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[SR6] Cyberlimbs

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ZeroSum

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« on: <10-13-19/1043:58> »
Simple question: If I buy a Delta grade Cyberarm, do I also have to pay for Delta grade cyberlimb accessories?

Follow-up non-rules question: is it just me or does it seem like cyberlimb attributes starting at 2 and having to spend capacity on enhancements make cyberlimbs fairly non-competitive for high-attribute characters?

A character with Agility 6 would have to spend 20k per limb to increase Agility from base 2 to 6, taking up 4 capacity. A synthetic arm only has 8 capacity total, which means that if you wanted to increase agility up to your augmented maximum you would spend another 20k and all of the capacity of the limb. For obvious limbs, this would represent more than half of the total capacity of 15 for an arm.

I guess customized cyberlimbs are not a thing in 6th Edition (yet)

penllawen

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« Reply #1 on: <10-13-19/1047:08> »
Follow-up non-rules question: is it just me or does it seem like cyberlimb attributes starting at 2 and having to spend capacity on enhancements make cyberlimbs fairly non-competitive for high-attribute characters?
No, definitely not just you. I much preferred the SR5 approach (where increasing STR/AGI to the racial maximum was cheap and took no capacity, and only above that did it get spendy.) I don’t think cyberlimbs needed nerfing like that.

penllawen

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« Reply #2 on: <10-13-19/1056:15> »
No, definitely not just you. I much preferred the SR5 approach (where increasing STR/AGI to the racial maximum was cheap and took no capacity, and only above that did it get spendy.) I don’t think cyberlimbs needed nerfing like that.
In fact, while I'm on this subject...

I've been pondering lately houseruling cyberlimbs to be more powerful, not less. I don't much like how you can burn 7-8 points of Essence (before alpha/beta/delta mods) getting four limbs plus torso and head and be rewarded by a mere handful extra boxes of physical track. It feels underwhelming, and thematically off that someone who is quite literally 80-90% metal isn't more resilient than that. Not to mention recovering from damage taken should be a matter of being repaired rather than being healed, and I wouldn't mind a mechanic that reflects that.

Not quite sure how to handle it mechanically, but my dream goal would be that samurai could be split into one of two equally viable archetypes - speed demons loaded up with reflex mods, and tank demons loaded up with cyberlimbs. (Essence cost precluding anyone other than cyberzombies doing both.)

In 5e this is tricky because the already-substantial soak pools don't leave a lot of room to make cyberlimbs even tougher. You could make them give hardened armour, maybe, but you'd have to be careful. 6e would be more amenable to this idea -- you could just add dice to the soak roll.

ZeroSum

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« Reply #3 on: <10-13-19/1107:47> »
[...] 6e would be more amenable to this idea -- you could just add dice to the soak roll.
I like that. Something like "For each rating of Armor your Defense Rating and Damage Resistance dice pools are increased by 1".

Alternatively, Hardened Armor already confers two major benefits; it's Rating are automatic hits on damage resistance, while modified DV less than AV is just discarded.

From a min/max perspective, it looks like the most armor you can gain is ... Unlimited? You can basically add armor for the entire capacity of a limb. OK, so that would need to be curtailed or limited somehow. Otherwise you could end up with AV 60 or some craziness.

Didn't 4th have a provision that each full limb could take a maximum of 3 ratings of Armor Value? Include Torso in that and max AV would be 15. Even that is too high, as you'd automatically soak 7 hits making you impervious to fragmentation grenades and rockets. So Hardened Armor might be too powerful, unless you do Rating / 2 as hardened or something.

I like having the option of going ultrafast or ultratough as a street samurai. I feel like there isn't really an option currently that makes you super tough, but you can be tweaked out to the gills on speed. I'm all for more options, though this is probably better discussed in the House Rule thread now that I think about it.


So... My original question still stands regarding cyberlimb accessories and limb grade. I have no idea what the RAW is here.

penllawen

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« Reply #4 on: <10-13-19/1113:11> »
though this is probably better discussed in the House Rule thread now that I think about it.
Yeah, you're right -- sorry for OT  :D

Xenon

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« Reply #5 on: <10-13-19/1300:34> »
Simple question: If I buy a Delta grade Cyberarm, do I also have to pay for Delta grade cyberlimb accessories?
Book doesn't say.
But this was the case in SR5, it is plausible that it will be for SR6 as well.


is it just me or does it seem like cyberlimb ... fairly non-competitive for high-attribute characters?
It is not just you.

Stainless Steel Devil Rat

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« Reply #6 on: <10-13-19/1307:48> »
is it just me or does it seem like cyberlimb ... fairly non-competitive for high-attribute characters?
It is not just you.

Just my opinion: but seems like works as intended.  In a meta sense, if you already have high stats but want the toolkit from a cyber limb: then you're having to balance that against even higher still dice pools.  If you have high stats and you want even higher still, then you'll go with Muscle Replacement/Augmentation/Toner rather than a cyberlimb.  Cyberlimbs' niche seems to be for people with LOW stats: they're an available alternative to Muscle Rep/Aug/Toner.
RPG mechanics exist to give structure and consistency to the game world, true, but at the end of the day, you’re fighting dragons with algebra and random number generators.

ZeroSum

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« Reply #7 on: <10-13-19/1319:42> »
Just my opinion: but seems like works as intended.  In a meta sense, if you already have high stats but want the toolkit from a cyber limb: then you're having to balance that against even higher still dice pools.  If you have high stats and you want even higher still, then you'll go with Muscle Replacement/Augmentation/Toner rather than a cyberlimb.  Cyberlimbs' niche seems to be for people with LOW stats: they're an available alternative to Muscle Rep/Aug/Toner.
Even in case of characters with low stats, I'm not sure the mechanics agree with you.

A character with Agility 2 and Strength 2 can get a single, obvious arm with Agility 3 for 20k. It will only affect actions taken with that one arm. OR, he can get Muscle Replacement R1 for 30k, and get Agility AND Strength +1 that will always be active.

This is the problem with cyberlimbs; they are too expensive for what they do when compared with other pieces of ware, and the math does not scale any better once you go higher at all. You cannot even, by RAW, get a cyberarm with Agility 10 if your base agility is 2 because, and I quote, "maximum augmented increase of 4 is in place" for attribute increase accessories.

Objectively, cyberlimbs are present in the setting but their implementation in SR6 means no runner would ever take them unless they had to. That's not necessarily a bad thing; lots of things exist primarily for NPCs (take a GMC Banshee, for example). The biggest issue is just that cyberlimbs are objectively sub-optimal choices, so unless you're specifically not playing the numbers game and strictly focus on role playing over roll playing, there are very few reasons to ever take a cyberlimb.

penllawen

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« Reply #8 on: <10-13-19/1324:50> »
unless you're specifically not playing the numbers game and strictly focus on role playing over roll playing, there are very few reasons to ever take a cyberlimb.
I'd argue that even role playing, there's few reasons to take them. In-game characters are surely aware of the rules, in the sense that they are the reality they live in. If cyberlimbs are underwheming mechanically for us, it logically means they're shitty in-universe as well, and players and characters should both prefer to avoid them. Assuming you need a new limb, why not get a cloned bio one (for 0 Essence cost if we follow 5e) and then bone lacing / muscle toner it?

Shadowhack

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« Reply #9 on: <10-13-19/1350:42> »
is it just me or does it seem like cyberlimb ... fairly non-competitive for high-attribute characters?
It is not just you.



Just my opinion: but seems like works as intended.  In a meta sense, if you already have high stats but want the toolkit from a cyber limb: then you're having to balance that against even higher still dice pools.  If you have high stats and you want even higher still, then you'll go with Muscle Replacement/Augmentation/Toner rather than a cyberlimb.  Cyberlimbs' niche seems to be for people with LOW stats: they're an available alternative to Muscle Rep/Aug/Toner.

This is how I view it with RAW. I still think the cost is to high though. I admit this comes more from a story, atmosphere driven mindset than a mindset aiming towards more realism.
« Last Edit: <10-13-19/1355:53> by Shadowhack »

DigitalZombie

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« Reply #10 on: <10-13-19/1358:20> »
Ive always disagreed with how cyber limbs replace your natural attributes in the first place.
I mean, its not like if you replace your natural eyes or ears with cyberversions, that you suddenly have intuition 2 on sight and listen checks. With the option of upgrading your intuition stat for sight and listening to your natural stat, and maybe even beyond.

Regarding the grade stuff for items in cyber limbs, I presume by RAW that yes the rest should have the same grade and cost multipier.
But for stuff like implanted links and decks, the commlink itself and the deck doesnt come in grades. So you cant get a 50% discount on your 400k deck... at least that was the general consensus in 5th (I think).

Ajax

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« Reply #11 on: <10-13-19/1446:03> »
I think part of the problem stems from Shadowrun’s present day design team trying to serve two masters simultaneously... and as a result, failing each of them.

On the one hand, Shadowrun’s current designers want to stay as true to earlier editions as they can. After thirty years, the game’s universe has become a fully fleshed out reality of its own and they want to respect that. But the earliest days of Shadowrun were based not on “the future” but on what people in the Seventies and Eighties thought “the future” would be. Remember, in William Gibson’s Neuromancer — which is an obvious inspiration for Shadowrun’s first and second editions — there are no cellphones, there are no drones, and “three megabytes of hot RAM” is a valuable black market commodity. In the Eighties’ vision of the future, cybernetic limbs are slow, ponderous, and bulky... Unless you spend amounts of money on them that would make a megacorp blush.

This vision of the future gave us Robocop.

On the other hand, Shadowrun’s later design teams want to move the universe’s timeline forward and show technological change. Which is great, because it allows them to show the vision of the future as seen from the 1990s and 2000s... This is a vision of the future that takes inspiration from the present. It’s a future with ubiquitous cellphones, internet connectivity built into everything, wireless networks, drones, and augmented reality. Cybernetics in this version of the future are sleek, sexy, and if “obvious” then they look like something from an Apple Store. If “synthetic” then they look like Tricia Helfer...

This is the future that gave us Ghost in the Shell.

Shadowrun 6th Edition is trying to do both of these at once: Murphy and Motoko. As a result, it fails to do either one well.
Evil looms. Cowboy up. Kill it. Get paid.

Michael Chandra

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« Reply #12 on: <10-14-19/0611:34> »
Simple question: If I buy a Delta grade Cyberarm, do I also have to pay for Delta grade cyberlimb accessories?
Book doesn't say.
But this was the case in SR5, it is plausible that it will be for SR6 as well.
Uhm?
Quote from: p282 Grades
All accessories and add-ons must be
of the same grade as the implant to which they
are added.

As for Cyberlimb pricing: Cyberlimbs always cost a lot to raise high, but the Availability and Capacity spiking like crazy I strongly disagree with. But yes, limbs should be expensive when their attributes are skyhigh, as far as I'm concerned.
How am I not part of the forum?? O_O I am both active and angry!

ZeroSum

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« Reply #13 on: <10-14-19/1010:16> »
Hah, missed that overly obvious part. Thanks, MC.

Xenon

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« Reply #14 on: <10-14-19/1213:49> »
Haha. Me too. Even though it was actually also listed in the most obvious of locations. So it do works the same way as it did in SR5 (which mean I at least wasn't totally wrong).

Thanks for the SR6 source MC.