Alright. So, someone asked about Chemical Glands, seeking clarification on what is or isn't a legitimate Chemical. So we cracked open the book and agreed that it was not entirely clear and went ahead and just said, "All of them, pending errata."
There is some legitimate concern that this may be exploitable. So... I'm opening the floor to you to bicker and rage about it and see if we can't come up with a list of what should be allowed and what should not.
Before you do, take a look at the thought process by which the SRM FAQ team made their decision:
As written:
The Chemical Gland was originally intended to deliver insulin. It can be used to deliver toxins. The compounds must be 'naturally occuring' and not 'synthetic'. It can be delivered internally through gradual release or internal release (a full dose at once). It can be delivered through exhalation, spit, or injection.
Got it. So what can we put in there? For missions, we start with 'only things listed in the allowable sourcebooks.'
So we have a finite list. Of those we determine which ones are 'naturally occuring' and not 'synthesized'.
Well, honestly, NONE of them are naturally occuring. All of them require SOME sort of processing. The committee determined that it can NOT be the intent that NOTHING is allowable. So, we take that and turn it into 'organic', which there seems to be a community consensus on.
Synthesized LITERALLY means you put two things together to make another thing. WATER is synthesized by combining hydrogen and oxygen. By RAW it is not allowed in a chemical gland.
However, synthesized usually connotes that it's made with more extreme chemical processes... absolutely man-made. In the real world, cocaine does not need to be 'synthesized', methamphetamine does.
So, we went to the sourcebook to find which drugs were made through more extreme chemical processes. We did not find any specifications. For all we know, Kamikaze is a simple formula made by shaking two naturally occuring compounds together (unikely, but it certainly doesn't say it is or it isn't).
OK, fine, none of the drugs specify.
So now we don't want to remove anything 'arbitrarily'. We now look at balance and exploitation issues.
Is there a way to use the chemical gland to get a result that you cannot get a different way or in a way that is game breaking?
We did not see it. A chemical gland amounts to an internal auto-injector. The costs are exhorbitant, relative to the cost to a runner just buying doses of the substance to use as necessary. You'd have to buy 150 doses of deepweed to make up for the cost of the gland. With 14 modules for 4 years, that's 2.7 doses of deepweed per mission. It costs enough to purchase 2,100 individual doses of novacoke. You'd have to use 37.5 doses per mission to make up for that cost.
What you get for that cost is an uninteruptable, unremovable, unhackable auto-injector. We did not deem that to be game breaking.
Using a gradual release system means you would always be on the substance. We looked at that and found it did not break addiction rules. You would likely become a burnout within a few sessions OR have invested heavily in mitigating qualities and cyber-/bio-ware. Again, the cost is steep, your addiction costs are just paid up-front rather than gradually.
Finally, many of the drugs in question would not allow you to rest. A gradual release of Novacoke, and you would never be able to heal naturally.
Given that there are cheaper means of delivering the substance, that there are serious ramifications for attempting to cheese a gradual release for combat stime, and that your addiction would likely hit burn-out rates pretty quickly, we did not feel that there were balance issues that required removal of a specific substance.
SO, all that was left is arbitrarily deciding which ones to can and which to leave. We decided against it, and, pending errata, decided to allow all drugs, allowing for a sort of handwavey notion that it is possible to naturally create any of the listed drugs and toxins.
So, with all of that... what are your thoughts, what drugs do you think are OBVIOUSLY unnatural. What do you think about awakened substances (maybe only awakened people can create those, if they chose to take the essence hit, or nobody can).
Keep it civil, while we may relook the FAQ ruling based on what's here, it's a friendly discussion.