Way faster than I expected.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/151893...un-Chrome-Flesh

Pre-orders for the hardcopy are also up.

http://www.battlecorps.com/catalog/advance...amp;x=0&y=0

Dig in!

Okay, not bought yet, but I already have a question:

What have tables of content done to CGL? I'm serious. This may work reasonably well for searchable PDF if you know what you're looking for; it's useless in print. Why?

12F Nanotatoos ...

And I fear the worst, considering that DT was just released some weeks ago.

SYL

Well, I'll try to compile a review on this one. Here and on Pegasus, as usual.

If you already have it: can you fill up essence holes (you had cyberware, you remove cyberware, can you fill up the essence hole with bioware now?) SR4 had unfortunately some major issues with that.

SYL

Have yet to buy it (which I won't from my university computer). But will buy when I get home, I think. Yeah, SR4 was murky there.

I don't think we covered "Essence Holes" since the concept is well-known to the older players, but we probably should have. Grf. I'll take the bullet on that one.

(This is especially troubling since the modular cyberlimbs are a Thing! Once you've paid teh essence, you can swap out all kinds of modular parts without taking further hits. Grf. I'll need to write up a formal thing fo rthat one.)

That has been sort of the bane for every new edition I guess, on one hand they are changing things while on the other it presumes you already have a working knowledge from previous editions.

As long as something gets put in for errata it should be okay as new players might not realize how that can work and may wonder how they can upgrade/change gear.

I do like the Modular bit and am working right now so can not do more than brief skimming, but the section on headcases and their potential rights looks extremely interesting reading.

This seems like a remarkably quick turn around. Data Trails was only released like, what, a month ago? Still, glad to see it out.

Yeah, judging from from the table of contents is this a game book or a collection of novellas?

Flipped through the book, seems like the first 5E book that I could like.
Also, this:
Fragging finally.

Please tell me it's just an "install once, covered forever" thing. I don't ever want to see individual router ports (with different stats based on where they go) on a charsheet again...

I like how it uses wires to simulate a wireless network. Quantum leap of technological advancement right there.

This is the description of the implant as it is in the book, make of it what you will.
I see no reason to think it should be anything other than a "buy once, use till death for everything" deal.

Great bit!

UPD: oh, and there's nanoware in the book.

Heh, made me chuckle.

The Internal Router's a one-n-done, and will link everything you get before, or after. In essence, everything under your skin has access to a hotspot.

The original version was much cheaper and lower in Essence, but the playtesters pushed it higher for balance.

Note that while it lets your toys talk to one another, there are certain features it can't emulate (For example, you gotta go Wireless if you want to buy a new Activesoft from Horizon and download it). It's not "Immune to all Hacking fo-evah".

There are some people complaining that it goes against the 5th ed spiit of Hackers going "off-script" in a fight, but, the world has to evolve. Just as Megacorps went "We probably shouldn't have our sensitive data on networks where our R&D is directly connected to the Matrix" in 1st-2nd edition, so too has demand created the need for an Internal Router.

There'll be more tech goodies in the future.

And thank you for the bit about the Trauma Damper. I tried to put a few incidents of "This thing does this .... until the Street got a hold of it, at which point it was hacked into doing this other thing." You'll see similar bits scattered around.

Yeah,That was fast,I'm hoping the next book is a rigger book and it comes out just as quickly. I want to turn my Riggers van into something that will make the Batmoblie,the March 5 and every James Bond car look like shriners carts

So in essence, it's like Skinlink, just way more restricted. But hey, with biocompatibility's ability to reduce implant costs to zero you quickly balance out the 0,7 essence.


Because it's not like this wasn't a thing in SR3.


So ... there will be a companion PDF of things that didn't make the deadline?


Yeah, that's a nice idea that I'll have to steal for a screwed-up NPC.

I'd say showing side effects of implants, especially bioware, is a perfect idea, one that I dearly love from the time of Hatchetman's tales. After all, this is what Shadowrun is all about, trading your humanity for power.

Now if only similar things would be done for magic... Like, dunno, pointing out the weird geasa, or the magicians capable of astral perception being all weird talking to invisible friends and in time unable to tell real stuff from astral auras, etc.

Magic has so many dark implications and applications; those need to be explored more (for the record, I'm not thinking about magical date rape, but about all the other nefarious things magic lets you do if you are a bit creative).

Oh, there's quite a bit on how magic can be used for evil; I'm talking about showcasing how magic twists its user.

How Totems, nearly unlimited power, and the bargains made to keep it in face of other faustian pacts? It changes you for the worse?

What the difference between Amplified Immune System (CF, p. 112-12) and Pathogenic Defense (SR5, p. 459). They both just add their Rating to Disease Resistance Tests.

I would seem that the Pathogenic Defense (enhanced spleen) would be subsumed by the AIS based on the descriptions. Oddly, the the PD rating goes up to 6, while AIS is limited to 4. Moreover, while they have the same Essence Ratings, the PD is a mere Availability Rating x 2, while AIS is rating x 7. The only benefit to AIS is a slightly lower cost.

Also, do the PD and AIS bioware bonuses stack?

Thanks.

Or, you know, as nearly everyone has been saying since 5e came about, always-on wireless everything was a massive step backwards in security for no reason other than a game mechanic that was never even properly developed much less fully playtested before publication.

Yeah. There have been write-ups what low-Essence character feels like; but I don't remember anything on how a high Magic character feels (and how those around him feel about him).

Maybe the song 'Moves like Harley'* can serve?

* with apologies to Maroon 5.

Everything made it in that was scheduled (Thus 240 pages!) aside from some art, IIRC.

But a future PDF that adds more stuff, or even a book (if there was enough material) seems possible. Lord knows that there're several gun books, so you could probably push out another Augmentation one. At the very least, CYberzombies and Full-Body Cyborgs aren't touched, so you could do a bit there.

I'd be interested in doing a small PDF "Booster" if asked from above that would cover the concept of the Essence Hole and maybe drop in a few more archetypes. A replacement Street Samurai for the SR5 one with teh rather well-known money issue, a Skillsoft Savant, a street-level game's Razorgirl, maybe a couple more. Dunno if there'd be a demand for it or if they'd be willing to toss a few more dollars for writing what'd be a free product.

*phew*
I feared the Router from SR3 had made a comeback with all its rule baggage

God, it's a mess; on the same level as cWoD.

Nah, they spent the rule baggage room on, for some reason, spelling out cybergenitals' game effects.

I don't know why we needed that, but apparently we did.

Oh that'd be a great balancing factor I never thought of before. As a Street Sam's essence drops they become less human they suffer the normal clichés of poor social interaction and start feeling more machine than man. But while an awaken becomes more powerful they start to feel like Doctor Manhattan, with infinite power, but no one to relate to. In fact, I think there should be a correlation between high magic and following a corrupted path.

This would also give low augmented mundanes or low rating awaken a powerful niché as faces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSgJeVwjnpc

Lolwut?

Yep, and there's bioware genital replacements too, now. Personally, that's by far not my biggest problem with ChromeFlesh; I'd have liked to see some expansion on the unfortunately handled pregnancy rules (including what happens if the pregnancy is terminated in some way), as well as birth control, but I guess that would have been too risque for a gaming publication.

So what are those game effects? +10 Social Limit on the opposite sex?

CyberGenitalia with the Modular Connector option so you can switch out for the perfect fit everytime.

Hawkeye Style 'Quiver' for easy access to the full 'arsenal' is extra.

Wireless bonus: Drawing out the right tool for the job is a Free Action

Still takes a Simple Action to attach.

I don't *recall* any game effects. I know I didn't *write* any. The things are pretty well self-explanitory.

(I'd originally planned on removing them, but an old hand asked about them and said, "Hey, some people live for that stuff. Let 'em have their fun." I figure other people are wiser than me, so stuck 'em in. They make up, like, a hundred, two hundred words out of the forty thousand... I can let that slide.

Personally, I do find them useful for building transgender NPCs, or in the odd circumstance a character of mine has to radically disappear for a while. And I'm a sucker for non-combat-relevant gear anyway.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/3t0Z8D3.png[/img]


They even come with a wireless bonus.

Ah! Breast Implants do, yeah. It's the same bonus that they used to get, only without having "manual controls".

I thought you meant the cybergenetalia did, and I was going to be QUITE off my game.

Seriously, go grab the 4th ed Augmentations book. I'm in the clear on this one.

That's my one beef with the book: parts of it read like they were taken from Augmentation whole, making whole sections more of an update of the 4e rules than a thing of their own.

Oh, and also no headware Matrix init boosters, what's up with that?

This is probably not the part anyone cares about, but I wrote the second half of Chapter 1, the one that starts with Butch's post. If anyone wants to yell at me for how awkwardly Respec was introduced or how contrived the whole thing was or how obvious the Ghost in the Shell reference was, please let me know about your feedback now. It's the only way I'll learn.

Actually I did not mind Respec or their role in chapter 1 so much and it is interesting to see just how varied these things can be.

The whole CFD thing and these emerging variants are still something I am trying to wrap my head around, so if I am not entirely sold on it yet that is not an issue with any one writer to date, but rather just trying to fit it into my own particular world view which admittedly can take time.

Welcome to the kitchen, Ren! It can get hot in here, but I can loan you my boots. (I'm keepin' the mittens and apron, tho!)

Boots and the occasional virtual fire extinguisher, for those flash fires that happen from time to time in the Kitchen. Gotta stomp on 'em so they don't get out of control. :0

Whose was the first half, and what's the thinking behind the increase in costs of living - a global food shortage has none, but a new McCarthy-era witch hunt against invisible infiltrators has, why?

For the record, Respec seemed a bit GitS, but I've seen more obvious references in this book (and I found the Deus Ex references more headscratchy, because that doesn't make an awful lot of sense within SR's world, where Cyberware has long since been a part of life). Also, was there a "quote as much Gibson as you can" contest? I mean, props to whoever thought of The Winter Market. It's not his most well known work, but still.

I don't want to talk about anyone else. If they want to say who they are that's their job, not mine.

I didn't even think about Respec as the reference, I was apologizing for "Hey look, here's a new character that everyone likes," I hate that trope and I hate that I did it without realizing.

Murai is the name of the guy in Stand Alone Complex that cured an uncurable cyborg disease. For double irony points, he hated nanomachine therapy and came up with something better. That's the reference. Sorry, again.

Ah right, the super network ditstributed superbrain guy. Nothing to be sorry for, though.


I felt she had this Motoko Kusanagi distanced mind. Could just be me though. Anyway, so long as it's not blatant "look, it's my PC and he's uber", I can deal. /dev/ and netcat annoy me on occasion, Respec I'm pretty neutral about. Development would be perfectly fine, though, keeping Jackpoint's member list a bit down.

I am too, for the non-combat gear. It shows a little more depth of the world where there will be a demand for the aesthetic over the practical, like a cyberarm lit from within by neon lights Tron-style. Too bad there wasn't some more branding of the implants without impacting game mechanics (IIRC there's some old artwork of cyberlimbs with a Sony brand on them), could even have had a few of the cybered characters commenting on the differences between an Ares vs. Renraku made smartlink/smartgun & such.