Allright it's obvious that many people are not happy with current cyberlimb rules, and me and some gaming group members came up with some ideas, not yet fleshed out, for new ones. I welcome suggestions and discussion.

We were playing with the ideas of several grades or models fo cyberlimbs. Initially two grades were discussed which were Basic Prosthetic Cyberlimbs and Advanced Cyberlimbs.

Basic Prosthetics are cheap. made for the everyday joe that may need a limb due to tragedy and whatnot but doesn't have the cash for a top of the line model. I eyeballed these at like 5-7k for an arm and 7-10k for a leg. They have no or virtually no ECU and have all proprietary parts mass prodiced so they are not modifiable. They come set to whatever the user's natural str and qui is up to Racial Maximum or nearly so, but not higher. They are not meant for performance. They could be obvious or for 500 or so you can buy a sleeve for it that makes makes it synthetic. No reason for multiple versions since they aren't made for customizability.

Advanced Prosthetics are the cyberlimbs we see in the game now. These limbs can be set to the user's str and qui levels my a doctor, and can handle up to Racial Modified Limits without much of a problem. They have ECU depending on whether they are designed to be obvious or stealthy.

Now, here's where my rules vary.

I think performance cyberlimbs should be able to be adjusted to high levels of performance but there should be tradeoffs. I think that higher levels of qui and str should be purchased and should be priced on a sliding scale so the higher the stat the higher the cost.

I think that it should not inherintly cost essence for the capability to move faster or be stonger, but you should have the option to reinforce the interface between the limb and the body but it shouldn't be automatic. I think the limb should automatically operate at the owner's stats (or level he is reinforced to) unless the owner makes a conscious choice to override the built in safeties.

I think that when the user makes the conscious decision to override the safeties that the limb should perform to the specs that he purchased it up to, but when doing so it should cause the user damage. High speed causes high inertia and can stress the anchoring points if not reinforced enough. High strength can cause the anchoring points to stress and rip. The only activity I dont think should apply at a penalty is pure grip, like crushing a beer can, something independant what so ever from the mounting points.

I think the user should suffer damage on a sliding scale proportional to the amount of str or qui over his own natural attribute that he used. For example something like a power equal to the number of points exceeded and a wound level determined by that also, like starting at light it goes up a wound level for each 2 or three points exceeded. This gives the nifty visualization of someone ripping their shoulder off at the chance to do something heroic.

Ideas? Suggestions? I'd liek to refine this based on people's input.

I've always read these rules and said "man that's a cool concept, but too god damn expensive".

I forget when the first partial cyberlimb came about (its mentioned in the storyline in the BBB, something about a violinist losing their hand and getting a replacement) but I think its around 2020.

The technology has been around for 40 years and it still costs $100,000 and it supposed to be the BASIC replacement? Not going to work.

I like the cheapy prosthetics so that resolve the basic replacement issue, but cyberlimbs are like, 4x more expensive than vat growing a biological replacement. This is flat out wrong. A souped up model will cost a lot, sure but a standard fare CrappO Deluxe just isn't up to snuff.

So yeah, some sort of scale like you suggested would probably be good.

I don't know about essence though. 1 essence is quite a lot, but I mean you ARE cutting off the arm so I guess its understandable. 0.5 would make me happier, or even something like 0.8. You telling me in 40 year's time when we've got micromachines inside the bloodstream we can't figure out an efficient way to integrate that into the body? Give me a break.

I think it should cost you essence for moving faster but not necessarily stronger. Not nearly as much anyways. Faster means cleaner interface which probably means more wiring and hookups so that would make sense, but strength would be simply adding bigger nastier hogs for motors and servos wouldn't it? Sure it'll cost more to a point but not that much.

I like the idea of damage for over-exertion. Perhaps a cyberlimb could function similar to the Adept power of attribute boost. You have a button to press and suddenly the Incredible Hulk just became your left arm. Could be done with DNI of course.

It would probably take a number of combat turns equal to the rating of the boost /2 or so. Rating boost could probably go up to the base rating of the limb. For example, a strength 4 arm could get 4 rating points in a boost.

This would last for a number of turns equal to like, maximum boost - augmented attribute. Strength 6 cyberlimb operating at 7 is going to be able to do that a lot longer than if it were for strength 12.

This would obviously incur stress on the limb and the user, hence your damage. Perhaps a striated power formula? Light boost might be augmented rating/2, moderate might be augmented rating, serious would be augmented x1.5, deadly would be x2.

Just an idea that came up. It would allow you to perform superhuman feats but at a serious cost to your health and that of your limb. Blowing your limb apart trying to supercharge it would be rather funny as a visual I think.

"I'm going to kick your ass!"
"VRRREEEEOOOMMMM"
"Aww yeah, you in for it now-oh crap!"
*KABOOM*
"Augh! My arm exploded! Mommy!"

Oh and there could be TN modifications too. Not terribly severe for strength but definitely for quickness. Not sure how to handle it but its a thought.

The limbs should start at the Racial modified limit and cost more to increase it. And the amount of ECU for higher grade limbs should go up if not stay the same. That would be enough of a fix to satisfy me.

BB, in your original post, I think you got the terms Racial Maximum and Racial Modified limit mixed up.

I'm all for more reasonable cyberlimb rules, and this is a good step. I can see requiring structural enhancements for cyberlimb strengths that go beyond the racial max, but not really for anything lower. I also like the idea of basic, ECU-less limbs. I'll give this some thought and let you know if I come up with anything worth sharing.

My statement about damage above your str instead of damage above RML was done for a reason. Just because someone out there has a body of 9 and can take buttloads of pain and damage doesn't mean you can. If you have a body of three, then that's how much you can take. That's where that logic came from.

And all cyberarms would inherintly have a value of (for humans for example) 6 for basic prosthetics and 9 for advanced prosthetics, in case I didn't explain myself well.

Also, I don't like picking a number then "overcharging" your arm. Your arm should only be able to be as strong as you invested in it. It's mechanical, there are set defined limits of it's performance.

I don't want to make cyberlimbs more poweful, I want to give folks options and make them more usable WITHOUT increasing their power as much as I can. Removing the str/quickness gimp factor isn't making limbs better, it's just not making them worse than your meat limb when you paid 100k+ for it.

How about just dropping the price for cyberlimbs? Say, to 25% of original price, so synthetic limbs would cost about 25K and obvious would cost about 20K. Also, Strength, Quickness and Integrity upgrade should also only cost 25%. And give the limb starting Strength of Racial Modified Limit and Quickness of whatever the characters Quickness is, or maybe just RML.

Also, Grade affecting ECU, I understand that higher grade limbs would probably have less room for extra mods, but also, getting better grade mods would also lessen the amount of ECU they take up. For example: Samantha The Street Samurai has Alpha grade cyberarm, thus having 9 ECU to use however she wants. She gets herself a Beta grade cyber shotgun(Standard grade 3,5 ECU, IIRC), but as Betaware, it only takes up 3,5 * 0,6 = 2,1 ECU.

Cybertorsos should have a bit more ECU, maybe around 10/5 for obvious/synthetic. And If someone has a cybertorso, I'd say it reinforces the user enough to allow adding Strength/Quickness to limbs without having to pay additional essence. Limit cyberlimbs maximum Strength/Quickness to 2X Body or Body+6, whichever is less(replace Body with Quickness to determine max Qui).

Can't think anything else right now... I'll post up some more if anything comes up to my mind.

I've always houseruled it that cyberlimbs were set to match the user's strength and quickness. Anything over that amount would cost essence, as the rest of the body needed to be reinforced. If you chose to ignore this, and utilized it's full potential without proper bracing, the limb would tear itself off.

My thinking about overcharging was along the lines of "well I've got this machine here, I bet I can overcharge it temporarily if needs be".

It just popped into my head as I was writing the post, seemed sort of interesting, so I figured I'd make an ass out of myself and ramble on and on. I was thinking it would have some use in non-combat or in a surprise situation. The kind of thing where its "I need to get through this door right fraggin' now!" or "Taking out this guard in one shot would be useful, and one shot is all I'll get"

If you tried to use it on a constant basis you'd end up screwing up yourself and the arm in a bad way. I guess I was picturing it kind of like a car engine, its got the safety range but could be supercharged if you have the right know-how and hookups to get a bit more.

Just an idea and nothing more.

In our group we use rules that The Jopp created. Unfortunately I can't give you guys access to the final rules, but the beta versions of them are here.

I like the idea of Essence costs for quickness, but not for strength. As has been said above, Str boosts are from larger motors, not from rewiring your nerves, so maybe they should take up extra ECU points instead?

I like the idea of "common" and "advanced" cyberlimbs. In particular, I think that cyberlimbs should come in standardized strengths, but the defaults should be much higher than listed in the BBB. The "common" ones I think should come with the Racial Maximum in Str* and 3 in Quickness by default (Quickness should probably be harder to come by than Str normally, and average Quickness would be "good enough" for cheap-O limbs), and have no ECU. The "advanced" ones would come with the 1.5 times the Racial Maximum in Str* and the user's Quickness by default, I'd think, and the cost should at least partly be based on the limb's Quickness. As for Essence, I'd say .5 is a good base price for either limb, plus .2 for every point the limb's Quickness exceeds the Racial Modified Limit.

Now for the fun part. Although the limb itself (usually) has a Str much higher than the user, the limb's Str would be "dumbed down" by the doctor performing the surgery (or perhaps during rehab?), down to the user's actual Strength, in keep it balanced with the rest of the user's body. Perhaps though the person getting the limb installed would like to make use of that extra strength in the limb from time to time? Well, in that case you have a specialized DNI/Reflex Trigger installed in the limb, that lets you adjust the strength of the limb on the fly. Of course messing with such a system will harm the person doing it. Maybe every Combat Turn that your Str is boosted you have to resist (Number of seconds activated)M damage, unaffected by worn armor? That seems the simplest way to do it, although you could have the limb accumulate Stress points instead. What do you think?

*-Yes I know these are high, but really they should be. It's common in almost all cyberpunk that cyberlimbs are stronger than meatlimbs. Besides, in my vision the limb is usually dumbed down to the user's actual Str score by default anyway.

Str and Qui values should simply match the implantee's base attributes, up to the racial modified limit. the idea that cybernetic limbs can be outmatched by pure meat is utterly insane--for chrissake, cybernetics are what we use to surpass human limitations!

In my game I've cut the cost of the cyberlimb itself and Str or Quk mods to 20% (divide by 5). I also ruled that you only pay the extra Essence cost for high values of Str/Quk once for every three full points of increase.

This might make Cyberlims too powerful but I still haven't seen a flood of cyberlimbed street sammies.

It doesn't seem too powerful to me.

Awhile back (a long while as a matter of fact) I was working out some rules to improve cyberlimbs. I kinda run over the top anime/john woo style games (or at least the combat portion of my games) and even if thats not the style you run, the rules do alot to reduce the essence loss and some of the other issues of cyberlimbs. I go on leave saturday and while im home i will see if I can find the disc I saved it on. If so I will post the cyberlimb part. I will warn you though it will likely require some revision by some of you. My intent when putting it together was that a really augmented cyberzombie should be able to throw a small car at the players.

Err yeah, reverse those phrases, my bad!

In the campaign I'm playing in, cyberlimbs automatical has the str and qui of the user, and from that point you can enhance it. It can be pretty powerfull (archers anyone?) but then you have also invested a good deal of both nuyen and essence (at least for a starting character)

Just a note on the essence cost of cyberlimbs. I think as they are they're right on target if not pretty generous. My main reason for saying this is that if I want to get a Fairlight Excaliber in a cranial cyberdeck model, I have to pay 3.5 essence. I can put 2 of those in an obvious cyber arm, 4 in an obvious cyber leg. Now that's a LAN party.

Cost and essence also both go down by 10% for full limbs, 5% for partials for things like dermal plating and bone lacing, which is also a pretty nice deal since the few times I've seen a player take a cybelimb he almost always graps some dermal plating.