Shadowrun

Shadowrun Play => Character creation and critique => Topic started by: Basic on <05-14-12/0331:00>

Title: Building a Living Brain in a Jar
Post by: Basic on <05-14-12/0331:00>
Don't know where to start wit this character. Its a NPC from my shadowrunning group. This NPC is a living Brain in a jar. Its  there Teams Technomancer. It has no body but mental stats. So how would I go about building this NPC ?

It looks like this at first
(http://www.ltlprints.com/images/0018/3355/183355_tool.png?1275162833)
Then later on its going to become like this
(http://images.wikia.com/fallout/images/0/0f/ThinkTank.png)
Title: Re: Building a Living Brain in a Jar
Post by: JustADude on <05-14-12/0357:53>
Cyborgs. That's pretty much exactly what they are. ;D

EDIT: I dunno about Cyborgs actually having the ability to be genuine Technomancers by RAW... but hey, it's an NPC. Go crazy.
Title: Re: Building a Living Brain in a Jar
Post by: RiggerBob on <05-14-12/0736:41>
There are actual Cyborg Technomancers in Corporate Intrique, Chapter "Freedom, Finally"... experimental and unstable ones, but they exist  8)
Title: Re: Building a Living Brain in a Jar
Post by: Mirikon on <05-14-12/0757:39>
By unstable, he means stark raving mad, with little to no actual intelligence.

As far as cyborgs themselves, the problem you're going to face is that the CCU (your brain-jar) and any drone bodies built to accommodate you are going to be well above the level of where a starting character can afford them, either nuyen-wise or availability-wise.
Title: Re: Building a Living Brain in a Jar
Post by: JustADude on <05-14-12/0808:33>
By unstable, he means stark raving mad, with little to no actual intelligence.

As far as cyborgs themselves, the problem you're going to face is that the CCU (your brain-jar) and any drone bodies built to accommodate you are going to be well above the level of where a starting character can afford them, either nuyen-wise or availability-wise.

He said this guy is a GM-PC to play hacker for the group... I guess since they don't have one?... so еее and availability aren't an issue.
Title: Re: Building a Living Brain in a Jar
Post by: Netzgeist on <05-14-12/0845:26>
As others said, as Brainy there is an NPC, he has no problem with the usual limitations, but if you like to add in-universe coherence to that character, there could be some problems (and a bunch of paths for you to tread for solutions):
- Cyborgs in Shadowrun are usually unstable, since being just an isolated brain is really not a great life prospect and the process to maintain a fragile organ alive on it's own must be all but natural;
- A disembodied brain would usually be a poor 'mancer, cause being turned into a freaking brain in an aquarium does not work miracles on one's "holistic integrity" - i.e., a just-a-brain would have crappy essence, which would make him a bad technomancer - still, there's the precedence on Corporate Intrigue (which are not that great for what yoou have in mind);

Being exceptionally resilient, being an experiment which miraculously make it right (but which is not able to be replicated), being a result of some of the most bizarre SURGE case... all of them are possibilities in which your character could be explained to be as it is.
Title: Re: Building a Living Brain in a Jar
Post by: Thrass on <05-14-12/1259:08>
don't cyber zombies have negative essence.... AND a magic stat of 1 ?
both of which negate the ability to have Resonance??

I'ld imeediately thought of cyberzombies until I read Technomancer...

I'ld basically take a human body, cyber replace everything... then throw away the limbs... you still have a torso connected to your brain ...
If you come out with 1+ Essence build a technomance from there on immersion a couple of times then buy resonance up...

If you want to clone a brain from scratch and start from there...
create an AI adjust them for technomancing and make him run on a (cloned) "biological prozessor" with an incompability to nonbiological prozessors and / or the lack of the ability to switch homes
should be not that much work on the rules front

then maybe put the stuff into a modified cyberzombie brainjar and go on from there...
Title: Re: Building a Living Brain in a Jar
Post by: Pyromaster13 on <05-14-12/1755:16>
don't cyber zombies have negative essence.... AND a magic stat of 1 ?
both of which negate the ability to have Resonance??

We're talking about cyborgs, not cyberzombies; Which are two different things in shadowrun.  I can see how it's easily confused though.
Title: Re: Building a Living Brain in a Jar
Post by: Thrass on <05-14-12/1825:56>
oh yeah... cyborgs... you're right should've read more carefully...
point stays... don't cyberzombie it doesn't work... go cyborg or try to adapt the AI rules
Title: Re: Building a Living Brain in a Jar
Post by: Tsuarok on <05-15-12/0846:34>
So, the in augmentations (p.159) it says that CCUs have an essence of 0.1.  As long as the cyborg has undergone submersion at least once they should be able to maintain their technomancer powers.

EDIT: And on the exact same page, about 2 lines down, it very clearly states that you lose all resonance and magic :-[, so... nevermind, won't work that way.  But, hey, it's an NPC.
Title: Re: Building a Living Brain in a Jar
Post by: ShinigamiWolf on <06-06-12/0013:25>
I am sure this is awfully late for me to be tossing in my two cents...but perhaps a thought along the lines as Infirm patient negative quality (It may not be exactly the situation you want but then there really aren't any rules for this one. Everything would basically be him broadcasting himself into a drone and tagging along that way or jumping from comm link to comm link...it's a thought, no cyberware  needed just 1 body, 1 str, 1 agi, 1 rea, and the rest as you please...or is this a bad idea?
Title: Re: Building a Living Brain in a Jar
Post by: All4BigGuns on <06-06-12/0112:30>
My suggestion is to do this with a standard hacker type rather than a technomancer.  Still a lot of 'hand waving' involved for money and availability, but technomancer would need a lot more for several submersions in order to have a decent resonance to do his job. Either way, I think it might be wise to give your players some extra goodies like maybe upgrading the street sam's implants to beta and giving the mage a couple free initiations to keep things fair since the cyborg has so much extra just being a cyborg.