[Tsuzua]

Seems to me that this would be what would be intended anyway with the normal response and such of the vehicle just being for the purposes of the pilot program and any autosoft programs. Haven't looked into it too much, admittedly, but it would seem unnecessarily antagonistic to the rigger's player to rule the other way in my opinion.

I agree.  But that's the way it works RAW:

Any  tests  are made using the rigger’s skills and the drone’s attributes (substituting Response for Agility and Reaction and Sensor for Intuition).

It does help the pain a bit since a lot of drones have device rating 5 because they have military in their description somewhere.  But that's small condolences when the command rigger has command 6 all the time.

[All4BigGuns]

Seems to me that this would be what would be intended anyway with the normal response and such of the vehicle just being for the purposes of the pilot program and any autosoft programs. Haven't looked into it too much, admittedly, but it would seem unnecessarily antagonistic to the rigger's player to rule the other way in my opinion.

I agree.  But that's the way it works RAW:

Any  tests  are made using the rigger’s skills and the drone’s attributes (substituting Response for Agility and Reaction and Sensor for Intuition).

It does help the pain a bit since a lot of drones have device rating 5 because they have military in their description somewhere.  But that's small condolences when the command rigger has command 6 all the time.

If someone interprets in that manner, then there's no point in owning a commlink other than the obligatory spare for communication and fake SINs. Might as well just upgrade the stuff on the vehicle and load all your programs there, but it's well known that one needs a good commlink to be a rigger, so that speaks toward the intent. The other interpretation would be little more than an overly literal reading in violation of intent.

[Crash_00]

Doesn't one of the books have example NPC possession mages that go way past augmented caps? I thought that was the reason the tradition was seen as broken.

Ghost Cartels has a spirit possession with the stats above the augmented max, but that is not anywhere close to the most blatant disregard of the rules in that book.

Nothing ever actually states that Possession can take you over, and the augmented caps are the maximum that cyber/bio or magic can take you to. Being possessed is, without a doubt, magical in nature.

The only thing I've seen really that can ignore augmented max is the Strength Enhancement on Military Armor.

[JustADude]

Nothing ever actually states that Possession can take you over, and the augmented caps are the maximum that cyber/bio or magic can take you to. Being possessed is, without a doubt, magical in nature.

I can see the other side of the argument, though. Essentially, it goes like this:

When you're possessed you're no longer the one in control of your character. That, therefore, means that it's not you getting a bonus to your stats, it's the Spirit wearing you like an Edgar-suit to enter the physical world, thus getting a boost to it's stats as the physical structure of the vessel is supplementing its Stat = Force base ratings... and there's no such thing as an Augmented Maximum for a Spirit.

That would mean there's no hard-cap when using basic Possession, but a mage that's Channeling still has the caps in place.

[UmaroVI]

Okay, back to the OPs question.

Picture an elegantly constructed, carefully balanced house of cards. Each card rests on other cards, and each supports other cards. That isn't Shadowrun.

Now picture a Jenga tower made by about two dozen people not working together. Some of them worked on it at different times, some of them actively tried to sabotage what the others were doing, occasionally a few people tried to remake the entire thing bit-by-bit, but at no point did anyone have a master plan or have any clue what anyone else was building. This is Shadowrun.

If you want a balanced game, you aren't going to get it here. The best you can shoot for is to watch out for some of the more broken things that you can avoid just by spot-banning them without having to rebalance entire subsystems.

Things you should just ban:
-Cyberhands and Cyberfeet with Armor Enhancement
1 essence for 12 armor? YES PLEASE.
-Emotitoys and Empathy Software
Trivial amounts of money for +5 to all my social skills? YES PLZ. It basically adds +5 to everyone's social skills at the start, and +6 a bit later when people can get response 6 without Restricted Gear. It also has the hilarious side effect of making technomancers really good faces as a side effect of doing what they wanted to do anyways and spending all of 6 points.
-Multiple Grenades rules from WAR!
Did you know you can blow up a main battle tank by taping 15 frag grenades together?
-Iron Will (Attitude)
Could work any of three or four different ways, all of them broken.

Things you need to change:
The Channeling metamagic causes the mage to use their own mental and special ability scores when using their own skills and powers. The spirit may still use its mental and special ability scores when commanded to act by expending services.

Other than that, Possession mages aren't actually better than Materialization mages, just different and good at different things. Two often-forgotten rules: you can't exceed augmented ability score maximums with Possession, and being possessed is visible and obvious.

Technomancer riggers are really good, just don't jump in and don't use autonomous drones. Use Command (which you can easily jack through the roof), and Machine Sprites (remember that they use their own stats even when in a node that doesn't support them, ie, they get to use their own Response when piloting). There is a bit of oddity here which is that the rules don't actually clearly state how sprites piloting vehicles is meant to work other than explaining that they work like agents except where otherwise noted. The way it is clearly meant to work is that they work like a Pilot program.

[Crash_00]

When you're possessed you're no longer the one in control of your character. That, therefore, means that it's not you getting a bonus to your stats, it's the Spirit wearing you like an Edgar-suit to enter the physical world, thus getting a boost to it's stats as the physical structure of the vessel is supplementing its Stat = Force base ratings... and there's no such thing as an Augmented Maximum for a Spirit.

When possessed there is only one creature (the spirit in your body) unless you have channeling. Your body is considered the vessel. The spirits force is added to the vessel's attributes. The vessel (your body) has augmented maximums.

It could work that way, if it were worded that way, but it is specifically not worded the way you described.

[JustADude]

When you're possessed you're no longer the one in control of your character. That, therefore, means that it's not you getting a bonus to your stats, it's the Spirit wearing you like an Edgar-suit to enter the physical world, thus getting a boost to it's stats as the physical structure of the vessel is supplementing its Stat = Force base ratings... and there's no such thing as an Augmented Maximum for a Spirit.

When possessed there is only one creature (the spirit in your body) unless you have channeling. Your body is considered the vessel. The spirits force is added to the vessel's attributes. The vessel (your body) has augmented maximums.

It could work that way, if it were worded that way, but it is specifically not worded the way you described.

But is the physical body still considered your character? And is there still a physical cap when a spirit (Shedim or otherwise) possesses a corpse?

[Mirikon]

When you're possessed you're no longer the one in control of your character. That, therefore, means that it's not you getting a bonus to your stats, it's the Spirit wearing you like an Edgar-suit to enter the physical world, thus getting a boost to it's stats as the physical structure of the vessel is supplementing its Stat = Force base ratings... and there's no such thing as an Augmented Maximum for a Spirit.

When possessed there is only one creature (the spirit in your body) unless you have channeling. Your body is considered the vessel. The spirits force is added to the vessel's attributes. The vessel (your body) has augmented maximums.

It could work that way, if it were worded that way, but it is specifically not worded the way you described.

But is the physical body still considered your character? And is there still a physical cap when a spirit (Shedim or otherwise) possesses a corpse?

It doesn't have anything to do with it being your character or not. It has to do with the limitations of the meat itself. A living vessel can only be pushed so far. The augmented max is the limit of how far that vessel can be pushed.

And yes, there is a physical cap when a spirit possesses a corpse. And that cap goes down by one for every week the spirit possesses the corpse, because of decay.

[JustADude]

It doesn't have anything to do with it being your character or not. It has to do with the limitations of the meat itself. A living vessel can only be pushed so far. The augmented max is the limit of how far that vessel can be pushed.

And yes, there is a physical cap when a spirit possesses a corpse. And that cap goes down by one for every week the spirit possesses the corpse, because of decay.

Coolage. Just wanted to be sure the idea was being applied evenly.

Would've been rather silly to shoot the vessel in the head and make the Spirit stronger, but there are some rules that seem to border on that.

[All4BigGuns]

On Empathy Software, really it isn't broken or anything if used the way I feel it was intended which is as a 'fix' for the borked up way social skill resistance works--more like a small patch really unless you combine the program with the toy, as it would give a way for the non-Face characters to stand at least a small chance of resisting or be able to actually be of assistance in the negotiation phase--assuming the GM actually allows the skill to be rolled at all.

[Tsuzua]

On Empathy Software, really it isn't broken or anything if used the way I feel it was intended which is as a 'fix' for the borked up way social skill resistance works--more like a small patch really unless you combine the program with the toy, as it would give a way for the non-Face characters to stand at least a small chance of resisting or be able to actually be of assistance in the negotiation phase--assuming the GM actually allows the skill to be rolled at all.

The big problem is that faces can use it just as well.  Let's say there's a Charisma 5 face with Influence 4 and Tailored Pheromones 3 going against a Charisma 2 street samurai.  That's 12 dice versus 1 die for a 97% chance of success (1 net hit or more) on the face's part.  Both sides get Empathy 6 software.  That's 18 dice versus 7 dice for a 91% chance of success for the face.  While that's better, I wouldn't really call it much help.  People without Empathy software just have their pants conned off.  It doesn't really change the balance of power expect adds a new class of have-nots (particular among NPCs who are already pretty weak). 

There are some advantages to using it particularly for low social skill characters.  It does help the charisma 2 street samurai find bullets to buy.  It also helps against "Make an Etiquette (1) test or burp loudly at Damien Knight's Party" style tests some GMs like to do.  However, I'm generally not a fan of must buys in RPGs.  For helping the face with negotiations with the Johnson, I personally think Street Cred helps with that fairly well.  You're going to add a die or two, but the face is likely going to cap out anyways since he can only get 4 or so extra dice from teamwork.

There's also the technomancer threading Empathy which can lead to some crazy high bonuses.  To be fair, the GM can disallow this sort of thing (UW 136). 

[Mirikon]

Remember that you either have to have the little emotitoy, or be running a commlink with a System rating of 6 to actually use a Rating 6 Empathy Software at its full potential. Or pay to have it Ergonomic.

[All4BigGuns]

Remember that you either have to have the little emotitoy, or be running a commlink with a System rating of 6 to actually use a Rating 6 Empathy Software at its full potential. Or pay to have it Ergonomic.

I don't think Ergonomic can go on that one.

[Tsuzua]

Remember that you either have to have the little emotitoy, or be running a commlink with a System rating of 6 to actually use a Rating 6 Empathy Software at its full potential. Or pay to have it Ergonomic.

I don't think Ergonomic can go on that one.

Technically you can't since program options can't be put on sensor software (UW 114). 

I'm not sure how much it matters though.  If you run Empathy Software on the camera, then you can just upgrade the camera's System to 6.  A peripheral node's System rating is not capped by Response (UW 48).  That's a total cost of 6100Y (mircocamera 100Y, System 6 3000Y, Empathy 6 3000Y) for +6 dice.  This does require Empathy Software to be a program cameras are designed to use (UW 48).  I believe this is the case since Empathy Software is designed to be used with cameras (Arsenal 60). 

If you can't run it off a camera, you can get effectively Empathy 4 at start with a Hermes Ikon and Novatech Navi for 10500Y (getting Empathy and System at 6).  Once you buy a Response 6 chip (8000Y or 4000Y if you build it yourself), you'll have Empathy 6.  You can start with a commlink with effective System 5 at start, but I feel like the cost for a Response 5 chip (4000Y base) you're going to throw out so soon isn't worth it. 

To be fair, increasing the "cost" of Empathy software just makes more into something most NPCs aren't going to have.  That means PCs are just going to rock the security guards that much harder.  That isn't a problem per se, but it doesn't really help the "help the social underdog" angle either.

[Tagz]

On Emotoys, I think they're fine so long as you remember that the toy has the software, not the player.  Unless the player has a hacker crack it or something then the toy should just act like a toy.

Bring it to a meeting and you should hear things like:
(In a cutey voice)
"You look like you need a hug."
"Lies are no fun, lies can hurt someone!"
"Don't be a meanie - silly beany."

Sure the one marketed towards ork and troll kids would be gruffer and a bit more "street", but not fundamentally different.
At least that's my opinion on the toys.



As for Empathy Software in general.  If you apply the rule on SR4A p130 on positive social modifiers to Empathy Software it balances out a bit.  Someone has to actually be somewhat versed in social ability to get full benefit, but even a Troll could see some use as it would offset NEGATIVE social modifiers.

I've heard the argument thrown back and forth about if this should fall under the positive social modifier cap or not.  I think it makes sense myself and not just for game balance, but not everyone agrees.