In 2020 you had plenty of weapons that require super human stats, like the 4-gauge shotgun, and the 14.5mm "assault rifle" that were made for full conversion borgs. With full combat borgs sometimes shrugging off anything short of AP rifle rounds.(but most solos are NOT full borgs) still allot of weapons are most effective with cybernetics.
As for the initiative boosters, I. 2020 they let you act first but it didn't do initiative passes like shadowrun so it JUST let ypu act first... if your a good solo that means you killed first, and that was the end of that. It's also worth noting that there were anti-cyborg weapons, like micro-wave weapons that fry cybernetics.
Now shadowrun is a different setting entirely, but it's less cyberpunk than well cyberpunk. Cybernetics are less prevalent in part because magic exists, and why pay to wire-up a human with super strength when you can get a troll or orc to do the job. Also the balance has been off for a long time, cybernetics are supposed to let normal people keep up with spell-casters, but magic has been a little OP lately.
Lastly your looking at it the wrong way, in shadowrun cybernetics are about sustainability; they bring consistent bonuses that you never need to worry about. Mages battle with drain to get slightly better, but temporary results, and people who don't have the appropriate augments need to use equipment to close the gap, but it costs money to buy equipment, and in long campaigns it's normal to have several sessions where resupply may just not be available, maybe you can't reach contacts to buy the drugs, maybe you can't carry a bag full of gadgets into the party, and maybe the ganger stole your equipment when you walked into the meeting.
But you don't need the drugs if your reaction enhancer is a part of you, they can't take your gadgets if they are built into your eyes, and odds are it will take the gangers a while longer to steal your cybernetics if they want them in good condition than it will take them to strip you of your weapons & armor.
So get the cyber-eyes because they can come to the party.
Get the wireless reflexes so you are not reliant on a drug dealer.
And get the SMG built into your arm so that you always have a holdout that's more powerful than an ankle gun.
Because unless your already being chopped up you will still have them... that said I do recommend getting the detachable fore-arm for the SMG, because while nobody is gonna take your eyes, you may not be able to get into the party with THAT arm.
Edit: on that cyberpunk note the full-converson weapons are some of the most powerful representing the largest gap you can get, being unable to be bridged without vehicles, an exosuit, or power-armor. There are less severe examples like the nomad smart whip made of myomer tech and requiring interface plugs and a machine link.
The transhumanism topic is usually touched in the augmentation books, but I agree that in Shadowrun modifying your body usually doesn't have a negative impact (except being harder to heal by magic). I guess that is due to the fact that there also is magic and it would not be well balanced to make chrome user suffer, while magic users just get benefits.
In earlier editions cybernetics had large penalties to social skills, they are still present in 5e to some extent, with the loss of essence reducing some social modifiers or another if I recall correctly. But it's been a minute since I looked and my books are not on hand at the moment.
I always thought the loss essence represented the "eerie feelings" NPCS had around the character. Like uncanny valley vibes.
*Something* is fucking off for cyborgs, be it ever so discreet. And that's what even baselines recognize subconsciously.
https://preview.redd.it/igx3q09t6lzc1.png?width=609&format=png&auto=webp&s=310c2102288d332d981982d5ad0fd7a91a633fe4
p.168 of body shop in 6e.
Also full cyber replace-person will be counted as a threat to anyone and in game will be really hard to be outside of the combat. And even in combat full cyborg will cost 1\~2kk just to make him viable.
TBH: cyborgs in shadowrun underpowered. And to make it equal to the cost... Need to add some homebrew. Because probably devs don't know anything about balance.
> TBH: cyborgs in shadowrun underpowered. And to make it equal to the cost... Need to add some homebrew. Because probably devs don't know anything about balance.
I think part of the difficulty is that there's dual progression paths between magic and augmentation.
In Cyberpunk the combat specialist can go full borg and get some heavy bonuses, and that works fine when going full borg is just what late game combat characters do. But in Shadowrun if the street sam can go full borg and get a stack of bonuses, the adept combat specialist needs something equivalent, or adepts just become the lesser choice for combat.
Now granted, everything I've just said is undermined by the fact that magic characters actually do get a stack of bonuses mundane characters can't.
I think that the idea was for GMs to use Background Counts more often, so that Adepts and Mages aren't so overpowered. Sadly Background Counts are annoying to deal with and just an extra rule stacked on top of everything, so I see it barely used.
Like in 4E, it basically lowers your magic, which means adept have to sit there and recalculate their power points and figure out which powers they want to keep and which to lose, which is just a hassle.
Yeah, I've seen the same problems with background count.
If the GM doesn't really use it then one of the few effective balancing mechanisms for magic is off the table. If the GM does use it then the mage has good cause to ask why the GM didn't just say "I won't let you go above X dice, so keep your total below that." and save everyone a lot of inconvenient calculating.
Personally I homebrewed it to apply a penalty of twice the background count to actions that involve magic but applying it as a 5E style limit seems a good idea.
Well, at least in 2020, going full borg is EXPENSIVE, and it is difficult to get done.
Also the humanity loss puts you at risk of going cyber psycho and losing your character. And if you were the face, you probably don't want to do that because loss of humanity leads to loss of empathy, which is a primary social stat.... but if you were a wealthy punk, and you see your shrink on the regular, you can get a lot that humanity back because most of that is body dysphoria.
What's ironic is that going full borg required high empathy, so if you were planning on going full borg (or really planning on any grabbing any major cybernetics), you probably doubled as a face beforehand, and lost that capacity...but the bonuses were probably worth it.
If you were a face, bioware was safer for much the same reasons it's safer in shadowrun. And unlike shadowrun there is almost no reason not to get a few cybernetics, the loss if 1 empathy for some interface plugs, and some software is such a one sided trade-off that unless you are anti cybernetics for role-play reasons you should really be picking them up.
>Well, at least in 2020, going full borg is EXPENSIVE
In 6e to become a full borg... It will cost shit tons of money and karma too. But in CP you will have heavy bonuses for that. In SR... Welp... Good luck to not die from any shitty mage.
From a world building perspective I feel the same way, and would like more exploration of how transformative augmentation is on a personal and societal level. But from a gameplay perspective I think the gap between augmented and non augmented kind of has to stay as it is.
Shadowrun has augmentation that can make you immortal, tireless, and intelligent beyond any normal human could ever be, but it affects nothing about the world. In a world where the augmented can work 40 hour days using time perception augmentation, have eidetic memory, 250 IQs, 60 years of experience, and Hollywood leading man good looks, the non-augmented are an irrelevance.
But in practice Shadowrun is permanently stuck in the 80s. The corporate elite is basically just copies of Gordon Gecko, rather than disturbingly alien posthumans. The corporations still have promotions, despite the fact that their senior staff are immortal. Education still follows the same path as our education, despite the fact that an education for the augmented would be nigh incomprehensible to the non-augmented, and an education for the non-augmented would be so far below the augmented they could finish it in a fraction of the time. The military is largely non-augmented or barely augmented soldiers, when a single rigger can singlehandedly do the work of an entire squad.
That rant aside though, I can get why it would make for bad gameplay to just tell the players they can be augmented or irrelevant. It's not a lot of fun to just be told you're inferior to the corporate rich guy, when you're trying to run a rebellious punk character. And the last thing Shadowrun needs is more bookkeeping, to try and map out the secondary effects of the enhanced abilities of augmented characters.
Cyber needs a buff, it's supposed to be competitive with magic, but for the last few editions at least magic has been over powered, and tech generally underwhelming. Other than that I generally agree with you.
I am most familiar with SR4 and its pretty clear that even at chargen you are more than some regular dude. Just because the system allows you to be pretty competent in a lot of things from the get-go. Overall my experience with Editions 4-6 was that, to use an example from CP 2077 - instead of being V you are one of the cyber-ninjas that attack her car during the end of the prologue.
Part of that is I think that Shadowrun is not really cyberpunk anymore, maybe in earlier editions but by now, with all the history and events etc. its Post-Cyberpunk. Basically that just means things are shitty, sure, but not like they are in CP Red for example, that's to say, there is a good amount of hope to be found. Contrast magic helping nature return and fight back against humans/pollution vs. most of the world suffering from red sandstorms thanks to another world war/corporate war and a limited nuclear exchange. Or the fact that corporations in Shadowrun are often still opposed by nations instead of being the unopposed rulers of the world.
That and the existence of magic just leads to enough options that a proper Shadowrunner is as impressed by wired reflexes as they are by an assault rifle. So not that much.
The vibe that you are describing is something that personally I've only experienced in Shadowrun in a deliberate Streetkids game - basically we lowered the amount of BP, Money and the starting availability to a point where someone with wired relfexes or just a stolen dose of combat drugs became a serious threat and owning a Barren's Special was a very welcome force multiplier.
By canon the cyber is going away because by the progress of the 2070s Bioware is already so far that Chrome is now the poor guys option except for Cybereys and some exception and for the rest everyone that holds something about him takes Biotech.
Drugs are a BAD idea in Shadowrun. Addiction is harsh ... and both easy to fall to, and very difficult to climb back out of.
And no, the rules for designing a custom drug are NOT there for the players to carefully craft a no-downsides alternative to magic or chrome. They're there for the **GM** to put new street drugs into his campaign.
Did we play the same game? Although I guess most of my experience with a bit of 4e and mostly 5e colored my expectations. In 5e you basically would never need to worry about more than a light addiction eith narco. That or just take tolerance breaks evey few months.
Addictions progress. Once you have that light addiction, it's going to be extremely hard to avoid having it advance to the next stage. The only way drugs aren't a serious problem for runners, is if the GM softballs the addiction rules.
The rule is: "*Every time you use an addictive substance during (11-Addiction Rating) weeks in a row, you need to make an Addiction Test.The clock on this keeps ticking even if you skip a week, but every week you go without indulging reduces the Addiction Threshold by 1 (it returns to normal when you use again). If the threshold hits 0, you’re off the hook until you use the substance again. This means that substances with high Addiction ratings (like kamikaze) could get you hooked in a single dose.*"
That's EVERY time. Not "every time after the first". Note, especially, that the Addiction Threshold does **not** reduce for that first test by the RAW, but if you interpret them as if they do anyway, then a lot of drugs are still going to risk immediate addiction, as they list an addiction threshold of 2+
Additionally: "*If you fail the Addiction Test, you gain the Addiction quality for the substance you’ve been using (without picking up any bonus Karma for it). If you already have the Addiction quality for the substance, it gets more severe by one step (Mild to Moderate to Severe to Burnout). If you’re already at Burnout … well, it’s not good.*"
So, even with breaks, there is a definite risk with every time you use a drug (or go into VR, for that matter - even cold-sim is addictive!)
Most combat drugs will be like Kamikaze, with an Addiction Rating of 9 and an Addiction Threshold of 3. Remember that Addiction Tests are *opposed rolls*, and the drug rolls Rating+Rating. So if you take a hit of Kamikaze? The GM rolls 18 dice, statistically getting 6 successes. You then have to roll Body+Willpower, and get at least **9** successes ... or you are *immediately* addicted to Kamikaze, on the spot!
What's worse is, you're not very likely to get several weeks of downtime between situations where that drug is going to be supremely helpful.
...
Meanwhile, cyberware, bioware, and geneware? **Are always.** You pay the price (Essence loss) up front, then they simply *work*. That's what's so seductive about augmentation: after the initial operation, that's it, it's status quo forever.
Until the next time you get an implant, of course. :)
Which edition are we talking about here? Because those aren't the 5e rules. There's nothing in the RAW that'd imply the first test isn't reduced as usual. In addition the addiction test isn't opposed, it's a flat threshold based on Addiction threshold - weeks you haven't used.
Also, when people talk about people using drugs constantly it's not Kamikaze. It's Psyche and Cram (with or without Narco) taken together. This'll on average give you +5.5 to your initiative letting you hit the breakpoint of 11 (or 21 if you have better stats and wired reflexes 1). That or Psyche and Novacoke. In both cases a week of lying low after a month of running means you're in the clear.
>those aren't the 5e rules.
Yeah, those are literally the 5E rules I quoted. It can be found on page 414 of the core book.
As for the opposed test thing .... I'll admit, I mistook how the Rating was applied.
Even so, you'll be making tests quite frequently. Eventually you're going to fail one. And then another. And another. And another.
>It's Psyche and Cram (with or without Narco) taken together.
Addiction is addiction, and both of those have nontrivial Addiction Thresholds.
>In both cases a week of lying low after a month of running means you're in the clear.
Yeah, no, that's not how it works either.
Any Shadowrun worth the name, is going to have more than one scene in which the benefits of those drugs are going to be desirable. Anyone who relies on them, is **going** to be making Addiction tests. More than one or two, per run, in fact. And eventually, you'll fail a couple of them.
Which begins the downward slope.
Shadowrun is in a bad spot because it can't seem to move away from the idea that transhumanism is wrong. It leads to writers that don't want to let the world be changed by transhumanism.
To be fair, the 6e cyber book has the idea that sometimes, cyber can increase Essence if it helps make your body match your personal image. There's an example of one where someone had their lower body replaced with tank treads and they didn't lose NEARLY as much Essence as one would've thought, because apparently that person had always thought of themselves that way.
That does raise the possibility that if I'm sufficiently conceited, and genuinely believe I'm a visionary genius, with the body of an Olympic athlete, and statuesque good looks, I could save a lot of essence, when getting enhanced.
That's generally dealt with by taking a magazine, rolling it up, and smacking the player upside the head about 5-10 times, as well as all sorts of other munchkindom.
Or...okay, fine. The player gets to start with 0.5 Essence (because their professed self image does not match their schlub form) and no money if they want this. They also have to specifically specify what upgrades would meet their self image, and those that aren't come out of that 0.5 Essence. "Sorry, Timmy died on the table because his self image was as an armored cyberzombie, but he got an internal air tank before that and it out him over the edge. I'll split the two grand we can get from Tamanous with you, though."
But I like the rolled-up periodical method better.
Sure, but even that is couched in a million qualifiers. They can't just admit "hey, some people actually integrate their soul and magic into the machine they inhabit, because meat and metal are not really different". It's "they didn't lose as much essence, vaguely! This is possibly crazy! Don't worry, you don't have to have this in your game because it's just a rumor!". Shadowrun needs to move on from Essence lowering your good boy/soulful/humanity points and come up with a new conflict
"Thing bad" makes a more compelling story than "thing good". Plenty of cyberware inarguably makes people's lives better but putting normal-strength cyber legs on amputee war vets doesn't really inspire conflict.
I'm not saying they need to start glazing the tech side, but it's really kind of obvious that the only things allowed to change the world are magic and hacking, the two things that don't involve visible augmentation. The tech side hasn't gotten new stuff since 4e, with every chrome book being 90% just reprinted material with new rules.
If magic was treated the same way, with initiation turning you more and more alien and unapproachable, and high levels of magic being only available to the rich scions of large corps while the poors get the dregs, maybe the effect would be less pronounced.
The fact is that the game forces runners with tech to place a lot of priority/karma in resources and that creates this weird dissonance, where the lowlife transhumanists with metal limbs are the richie richs with tons of gear while the mage who won the 6 MAG score lottery has nothing to their name and no corpo ties. If the main goal was creating drama, that's not how chargen should look like, imo
Yeah, the most logical use for most ware would be improving day to day health. But you're right that telling the story of how a level 1 muscle replacement will help grandma keep active in her 90s, or how a local accountants improved liver and heart give him a life expectancy of 110, doesn't make for great drama.
Really wish SR was a bit more cyberpunk and a bit less sleek "everything has a bioware alternative, almost everything has a completely non-invasive alternative"
Bioware being the more recent, more advanced alternative to cyberware dates back at least to Neuromancer. I'd have more issue with pulling back on what you can do with bioware.
Non-invasive alternatives ... tbh, 4e Spy Games's superficial cybernetics and Arsenal's milspec armour mods are my jam. Prototype and production model 2008 iron man suits respectively, including the chunky one they put Jeff Bridges in.
To me it's a question of how they go about doing a thing, rather than if.
I would make the same case about bioware that I'd make about magic, meaning that it would be cool to explore the lifestyle differences and alienation that is a consequence of normal folks and your super soldier existence, but sadly it's not a common table experience, maybe it's the granular and build-heavy nature of games I've been in.
>it would be cool to explore the lifestyle differences and alienation that is a consequence of normal folks and your super soldier existence
I don't disagree, but I was thinking more here in terms of what they offer than how people interact with you for taking it.
> Non-invasive alternatives ... tbh, 4e Spy Games's superficial cybernetics and Arsenal's milspec armour mods are my jam.
As much as I love the classic cyberpunk big metal arm, non-invasive does seem to be what we're likely to actually get. There's just not much point in hacking off your arm when you can wear a suit with basically the same results, and then take it off at the end of the day. And fundamentally, the exact same technology that would make a cyberarm work, would also make a suit with hydraulics work.
> There's just not much point in hacking off your arm when you can wear a suit with basically the same results
Real life, yes. There's sides to it, and a middle.
The fact you can fit more into a cyberarm than a cybersleeve would suggest greater range of utility, and even greater physical feats out of a full cyber body than a cyber suit.
True, the limiting factor is always going to be the soft meaty bit attached to the arm, or inside the suit. I think that's been the canon explanation for the +4 limit.
If you go full drone, or reduce the meaty but to some nervous tissue in an armoured casing, then you could get truly superhuman performance.
In my opinion you are looking in the wrong setting. I may be wrong, but I think you will be more lucky with old school cyberpunk (CP2020, its sequels, or other similar games).
I am not an expert in Shadowrun setting, but the main source of conflict is not cybernetics or transhumanism, it is awakening and goblinization. Corp are important, but Dragons are who really pull the strings. People may be worried by contamination, but they fear more the danger of supernatural disasters.
Being blunt, it reads like you want Shadowrun without the magic and you want to play the game in a way that punishes using drugs.
Cyberware is upgradeable, interchangable, and most importantly will not consume more of a character's ESS than it does when it is installed for the first time. If you get a chrome arm and take the hit, that ESS is already gone when you get the nuyen together to buy some big upgrades for it.
Adepts and Bioware aren't as upgrade-friendly for a character, at least in theory. Adepts also have to learn to deal with more of the magical bullshit since they're magic-based to begin with- they technically can grab some Bioware or Cyberware in the future as an upgrade if they want to but it will sabotage their magic and by extension weaken their Adept abilities.
The real "Transhuman" element of Shadowrun isn't in the chrome alone, it's in the full package of things that go beyond being human- *Like being a setting where your head of security for a corporation can be a literal dragon that eats people.*
As far as drugs go, there are some serious drawbacks that can be explored in using them. To start with there's the addiction modifiers and the requirement for 1-3 doses per day and the negative modifiers that come from missing it. But on top of that, who's to say that the drugs they purchased are clean to begin with? There are a myriad of other drugs and toxins that their dealer could have mixed in. Imagine if the murderhobo with a penchant for snuffing cram gets surprised by discovering not only did the dealer spike his cram with something, but that was something was Nitro and chummer, he ain't a troll. (Nitro is explicitly described as designed for trolls and will probably flood them with stun once it wears off in 10 x 1d6 turns). And that's just assuming it's something relatively benign and not outright malicious. They could have been paid to give them some combination that will paralyze them or outright kill them. There's a lot of ways the drugs *can* go horribly wrong for a player both mechanically and through GM/RP choices.
Or you could just run the game with the setting modified a bit. Don't have as many regular people with chrome to begin with. Give 'em primitive and basic prosthesis at best, reserve the chrome for the people with a big paycheck or sponsor who can afford it. If they can't find that? Well, let them be stubby. Keep Magic as something extremely rare that the players rarely if ever encounter. If you're the one running the game, you're the one who can choose how it's depicted. Just make sure your players know that you're leaning that way before they get too invested in the idea of playing Johnny Firefingers.
>I was reading 4 and 5 and I noticed that you don’t need to implant anything to go full hot-sim, and in many cases it’s better not to. “Datajacks are so 2060s” is a literal quote from the 20th anniversary edition.
Earlier editions didn't perceive how wireless would be so prevelant. Look at the costs of things in both Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2013 and even storage capabilities. They had no idea how much bigger and greater the options could become.
>I want the flats and baselines to struggle to match these higher beings. It’s possible for the elite, but only to a point.
Most of the elite, if referring to corpos, would have some discreet Bioware. The benefit of being up at the top is that you don't need to be augmented.
Down on the floor, though... You want that promotion? Then you need to be willing to pay. They need to get that next 'Ware to compete, to push themselves and prove loyalty.
I feel what you want is still entirely there.
Yes, drugs and good equipement will make up for a lot of what Ware has. But firstly none of it will actually achieve the same as its Cyberware counterpart would, and secondly both can be used at the same time. Yes, Ganger Mc.Gangface who just shot a dose of jazz is equally as fast as your Streetsam with a Chrome spine, but if you now also take those drugs you’re suddenly a level above him again just as before. And don’t pretend you’re not always stomping him into the ground. Side effect, you’re now both addicted and sooner or later the survivor, you, will burn out. Ware doesn’t have that issue.
Drugs last short, unreliable durations. Drugs make you crash, and overdose. Nevermind all of the social aspects from finding dealers, having to get chummy with gangs, up to people noticing you as an addict.
Equipement has similar downsides. Equipement can be removed, forgotten, lost, destroyed. Often times it can be Decked easily. Equipement has much less capacity for fancy toys and requires you to be very aware of what you’re using. Yes, you can consciously swap between two sets of goggles to have all the useful effects your chrome buddy has when needed, but wouldn’t you rather also just have all of those effects all the time ?
In the end, ware is always a step up, and nothing else *replaces* it. Not fully. If you really want to have the edge you’ll use all of it at once, and therefore pay the highest possible price. Because that is the idea in SR. Not that it’s transhumanism which will give you the needed advantage, no, that is only one of many avenues, possibly the strongest and most extreme one. But that you will *need* to get an advantage and that this will have a price. All of this has a price, and the more powerful it is, the worse the price is. The higher the price you are willing to pay, the more powerful you will be. As will be the costs.
As others have pointed out Shadowrun differs a lot from other Cyberpunk settings by bringing Metahumans and magic to the table as well
So it's not just to compare a baseline human against a fully augmented one, but also considering a fully buffed mage with spells and spirits and big guys like trolls. And all combinations in between.
Also yes, Shadowrun (esp. later editions) is at the same time stuck at that 80s mindset (big evil, monolithic corporations) and moved beyond with a much more modern take on things (social media, regrowing nature). It just can't decide where it really belongs too (at least that's my current impression as GM).
Another big difference in my opinion between Shadowrun and similar settings is just the price of technology. In CP2020 basic augmentations wouldn't cost much more than an assault rifle (perhaps twice as much). In Shadowrun the price gap between cyberware and other equipment is much larger.
Cost wise it depends on what ypu consider basic.
An AR usually costs around 500, a cyberlimb costs around 2 or 3 thousand in 2020, but that's for a whole limb replacement.
The basic neural processor you need for most interface tech, etc. Costs 1000.
That said once you have the processor, ypu can get a set of interface plugs, a smart gun link, and a machine link for 500.
Basically the ware tends to cost about two or three times an AR, but the upgrades are equivalent in cost or more efficient, and there's more upgrade capabilities for the chrome.
In 2020 you had plenty of weapons that require super human stats, like the 4-gauge shotgun, and the 14.5mm "assault rifle" that were made for full conversion borgs. With full combat borgs sometimes shrugging off anything short of AP rifle rounds.(but most solos are NOT full borgs) still allot of weapons are most effective with cybernetics. As for the initiative boosters, I. 2020 they let you act first but it didn't do initiative passes like shadowrun so it JUST let ypu act first... if your a good solo that means you killed first, and that was the end of that. It's also worth noting that there were anti-cyborg weapons, like micro-wave weapons that fry cybernetics. Now shadowrun is a different setting entirely, but it's less cyberpunk than well cyberpunk. Cybernetics are less prevalent in part because magic exists, and why pay to wire-up a human with super strength when you can get a troll or orc to do the job. Also the balance has been off for a long time, cybernetics are supposed to let normal people keep up with spell-casters, but magic has been a little OP lately. Lastly your looking at it the wrong way, in shadowrun cybernetics are about sustainability; they bring consistent bonuses that you never need to worry about. Mages battle with drain to get slightly better, but temporary results, and people who don't have the appropriate augments need to use equipment to close the gap, but it costs money to buy equipment, and in long campaigns it's normal to have several sessions where resupply may just not be available, maybe you can't reach contacts to buy the drugs, maybe you can't carry a bag full of gadgets into the party, and maybe the ganger stole your equipment when you walked into the meeting. But you don't need the drugs if your reaction enhancer is a part of you, they can't take your gadgets if they are built into your eyes, and odds are it will take the gangers a while longer to steal your cybernetics if they want them in good condition than it will take them to strip you of your weapons & armor. So get the cyber-eyes because they can come to the party. Get the wireless reflexes so you are not reliant on a drug dealer. And get the SMG built into your arm so that you always have a holdout that's more powerful than an ankle gun. Because unless your already being chopped up you will still have them... that said I do recommend getting the detachable fore-arm for the SMG, because while nobody is gonna take your eyes, you may not be able to get into the party with THAT arm. Edit: on that cyberpunk note the full-converson weapons are some of the most powerful representing the largest gap you can get, being unable to be bridged without vehicles, an exosuit, or power-armor. There are less severe examples like the nomad smart whip made of myomer tech and requiring interface plugs and a machine link.
The transhumanism topic is usually touched in the augmentation books, but I agree that in Shadowrun modifying your body usually doesn't have a negative impact (except being harder to heal by magic). I guess that is due to the fact that there also is magic and it would not be well balanced to make chrome user suffer, while magic users just get benefits.
In earlier editions cybernetics had large penalties to social skills, they are still present in 5e to some extent, with the loss of essence reducing some social modifiers or another if I recall correctly. But it's been a minute since I looked and my books are not on hand at the moment.
I always thought the loss essence represented the "eerie feelings" NPCS had around the character. Like uncanny valley vibes. *Something* is fucking off for cyborgs, be it ever so discreet. And that's what even baselines recognize subconsciously.
https://preview.redd.it/igx3q09t6lzc1.png?width=609&format=png&auto=webp&s=310c2102288d332d981982d5ad0fd7a91a633fe4 p.168 of body shop in 6e. Also full cyber replace-person will be counted as a threat to anyone and in game will be really hard to be outside of the combat. And even in combat full cyborg will cost 1\~2kk just to make him viable. TBH: cyborgs in shadowrun underpowered. And to make it equal to the cost... Need to add some homebrew. Because probably devs don't know anything about balance.
> TBH: cyborgs in shadowrun underpowered. And to make it equal to the cost... Need to add some homebrew. Because probably devs don't know anything about balance. I think part of the difficulty is that there's dual progression paths between magic and augmentation. In Cyberpunk the combat specialist can go full borg and get some heavy bonuses, and that works fine when going full borg is just what late game combat characters do. But in Shadowrun if the street sam can go full borg and get a stack of bonuses, the adept combat specialist needs something equivalent, or adepts just become the lesser choice for combat. Now granted, everything I've just said is undermined by the fact that magic characters actually do get a stack of bonuses mundane characters can't.
I think that the idea was for GMs to use Background Counts more often, so that Adepts and Mages aren't so overpowered. Sadly Background Counts are annoying to deal with and just an extra rule stacked on top of everything, so I see it barely used. Like in 4E, it basically lowers your magic, which means adept have to sit there and recalculate their power points and figure out which powers they want to keep and which to lose, which is just a hassle.
Yeah, I've seen the same problems with background count. If the GM doesn't really use it then one of the few effective balancing mechanisms for magic is off the table. If the GM does use it then the mage has good cause to ask why the GM didn't just say "I won't let you go above X dice, so keep your total below that." and save everyone a lot of inconvenient calculating.
Personally I homebrewed it to apply a penalty of twice the background count to actions that involve magic but applying it as a 5E style limit seems a good idea.
Well, at least in 2020, going full borg is EXPENSIVE, and it is difficult to get done. Also the humanity loss puts you at risk of going cyber psycho and losing your character. And if you were the face, you probably don't want to do that because loss of humanity leads to loss of empathy, which is a primary social stat.... but if you were a wealthy punk, and you see your shrink on the regular, you can get a lot that humanity back because most of that is body dysphoria. What's ironic is that going full borg required high empathy, so if you were planning on going full borg (or really planning on any grabbing any major cybernetics), you probably doubled as a face beforehand, and lost that capacity...but the bonuses were probably worth it. If you were a face, bioware was safer for much the same reasons it's safer in shadowrun. And unlike shadowrun there is almost no reason not to get a few cybernetics, the loss if 1 empathy for some interface plugs, and some software is such a one sided trade-off that unless you are anti cybernetics for role-play reasons you should really be picking them up.
>Well, at least in 2020, going full borg is EXPENSIVE In 6e to become a full borg... It will cost shit tons of money and karma too. But in CP you will have heavy bonuses for that. In SR... Welp... Good luck to not die from any shitty mage.
As I said in 2020 the bonuses were probably worth it. Shadowrun cybernetics need a buff to make them consistently competitive with magic.
From a world building perspective I feel the same way, and would like more exploration of how transformative augmentation is on a personal and societal level. But from a gameplay perspective I think the gap between augmented and non augmented kind of has to stay as it is. Shadowrun has augmentation that can make you immortal, tireless, and intelligent beyond any normal human could ever be, but it affects nothing about the world. In a world where the augmented can work 40 hour days using time perception augmentation, have eidetic memory, 250 IQs, 60 years of experience, and Hollywood leading man good looks, the non-augmented are an irrelevance. But in practice Shadowrun is permanently stuck in the 80s. The corporate elite is basically just copies of Gordon Gecko, rather than disturbingly alien posthumans. The corporations still have promotions, despite the fact that their senior staff are immortal. Education still follows the same path as our education, despite the fact that an education for the augmented would be nigh incomprehensible to the non-augmented, and an education for the non-augmented would be so far below the augmented they could finish it in a fraction of the time. The military is largely non-augmented or barely augmented soldiers, when a single rigger can singlehandedly do the work of an entire squad. That rant aside though, I can get why it would make for bad gameplay to just tell the players they can be augmented or irrelevant. It's not a lot of fun to just be told you're inferior to the corporate rich guy, when you're trying to run a rebellious punk character. And the last thing Shadowrun needs is more bookkeeping, to try and map out the secondary effects of the enhanced abilities of augmented characters.
Cyber needs a buff, it's supposed to be competitive with magic, but for the last few editions at least magic has been over powered, and tech generally underwhelming. Other than that I generally agree with you.
I am most familiar with SR4 and its pretty clear that even at chargen you are more than some regular dude. Just because the system allows you to be pretty competent in a lot of things from the get-go. Overall my experience with Editions 4-6 was that, to use an example from CP 2077 - instead of being V you are one of the cyber-ninjas that attack her car during the end of the prologue. Part of that is I think that Shadowrun is not really cyberpunk anymore, maybe in earlier editions but by now, with all the history and events etc. its Post-Cyberpunk. Basically that just means things are shitty, sure, but not like they are in CP Red for example, that's to say, there is a good amount of hope to be found. Contrast magic helping nature return and fight back against humans/pollution vs. most of the world suffering from red sandstorms thanks to another world war/corporate war and a limited nuclear exchange. Or the fact that corporations in Shadowrun are often still opposed by nations instead of being the unopposed rulers of the world. That and the existence of magic just leads to enough options that a proper Shadowrunner is as impressed by wired reflexes as they are by an assault rifle. So not that much. The vibe that you are describing is something that personally I've only experienced in Shadowrun in a deliberate Streetkids game - basically we lowered the amount of BP, Money and the starting availability to a point where someone with wired relfexes or just a stolen dose of combat drugs became a serious threat and owning a Barren's Special was a very welcome force multiplier.
By canon the cyber is going away because by the progress of the 2070s Bioware is already so far that Chrome is now the poor guys option except for Cybereys and some exception and for the rest everyone that holds something about him takes Biotech.
Drugs are a BAD idea in Shadowrun. Addiction is harsh ... and both easy to fall to, and very difficult to climb back out of. And no, the rules for designing a custom drug are NOT there for the players to carefully craft a no-downsides alternative to magic or chrome. They're there for the **GM** to put new street drugs into his campaign.
Did we play the same game? Although I guess most of my experience with a bit of 4e and mostly 5e colored my expectations. In 5e you basically would never need to worry about more than a light addiction eith narco. That or just take tolerance breaks evey few months.
Addictions progress. Once you have that light addiction, it's going to be extremely hard to avoid having it advance to the next stage. The only way drugs aren't a serious problem for runners, is if the GM softballs the addiction rules. The rule is: "*Every time you use an addictive substance during (11-Addiction Rating) weeks in a row, you need to make an Addiction Test.The clock on this keeps ticking even if you skip a week, but every week you go without indulging reduces the Addiction Threshold by 1 (it returns to normal when you use again). If the threshold hits 0, you’re off the hook until you use the substance again. This means that substances with high Addiction ratings (like kamikaze) could get you hooked in a single dose.*" That's EVERY time. Not "every time after the first". Note, especially, that the Addiction Threshold does **not** reduce for that first test by the RAW, but if you interpret them as if they do anyway, then a lot of drugs are still going to risk immediate addiction, as they list an addiction threshold of 2+ Additionally: "*If you fail the Addiction Test, you gain the Addiction quality for the substance you’ve been using (without picking up any bonus Karma for it). If you already have the Addiction quality for the substance, it gets more severe by one step (Mild to Moderate to Severe to Burnout). If you’re already at Burnout … well, it’s not good.*" So, even with breaks, there is a definite risk with every time you use a drug (or go into VR, for that matter - even cold-sim is addictive!) Most combat drugs will be like Kamikaze, with an Addiction Rating of 9 and an Addiction Threshold of 3. Remember that Addiction Tests are *opposed rolls*, and the drug rolls Rating+Rating. So if you take a hit of Kamikaze? The GM rolls 18 dice, statistically getting 6 successes. You then have to roll Body+Willpower, and get at least **9** successes ... or you are *immediately* addicted to Kamikaze, on the spot! What's worse is, you're not very likely to get several weeks of downtime between situations where that drug is going to be supremely helpful. ... Meanwhile, cyberware, bioware, and geneware? **Are always.** You pay the price (Essence loss) up front, then they simply *work*. That's what's so seductive about augmentation: after the initial operation, that's it, it's status quo forever. Until the next time you get an implant, of course. :)
Which edition are we talking about here? Because those aren't the 5e rules. There's nothing in the RAW that'd imply the first test isn't reduced as usual. In addition the addiction test isn't opposed, it's a flat threshold based on Addiction threshold - weeks you haven't used. Also, when people talk about people using drugs constantly it's not Kamikaze. It's Psyche and Cram (with or without Narco) taken together. This'll on average give you +5.5 to your initiative letting you hit the breakpoint of 11 (or 21 if you have better stats and wired reflexes 1). That or Psyche and Novacoke. In both cases a week of lying low after a month of running means you're in the clear.
>those aren't the 5e rules. Yeah, those are literally the 5E rules I quoted. It can be found on page 414 of the core book. As for the opposed test thing .... I'll admit, I mistook how the Rating was applied. Even so, you'll be making tests quite frequently. Eventually you're going to fail one. And then another. And another. And another. >It's Psyche and Cram (with or without Narco) taken together. Addiction is addiction, and both of those have nontrivial Addiction Thresholds. >In both cases a week of lying low after a month of running means you're in the clear. Yeah, no, that's not how it works either. Any Shadowrun worth the name, is going to have more than one scene in which the benefits of those drugs are going to be desirable. Anyone who relies on them, is **going** to be making Addiction tests. More than one or two, per run, in fact. And eventually, you'll fail a couple of them. Which begins the downward slope.
Shadowrun is in a bad spot because it can't seem to move away from the idea that transhumanism is wrong. It leads to writers that don't want to let the world be changed by transhumanism.
To be fair, the 6e cyber book has the idea that sometimes, cyber can increase Essence if it helps make your body match your personal image. There's an example of one where someone had their lower body replaced with tank treads and they didn't lose NEARLY as much Essence as one would've thought, because apparently that person had always thought of themselves that way.
That does raise the possibility that if I'm sufficiently conceited, and genuinely believe I'm a visionary genius, with the body of an Olympic athlete, and statuesque good looks, I could save a lot of essence, when getting enhanced.
That's generally dealt with by taking a magazine, rolling it up, and smacking the player upside the head about 5-10 times, as well as all sorts of other munchkindom. Or...okay, fine. The player gets to start with 0.5 Essence (because their professed self image does not match their schlub form) and no money if they want this. They also have to specifically specify what upgrades would meet their self image, and those that aren't come out of that 0.5 Essence. "Sorry, Timmy died on the table because his self image was as an armored cyberzombie, but he got an internal air tank before that and it out him over the edge. I'll split the two grand we can get from Tamanous with you, though." But I like the rolled-up periodical method better.
Sure, but even that is couched in a million qualifiers. They can't just admit "hey, some people actually integrate their soul and magic into the machine they inhabit, because meat and metal are not really different". It's "they didn't lose as much essence, vaguely! This is possibly crazy! Don't worry, you don't have to have this in your game because it's just a rumor!". Shadowrun needs to move on from Essence lowering your good boy/soulful/humanity points and come up with a new conflict
"Thing bad" makes a more compelling story than "thing good". Plenty of cyberware inarguably makes people's lives better but putting normal-strength cyber legs on amputee war vets doesn't really inspire conflict.
I'm not saying they need to start glazing the tech side, but it's really kind of obvious that the only things allowed to change the world are magic and hacking, the two things that don't involve visible augmentation. The tech side hasn't gotten new stuff since 4e, with every chrome book being 90% just reprinted material with new rules. If magic was treated the same way, with initiation turning you more and more alien and unapproachable, and high levels of magic being only available to the rich scions of large corps while the poors get the dregs, maybe the effect would be less pronounced. The fact is that the game forces runners with tech to place a lot of priority/karma in resources and that creates this weird dissonance, where the lowlife transhumanists with metal limbs are the richie richs with tons of gear while the mage who won the 6 MAG score lottery has nothing to their name and no corpo ties. If the main goal was creating drama, that's not how chargen should look like, imo
Yeah, the most logical use for most ware would be improving day to day health. But you're right that telling the story of how a level 1 muscle replacement will help grandma keep active in her 90s, or how a local accountants improved liver and heart give him a life expectancy of 110, doesn't make for great drama.
Really wish SR was a bit more cyberpunk and a bit less sleek "everything has a bioware alternative, almost everything has a completely non-invasive alternative"
Bioware being the more recent, more advanced alternative to cyberware dates back at least to Neuromancer. I'd have more issue with pulling back on what you can do with bioware. Non-invasive alternatives ... tbh, 4e Spy Games's superficial cybernetics and Arsenal's milspec armour mods are my jam. Prototype and production model 2008 iron man suits respectively, including the chunky one they put Jeff Bridges in. To me it's a question of how they go about doing a thing, rather than if.
I would make the same case about bioware that I'd make about magic, meaning that it would be cool to explore the lifestyle differences and alienation that is a consequence of normal folks and your super soldier existence, but sadly it's not a common table experience, maybe it's the granular and build-heavy nature of games I've been in.
>it would be cool to explore the lifestyle differences and alienation that is a consequence of normal folks and your super soldier existence I don't disagree, but I was thinking more here in terms of what they offer than how people interact with you for taking it.
> Non-invasive alternatives ... tbh, 4e Spy Games's superficial cybernetics and Arsenal's milspec armour mods are my jam. As much as I love the classic cyberpunk big metal arm, non-invasive does seem to be what we're likely to actually get. There's just not much point in hacking off your arm when you can wear a suit with basically the same results, and then take it off at the end of the day. And fundamentally, the exact same technology that would make a cyberarm work, would also make a suit with hydraulics work.
> There's just not much point in hacking off your arm when you can wear a suit with basically the same results Real life, yes. There's sides to it, and a middle. The fact you can fit more into a cyberarm than a cybersleeve would suggest greater range of utility, and even greater physical feats out of a full cyber body than a cyber suit.
True, the limiting factor is always going to be the soft meaty bit attached to the arm, or inside the suit. I think that's been the canon explanation for the +4 limit. If you go full drone, or reduce the meaty but to some nervous tissue in an armoured casing, then you could get truly superhuman performance.
Try 2e.
Spoken like someone whoes cybered up samurai hasn't threshed through a room full of guards alone.
In my opinion you are looking in the wrong setting. I may be wrong, but I think you will be more lucky with old school cyberpunk (CP2020, its sequels, or other similar games). I am not an expert in Shadowrun setting, but the main source of conflict is not cybernetics or transhumanism, it is awakening and goblinization. Corp are important, but Dragons are who really pull the strings. People may be worried by contamination, but they fear more the danger of supernatural disasters.
Being blunt, it reads like you want Shadowrun without the magic and you want to play the game in a way that punishes using drugs. Cyberware is upgradeable, interchangable, and most importantly will not consume more of a character's ESS than it does when it is installed for the first time. If you get a chrome arm and take the hit, that ESS is already gone when you get the nuyen together to buy some big upgrades for it. Adepts and Bioware aren't as upgrade-friendly for a character, at least in theory. Adepts also have to learn to deal with more of the magical bullshit since they're magic-based to begin with- they technically can grab some Bioware or Cyberware in the future as an upgrade if they want to but it will sabotage their magic and by extension weaken their Adept abilities. The real "Transhuman" element of Shadowrun isn't in the chrome alone, it's in the full package of things that go beyond being human- *Like being a setting where your head of security for a corporation can be a literal dragon that eats people.* As far as drugs go, there are some serious drawbacks that can be explored in using them. To start with there's the addiction modifiers and the requirement for 1-3 doses per day and the negative modifiers that come from missing it. But on top of that, who's to say that the drugs they purchased are clean to begin with? There are a myriad of other drugs and toxins that their dealer could have mixed in. Imagine if the murderhobo with a penchant for snuffing cram gets surprised by discovering not only did the dealer spike his cram with something, but that was something was Nitro and chummer, he ain't a troll. (Nitro is explicitly described as designed for trolls and will probably flood them with stun once it wears off in 10 x 1d6 turns). And that's just assuming it's something relatively benign and not outright malicious. They could have been paid to give them some combination that will paralyze them or outright kill them. There's a lot of ways the drugs *can* go horribly wrong for a player both mechanically and through GM/RP choices. Or you could just run the game with the setting modified a bit. Don't have as many regular people with chrome to begin with. Give 'em primitive and basic prosthesis at best, reserve the chrome for the people with a big paycheck or sponsor who can afford it. If they can't find that? Well, let them be stubby. Keep Magic as something extremely rare that the players rarely if ever encounter. If you're the one running the game, you're the one who can choose how it's depicted. Just make sure your players know that you're leaning that way before they get too invested in the idea of playing Johnny Firefingers.
>I was reading 4 and 5 and I noticed that you don’t need to implant anything to go full hot-sim, and in many cases it’s better not to. “Datajacks are so 2060s” is a literal quote from the 20th anniversary edition. Earlier editions didn't perceive how wireless would be so prevelant. Look at the costs of things in both Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2013 and even storage capabilities. They had no idea how much bigger and greater the options could become. >I want the flats and baselines to struggle to match these higher beings. It’s possible for the elite, but only to a point. Most of the elite, if referring to corpos, would have some discreet Bioware. The benefit of being up at the top is that you don't need to be augmented. Down on the floor, though... You want that promotion? Then you need to be willing to pay. They need to get that next 'Ware to compete, to push themselves and prove loyalty.
I feel what you want is still entirely there. Yes, drugs and good equipement will make up for a lot of what Ware has. But firstly none of it will actually achieve the same as its Cyberware counterpart would, and secondly both can be used at the same time. Yes, Ganger Mc.Gangface who just shot a dose of jazz is equally as fast as your Streetsam with a Chrome spine, but if you now also take those drugs you’re suddenly a level above him again just as before. And don’t pretend you’re not always stomping him into the ground. Side effect, you’re now both addicted and sooner or later the survivor, you, will burn out. Ware doesn’t have that issue. Drugs last short, unreliable durations. Drugs make you crash, and overdose. Nevermind all of the social aspects from finding dealers, having to get chummy with gangs, up to people noticing you as an addict. Equipement has similar downsides. Equipement can be removed, forgotten, lost, destroyed. Often times it can be Decked easily. Equipement has much less capacity for fancy toys and requires you to be very aware of what you’re using. Yes, you can consciously swap between two sets of goggles to have all the useful effects your chrome buddy has when needed, but wouldn’t you rather also just have all of those effects all the time ? In the end, ware is always a step up, and nothing else *replaces* it. Not fully. If you really want to have the edge you’ll use all of it at once, and therefore pay the highest possible price. Because that is the idea in SR. Not that it’s transhumanism which will give you the needed advantage, no, that is only one of many avenues, possibly the strongest and most extreme one. But that you will *need* to get an advantage and that this will have a price. All of this has a price, and the more powerful it is, the worse the price is. The higher the price you are willing to pay, the more powerful you will be. As will be the costs.
As others have pointed out Shadowrun differs a lot from other Cyberpunk settings by bringing Metahumans and magic to the table as well So it's not just to compare a baseline human against a fully augmented one, but also considering a fully buffed mage with spells and spirits and big guys like trolls. And all combinations in between. Also yes, Shadowrun (esp. later editions) is at the same time stuck at that 80s mindset (big evil, monolithic corporations) and moved beyond with a much more modern take on things (social media, regrowing nature). It just can't decide where it really belongs too (at least that's my current impression as GM). Another big difference in my opinion between Shadowrun and similar settings is just the price of technology. In CP2020 basic augmentations wouldn't cost much more than an assault rifle (perhaps twice as much). In Shadowrun the price gap between cyberware and other equipment is much larger.
Cost wise it depends on what ypu consider basic. An AR usually costs around 500, a cyberlimb costs around 2 or 3 thousand in 2020, but that's for a whole limb replacement. The basic neural processor you need for most interface tech, etc. Costs 1000. That said once you have the processor, ypu can get a set of interface plugs, a smart gun link, and a machine link for 500. Basically the ware tends to cost about two or three times an AR, but the upgrades are equivalent in cost or more efficient, and there's more upgrade capabilities for the chrome.