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Ware that gets less love than you think it deserves

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Whiskeyjack

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« on: <08-11-15/1919:42> »
So I'm playing around with building a chromed ork character who is a former (or current) organized crime assassin (debating taking Made Man and RiM). Part of his deal is being just as good of an infiltrator as he is a frontline combatant. And maybe can even talk his way through things a bit (I recognize I'm stretching viability of build resources here but bear with me).

As I was picking out my ware, starting with Wired Reflexes, REA Enhancers, and a smartlink (as one often does) I started thinking of what less-common ware might be fun or appropriate for this character. I sorted through the books and definitely settled on False Face for the opportunity to slip into a bathroom and come out looking like another person.

It also made me think of a session recently where our sam would have had a lot less of a problem fighting in a drug lab if she had an internal air tank to not be breathing toxic fumes, or another time when an infiltration had gone south when we were exiting and we were exposed to knockout gas. Air tank again would have been helpful again there.

This just made me wonder about what ware I might have been overlooking (not that the internal air tank isn't great). Anyway, just wondering what are your favorite "non-standard" ware items? Stuff that generally doesn’t make the first pass like initiative enhancement and muscle toner but that you try to fit in, or would like to in a particular build?
Playability > verisimilitude.

ScytheKnight

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« Reply #1 on: <08-11-15/1943:11> »
Well a character I recently made for a tribal PbP game has a cyber arm that includes Snake Fingers and a Finger Lighter... the idea being that the arm is basically a mobile surgical kit with a high rating built-in med kit and razor claws.

Combine that with a character with magic and you've got a low end surgeon who can operate anywhere at the drop of a hat. Even knows the Sterilize spell to make sure the area and her claws are clean.
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Hobbes

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« Reply #2 on: <08-11-15/2217:04> »
Muscle Replacement, Cyberweaponry, and implanted Commlinks/Decks. 

5th edition Muscle Replacement lives in such a weird spot because of Availability.  It's cheap enough that you'd want it as Alpha but you can't because of availability.  You can't get the max rating out of chargen, ect. ect.  Lots of issues with it.  But on the right character it's fantastic stuff. 

Cyberweapons, or even good ole' smuggling compartments are a personal favorite.  Even though they're total overkill most of the time. 

Marcus

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« Reply #3 on: <08-11-15/2331:27> »
Sleep regulator- for more hours in the day.

Smuggling compartments on limbs- Yes they are tiny but its amazing how often you need to sneak some tiny object somewhere.

Chem glands (auto injectors can do most of the same work)- this was my favorite go to trick for so long back in 4th. There are so many interesting chemical combinations possible. It's very easy to cover odd angles with it. (Fake being dead made easy! Pop some instant extra mental attributes dice at the critical moment. Maybe you just need someone to forget the last 5 mins. All easily possible with the right load out.)

The Cyberknee mortar- not sure if this one actually is possible in 5th, but no one ever expects indirect firing Artillery.

Cybergills- Attack from the Sea (or the sewers)!!!

Sorry to get slightly off topic, but Made Man, is a Quality I really feel is really undervalued. It can do so many interesting things from the stand point of background and negotiation. Also organized crime offers the very best justification for the really wacky attack methods, Car Bombs, poisoned drinks, concrete shoes, poison lipstick call girls, all kinds of weird creative stuff.
« Last Edit: <08-11-15/2334:16> by Marcus »
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The Wyrm Ouroboros

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« Reply #4 on: <08-12-15/0446:27> »
Cybergills or the bioware equivalent.  People very frequently forget how much of Seattle - a lot of cities, really - has water somewhere nearby.  While it may make for an unusual intrusion vector, it makes for a great emergency escape route.
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I_AM_ZHOUL!!!

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« Reply #5 on: <08-12-15/0632:35> »
Cybergills or the bioware equivalent.  People very frequently forget how much of Seattle - a lot of cities, really - has water somewhere nearby.  While it may make for an unusual intrusion vector, it makes for a great emergency escape route.

Just make sure you don't go to deep with only cybergills... or you'll get "Narc'd" (Nitrogen Narcosis.) Down to about 160-170ft is generally safe but I got Narc'd at 147ft while doing a very heavy workload once... had to hold on the leg of the oil rig to not fall off with the supervisor yelling at me in my hat for like 5 minutes before it passed. They mention it in the Fluff about having an Internal Air Tank to carry helium so you can run heliox,  but running pure O2 would really help cut down your in water decompression times also.

Kincaid

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« Reply #6 on: <08-12-15/0849:08> »
Internal air tanks, skin pockets, and mnemonic enhancers are things I always consider for cybered characters.  A cyber hold-out loaded with capsule rounds containing narcojet/dmso is also a nice, cheap tool.  False face is awesome, but there are so many ways to add to your Disguise roll that it's only real utility is instant change situations.  If you have a little time, you can hit your mental limit in many cases--for your character a Voice Modulator would make sense.  It's lower in Essence than a False Face and instead of adding dice, it adds directly to the Threshold to see through your disguise.  Plus, having that sort of volume control can be handy.

In terms of stuff from Chrome Flesh, tetrachromic vision is on the top of my "must take" list, but that's not an obscure pick.
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Beta

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« Reply #7 on: <08-12-15/1002:09> »
There are lots of items that are extremely nice to have in certain situations.  The key for those sorts of enhancements is not paying too much for such a situational ability.

-   I love mnemonic enhancers for adding dice directly to language as well as knowledge and memory checks.  It lets very low investments in languages (or knowledge) become more useful, which can be handy in a lot of situations, and this is a very cheap enhancement. 

-   There is a bodyware whose name I forget right now (maybe platelet factory, but I’m not sure) that reduces damage of two or more boxes by one (two becomes one, three becomes two, etc.).  It seems to work well for fairly tough NPC who can reduce damage enough with soak that it normally takes several hits to take them down, but I’ve not tried it on a PC (granted there are a lot of situations where it doesn’t help—you’d have a better idea in your game of how often you’d expect to take physical vs stun damage, etc.). 

-   Voice modulator at a low rating gives you some nice vocal options for cheap as well as a small bonus in certain situations. 

-   Olfactory booster can be very interesting if you have decent perception (“the room looks clear, but you can smell stress sweat and stale soy-caff breath ...”) but maybe not as much for your particular character. 

-   An internal comm link is very handy if you are sometimes walking into situations where your gear is going to be stripped away or your every move watched (combine with cyber eyes for the image link). 

-   I’m not sure if it is canon or not, but I assume that if you have ultrasonic sensor you can put it on passive mode to listen for motion detectors, which can be handy during infiltration, but again that may not be a good match for your particular character (and it is available as gear). 

-   Datajack, for plugging directly into gear when wireless absolutely must be off. 

-   A small hidden compartment of some sort that contains a standard hand-cuffs key and a small sharp blade, and put a point into escape artist (you may not be very good, but that is what you save edge for…).

Moonshine Fox

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« Reply #8 on: <08-12-15/1024:46> »
Vocal enhancers can give a nice range of role play options.

High frequency hearing, since the number of things that emit sound at those frequencies is rather astounding.

Digestive expansion is useful for being able to eat almost anything.

Olfactory boosters and sleep regulators are just fun and useful for a variety of things.

And I have a fondness for balancing tails. The art of them always looked impressive to me.

adzling

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« Reply #9 on: <08-13-15/1128:05> »
Sleep Regulators are highly underrated.

Tecumseh

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« Reply #10 on: <08-13-15/1726:51> »
They are highly dependent on the game table, but sleep regulators would have been hugely valuable in my last two games. Not every table tracks every hour, and not everyone micromanages the lives of their characters, but if you do have a game like that then a sleep regulator is tremendous.

Whiskeyjack

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« Reply #11 on: <08-13-15/1814:51> »
I can say in the last couple runs the sleep regulators would have been pretty useful in my current game. But that's a couple runs where many more, they probably wouldn't be. I just took some Long Haul, which kind of sucked because you can't just Detox it, but it did the job.
Playability > verisimilitude.

Whiskeyjack

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« Reply #12 on: <08-13-15/1817:00> »
Sorry to get slightly off topic, but Made Man, is a Quality I really feel is really undervalued. It can do so many interesting things from the stand point of background and negotiation. Also organized crime offers the very best justification for the really wacky attack methods, Car Bombs, poisoned drinks, concrete shoes, poison lipstick call girls, all kinds of weird creative stuff.
Yeah I am really thinking from a perspective of "is the required time commitment worth dealing with vis a vis other runs." I used it in 4th for a Yak troll archer and found it very fun though.

I like your ideas a lot! I will probably give it another glance after mostly ruling it out. Now if only I can find the book it's in again...
Playability > verisimilitude.

Zweiblumen

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« Reply #13 on: <08-13-15/2154:12> »
I like your ideas a lot! I will probably give it another glance after mostly ruling it out. Now if only I can find the book it's in again...

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Whiskeyjack

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« Reply #14 on: <08-16-15/2025:48> »
I like your ideas a lot! I will probably give it another glance after mostly ruling it out. Now if only I can find the book it's in again...

Run Faster P. 148
Derp. I think I read past it at least 10 times. That's what you get for chargenning while sleep deprived!
Playability > verisimilitude.