[pts]

Hi there, i'd like to get my decker into combat a bit, however he is in a electric wheelchair, so i was thinking i could attach some riot shields to the sides for somewhat better armor without adding to much bulk. Do you think this is viable ? I'd be also grateful for any otherother combat survival ideas for a guy in a wheelchair...

[Csjarrat]

lol, you mean like this thing?

a rocket powered combat wheelchair from the universally awful film: Steel.

in all seriousness, don't mod a standard wheelchair for combat.
There is a personal mobility vehicle "Daihatsu-Caterpillar Horseman (PMV)" in arsenal
that can be used for this kind of role.
mod it with plenty of armour and a rigger cocoon to keep you even safer, maybe stick a concealed weapon mount on there and the mechanical arm module (to press buttons and such) and you're in a much better postion than duct-taping riot shields onto a wheelchair.

[Michael Chandra]

I'd go with the Arsenal thing, yes. Since it's not a massive vehicle thing with really complicated abilities, it should be quite doable to temporarily convert to SR5.

[firebug]

Riot shields to a wheel chair...?  XD

While making one of the PMV's from 4th edition's Arsenal into a combat rig would totally work and be viable, if your character is physically crippled and good with tech, I don't see why you don't just get him a drone he can use instead of going in himself?  You don't need to be a hard-core rigger to make good use of a single MCT-Nissan Roto-Drone.  Buy one, invest a few points in the appropriate Pilot skill, a few in Gunnery, and mount a shotgun on the thing.  It won't be a walking tank, but by making use of its sensors to see, hear, and possibly even smell out of it, you're prettymuch "there" with your group even without needing to be jumped in.

It's considerably more vulnerable than suping up a vehicle, but at the same time, it's much cheaper, and doesn't require the crippled man to get into a gunfight in order to contribute to combat.  Keep in mind that it even going with the "wheel chair tank" idea would still require him to learn at least Gunnery (assuming he has Pilot (Groundcraft) already).  If you didn't wanna learn a new pilot skill, there's a few other drones you could use instead.

[The other Bandit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39JWZUcDbL0

And that one is old old old news!

Today there are plenty of powered wheelchairs out there employing Segway style two wheel drive while being able to tackle very rough terrain, great inclines and even stairs.

I cannot even start to imagine what those things could do with riggercontrol in the 2070´s !!!

My proposal? Go nuts with the concept!

[martinchaen]

Or convert some Renraku-3 Manservants into the Homeland drones from Elysium, and give them HK-227X' or AK-97s

[The other Bandit]

Hm or why not just walk yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp4XUvgqkbU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8VhW9JIwUk

Interesting stuff out there! I think that whole powered exoskeleton stuff is seriously underrepresented in Shadowrun.

[firebug]

Interesting stuff out there! I think that whole powered exoskeleton stuff is seriously underrepresented in Shadowrun.

Indeed.  I think there was one exoskeleton in 4th.  Though in general, they don't come up because other augmentations exist.  Can't walk?  Get cyberlegs.  Need help moving?  Muscle Replacement or Muscle Augmentation can give your body the strength required.  While an exoskeleton would be less invasive (obviously) it would also be incredibly unsubtle, awkward, and likely get in the way.  Also probably rather fragile.  Likely more of a temporary solution.

[martinchaen]

Drones don't technically have seating capacity. The only exoskeleton in SR4 is in Attitude, and is called the Iron Will. It is also severely lacking in terms of use, as it is is missing several key stats. In short, it seems as if the designers took the exosuit from Aliens and applied some very basic rules to it.

Attitude has this to say.

Manhattan’s unionized dockworkers used the Iron Will hydraulic exoskeleton when they were loading and unloading cargo in the early ‘30s and ‘40s. It’s kind of like a manservant drone, but you wear it. As the prices of augmentations and drones dropped, things like the Iron Will became less popular, and now there’s maybe two hundred still in use.

Iron Will is an exoskeleton used to augment the user’s strength for laborious tasks. it is 2.5 meters tall and weighs 200 kg. it has no autonomy, nor was it built for any remote piloting. When worn, treat the wearer’s strength as 8, but reduce their agility by 1. iron Will can be treated as a vehicle for upgrades.

Unfortunately, while it can be treated like a vehicle for upgrades, it has no Acceleration and Speed ratings, and no pilot capabilities.

[The other Bandit]

Interesting that it uses hydraulics. I would imagine in 2070 you could make it cheaper and more efficient by using industrial size myomer muscles (like cheap offshots of the cyberware).

About the fragility and being unsubtle, well depends on what you want to do with them. There are subtle cyberarms out there, giving you normal strength and agility plus maybe some gadgets and there are unsubtle highly modified obvious cyberarms with armor, gyrostabilisation and troll-plus-power.
Same could go for exoskeletons. With drawbacks of course, running around in 40 pounds of shotup powered down exoskeleton would be a pain indeed ^^

I had the chance to see a newer version of a japanese exoskeleton in real life just two years ago on a convention for rehabilitation technology in germany.
It was meant for nurses to help move patients more easily and to avert chronic back problems that come with the job. It was a pretty slick and still sturdy design from what I could see.

It may just be another angle to achieve the same things in Shadowrun but I always love to have options. Maybe some players  just do not like the idea of cybering up to build their combat character and like the visual concept of exoware. Not better but just different.

[pts]

Thank you for all your suggestions! To be more precise he is a 5E Decker/Mage,a little bit inspired by Professor X :-). Btw. i didn't get a negative quality or Karma, just left his body attributes a 1 and RP his inability to move on his own...

He doesn't have to be a really active combatant, but the DM insisted he has to be able to get physically into the action.

Due to magic, cyberware would be really bad. However, other than some armor, he doesn't need things like a robot arm (-> magic fingers) or a weapon (-> spells), so a slightly modded wheelchair would be sufficient.

The 4e PMCs are supposed to be bulky and iirc (i don't have the book in front of me) they are very bad at moving up stairs / through rough terrain.

My DM approved an iBot-like wheelchair, the same one that is available today, just a bit lighter, with better speed and better battery time. I don't think he will approve an exoskeleton and would consider that cheating, i will have to suffer a bit for my low physical stats from time to time (his words ;-))

I imagined a retractable riot-shield-like protection on the sides and on the front, normally just covering the wheels and his feet, that can be raised to double/triple height (to a height similar of a real riot shield) in case of combat

[martinchaen]

The other Bandit
My point is, ruleswise nothing exists. If you're creating something from scratch, sure, that's a different story. Most characters won't have the technical know-how to engineer something like that, however, and at that point cost effectiveness is dramatically lessened. Prototyping a one-off item is always going to be more expensive than current generation tech, so why spend time and effort on building something that's going to be more expensive when you can just get existing cybernetics?

Yes, there are subtle cyberarms out there, but we're now talking about an exoskeleton. The Iron Will reminds me of the hydraulic lifter exosuit from Aliens, and that's definitely not subtle. Could you make something that was more 2070's in terms of technological advancement? Sure. But there's no market for it; the description of the Iron Will says so.

pts
You can give the existing vehicles (the Daihatsu-Caterpillar Horseman comes to mind) the personal armor upgrade and walker mode upgrades, and roll around in it like a boss. This would allow you to roll down the window (personal armor somewhat counting as worn armor but without the encumbrance) to cast spells, and walker mode allows you to easily traverse steps.

Presto!

Alternatively, the Transys Steed and Evo Orderly are close approximations to what you're looking for.

The Steed is the drone version of a powered wheelchair. It includes a joystick on the armrest for manual control, but is usually controlled by a drone autopilot to transport handicapped persons. Its lightweight construction allows it to be folded away and stored in a small compartment, and it is equipped with smart tires (p. 106), allowing it to move up and down stairways. While mostly in use for patients who are unable to walk or unable to manually control a standard wheelchair, the Steed has also become popular with shadowrunners—namely astral projecting magicians and VR-using hackers—who would otherwise be unable to keep up with their team. Another application seen in the field has been the transportation of wounded runners or tranquilized prisoners. When not being used as a wheelchair, the drone can fold its seat away and be used as a basic recon drone or to carry items.

The Orderly has sensitive touch feedback systems to assist fragile elderly, and a built-in medkit to dispense medications as needed. If problems arise, a rigger switches control of the drone to an offsite doctor so that a single doctor can be on-call for hundreds of patients simultaneously. The rigger himself does not need any medical knowledge, instead relying on the drone’s medical database until an ambulance can take the elderly to a hospital.

[The other Bandit]

@martinchaen:

You are totaly right there is next to nothing ruleswise, except your example of the Iron Will, I am not denying that.

I just find it interesting that this tech is something that does not pop up in Shadowrun. I imagine that there would be a market between "rip-out-my-natural-muscles-and-replace-them-with-vat-grown-stuff" and "just-put-me-in-a-giant-powerloader-exo-mech" to manualy haul cargo.

Just like the Jim Diving Suit in 3rd edition, which was mostly completely overlooked, but had real awsome (and unsubtle) potential when rigged (enhanced strength, armour, rigger initiative).

On topic @  pts:

Yeah I get your GM´s point   ^^
But something like those shields you mentionend should be doable. If you look up Professer X´s hover chair on google images and just imagine it with the iBot wheels you are pretty much spot on what you want. The legs are covered and the sides leave enough room for some armourplate to pop up.

[Solarious]

This is so weird but I was just getting on to post almost nearly the exact same topic.

Last night I was making a paraplegic (perhaps even quad) adept hacker/rigger and was wondering what to use for a wheelchair.
I was just going to go with a Steel Lynx and count the heavy weapon mount as the seating.

A little off topic- but what would the extra lifestyle cost of being handicapped be?
It has to be something right?

I'm assuming this will be a negative quality down the line but until then do you just go by the rules and ignore anything like that? Seems like a pretty huge disadvantage to take with no real karmic payback.

[Angelone]

Learn levitation to zip around in combat and use the chair to get around normally?