[Elizara Dane]

Sorry to interject as this may not be entirely on topic to the subject of the potential OPness of cyberlimbs. As I player, when I consider the option of dumping stats in favor of enhanced limbs I always remember the potential of my GM to include a mage/mystic adept with the Decrease Attribute spell. If the GM ever feels that a street sam or mega-arm decker is abusing the system by dumping physical stats a single touch spell specialized mage can shut them down with an embarrassingly low force spell. This is also one of the reasons that I'm completely loathe to ever use cyberlimbs.

[Medicineman]

You're right Elizara, but this can also happen to the Troll Adept with a low CHA or the ...Elfen Decker with a low KON
(just as an example)
bytheway Lower Attribute CHA is one of my favorite defense Spells for a Healer Mage
Lots of combat orientated Chars ( especially Orks & Trolls) are quite susceptible to that Spell

HougH!
Medicineman

[ProfessorCirno]

I've already stated that partial cyberlimbs are an issue mostly because they're crowbar'd into the full limb rules without counterbalancing for them.  If you have an issue with those, that's a different thing altogether.

But spending a full point of essence and a grip of nuyen to improve one skill?  Sorry, I don't see that as being overpowered at all.  My decker still has 2 Agility, something that's absolutely come up to bite him.  He just happens to be good at shooting his pistol or throwing his molotovs/jammers.

Nor, incidentally, is the cyberarm in any way equivalent to the adept power.  The cyberarm brings you to one point below max.  The adept power brings you OVER the max, beyond what any amount of 'ware can do for you.

All you'd do is render cyberarms useless.

No, cyber arms just wouldn't be "OMGWTFBBQ, practically all hackers pick one up" kind of good the way they are now (though hackers don't need to even know how to use a gun anymore with how they can now completely shut down a Street Sam without leaving the van).

Name literally any character that would willingly give up a full point of essence and a grip of nuyen in order to get an arm that is objectively worse then their normal limitations.

[Reaver]

A mundane,  with dump stats of strength or agility..... like a rigger or a decker?


Someone in a limited adventure might do so for a combat character, since they will never reach the augment max for either stat anyway....

[WellsIDidIt]

The problem with that is that the arm o' doom doesn't really let them compete in combat in that case. It let's them shoot a bit better, but they'll still get slaughtered. It pretty much just works as a last ditch effort for them, and that's the way the cyberarm works for them normally. There is no issue with the normal rules other than people OMG he's skipping 25 karma (not really accurate as the 25 karma would have applied to everything not just the arm, so it's really more like 6.25 karma since you're getting a quarter of the benefit).

[Xenon]

1(2) agility + 6 in automatics  with a sub machine pistol specialization give you a dice pool of 10 dice.
...a cyberarm with 6(9) give you a dice pool of 17 dice. that is a 7 dice pool increase.

That would be 114 Karma worth of dice if you were to sink in into Automatics skill or 135 Karma +1 more point of muscle toner or muscle replacement if you get it from attributes (but that would also give you faster movement rate and higher skill pools for other physical skills other than one handed firearms skills so it is not really comparable).

To get that +7 dice pool increase from other sources than a cyberarm you would have to spend quite a lot of karma, money or power points...

(again, everything have a price... just that the price for this +7 dice pool positive modifier is too low).




(...and with the +11 armor we talked about earlier... and an armored jacked + a helmet you have an armor rating of 25 armor; that is far from fragile. Not sure why you think he would be slaughtered)

[WellsIDidIt]

All the others affect all automatics skill uses or all agility uses.

Again, not that big of a deal since the arm is only affecting part of the uses..

Take a look at visual enhancement. It gives what, a +1 bonus per 500 nuyen. It's capped by capacity pretty much, but a +6 to your visual perception only costs 3k. Similar costs there, but very cheap as it's only to part of the skill's use.

[SichoPhiend]

Here is another question about cyberlimbs, this time when interacting with magic, please bear with me

How might the increased attribute spell affect a cyberlimb, if at all?

The spell itself requires that its force be at least equal to the augmented attribute, but a limb is not an augmented attribute, so what happens in the following circumstances

Character with STR 4 and a limb STR 5, receives an increased ATT STR spell cast at force 4 (Should be no brainer, only increases natural STR possibly making the cyberlimb the weak limb), but what if cast at force 5, could it increase the cyberlimb STR as well? (You have paid essence for it)  If so, would it receive the same increase, thus staying 1 point above the new augmented value, or would it only increase to match the new augmented STR?
i.e. The mage increases the characters STR by 3 to a total STR of 4(7) for the character, would the limb (If cast at force 5) still be at STR 5, equal the augmented STR at 7, or get it's own 3 added to reach 8.

I would ask for your opinions/official answers first, followed by (If you must) how this increasingly cheesifies the now AGI 1(5) character with a cyberlimb agility at 9.

And FYI, I am considering this in regards to my own cyberlimbed mage with a natural agility of 5, but a higher agility in her arm after she is able to upgrade to the shiny new betagrade model.

[WellsIDidIt]

It shouldn't affect the cyberarm at all, because the arm is not the subject, the person is the subject.

The spell increases the subjects attribute, not the arm's attribute. "Cyberlimbs have their own Strength and Agility ratings." A character with a Str. 5 cyberarm never actually has that Str 5 (unless his actual Str is 5). Instead he uses the limbs attribute in place of his own ("When a particular limb is used for a test (such as
leading an attack with your cyberarm), use the attribute for that limb (natural or cyber)"), averages it into his own, or takes the lowest of it or his own.

He paid essence for the limb, not the limbs customization or enhancements.

[Michael Chandra]

Here is another question about cyberlimbs, this time when interacting with magic, please bear with me

How might the increased attribute spell affect a cyberlimb, if at all?

Not at all. It only increases your own Attributes, not that of the cyberlimb. The cyberlimb's stats are unrelated to your own after all.

[Anarkitty]

In other words, that is another balancing downside.  You can't benefit from other attribute enhancers, since they don't affect the limb.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Funny how the biggest and most stalwart defenders of the ludicrous price hikes on a number of other implants are also the most stalwart defenders of what has been the single largest loophole exploit in the entire game for going on at least two editions now.

Lets put it this way, if cyber limbs are somehow not a problem in their current state, that is more than proof that the Mystic Adept "errata" was even more unnecessary.

Not really.  Cyberarms are only broken if you make an abusive build, mystic adepts were broken unless you went out of your way to build a weak character.

Still I'd be okay if cyberarms got changed, the benefit should not be smaller for the archetypical chromed street sam than it is for the decker. Sure tie it to your normal stats, but instead of a +3 enhancement max make it +5 allowing it to break the augmented limit.  A cyberarm should beat a meat arm even a biotech meat arm. 

[SichoPhiend]

WellsIDidIt and Michael, thank you for the quick answer, they agree with my initial gut feeling but I lacked a good explanation as to why that would be the case.

[ProfessorCirno]

Still I'd be okay if cyberarms got changed, the benefit should not be smaller for the archetypical chromed street sam than it is for the decker. Sure tie it to your normal stats, but instead of a +3 enhancement max make it +5 allowing it to break the augmented limit.  A cyberarm should beat a meat arm even a biotech meat arm.

Honestly I feel like just allowing it to go to +4 but starting at your base stats would be enough, maybe give them slightly more room to stuff things in.  Sammies with strength 6 can hit strength 10 with the arm and pack in a bunch of armor and agility and all the wonderful gizmos and gadgets and don't have to pay a bunch extra just to meet they're pre-existing stats, the decker with agility 2 is limited to 6 rather then 9, and either way it only applies to the one limb so bioware still very definitely has a place.

[martinchaen]

ProfessorCirno
That's the smoothest solution I've seen yet. An AGI 1 character would have to customize the arm up to 6, then enhance it to 10 to max it out, essentially using 9 of 15 cap and a ton of nuyen to do so.

Elegant, I like it.

Difference between current and proposed maxed out single arm for a low agility character (since this is what some people keep harping on about):
Currently, a standard grade obvious arm is 15k and 1 Essence, and starts at AGI/STR3 with an availability of 4.
Each customization for AGI or STR costs +5000 nuyen and adds 1 availability.
Each enhancement for AGI or STR costs 6500 nuyen and has it's own availability.

A standard grade obvious cyberarm with AGI9 thus costs 15000+(3*5000=15000)+(3*6500=19500)=49500 (ironically the same as the cheapest deck), and has an availability of 4+(3*1)=7, and 9R for the enhancements.

Under the proposed changes, the same arm, assuming AGI1, would cost 15000+(5*5000=25000)+(3*6500=19500)=59500 with an availability of 9 and 9R. This is the equivalent of 29.75 karma (using the karma to nuyen conversion ratio of 1:2000), and the character could add an additional AGI1 for 6500 nuyen more, but the enhancement would then be 12R.

I would propose making the enhancements (4 x Rating)R under this system, as well as make customization take up capacity as well. Unlike under the current rules, the AGI1 character will have to spend 9 capacity, vs an AGI 6 character only needing to spend 4 capacity to get to AGI 10, as well as significantly less nuyen. It also takes care of trolls and orks getting a little more bang for their buck, and ensures they can buy more appropriate limbs at chargen without resorting to used grade.

Cheers, ProfessorCirno, I think your proposed change balances the cost of cybernetics nicely. I might very well propose this as a houserule;