[sn0mm1s]

From reading this it looks like with delta grade augmentations with the initial cost of .2 or less will cost  a character zero essence. Seems like there should be a minimum cost. Seems like this becomes a practically required quality.

[Hobbes]

Yes its pretty much required.  And Yes the rounding rules put into the quality were clearly not carried out to a logical end and will require house ruling.  Personally I don't see the need to round off, pretty well fixes the issue.  But the minimum cost works too.   

[SichoPhiend]

About the Negative Quality: Cyber-Snob p.57

"A character must have at least 1 point worth of Essence of betaware-grade cyberware or bioware to be able to take this quality."

Last time I checked, your not allowed to start play with Beta-grade ware, so why make a flaw that requires it?

Or am I missing something?

Got in Proofing, slipped through the crack in the time crunch.

Suggested edit is to replace BETA with ALPHA in all instances, then lower the points from teh quality. I'd say 8, others think 8... we'll see.

Regardless, this should be in the errata. (And, for everyone, there will be errata, so any issues you find, LET US KNOW! The more you find, the more we can fix.)

About the Positive Quality: Biocompatibility p.54

"the Essence cost of implants of the particular chosen type are reduced by ten percent, rounded down to the tenth."

Really?  That would mean that something like a datajack would round down to 0 (.1*.9 = .09 which this would round down to 0) Is this really intended?

Badly written. The goal was to take, say, Alpha's 0.8 and reduce it to 0.72, which would be 0.7, but the phrasing on that was awful. The exact wording will come in errata, but it should read something like:

"Reduce Essence Loss from 'ware by an additional 10%, thus Alpha (Normally an Essence Cost of 0.8, ould become an Essence Cost of 0.7".

It'll make your read much better.

Shadowrun players can handle two digit Essence. At least I hope so, I have a bunch of 0.05 things in there!

They are already aware of this and are planning on correcting it in the errata.

[Malevolence]

I think that the intent was to change the essence multiplier for the different grades so that the table changes like this:


Grade       Normal    Biocompatibility
Standard     1.0        0.9
Alpha        0.8        0.7
Beta         0.7        0.6
Delta        0.5        0.4
Used         1.25       1.15

Per the post here from Wakshaani.

[SpellBinder]

I think that the intent was to change the essence multiplier for the different grades so that the table changes like this:

Grade       Normal    Biocompatibility
Standard     1.0        0.9
Alpha        0.8        0.7
Beta         0.7        0.6
Delta        0.5        0.4
Used         1.25       1.15

Per the post here from Wakshaani.

I was just going to suggest something like this.  So much easier on the math.

[Hobbes]

Yeah the way it's written it's more effective with Used 'ware since you do the 10% reduction after the calculation for quality.  Just changing the table seems like a sane option too.

Still a must have.  Is it intended to stack with Way of the Burnout?

[Overbyte]

Yes its pretty much required.  And Yes the rounding rules put into the quality were clearly not carried out to a logical end and will require house ruling.  Personally I don't see the need to round off, pretty well fixes the issue.  But the minimum cost works too.   

It seems WAY too cheap for what it does.

[I_AM_ZHOUL!!!]

From reading this it looks like with delta grade augmentations with the initial cost of .2 or less will cost  a character zero essence. Seems like there should be a minimum cost. Seems like this becomes a practically required quality.

You are doing your math wrong... Should look like this, .5÷10%=.45 rounded down to .4. So then you go .2×.4= .08 Essence. In other words.... welcome to Shadowrun where the Rules are needlessly complex and vague, & you are happy to have even that cause otherwise they are missing entirely! Check out the Customized Drugs rules if wanna scratch your head in confusion & try to reverse engineer how the get the totals in the example. I posted what I think they might be in the Errata thread about that one.

Side note... Used 'ware only cost ×1.1 using the math equation given not the 1.15 someone else listed. I have no idea what they meant it to be but damn to they LOVE making up math problems like they're my Algebra teacher!

Yes its pretty much required.  And Yes the rounding rules put into the quality were clearly not carried out to a logical end and will require house ruling.  Personally I don't see the need to round off, pretty well fixes the issue.  But the minimum cost works too.   

It seems WAY too cheap for what it does.

It's only 5 Karma cheaper than it used to be while not giving us Type O System or Wild Card Nanohive... not really that big of a deal. Prototype Transhuman is definitely stronger considering you get a a full 1 Essence of Bioware for 0 Essence costs. Biocompatibility the best you are going to get is about .65 Essence and that's only if you use 100% cyber or bio.

[Overbyte]

It's only 5 Karma cheaper than it used to be while not giving us Type O System or Wild Card Nanohive... not really that big of a deal. Prototype Transhuman is definitely stronger considering you get a a full 1 Essence of Bioware for 0 Essence costs. Biocompatibility the best you are going to get is about .65 Essence and that's only if you use 100% cyber or bio.

1) It doesn't matter what it used to cost.
2) Extra essence for 5 Karma is darn good since there really is no way to get more Essence (see below). It is particularly good when you are trying to stuff a little extra into 1 or 2 points as Mages do.
3) Prototype Transhuman is also way too cheap IMO. 10 Karma for 1 free essence. Essentially every runner will want it. Although at least in this case you have to take a neg to go with it.

When something is a "must have" as Hobbes said.. its a good indication that it is probably not balanced well in my experience.

[I_AM_ZHOUL!!!]

It's only 5 Karma cheaper than it used to be while not giving us Type O System or Wild Card Nanohive... not really that big of a deal. Prototype Transhuman is definitely stronger considering you get a a full 1 Essence of Bioware for 0 Essence costs. Biocompatibility the best you are going to get is about .65 Essence and that's only if you use 100% cyber or bio.

1) It doesn't matter what it used to cost.
2) Extra essence for 5 Karma is darn good since there really is no way to get more Essence (see below). It is particularly good when you are trying to stuff a little extra into 1 or 2 points as Mages do.
3) Prototype Transhuman is also way too cheap IMO. 10 Karma for 1 free essence. Essentially every runner will want it. Although at least in this case you have to take a neg to go with it.

When something is a "must have" as Hobbes said.. its a good indication that it is probably not balanced well IMO.

Dude....Biocompatibility was 10 Karma in 4th Edition & 5 Karma now, not some revolutionary change. Type O System in 4th Edition was WAY WAY WAY stronger in that it made all Basic Bioware count as Delta Grade for Essence Costs..... and in 4th edition you tracked Cyber & Bio pools separately with the smaller pool getting a 50% Essence Reduction. So basically if you weren't fitting 10 points of 'ware into your Sam you were failing badly! Course Magic was so strong that even 10 points of 'ware still wasn't good enough to stop it from becoming Magerun anyways.

So yeah... it's nice, now go talk about how Overclocker is so OP since every Decker takes it.

[Triskavanski]

5 Karma cheaper, but standard, you start with 10 karma less in qualities as 4e you had 35 karma. Some qualities went up, some went down in cost

[FasterN8]

When something is a "must have" as Hobbes said.. its a good indication that it is probably not balanced well in my experience.

^^ THIS ^^
Amen brother!  Preach it! 

We have a saying at our game table, "Hard choices are an indication of well-balanced game design."  On the other hand, when something is so fantastic that everyone takes it, or so crappy that nobody would ever dream of it, then it's clearly priced wrong.  When everyone does the same thing with qualities, you lose a lot of the variety that qualities bring to characters.

Although lately, the number of "must have" choices is getting large enough that picking between them is starting to get hard, creating a kind of balance between the uber powerful qualities and then another tier of balance below it for the normal power ones.  I guess you could write that off as power creep, I just wish the creep was spread a little thinner and not concentrated in just a few places.

[I_AM_ZHOUL!!!]

When something is a "must have" as Hobbes said.. its a good indication that it is probably not balanced well in my experience.

^^ THIS ^^
Amen brother!  Preach it! 

We have a saying at our game table, "Hard choices are an indication of well-balanced game design."  On the other hand, when something is so fantastic that everyone takes it, or so crappy that nobody would ever dream of it, then it's clearly priced wrong.  When everyone does the same thing with qualities, you lose a lot of the variety that qualities bring to characters.

Although lately, the number of "must have" choices is getting large enough that picking between them is starting to get hard, creating a kind of balance between the uber powerful qualities and then another tier of balance below it for the normal power ones.  I guess you could write that off as power creep, I just wish the creep was spread a little thinner and not concentrated in just a few places.

Again another person who obviously NEVER played 4th edition. Maybe it's because to us everything has been hit with the Nerf Bat we can't conceive of this being OP. I was built a Character with over 11 POINTS of 'ware all Legal straight out of Chargen. So +11 points of 'ware in a Thought Exercise Character, and generally close to if not over +10 Points in an Optimized Street Sam... somehow a measly. 65 worth of Essence if it's Entirely Cyber or Bio is kinda a joke. Like hearing someone say they're starving cause they haven't eaten for 5 hours after having lived through the Great Depression in the inverse.

[FasterN8]

Again another person who obviously NEVER played 4th edition. Maybe it's because to us everything has been hit with the Nerf Bat we can't conceive of this being OP. I was built a Character with over 11 POINTS of 'ware all Legal straight out of Chargen. So +11 points of 'ware in a Thought Exercise Character, and generally close to if not over +10 Points in an Optimized Street Sam... somehow a measly. 65 worth of Essence if it's Entirely Cyber or Bio is kinda a joke. Like hearing someone say they're starving cause they haven't eaten for 5 hours after having lived through the Great Depression in the inverse.

Actually I have been a GM for every edition of Shadowrun since the beginning and I plan to get my 1st edition copy signed by Jordan Weisman if I see him again this year.  For 4th edition I was a GM for a rather long campaign and I have seen my share of overpowered and imbalanced.  Heck I've even built my own builds.  Transhuman is OP and will fit nicely into my OP adept build with 9 PP out of chargen.  I don't ever play these characters by the way, I build them for fun.

Edit:  Removed a cyberdeck argument I posted in the wrong thread.

[Hobbes]

When something is a "must have" as Hobbes said.. its a good indication that it is probably not balanced well in my experience.

^^ THIS ^^
Amen brother!  Preach it! 

We have a saying at our game table, "Hard choices are an indication of well-balanced game design."  On the other hand, when something is so fantastic that everyone takes it, or so crappy that nobody would ever dream of it, then it's clearly priced wrong.  When everyone does the same thing with qualities, you lose a lot of the variety that qualities bring to characters.

Although lately, the number of "must have" choices is getting large enough that picking between them is starting to get hard, creating a kind of balance between the uber powerful qualities and then another tier of balance below it for the normal power ones.  I guess you could write that off as power creep, I just wish the creep was spread a little thinner and not concentrated in just a few places.

More or less, yes.  You wind up with a few "everyone of type X character takes these" and then some secondary choices depending on what you're up to.  Then you wind up with a bunch of "never take these" options.  As a GM I never worry about top tier stuff, mainly because I've got 5 players each playing one character so its really just the couple PCs that take the "uber" option.  Mages and adepts still likely won't take this.  Anyone with Resources E, probably D, won't take this. 

Mostly I'd like to see the "never take these" options priced lower so they have a purpose other than to trip up newbies. 

A tiny bit of extra essence isn't a big deal for most starting characters, its down the road when you've got a  couple hundred K in the bank and a Deltaware street doc contact that you'll see a difference.  But by then the rest of the team is doing crazy stuff too.  *shrug*  Could matter by then.