[Shadowjack]

How do you guys feel about them? They seem pretty damn powerful and essence friendly for the cost. I have mixed feelings, they're great for making a character more survivable but they're so good that I wonder why you wouldn't want to get one on almost any character. I don't take them every time just because I try to stay in the spirit of my character and also to keep things fresh. But I really wonder if they're balanced. They're especially useful to high armor characters as they usually get hit for stun damage, making their physical track less valuable. Tough as Nails, Cyber Limbs or a high Body all serve less purpose on a high armor character because of this fact. So it makes grabbing a Pain Editor a very obvious choice. And yes, I realize a high Body is still very useful regardless.

[Mara]

Because you do not know how hurt you are, mostly.

[Mantis]

I'll second that. Not knowing how baddly you are hurt is not a good thing.

[Novocrane]

Biomonitors come in external, cyber, nano, biofabrics, and urban explorer jumpsuit versions. Pretty useful for keeping track of your health - and any surreptitious changes in body chemistry, even if you do possess full faculties.

[Shadowjack]

Biomonitors come in external, cyber, nano, biofabrics, and urban explorer jumpsuit versions. Pretty useful for keeping track of your health - and any surreptitious changes in body chemistry, even if you do possess full faculties.

Exactly. They also allow magicians to over cast and make up for some lost Magic power. The only downside is they can affect your initiative negatively although since it doesn't say that it requires a specific action to toggle the Pain Editor on or off I would think that most people don't let it affect your initiative during the first pass. It does make it easier for people to sneak up on your during combat though.

[Helping Bear]

Pain Editor is perhaps the strongest piece of ware in the game. I find that you often just take stun damage from all attacks because you have so much armor stacked, and so Pain Editors basically double your health, or more than double.

[Novocrane]

There's also the choice of Genetic Infusion: Sideways, if you think you can get 5 or more hits on an Essence + Edge test.

[Falconer]

Very strong... but very necessary for street sam types... who tend to end up unconscious despite their very large physical damage tracks... as all the small amounts of damage that sneak past their large amounts of armor accumulate to knock them out.

Not really an in-game problem to the players awareness of injuries either... just wear a biomonitor and play 'you' the video game with your own little health monitor avatar in the corner of your vision HUD..

Also it only stops the penalties from stun... physical damage still impairs...


Mages can get similar functionality from the 'awaken' spell... to stop stun damage from knocking them out... but they'll still get the injury penalties.   So ware to do the same thing isn't that much of a problem.   The bioware isn't much use to a mage who's overcasting despite the other posters comment because it doesn't help with physical drain problems... outside of a mere +1 more willpower to resist (offset by -1 intuition for those traidiotns... and the penalties to assensing/perception/astral attackers which all use intution).


The genetic infusion is the opposite of the mage spell... it only allows you to ignore the stun damage penalties but it still knocks you out when full.   So not nearly as valuable to the heavily armored among us.  (now that i'm thinking i forget if it let you ignore the knockout effect or the stun damage penalties... think it was the stun damage penalties).

[Shadowjack]

Not all traditions use Intuition to resist, however all do use Willpower. So it does help certain magicians. Doesn't it?

[Aryeonos]

I've using it for my OMON NPC Pilots and Riggers as another layer of insurance on the MVD's part, no sense in loosing a 3'000'000 Ruble chopper because the pilot would have been unconscious. I've fiddled with combining it with the other damage compensation biowares but they seem almost incompatible or just unnecessary. The damage compensator and the Adrenaline Pump work with it, but then you've got a very very expensive hulk soldier that will most likely be prime target #1 and then you just lost another 300'000 Nuyen investment, his gear can be recycled of course though.

[Ernie55]

They are also highly illegal (18F) and quite expensive. In my opinion they should also come with a RP penalty, inability to feel pain should change how a person acts...

[Mirikon]

Biomonitors come in external, cyber, nano, biofabrics, and urban explorer jumpsuit versions. Pretty useful for keeping track of your health - and any surreptitious changes in body chemistry, even if you do possess full faculties.

Biomonitors can be hacked.

[Novocrane]

Biomonitors can be hacked.

... Applies to anything wireless, and is a non-issue otherwise.

[Mirikon]

Biomonitors can be hacked.

... Applies to anything wireless, and is a non-issue otherwise.

Yes, but when you're counting on one piece of gear to tell you whether you're almost dead or not, that's a big problem.

[Ernie55]

I have images of a sammy wading in to combat thinking all is well, and smug abouthow little bullets hurt these days, whilst some wiseguy hacker sits in the corner giggling.