Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: Reshy on <03-16-17/1608:27>
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Hello, I've been discussing with a friend of mine the state of Mundanes being usually outmatched by Awakened characters and what it comes down to seems to be the fact that augmentations are overpriced and often times just outshined by other things.
Genetech is probably the worst offender, it's exceedingly pricey and it's effects are minuscule. The worst part of it is when I was reading the "Color blindness" therapy, which made me immediately go and look at the prices for just you know... replacing your eyes. Here's what I found.
Color Blindness Therapy: 90,000 nuyen, -0.2 essence from operation, restores a basic function to the eye.
Cybereye Basic System (Rating 1): 4,000 nuyen, -0.2 essence from operation, fully functional eye-sight that's modular and able to be modified.
Cat Eyes: 4,000 Nuyen, -0.1 essence from operation, gives fully functional eye + low-light vision.
Troll Eyes: 10,000 Nuyen, -0.2 essence from operation, gives fully functional eye + thermographic vision.
Notice an outlier? Because I do. What's the point of Color Blindness therapy when it's outclassed in every possible way by pre-existing options? There's no way they could sell color blindness therapy to the public at such an absurd mark up, nobody would buy it.
This is a common problem with Genetech in general, everything it can do has been done better by bioware or cyberware. Initiative boost? Bioware and Cyberware can hook you up, and more cheaply to boot. Strength boost? Muscle Augmentation is less essence intensive and has the same price and is scalable! And so on and so fourth. It makes Genetech largely irrelevant. The worst part is that most Genetech also comes bundled with an absolutely unnecessary drawback. The aforementioned strength boost from genetech? You take more fatigue damage. The drawback from Muscle Augmentation? Absolutely nothing.
This isn't just a problem with Genetech though, almost all augmentations possess dead-end designs. Muscle Replacement is largely beaten out by Cyberlimb Enhancements or Muscle Toner/Augmentation. Bone Density is cheaper and less essence intensive than Bone Lacing, and you can get it via prototype transhuman as well.
Another issue is that the costs of Ware, both in terms of essence and in terms of raw cost, is far too high. Most characters cannot hope to ever upgrade their ware based on the book's recommended payouts of nuyen. This means that 90% of the augmentations you will ever have will be in character generation only, which hobbles the options of mundane characters and forces them to be arbitrarily wealthy at the cost of other traits. Essence costs are also far too high for the effects of augmentations, a character buying an initiative boost not only costs nuyen but a limited pool of capacity points that magic users don't have to worry about. An adept can get the benefit of a Synaptic Booster or Wired Reflexes for 3.5 points of their "essence" capacity, but it's free and the comparable mundane alternatives are either Wired Reflexes, which cost 5 capacity and 217k nuyen on top of it, and 1.5 from a synaptic booster at 285k nuyen (which funnily enough makes wired reflexes the weakest option of the bunch). This isn't even getting into the fact that a magic user can boost their "capacity" through initiation or increasing their magic score. And this doesn't even take into account availability, which are far higher than they ought to be in this day and age and often causes ware to be even more expensive.
This isn't a case for awakened characters to get nerfed, so much as that Augmentations need to be comparable and currently they aren't.
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then of course these gear oh and transgenetics
Tetrachromatic vision for 8k which gives you night vision and +3 to perception tests
vs
Glasses Capacity 4 400
Low-light vision 500
Vision enhancement 3 1500
8k and .1 essense vs something you can wear and the gear boosts your limit
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then of course these gear oh and transgenetics
Tetrachromatic vision for 8k which gives you night vision and +3 to perception tests
vs
Glasses Capacity 4 400
Low-light vision 500
Vision enhancement 3 1500
8k and .1 essense vs something you can wear and the gear boosts your limit
Or heck contacts, which are basically the trode answer to cybereyes.
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then of course these gear oh and transgenetics
Tetrachromatic vision for 8k which gives you night vision and +3 to perception tests
vs
Glasses Capacity 4 400
Low-light vision 500
Vision enhancement 3 1500
8k and .1 essense vs something you can wear and the gear boosts your limit
Technically, all of that's available as cyberware too, don't really feel like looking it up, but quite possibly cheaper there too.
The reason why you pay more to have things implanted is because nobody can disarm you of your implants; they're a part of you.
And the reason why the tetrachromatic eyes enhancement costs more is because it is doing all of that without any obvious change to the implantee's eyes. Cat's Eye bioware causes an obvious change in the person's eyes, cybereyes are likewise, usually obvious, but geneware isn't. And on top of all that, you can use the vision enhancements with the geneware, they stack! That extra ability to get an even bigger bonus is also a pretty common reason that certain options are more expensive.
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There's also the fact that Tetrachromacy and Hawkeye are not directly incompatible.
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There's also the fact that Tetrachromacy and Hawkeye are not directly incompatible.
neither is smartlink but it still only gives +1 dice pool +1 accuracy if its only gear specific, recall 3rd edition had an induction smartlink in your hand so whenever you held a smart link weapon you automatically enjoyed the bonuses of smartlink
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The reason why you pay more to have things implanted is because nobody can disarm you of your implants; they're a part of you.
(http://i.imgur.com/hmTOHAQ.png)
Even Catalyst recognizes that that's a debatable statement, otherwise why have bioware organleggers?
And the reason why the tetrachromatic eyes enhancement costs more is because it is doing all of that without any obvious change to the implantee's eyes. Cat's Eye bioware causes an obvious change in the person's eyes, cybereyes are likewise, usually obvious, but geneware isn't. And on top of all that, you can use the vision enhancements with the geneware, they stack! That extra ability to get an even bigger bonus is also a pretty common reason that certain options are more expensive.
It's not about that Genemod costing more, it's about most of the Genetech being completely outclassed. Look at the 'therapeutic' genetech treatment for colorblinness and compare that to all of the other options presented. That's a massive markup on something that's literally beaten out by any other type of ware (and apparently even genetech!).
What I am getting at though is that several augmentations are basically just plain bad. Lots of dead-end design, and in general an augmentation is going to cost you far more in both capacity and resources than the magical equivalent. Wired reflexes will take 5 capacity versus 3.5 for the adept, and in addition it sets you back around 217k nuyen to boot. Synaptic Booster consumes less capacity, but is marginally more expensive at 285k nuyen. However, this makes Wired Reflexes a weird outlier where it underperforms in every way, it's not particularly cheap for a mundane option, and it's more capacity intensive than the free option. For paying an additional 31% on your ware you receive a piece of ware that consumes only 30% the normal capacity. Not to mention the availability for the bioware option is lower than the cyberware option, which is insane. It's stuff like that which puts mundanes at a disadavantage compared to magic characters. Cost, Capacity, and Availability are far too high.
There's also the fact that Tetrachromacy and Hawkeye are not directly incompatible.
neither is smartlink but it still only gives +1 dice pool +1 accuracy if its only gear specific, recall 3rd edition had an induction smartlink in your hand so whenever you held a smart link weapon you automatically enjoyed the bonuses of smartlink
And 4e's Skinlink, which disappeared too in 5e conspicuously.
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If someone rips your cyberware off in the middle of combat, losing any enhancements it had is only the beginning of your problems....
That said, 'ware is still grossly overpriced. A normal ultrasound sensor is 100 nuyen per rating, while a cyberware ultrasound sensor is 12000 nuyen per rating, more if you want higher ware grades. While the cyberware version can't be (easily) removed and doesn't face the same size-based rating restrictions the normal version does, the cost is not worth it, especially when you can just shove a normal one into your cyberarm and have it be just as good. And speaking of cyberarms, 15000+ just to get one as good as my meat arm?
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I find your post inconsistent with the title. Cyberware or Bioware being better than Geneware is not the same as augmentations being weak. Augmentations in general are pretty good and the most reliable way of boosting many abilities. (Looking at you, Background Count.)
Geneware isn't meant for everyone. There are cheaper ways of boosting stats, but only to a point. Genetic enhancements are usually aimed towards specialists. Reakt and PuSHed for example, give bonuses that stack with all other bonuses, augmentation or drugs. A hacker who survived a few runs and needs an edge would probably invest 62k for a +1 to all his important rolls. There are also many useful abilities that only genetech grants. Narco and Genewipe spring to mind. Look at them like a complement, not a main focus. Also, never underestimate the GM's need for geneware in more well-equipped NPCs.
What I am getting at though is that several augmentations are basically just plain bad. Lots of dead-end design, and in general an augmentation is going to cost you far more in both capacity and resources than the magical equivalent. Wired reflexes will take 5 capacity versus 3.5 for the adept, and in addition it sets you back around 217k nuyen to boot. Synaptic Booster consumes less capacity, but is marginally more expensive at 285k nuyen. However, this makes Wired Reflexes a weird outlier where it underperforms in every way, it's not particularly cheap for a mundane option, and it's more capacity intensive than the free option. For paying an additional 31% on your ware you receive a piece of ware that consumes only 30% the normal capacity. Not to mention the availability for the bioware option is lower than the cyberware option, which is insane. It's stuff like that which puts mundanes at a disadavantage compared to magic characters. Cost, Capacity, and Availability are far too high.
I already mentioned BGC, and you do know that you need a high priority to get enough power points, right? Either you get the bonus from magic, or from nuyen. Everything has a price.
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I find your post inconsistent with the title. Cyberware or Bioware being better than Geneware is not the same as augmentations being weak. Augmentations in general are pretty good and the most reliable way of boosting many abilities. (Looking at you, Background Count.)
Geneware isn't meant for everyone. There are cheaper ways of boosting stats, but only to a point. Genetic enhancements are usually aimed towards specialists. Reakt and PuSHed for example, give bonuses that stack with all other bonuses, augmentation or drugs. A hacker who survived a few runs and needs an edge would probably invest 62k for a +1 to all his important rolls. There are also many useful abilities that only genetech grants. Narco and Genewipe spring to mind. Look at them like a complement, not a main focus. Also, never underestimate the GM's need for geneware in more well-equipped NPCs.
What I am getting at though is that several augmentations are basically just plain bad. Lots of dead-end design, and in general an augmentation is going to cost you far more in both capacity and resources than the magical equivalent. Wired reflexes will take 5 capacity versus 3.5 for the adept, and in addition it sets you back around 217k nuyen to boot. Synaptic Booster consumes less capacity, but is marginally more expensive at 285k nuyen. However, this makes Wired Reflexes a weird outlier where it underperforms in every way, it's not particularly cheap for a mundane option, and it's more capacity intensive than the free option. For paying an additional 31% on your ware you receive a piece of ware that consumes only 30% the normal capacity. Not to mention the availability for the bioware option is lower than the cyberware option, which is insane. It's stuff like that which puts mundanes at a disadavantage compared to magic characters. Cost, Capacity, and Availability are far too high.
I already mentioned BGC, and you do know that you need a high priority to get enough power points, right? Either you get the bonus from magic, or from nuyen. Everything has a price.
Getting rating 6 magic is trivial. Even C magic gets you at a minimum 4 MAG, which is enough to get Increased Reflexes 3, an effect which is worth hundreds of thousands of nuyen. By contrast to have the same initiative boost on a mundane character you have to invest at least resources B if not A, due to how nuyen scales in 5e.
Furthermore, outside of chargen you're not expected to be bringing in much nuyen, at least according to the game. So any ware you don't start with you probably never will have. That geneware like Reakt would take you easily 10 runs or more to acquire, and that's just a single piece of ware. By contrast the awakened are initiating, which is not only cheap (26,000 nuyen effectively for an additional power point).
I'm not saying Geneware is totally useless, but more often than not it seems to be outshined by other options. They're also way too pricey. Furthermore, I don't care if a GM's NPC can make use of a piece of ware, they aren't necessarily limited to nuyen constraints and can specialize far more than a PC might be able to, because NPCs typically aren't going to have too much screen time and even when they do things they're usually only ever going to do a handful of actions.
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Getting magic 6 is not trivial. You need priority B for that, meaning both a street samurai and an adept need to invest heavily into it. After chargen the sammy will advance faster since nuyen is earned at a much higher rate than karma.
By contrast the awakened are initiating, which is not only cheap (26,000 nuyen effectively for an additional power point).
Irrelevant because after chargen money cannot be converted into karma.
Furthermore, I don't care if a GM's NPC can make use of a piece of ware, they aren't necessarily limited to nuyen constraints and can specialize far more than a PC might be able to, because NPCs typically aren't going to have too much screen time and even when they do things they're usually only ever going to do a handful of actions.
But many GMs do. This game is for them too.
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After chargen the sammy will advance faster since nuyen is earned at a much higher rate than karma.
Let's assume that nuyen is earned faster than karma. That still doesn't mean the streetsam is going to be advancing faster, because let's face it there's lots of things nuyen needs to be spent on. Armor, weapons, gear, vehicles, modifications and accessories for all of the previous, medical bills, repair bills, ammo, rent.....yeah, the adept is paying all that too, but it's not the resource he uses to significantly advance so it's not holding him back.
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Getting magic 6 is not trivial. You need priority B for that, meaning both a street samurai and an adept need to invest heavily into it. After chargen the sammy will advance faster since nuyen is earned at a much higher rate than karma.
Not really, I can get a MAG 6 adept with C magic.
By contrast the awakened are initiating, which is not only cheap (26,000 nuyen effectively for an additional power point).
Irrelevant because after chargen money cannot be converted into karma.
Might I direct you to the Missions FAQ page 19 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/ionc0mrc8gw9uqz/SRM%20Chicago%20FAQ%20Ver%201.0.pdf?dl=0)?
Is there a Cash for Karma (or Karma for Cash) option?
Yes! Once between each Missions adventure you may choose to Work for The Man or Work for The People.
If you are Working for the Man, you can trade 1 Karma for 2,000 nuyen. This represents your character going out and doing the dirty, sleazy, or simply boring grunt work for a company or corporation. It pays well, but eats away at your soul.
If you Work for the People, you can trade 2,000 nuyen for 1 Karma. This represents you going out and doing some pro-bono runner work, helping out at a local soup kitchen, or doing some volunteer work. It costs you a little something, but you feel better about yourself afterward.
Furthermore, I don't care if a GM's NPC can make use of a piece of ware, they aren't necessarily limited to nuyen constraints and can specialize far more than a PC might be able to, because NPCs typically aren't going to have too much screen time and even when they do things they're usually only ever going to do a handful of actions.
But many GMs do. This game is for them too.
They don't have to play by the rules by design.
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They don't have to play by the rules by design.
They don't, but coming up with rules of their own would be work, and if they were the sort to treat the rules as guidelines they'd probably be using a different system.
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Getting magic 6 is not trivial. You need priority B for that, meaning both a street samurai and an adept need to invest heavily into it. After chargen the sammy will advance faster since nuyen is earned at a much higher rate than karma.
For any Awakened Human build, there is zero reason to ever take Magic at A or B. Magic C + Race D will get you 6 magic on any type, plus or minus 1 extra point to throw into Edge.
Using this "hack" you effectively reserve your A and B slots for Resources, Attributes or Skills. (usually Resources and Attributes)
The only noticeable drawback is not getting a ton of free spells at chargen for mages and mystic adepts. But spells are pretty cheap to learn as needed post-chargen anyway, and take far less downtime vs larger investments you're saving on now by taking higher attributes or skills. (or availability tests for anything else)
You only really pay through the nose if you want an Awakened Troll, which is already extremely twink-specific build path already.
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Awakened vs mundane is a separate argument from the posted subject.
Awakened is a more powerful choice than mundane- there's no need to rehash it.
Improving augmentation or making them cheaper just means awakened individuals have more of a reason to sacrifice some MR to get some.
There are plenty of augmentations that are mechanically weak vs other choices.
But that's ok- not every augmentation should be equal.
Much like a smartgun system is mechanically stronger choice in most cases than a laser sight.
Doesn't mean we got to somehow improve the laser sight to make it the same as smartlink.
Some augmentations are overpriced, others underpriced.
Beats cost 4-5 times the equivalent skullcandy headset with less than a 1% difference in audio quality.
Are the Beats overpriced or the Skullcandy underpriced- who knows?
So why be surprised that cost and effectiveness aren't always a direct correlation in SR just as they are not in real life.
I don't worry about the price of any individual item since it's the same for everybody.
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That, and I think you're reading too much into things Reshy.
Much of this Tech was not developed for the reasons Runners use it for. Cyber Limbs originally for those who had suffered an accident, and not as some new Fad or Designer Toy.... And most certainly NOT the "Hey, a cyber arm crushes skulls" crowd........ Although the latter probably make up a sizable percentage of the "Limb enhancement" market.
This is a "no-brainer" option for insurance companies, Mega Corps, and everyone who can afford it! Paying out for a new limb to replace a limb lost in an accident is going to be a LOT cheaper then the Disability payments. OR the lost income if you don't have insurance, which means banks would be willing to float you a loan for. Heck, some Governments may even pay for the surgery and limb, just to keep you off welfare! -IF that country still has welfare. (Of course, you need a SIN for these things...)
And some shit is just for those insane, rich, spoilt assholes of the world that just NEED a 20 karat gold IPhone with diamond and emerald edging.... Like your geneware.
Of course, when we are talking about genes... we ARE talking about a inheritable trait....
Hmmmm.
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Genetic enhancements are definitely heritable. Genetic therapy replaces harmful genes with normal ones, no reason that can't be inherited, and the ethnicity-changing one is explicitly inheritable. The other genewares are set to be recessive, so you'd not only have to have both parents have the geneware for it to be passed onto the kid, but the mother would've needed to have it installed before she was born, as the ova aren't affected by later genetic alterations. Unless the father gets the geneware and it mutates into a dominant gene (or the corps slipped him a dominant version for nefarious reasons of their own), in which case he could pass it on to any offspring he has with anyone.
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Not really, I can get a MAG 6 adept with C magic.
Still paying with something else, both magic and two points of Edge in this case.
Might I direct you to the Missions FAQ page 19 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/ionc0mrc8gw9uqz/SRM%20Chicago%20FAQ%20Ver%201.0.pdf?dl=0)?
Is there a Cash for Karma (or Karma for Cash) option?
Yes! Once between each Missions adventure you may choose to Work for The Man or Work for The People.
If you are Working for the Man, you can trade 1 Karma for 2,000 nuyen. This represents your character going out and doing the dirty, sleazy, or simply boring grunt work for a company or corporation. It pays well, but eats away at your soul.
If you Work for the People, you can trade 2,000 nuyen for 1 Karma. This represents you going out and doing some pro-bono runner work, helping out at a local soup kitchen, or doing some volunteer work. It costs you a little something, but you feel better about yourself afterward.
You're right, I was wrong.
They don't have to play by the rules by design.
No-one has to. But most of the GMs I've had prefer to do so. And so do the wealthy players.
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Awakened vs mundane is a separate argument from the posted subject.
Awakened is a more powerful choice than mundane- there's no need to rehash it.
Improving augmentation or making them cheaper just means awakened individuals have more of a reason to sacrifice some MR to get some.
Combine that with a mandatory increase in essence costs for ware on awakened characters versus non-awakened characters and it'll balance out more or less.
There are plenty of augmentations that are mechanically weak vs other choices.
But that's ok- not every augmentation should be equal.
Much like a smartgun system is mechanically stronger choice in most cases than a laser sight.
Doesn't mean we got to somehow improve the laser sight to make it the same as smartlink.
Neither costs an irreplaceable resource though. You can always get more Nuyen, and if you want just swap the two out as needed.
Some augmentations are overpriced, others underpriced.
Beats cost 4-5 times the equivalent skullcandy headset with less than a 1% difference in audio quality.
Are the Beats overpriced or the Skullcandy underpriced- who knows?
So why be surprised that cost and effectiveness aren't always a direct correlation in SR just as they are not in real life.
I don't worry about the price of any individual item since it's the same for everybody.
In the shadowrun fluff Wired Reflexes are supposed to be a low-impact version of move by wire that's also cheaper. However, neither are reflected in game, Wired Reflexes costs the same essence at the highest rating, provides a weaker effect, and lacks about another .6 essence in fringe benefits. On top of it, it costs more to boot. This is not only mechanically broken, but it doesn't fit the fluff of the shadowrun lore at all.
Much of this Tech was not developed for the reasons Runners use it for. Cyber Limbs originally for those who had suffered an accident, and not as some new Fad or Designer Toy.... And most certainly NOT the "Hey, a cyber arm crushes skulls" crowd........ Although the latter probably make up a sizable percentage of the "Limb enhancement" market.
Oh hey, think I don't already know that? Because I do.... the problem is that the cyberware is supposed to be cheap, hence why it's essence hungry. The problem is that it's not cheap, necessitating that any mundane character in shadowrun be either a rich guy or magic, which I feel flies in the face of the corporate dystopia when every mundane ever seems to be wealthy.
This is a "no-brainer" option for insurance companies, Mega Corps, and everyone who can afford it! Paying out for a new limb to replace a limb lost in an accident is going to be a LOT cheaper then the Disability payments. OR the lost income if you don't have insurance, which means banks would be willing to float you a loan for. Heck, some Governments may even pay for the surgery and limb, just to keep you off welfare! -IF that country still has welfare. (Of course, you need a SIN for these things...)
I'm aware, the problem is that the price of cyberware is far higher then it should be, especially when yous tart to compare it to bioware which is many times less essence hungry.
And some shit is just for those insane, rich, spoilt assholes of the world that just NEED a 20 karat gold IPhone with diamond and emerald edging.... Like your geneware.
Why develop a technology for a fringe market that will likely never be able to recoup the costs of research and development? Doesn't make sense to me, maybe it does when you run a AAA megacorp but ideally you want your products to be affordable so you can make nuyen.
Of course, when we are talking about genes... we ARE talking about a inheritable trait....
Hmmmm.
Yeah about that, why is "Genesculpted" not a trait by now? Prototype transhuman makes genetech sound like something developed literally yesterday and in it's early alpha phase, not a commercial good. Again that comes down to the fluff not making sense with itself. I mean theoretically you'd probably have genesculpting as the big thing because it can be done in such a way that it has zero impact on essence. However, the game doesn't seem to acknowledge that fact or pretend it's even a possibility.
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Neither costs an irreplaceable resource though. You can always get more Nuyen, and if you want just swap the two out as needed.
You can do that with 'ware too. That's what essence holes are for.
In the shadowrun fluff Wired Reflexes are supposed to be a low-impact version of move by wire that's also cheaper. However, neither are reflected in game, Wired Reflexes costs the same essence at the highest rating, provides a weaker effect, and lacks about another .6 essence in fringe benefits. On top of it, it costs more to boot. This is not only mechanically broken, but it doesn't fit the fluff of the shadowrun lore at all.
If the effects of MBW systems described in fluff showed up in the mechanics then there would be a laundry list of reasons to take a WR system over a MBW system, most of which could be traced to the root cause of "your entire body is in a constant state of seizure". As it stands, there are still reasons to take a WR system over a MWB system:
- A MWB system kills your social limit, which isn't going to be too high to begin with for a streetsam. This sounds trivial until you remember that lying, intimidation and getting laid are all social skills.
- Lower nuyen cost at rating 1.
- Lower essence cost at ratings 1 and 2.
- Lower availability rating.
- WR stacks with reflex enhancers, MBW does not.
- Yeah, you get a free skillwire with MWB, but you still need to shell out for for activesofts and a skilljack to get any use out of it. Have you seen how disgustingly expensive those things are?
- A MWB system doesn't always win out over a WR system.
- You're really only getting it because you can't afford a Synaptic Booster. And let's face it, by the time you can afford either WR3 or MBW3, a synaptic booster 3 isn't exactly out of your price range either.
Oh hey, think I don't already know that? Because I do.... the problem is that the cyberware is supposed to be cheap, hence why it's essence hungry. The problem is that it's not cheap, necessitating that any mundane character in shadowrun be either a rich guy or magic, which I feel flies in the face of the corporate dystopia when every mundane ever seems to be wealthy.
They're not wealthy, though. The vast majority of streetsams are either ex-military, ex-cop, ex-mercenary, ex-syndicate, ex-corpsec or a combination of the above and got all their 'ware from their previous employers. Yeah, some of the fluff excerpts try to push the idea of self-made streetsams, but deep down we all know it's bullshit.
I'm aware, the problem is that the price of cyberware is far higher then it should be, especially when yous tart to compare it to bioware which is many times less essence hungry.
Cyberware is much cheaper than bioware for its augmentation bonuses. Is that cheapness in proportion to the difference in Essence loss between cyberware and bioware? No, but that's kind of the point. The best, most cost-effective option is out of your price range, all the options aren't balanced and life is only fair in advertisements. Why? Because it's a dystopia.
Why develop a technology for a fringe market that will likely never be able to recoup the costs of research and development? Doesn't make sense to me, maybe it does when you run a AAA megacorp but ideally you want your products to be affordable so you can make nuyen.
You're looking at it backwards. Genetics are too complicated to research a specific thing on demand. You can push research towards a certain end goal, but that's no guarantee you'll get what you want. On the other hand, research can turn up things you weren't looking for and/or didn't expect to find at all, and even immediately fruitless research can open doors to new opportunities. The corps are always trying to hit the jackpot with their genetics research, but that's rarely what they get and they still have to make money with what they do find.
Are 'wares more expensive than they should be? Maybe, but so are heavy weapons.
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The problem is that it's not cheap, necessitating that any mundane character in shadowrun be either a rich guy or magic
Yeah, some of the fluff excerpts try to push the idea of self-made streetsams, but deep down we all know it's bullshit.
While somewhat true, it ignores the fact that paying in cold, hard credsticks is a chumps game when your best feature is not your finances, but what you can do. Get favours working for you. Do jobs for people to whom augmentation as part of the job payment is less valuable than the black market price in nuyen, and you're good.
A MWB system kills your social limit, which isn't going to be too high to begin with for a streetsam. This sounds trivial until you remember that lying, intimidation and getting laid are all social skills.
Dice and limits don't change whether you can lie or intimidate someone as a 6 foot tall killing machine. They do change how well you can control the outcome.
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I mean, the average toddler has a social limit of 3. Do you really want to be the guy who can't lie as well as a toddler?
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There's rules for creating toddlers, now?
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Officially, no, but knowing that the average adult has [metatype baseline+2] in every stat, I've always assumed that the average child has [metatype baseline+1] in every stat while average toddlers have [metatype baseline] for every stat. Though, now that I think about it, this assumption of mine would have hilarious implications for young orks and trolls...
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Well, here's a question for you or, rather, a couple of examples followed by a question.
If It costs 20 Karma (40,000 Nuyen) to go from a Strength 3 to a 4,
and it costs 30 Karma (60,000 Nuyen) to go from Strength 5 to 6,
and it costs 40 Karma (80,000 Nuyen) to go from Strength 7 to 8 (assuming your Metatype allows that!)
Then how much Nuyen (Karma) should it cost for a +1 bonus to your strength that also costs you 0.5 Essence?
Should the discount be 5%? 10%? Half price? How much is the Essence loss worth and how do you price it where it's fitting for both a Strength 1 character who wants to overcome a crippling weakness and for a Strength 10 Troll that wants to punch through trucks?
This is one of the simpler considerations, a pure stat mod, away from all the other corner cases and unique gear and something I had to sit down and chew for a while, with other considerations like "How useful is this stat" and "how does this fit in with the world ... new tech should be more expensive than old in theory, but does that impact game balance?"
So, and this is a genuine question, how would *you* price that piece of 'ware? What about a bioware version that was harder to detect and cost only 0.2 Essence? Obviously either should be cheaper than the pure Karma/Nuyen cost of a stat boost, but how much?
Give it a spin, I'm curious to see what you'll come up with.
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Right there...the question I have been pondering: What is the cash value (or Karma value) of a point of essence?
We know that 1 karma = 2,000¥. We need that other piece of info.
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Right there...the question I have been pondering: What is the cash value (or Karma value) of a point of essence?
We know that 1 karma = 2,000¥. We need that other piece of info.
190k
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Right there...the question I have been pondering: What is the cash value (or Karma value) of a point of essence?
We know that 1 karma = 2,000¥. We need that other piece of info.
190k
so... that means smartlinks are dirt cheap!
and eyeware...
and a lot of other ware!
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Right there...the question I have been pondering: What is the cash value (or Karma value) of a point of essence?
We know that 1 karma = 2,000¥. We need that other piece of info.
That's a very interesting discussion and one that was had during the 5th ed work. One side was of the opinion that Essence was essentially worthless and that the then-prices were a massive steal. Another side was that Essence was precious and the then-costs should be reduced to take that into account. I won't name names or say which side won, but, I will say that I'd not be opposed to seeing y'all hash it out a bit.
Again, using the above example (+1 Strength for 0.5 Essence, which is half of Muscle Augmentation), what costs do you think are fair for that. How much value do you put on Essence? What level of Karma/Nuyen do you choose to set the price against and how big of a reduction do you give it based on that Essence loss?
It's a surprisingly complicated problem for such a simple adjustment, but threading this kind of thing is exactly what you do as game designers and, keep in mind, fellow creators may agree, or disagree, with you, and you'll need to present your case at the end of the day to get the opportunity to write that section and define the cots for the span of the edition. You'll want to bring your A-game, but you also don't want to come so hard that you burn bridges or cause lasting damage in intra-team relations. Considering that every single writer in the pool started as a fan, and many of you have expressed an interest in stepping into the role at some point, here's you a great chance to make an impression. I personally went off some of what existed before, the level of cost in 5E, and then invented as many new bits of cyber as had previously existed, so I did these calculations a TON, modifying things up or down, with some later modified by those at a higher pay grade for when my thoughts didn't quite match up with playtesting or design philosophy. (Which, by the by, I'm totally fine with. That's what playtesting is *for*!)
So, here ya go. what would *you* charge for it?
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Well, here's a question for you or, rather, a couple of examples followed by a question.
If It costs 20 Karma (40,000 Nuyen) to go from a Strength 3 to a 4,
and it costs 30 Karma (60,000 Nuyen) to go from Strength 5 to 6,
and it costs 40 Karma (80,000 Nuyen) to go from Strength 7 to 8 (assuming your Metatype allows that!)
Then how much Nuyen (Karma) should it cost for a +1 bonus to your strength that also costs you 0.5 Essence?
Assuming 1 karma=2000 since I'll be using a chargen in this discussion.
I'll use a human as an example- a guy that is going to be a close combat specialist so wants to max out agi and str.
Let's Start with Exceptional Attribute for 14 karma <So the guy is AGI 7 and STR 6>
Muscle Replacement [4] Alpha 120000k or 60 Karma
But you you would normally need to spend 10 additional karma for restricted gear.
If a human could gain those extra 4 levels with karma:
AGI= 40+45+50+55= 190karma
STR= 35+40+45+50= 170karma
plus you gained 35Karma of AGI from going from 6 to 7
So you spent 14+60+10= 84karma worth
You gained 35+190+170= 395karma
So you gained 321karma for 3.2ess
So roughly every .01ess is worth 1karma discount
That makes this damn cheap if you ask me.
And if you actually value karma at 5000 nuyen, then it's an even bigger discount.
Instead of 60 karma for 120k it's only 24.
Which means you only spent 48karma to get 395 karma value.
So you guys that complain about costs being too high,
be glad I wasn't on the team because I'd be arguing for higher prices on attribute boosting items.
And remember, I was doing the math assuming a human.
If you do a race with higher racial maximums, you gain even more karma value.
If you add in Gen Optimization, you gain more karma value.
If you add in surge mutation (whose name I'm not sure of but adds to racial max), you gain more karma value.
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Genetic enhancements are definitely heritable. Genetic therapy replaces harmful genes with normal ones, no reason that can't be inherited, and the ethnicity-changing one is explicitly inheritable. The other genewares are set to be recessive, so you'd not only have to have both parents have the geneware for it to be passed onto the kid, but the mother would've needed to have it installed before she was born, as the ova aren't affected by later genetic alterations. Unless the father gets the geneware and it mutates into a dominant gene (or the corps slipped him a dominant version for nefarious reasons of their own), in which case he could pass it on to any offspring he has with anyone.
From an economic point of view germ line genetic enhancements don't make much sense, who are you going to sell to in the next generation if you've allowed them to inherit it?
Technically they are unlikely to be the same so I'd always assume unless otherwise stated genetic enhancements are somatic line only.
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Interestingly enough, the two exceptions I mentioned are special cases that have very good reasons to be inheritable from a business perspective, though they may need to be inheritable to function at all anyways. They're not enhancements, they're not patented genes, they're not cutting edge and they're not going to turn someone into a threat, so compared to other geneware there's very little motive to hold these genewares back. This lets the corps use inheritability as a selling point.
For the ethnicity changing geneware, being inheritable is a necessary selling point. This is explained on page 137 of Chrome Flesh, but I'll break it down again: say you're a white businessman working for a Japanacorp in Japan. People who don't look Japanese don't get promoted in Japancorps in Japan; in fact, they don't get anything nice at all in Japan. Your only chance at climbing the corporate ladder and/or getting introduced to your boss's smoking hot daughter is to get a treatment to look Japanese. You could sit in a tank for a month being biosculpted for the cost of 10,000 nuyen, and it would work for you. But the catch is, it would work ONLY for you. Sure, you might get your boss's job and office one day when he gets promoted and bang his daughter on the desk he used to work at everyday, but once she starts popping out babies they'll only look half-Japanese. Assuming that everyone was aware of your gaijin background and this isn't causing some sort of scandal, you've still got the problem of your kids being only looking half-Japanese. Not only will they have the same problems you did with regards to climbing the corporate ladder and meeting the boss's daughter, but they'll all get picked on in school too! This problem might effect your grandchildren or even your great grandchildren as well. Yes, it can be fixed by paying 10,000 nuyen per descendant, but that's expensive and isn't going to remove 100% of the stigma. But if you get ethnicity changing geneware for.....let's say 35,000 nuyen, because that's how much Cosmetic Alteration costs and it seems to fit the bill....then your kids appear 100% Japanese from birth, as do your grandkids and great grandkids. You get a payback period of 3 descendants, and after a few generations everyone will have forgotten that you were actually a gaijin and you will have successfully infiltrated the genetic population without anyone realizing it.
With genetic therapy, there's a strong chance that it's actually being paid for by the corps themselves; as stated on page 156 of Chrome Flesh, genescreening and corrective gene therapy is part of every corp's healthcare plan. They're the ones paying for it, so it's in there best interest to make it inheritable. As for people not on a corporate health plan? Well, selling an inheritable version means less customers from the next generation, but inheritability is such a huge selling point that selling non-inheritable versions isn't viable unless nobody sells inheritable versions, and we all know that the corps will never play nice enough with each other to allow that to happen. It's better to destroy the entire market over the course of a few generations to get a bigger piece of it now, especially when you know those other corps will happily do the same.
That said, you could probably get an inheritable version of any geneware if you paid enough for it, and the corps might have reasons of their own to distribute them. While only EVO would want the entire population to go full transhuman, the other corps would love to make all their employees smarter, more resistant to disease and toxins, fitter and otherwise generally superior, all while not costing them much. While there would be a significant upfront cost, inheritable geneware would be a cost effective way of achieving this in the long run. I have no doubt that once the prices on geneware are low enough, they'll start turning their employees into Metahumanity 2.0. In fact, I'll bet that they're already getting started by selling inheritable versions of select geneware to their own bachelor employees.
There's also the idea of spreading Adapsin through the general population to boost cyberware sales and reduce the cost of implant-related mental health problems on society, or to do the same with Narco to increase the sale of drugs (legal or otherwise), but good luck making that profitable.
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There's also the inherent issue that as mana levels climb, there will be an increase in the number of awakened. One the flip side, certain awakened minerals will also become more commonplace (Psilosen bullets and cyberarms embedded with Corinthian bronze, anyone?).
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Well, here's a question for you or, rather, a couple of examples followed by a question.
If It costs 20 Karma (40,000 Nuyen) to go from a Strength 3 to a 4,
and it costs 30 Karma (60,000 Nuyen) to go from Strength 5 to 6,
and it costs 40 Karma (80,000 Nuyen) to go from Strength 7 to 8 (assuming your Metatype allows that!)
Then how much Nuyen (Karma) should it cost for a +1 bonus to your strength that also costs you 0.5 Essence?
Assuming 1 karma=2000 since I'll be using a chargen in this discussion.
I'll use a human as an example- a guy that is going to be a close combat specialist so wants to max out agi and str.
Let's Start with Exceptional Attribute for 14 karma <So the guy is AGI 7 and STR 6>
Muscle Replacement [4] Alpha 120000k or 60 Karma
But you you would normally need to spend 10 additional karma for restricted gear.
If a human could gain those extra 4 levels with karma:
AGI= 40+45+50+55= 190karma
STR= 35+40+45+50= 170karma
plus you gained 35Karma of AGI from going from 6 to 7
So you spent 14+60+10= 84karma worth
You gained 35+190+170= 395karma
So you gained 321karma for 3.2ess
So roughly every .01ess is worth 1karma discount
That makes this damn cheap if you ask me.
And if you actually value karma at 5000 nuyen, then it's an even bigger discount.
Instead of 60 karma for 120k it's only 24.
Which means you only spent 48karma to get 395 karma value.
So you guys that complain about costs being too high,
be glad I wasn't on the team because I'd be arguing for higher prices on attribute boosting items.
And remember, I was doing the math assuming a human.
If you do a race with higher racial maximums, you gain even more karma value.
If you add in Gen Optimization, you gain more karma value.
If you add in surge mutation (whose name I'm not sure of but adds to racial max), you gain more karma value.
Thats a calculation that only makes sense if you ommit all other options.
Thing is, thats going to lead to faulty stuff like we have today.
If you want to balance the costs of augmentations, you need to make sure that there are not "strictly better" paths to begin with.
Some geneware giving a cheaper means of raising a stat than normal Karmaprogression isn't a problem.
The problem appears when you have different means of augmentation with highly different levels of effectiveness.
Wired Reflexes vs the Adept Power, for example is a good example for a very problematic one. Not only is the Adept Power usually way cheaper than the combined cost of Nuyen and Essence you have to pay for WR, it also scales without brakes. And THAT is a really big Advantage. Going from level 2 to 3 for the Adept Power is a fixed single PP, so basically 13 Karma (as the cheapest Option) after Chargen.
Going from WR 2 to WR 3 however, is VERY expensive if you stick to the printed Rules.
If you have a generous GM who allows the upgrading rules from the FAQ, however, you are still looking at 88 400 Nuyen, so around 44 Karma in difference (plus the opportunity Cost of lost Essence that creates a hardcap).
44 vs 13 Karma.
That is a VERY badly done job from a game design perspective.
You wouldn't need to have both things cost the same, obviously, and there is stuff that modfiers the actual cost like the ability to combine it with reaction Enhancers, but still.
On top of that, WR has the additional cost of Essence (5 out of 6) and the Adept Power has the additional Bonus of linear scaling and no restriction on finding it, which should both modify its net value.
Sure, there are stuff where *ware is cheaper than Magic or offers effects that Awakened can't reproduce, but INI is one of the most important concepts of the game (as in, it has a very high impact on the gaming table) and here the different costs are way to disproportionate.
It shouldn't be THAT much cheaper than every other option to reach a set (important and relevant) goal by taking a specific option that is not even open for everyone. No-brainers are not a good idea.
So, if one was very polite, one could say that the person who designed this didn't think it through to the end.
I, however prefer to be a bit more direct:
The person who made these rulings is in my humble opinion not suited for this specific task of game design.
If you design rules for a complex game, please have at least some basic knowledge of economics and mathematics. If you don't have them, grab a book and spend a night or two reading up on basic stuff.
Like, fire up Wikipedia and read up on "Opportunity cost", "Budget constraint" and "trade off"; all three articles are very simple and short (maybe an hour to properly read an another one to properly understand), but these concepts are very handy in these cases of having to weight different options against each other and/or setting the prices for them.
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And yet, you are still comparing Apples to Bananas....
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Not really. One might be magic and the other might be cyberware, but at the end of the day they both have a karma cost. Just because they're very different fruits doesn't mean you can't compare apples and bananas from a nutritional standpoint. That said, the whole issue could be fixed by making money come easier. Maybe next time around, keep the prices the same but have the pay for any given job be 5000 times modifiers instead of 3000. Justify it with a sudden drop in the runner population or something.
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And yet, you are still comparing Apples to Bananas....
Care to elaborate?
Because in my opinion the ingame-fluff is meaningless in regards to /heavy/ mechanical balancing discrepancies.
"But its Magic" is an exceptionally shitty excuse for something being a mechanically superior choice, considering its just a different branch on the resource allocation tree during and after chargen.
Sure, you can design games where magic simply IS the better choice, mechanical wise, but this shouldn't be the case in a point-buy system and its a very bad decision in a "man / magic / machine" setting.
Its Shadowrun, not Magerun after all. Magic should be a viable alternative, not the no-brainer that you start with and increase with cyberware on demand
Well, it could be, in a different setting, but then it should also be reflected in the game mechanics (eg everybody being magically active by default). That, however, is not the case for SR.
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Doesn't this only matter if your primary concern is to "optimise" your character?
If I decide I don't want to play an Awakened character then it really doesn't matter what the cost difference is.
If I'm only worried about getting the "best" stats so I can beat everyone else at the table? Sure, comparisons might be useful. I doubt I'd find many games to join though.
Besides, I find that nuyen rewards tend to rise as the game goes on, whereas karma rewards stay about the same. These comparisons may favour the magic characters early in their careers, but as time goes on and the physAd is looking at trying to Initiate a 3rd time, and then raise Mag from 8 to 9, the 'ware based character can improve at a faster rate.
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@Duellist
You do realize my answer had nothing to do with augmentation vs awakened?
It was a direct answer to:Then how much Nuyen (Karma) should it cost for a +1 bonus to your strength that also costs you 0.5 Essence?
As far as the mundane vs awakened...
Mundanes got thrown into a cell with Bubba the Love Troll Shaman, and sandpaper for lube.