I've been planning to run a game where cyberlimbs are extremely effective, to the point where it's plausible enough to go (almost) full metal. I began to jot down houserules, but I realized that this is an old topic, so many people must have done a set before. Anyone care to share?

I think our GM cooked up something like half the essence and nuyen costs of them and divide the ECU capacity by the cyberware grade (e.g. divide by 0.8 for alpha).

Pretty simple, sensible, and makes cyberlimbs actually worth getting, as well as getting rid of the dumb rule about better grades having less ECU.

I can send you my slashed costs table and house rules when I get home tonight. I reworked the costs by comparing cyberlimbs to bioware muscle toner/augm, so cyberlimb are far more viable now. PM me with your email if you want it.

here's a few easy ones:

Each point of armor occupies 5% of the cf for an obvious limb and 10% for a synthetic one.

Cyberlimb strength starts at the racial max, quickness starts at 4 (as in the books).

Cyberlimb body starts at the racial max + 1, make it upgradable and average to get thier overall body just like str and qui. Take away the body bonuses for replacing limbs in the rules now.

Either ignore the thing about higher grade limbs having more space, or at least make higher grade components take up the same amount less space (making it a wash overall for components, but higher grade limbs still have less space for other stuff).

My only CyberLimb house rule is that I reduce Strength/Quickness cost by 90%, so it's 5,000 and 7,500 per. The rest is kosher Canon for me.

Sphynx

1. Cyberlimbs are set to match your body's natural strength/quickness. If you want the limb to be set to a higher level, you have to pay Essence to reinforce the rest of your body.

2. Utility space is *increased* by grade. If a cyberlimb is more "streamlined and ergonomic", the vital components should take up less space, not more. That means unless you're running around with arms like twigs, there's more empty space in your cyberlimb.

I like to think you get a little more than just that for what you pay for. Another rule I like to add is that, in a pinch, you can beef up your Str or Qui really high, but you pay for it later.

Here's my idea: mechanical limbs are *strong*. Their normal strength/quickness is 1.5 times the racial maximum. However, to keep you from hurting yourself the limbs are "toned down" to match your natural Str/Qui. If you're in a bind, though, you can use a Free Action to "tweak" the limb(s)'s Str/Qui, to whatever level you like, up to the maximum. The problem with this is it takes a major toll on your body: every Combat Turn you have your limb(s) set to a different Str/Qui, you must resist 6M Stun damage, plus Moderate physical damage, the Power of which is equal to the difference between your natural Str/Qui and the limb(s) Str/Qui, plus 1 (cumulative) for every Turn you've had the values tweaked. Armor applies to neither test.

Does that sound reasonable?

Ooh, wait, edit: "every Combat Turn you have your limb(s) set to a different Str/Qui..." and change it to: "every Initiative Passyou have your limb(s) set to a different Str/Qui..." This does mean that people who act more often will be taking more damage in a given amount of time, but hey, they should.

:: grins :: my main house rule is that if a player uses a cyber limb, I slap them politely.


more seriously, there's some pretty abusive stuff you can do with partial cyber limbs that actually doesn't suck because they don't screw up your attrib averages. Which, now that I think about it makes no sense..... full limbs should be better than partial not worse.... hmmm I'd prolly start by making it easier to connect devices in cyberarms, not harder.

I rule that cyberlimbs have the base strength and quickness of the character.

check out Wireknight's houserules, in cybernetics / cyberlimbs. he's pretty much completely rewritten them from the ground up.

I haven't had the opportunity to actually playtest my ideas, but maybe someone'll find them useful anyway. The idea was to produce something that would drop right in to replace the Man&Machine ruleset but make cyberlimbs of all sorts more useful and less expensive.

Like most of the other rulesets, capacity increases instead of decreasing by grade in my rules. Unlike most of the others, base Str and Qui are still just 1 above the racial average, but raising them to the Racial Modified Limit is very cheap, raising them to slightly above the player's own stats is cheap, and raising them even higher isn't too pricy.

Well my big problem with cyberlimbs is their nuyen cost so I divided the nuyen cost for all cyberlimbs as well as strength/quickness/integrity enhancements by five (this way getting an obvious cyberlimb rather than a cloned one actually makes financial sense).

I also halved the essence cost for "excessive" strength or quickness enhancements and ruled that it only applies once for every three points of enhancement (so a human could get a cyberarm with strength and quickness 10 for only 1.35 essence)

Also I've ruled that a Cybertorso totally negates the essence cost for excessive attribute mods.

Well the cybertorso isn't all that great: you get +1 Body and about as much ECU as a partial limb which costs significantly less essence and nuyen. I really don't think making it a little bit better will make that much difference. Besides even with my house rule you only really get much benefit from it if you have several cyberlimbs already and you're still limited to how much you can increase your limbs attributes by ECU if nothing else.

BTW I also agree that the rule on how higher grade Cyberlimbs have less space is completely ridiculous.

Maybe have the cybertorso increase the maximum str and qui enhancements before you take an essence penalty by 3 or 4?
Once you exceed the maximum, you still take the essence penalty as normal (which is still half for having the torso) but you don't get to that maximum point for a few more points.

There is also the often neglected benefit of the cybertorso and skull that protects internal ware from damage, but as far as I know not many people use those rules regularly anyway. I don't.