get it custom made.

Except that it doesn't. A clause starting with "to" is an infinitive phrase, indicating purpose or intent ("I'm Mrs Krabappel, I'm here to teach you English"). In this case, the intent is "reflect", meaning it shows the consequences of what follows.


Want me to take a shot at an explaination?


@Fueldrop:

But on devil rats? That would be horribly irresponsible and...oh wait, nevermind

So I've realized a very simple, subtle something that I've missed time and time again - and it's kind of embarassing, actually.

Unlike Changeling I and Changeling II, the Changeling III positive quality doesn't dictate exact amounts of BP costs for Positive and Negative metagenetic costs, but rather states minimum amounts. There's technically nothing stopping a Changeling III character from taking 50+ BP each of Positive and Negative Metagenetic Qualities. (Aside from running out of Qualities to take, of course.)

That frees up options for my T'skrang build, so I plan on rebuilding for a third time now to see just how nice I can get things.

~Umi

It also sounds like a Johnson who's either very ill-informed on what exactly they're resarching in the facility or deliberately plans for the run to fail. Usually the Johnson has at least a modicum of idea of what the PCs are supposed to birng back. In the above-mentioned example, if the lab as fancy enough computer/medical gear, the PCs may pick it up and bring it back to the Johnson with a 'here's the only prototype-like stuff in the facility, now pay us'. And if the Jonhson balks, ask him 'when WTF sort of protype did you expect ? And why didn't you tell us in advance what we were supposed to take'.

Back on the original topic, an alternative to cyberware would be drugs - a devil rat pumped full of berzerk drugs can probably put on quite a fight (even if it drops dead from the side-effects ten minutes later) for a low budget...

The idea is that the Johnson knows the gist what the prototype is, but lacks key details and consequently underestimates how dangerous it is.

The runners go into this thing thinking that they're retrieving a "bio-drone", and they even have reasonably specific details about the project, including the fact that it's an augmented gorilla, but what the Johnson didn't know and couldn't tell them was that this wasn't just a bio-drone, but a full cyberzombie. He also couldn't predict it would happen to go berserk and escape.

It's kind of like in Jurassic Park, where Dennis is hired to steal the dinosaur embryos. Everyone underestimates just how friggen' dangerous the damn critters really are, both Hammond and his corporate rivals, and the poor schmucks caught in the middle go from undertaking an ostensibly reasonable (if unsual) job, to having to fight for their survival and escape.

~Umi

As the two competing corporations chase the biodrone, the PCs need to fade into the jungle, using their irregular warfare methods to set ambushes and traps and otherwise use their superior mobility against all the other parties.

In other words, it's guerrilla gorilla warfare.

Is anyone else thinking about the original Farcry with all this? No? Just me then.