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Nythrun
Saell, folks. I've recently finished my eighth Shadowrun session and have somewhat outgrown the stage where one fumbles awkwardly with unfamiliar rules. Which outgrowth has brought me to a snag that I hope someone here might be able to help me unravel: my Magician's Way Adept in the Shadowrun Missions Campaigns is stymied by surgery costs. Pardon if you will the first-post verdigris.

In specifics: the decker in my group wants upgrade surgery on his cranial cyberdeck, to free up a sliver of essence so he can have a cyberskull installed. For this task I have Biotech 6, Medicine 6, and a rating 2 clinic, all of which allows me up to two positive options and a good chance to succeed at getting them both. Proceeding with the plans, we have:

1. Medical profile: Medicine(4) test with a base time of 48 hours. Easy.

2. Plan Surgery: Medicine(4) test, base time 72 hours. The TN is adjusted up to Medicine(6) for the two positive options I've selected, and the process requires 288 hours. This test has a one in three chance of failing outright - I do not yet have Centering: Knowledge Skills - and would require me to buy a new computer, as my tabletop pc lacks the requisite 576MP of memory to hold this puzzlingly vast program.

3. Perform implant: upgrade cyberware surgery: Biotech(4) test, base time equal to the TN for surgery. The adjusted TN will be 4, +1 (decker has Bioware), +1 (decker has misplaced his essence), -1(it happens in my clinic), -1(additional doctor on my staff), -1(I'm a caring magician), -2(I have Microscopic Vision) = TN1, with calculated thresholds at 3 and 5. So in practice it's going to take one hour (reduced by superfluous twos). Failing this test is a matter of some difficulty with 6 + 8 complementary dice, and even if I do fail in step two the repercussions are mild: the surgery takes two hours instead of one and I'll need to roll 2,2,2,4,6 instead of 2,2,2,3,5 to pull my sawbones act flawlessly.

So far so good and an attractive way to spend some illgotten gains. By the book (as Shadowrun Missions favors letterism) these admirable services will demand a bill of:

240 nuyen each for myself and my colleague - no hourly wages for doctors.

120 nuyen for the medical profile - which I've done already, I'll just need to do another post-operatively for future reference.

And 57,600 nuyen for the Surgical Plan. Yeah, huh?


Practically speaking I should just omit step two, bear the higher TN stoically (it's still an 82.47% chance of total success!) - but the price for the procedure is utter nonsense either way: my reasonable GM will balk at 600 nuyen for fragging brain surgery, and 58,200 nuyen is disportionate to both my skill and the task at hand.

Is there errata to which I'm not privy, or perhaps a recollected remark from a developer, that unskews this picture?

Thanks for reading and for any salient replies.
mfb
welcome to hell, sucka. there is no unskewing. you are doomed.
Nythrun
Santa, is that you?
mfb
seriously, the surgery costs are insane. what should have been done is, the surgery costs should have been modifiers to the base implant cost--it's not like a chrome lip and some synthetic brain tissue are going to cost the thousand fuckin' nuyen a datajack is listed as! base implant costs should have included surgery costs.
Critias
My favorite part is the "surgery plan" that (assuming a doctor does nothing but work on it for 8 hours a day) takes months and months to prepare.
FrostyNSO
Seeing as it cost us $23,000 just to have a baby, I'm not sure the total cost is all that far off. I mean sheez, with us, they weren't even putting anything in!

[ Spoiler ]
Dawnshadow
Ok.. question...

Are you just taking the costs out of the appropriate book?

If so: Why aren't you getting a massive discount for it being a PC doing it? I mean.. I would expect the massive nuyen for the plan is something like: it's got a base time of 288 hours.. so, we'll charge 200 nuyen an hour, and that will cover it.

I mean.. I would make the decker pay you that, maybe with a discount to make him keep coming back, but really -- that's what is charged for the service.. when you're getting it done in a hospital. Why does everyone assume that's what it costs the hospital to do the service? Really... it's just time. The equipment is already paid for. (Hospital at least).

Really, the GM should consider what the actual surgery costs to perform, for the person DOING the surgery -- not what the surgery costs the performee.
Edward
The surgery plan is not worth the time and expense, it’s cheaper to hire a magically talented nurse that will more than overcome the penalty for not having a plan.

If a PC dose the work then you pay what that PC wants, he may do it s a favour or at mates rates or he might charge you extra, before doing work for another PC I always check the book values of the work however.

Edward
mfb
mmmm, magical nurses.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (mfb)
mmmm, magical nurses.

.....Pink-haired teenage adept nurses who wield giant hypodemic needles in combat.....


The time and cost of the surgery plan only makes sense if the surgery that is being performed has only been done once, twice, or never before. A routine datajack implant should be something that any complant implant surgern can do with his eyes closed.
hobgoblin
first off, i would not allow any surgeon, no matter how skilled and experienced, to operate on me with his eyes closed.

second, this isnt your avarage mergency room bullet removal.

you want to get a nice checkup on the medical history of the patient so you dont have stuff like allergic reactions to some drug used.

and you plan every cut your going to make and where to make it. the less cuts you have to make, the less bloodloss, the less recovery time needed.

and the costs for elective surgery. ie, its not like every joe and his neighbour will have it done. not even a datajack. and no matter how many times one does a datajack implant you dont want to assume anything, your working on someones brain...

specialiced training euqals specialiced prices. there is a reason why medical costs are high...
SpasticTeapot
QUOTE (hobgoblin @ May 17 2005, 06:26 PM)
first off, i would not allow any surgeon, no matter how skilled and experienced, to operate on me with his eyes closed.

second, this isnt your avarage mergency room bullet removal.

you want to get a nice checkup on the medical history of the patient so you dont have stuff like allergic reactions to some drug used.

and you plan every cut your going to make and where to make it. the less cuts you have to make, the less bloodloss, the less recovery time needed.

and the costs for elective surgery. ie, its not like every joe and his neighbour will have it done. not even a datajack. and no matter how many times one does a datajack implant you dont want to assume anything, your working on someones brain...

specialiced training euqals specialiced prices. there is a reason why medical costs are high...

That still makes no sense. Datajacks are pretty common, and none too expensive, either. If they're so cheap, then why would it cost over fifty times as much to install them?
EDIT: Saying that datajack surgery is specialized is like saying that training as a a motorcycle mechanic is almost useless because they're overspecialized....and, in 2060, there are likely more datajacks than with motorcycles.
hobgoblin
if your a corp then most likely you got it done at a corp clinic and have the down payments drawn from your paycheck.

i was not saying that datajack surgery specificaly where specialized but rather that surgery in general is a skill that require specialized training.

if you mess up a motorcycle then your left with a non-working motorcycle. mess up a patient and your left with time in jail.
Catsnightmare
The surgery rules as presented in the book are complete crap. You're better off ignoring them and just pulling numbers out of your ass till you find something that sounds appropriate.
Frater Inominatus
Also consider that we are talking about a world where cyberware is as ubiquitous as the cell phone is today. Granted we are talking about things like replacing an arm or an eye but "they" have the technology down to an art. And generally where a process is perfected, the price goes down.

There is also the legality of the 'ware to consider. You might be able to go to a local clinic to get a legal data jack installed for a reasonable price. But getting move-by-wire 3 takes a higher level of expertise to install, not to mention someone who either has the authority to do it or the resources to do it under the table.

As Catsnightmare so eloquently put it, the prices are, in my opinion, over-inflated and should be adjusted to a level the GM is comfortable with.
Eyeless Blond
Well, to be clear, the prices for the surgery itself are under-inflated: a few hundred nuyen for any kind of brain surgery? You've got to be kidding me. The problem is that the cost and associated time for the surgery plan is over-inflated, to the point where it's just not in any way useful unless you're implanting beta or deltaware (at which point you need every TN mod you can scrape together). Of course at that point the plan itself becomes the work of several lifetimes, so it's difficult to contemplate making it then either.
Edward
Getting a data jack is about as common as having your tonsils removed, although significantly more complicated yes.

My guess is that most data jacks are installed without a patient specific plan, the surgeon gets the full medical worksheet on the patent takes 10 min to mach it to one of the standardised plans than fit reasonably closely and covers for the differences in the surgery room,

9 man days is a bit long for a plan but not imposable, what throws me is it’s the same regardless of wether your getting a data jack, a fingertip compartment (with no neural interface) or wired reflexes. Not to mention that the size of the surgery plan would be 2.4 hours of video (with +10 zoom available) or more text and diagrams than you could read in a year.

Edward
hyzmarca
QUOTE (hobgoblin)
if your a corp then most likely you got it done at a corp clinic and have the down payments drawn from your paycheck.

i was not saying that datajack surgery specificaly where specialized but rather that surgery in general is a skill that require specialized training.

if you mess up a motorcycle then your left with a non-working motorcycle. mess up a patient and your left with time in jail.

No licensed surgeon is going to prison for an operating room mishap unless he was trying to kill the patient and a Sherlok Holmes caliber detective proves it or he was negligent on the level of doing BTLs during the surgery. At worst, his maklpractice insurance premiums will go up a bit.

An unlicensed street doc is another matter. He would be guildt of felony murder even if he did everything right. However, an unlicensed street doc could simply sell the leftovers to an organlegger and no one would ever know.

As for planning every cut. I'm sure they try. However, they can't plan everything. Reasonably, basic planning involves a few scans/x-rays/whatever and the equivilant of a magic marker.
Smiley
Just run between the bullets and all this can be avoided.
Crimsondude 2.0
QUOTE (Edward)
Getting a data jack is about as common as having your tonsils removed, although significantly more complicated yes.

Yeah, but you can't get your tonsils removed at just about any mall in Seattle like you could a 'jack.
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (Crimsondude 2.0)
QUOTE (Edward @ May 17 2005, 07:20 PM)
Getting a data jack is about as common as having your tonsils removed, although significantly more complicated yes.

Yeah, but you can't get your tonsils removed at just about any mall in Seattle like you could a 'jack.

Indeed; I'd liken getting a 'jack to be about as common as women getting their ears pierced today, or someone buying a cell phone.
Modesitt
I disagree. This is not a cell phone or ear piercing, the former being a non-invasive practically disposable consumer electronic and the latter a simple and easy procedure that you can honestly do in your own home with no training and not have complications. 1,000 nuyen is 1/5 of a middle-class lifestyle for a month.

A much closer example would be laser eye surgery. It's permenant, it requires not-insignificant-training, and it's a substantial investment.
Crimsondude 2.0
Then you put your 'jack on lay-a-way or rent-to-own maybe.
Smiley
"Two more payments and this sumbitch is MINE."
Crimsondude 2.0
"Miss a payment and see what happens, bitch."
Smiley
(Knock, knock)

"Who's there?"

"Goons."

"What?"

"Hired goons."

"Hired goons?"
Fresno Bob
"I hope my hired goons weren't too rough with you."

"Hired goons?"
Smiley
Thank GOD somebody got it. Voorhees, you're all right.
Eyeless Blond
QUOTE (Modesitt)
I disagree. This is not a cell phone or ear piercing, the former being a non-invasive practically disposable consumer electronic and the latter a simple and easy procedure that you can honestly do in your own home with no training and not have complications. 1,000 nuyen is 1/5 of a middle-class lifestyle for a month.

A much closer example would be laser eye surgery. It's permenant, it requires not-insignificant-training, and it's a substantial investment.

Except that according to the books you can usually pick up a datajack at the mall in an hour or two, and it *only* costs 1,000 nuyen. Laser eye surgery today costs nearly twenty to fifty times as much and takes a few days to a couple weeks to prepare for. I know people who spend more than the cost of a datajack at a casino every month; I can easily see even those working a part-time job living a Low lifestyle buying one in a couple months on layaway.

It doesn't really seem to make sense for brain surgery to be so easy to come by, but apparently in the world of SR it is.
Edward
One thing that is never explained in SR is how they interfaces with eth brain, but the flavour text often mentons nano insolation. This opens up the possibility of the procedure being as simple as drill small hole in the scull, insert data jack, wait for nannies on end of data jack to create lines into brain (a couple of weeks but you go home) plug in and run connection identification and setup program.

That would make it 2 visits to a medical shop (doctors clinic that can be in a mall) each being about half an hour. There isn’t so much brain surgery as placing Nantes on the surface of the brain (and hoping they don’t fuck up).

Edward
hobgoblin
eyeless, a good doc could cut the base implant time to a hour or two on the planing test i guess. but i would not use flavor text for a item as canon against a rule in a sourcebook.

the get-a-datajack-in-a-hour scenario is kinda nuts if you look at stuff like recovery time for even a minor wound. that is unless you have some magical healing or speed-heal drugs to help you...
Nythrun


Mostly I wanted a canonical estimate of what price this kind of service commands, so that I can request a comparable favor in return (upgrade this fake credstick's rating so that I in turn can upgrade my clinic at the legal price tag, rather than the usurious street index, or suchlike). My qualms with so doing stem from the inequity in time expended: credstick tampering would take longer than the superfluous surgery plan.

As this surgery is going to inflict seven boxes of physical (2.8 Essence for this particular cranial cyberdeck, though had it been run through a datajack that cost would have been somehow annulled) I'm going to need an expendable health spell focus to get our decker back on his feet in time for next run, too - and for that I do plan to ask re-imbursement, as they take me a good three weeks to replace.

We'll hash it out - thanks again for the thoughts.

I doubt nanites, which require at least a Beta Grade clinic or facility, are used much in shopping mall implants. On the other hand, with Astral Perception imposing only +2 to the TN for purely mundane tasks, I'm confident my PC can in fact with eyes closed install a basic grade datajack for the next Trideo of X-treme Stunt Surgery wink.gif
Shrapnel
You know those guns they use to pierce ears at the mall?

Now picture that, but with datajacks... biggrin.gif

"Now hold real still... This might sting just a bit..."
Lady Door
LOL... but I think I might be sick...
hyzmarca
According to Man & Machine all implants use some form of nanite.

QUOTE (Man and Machine p.84)
Nanites constantly maintain the neural highways so that impulses of flesh and metal do not get rejected by each other. [...] Without the fine manipulation of the nanites even instalation of a simple datajack would be impossbile


LynGrey
We have always said.. that Cyberware cost includes the cost of implant, but not hospital stay, if you need it cyber.gif
littlesean
QUOTE (Shrapnel)
You know those guns they use to pierce ears at the mall?

Now picture that, but with datajacks... biggrin.gif

"Now hold real still... This might sting just a bit..."

Nice! and of course it would be someone named shrapnel that posts that. I too think I will be sick, if I can stop laughing long enough.
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