[Marcus]

For the resource price tag on half a limb averaging isn't going to be worth it. In the most extreme value case which would be 9 aug to 1 natural you will get a 5, aka a 4 die bonus, for .45 E and somewhere around 35kish, depending on your load out. But most cases your going to be looking at 2-3 die bonus. Doing that is not going to push characters into viability; it will simply be a trap option, which is a terrible thing to allow in any rules system.

My method opens a more restricted but much viable set of options. Is it going to make the realism fanatics happy? No. But if you're looking for realism then find a system premised on that; SR isn't, and is not intended to be.

[gradivus]

I didn't say averaging would produce great results...only that I'd allow it.

And while it's expensive for the 2-3 dice... someone might still take it purely because that's his character concept... not everyone or every table min/maxes.

[jim1701]

And, holy shit. Talking about Trolls. Don't they have to pay 100% more for these kind of things? So a Troll wouldn't easily start with such a thing at the beginning of the game, right?

No, the Troll's lifestyle costs double, not their equipment just as Dwarves pay 20% more for their lifestyle.  The original line about gear costs has been errata'd.

[Xenon]

A good house rule is that cyberlimbs start with metatype minimum attribute value plus two (base strength of a troll cybernetic limb will be higher than base strength of a human cybernetic limb).

Another good house rule is that you can only customise the limb up to your natural rating (instead of metatype maximum) and from there enhance the rating by 4 (instead of 3).

...and if you later increase your natural rating then you can customise the limb up to your new natural rating.



This address a few issues
- cybernetic limbs cost for trolls and orcs
- agility 9 arm of death on a low agility decker
- scale post chargen

[Overbyte]

Another good house rule is that you can only customise the limb up to your natural rating (instead of metatype maximum) and from there enhance the rating by 4 (instead of 3).
...and if you later increase your natural rating then you can customise the limb up to your new natural rating.

This address a few issues
- cybernetic limbs cost for trolls and orcs
- agility 9 arm of death on a low agility decker
- scale post chargen

I have that rule. All these characters with Str 1 / Agi 1 and a Agi / Str 9 Cyberarm are just silly IMO.
"Customization" makes much more sense that it customizes to your body. Not to racial maximums.

A good house rule is that cyberlimbs start with metatype minimum attribute value plus two (base strength of a troll cybernetic limb will be higher than base strength of a human cybernetic limb).

The issue with this is that Trolls get really big cyberlimbs for the same price as humans, so I just handle that with Customization, making them pay the extra to get to their natural stats.

[adzling]

seems reasonable to me

If you engaged common sense it would be clear that firing a firearm requires your entire arm at the very least to lift, aim and fire.
If you turn off common sense anything is possible.

Although given the low recoil and lightweight of a light or hold out pistol I would allow you to use it with a cyber forearm.

Personally, I don't see how a fore arm would help in shooting anything, Your forearm is both a lever and a rotation point, as a Lever it is controlled and moved by your upper arm. As a rotation point it allows both sweep and angular movement. while I could see how the ability to sweep would help in some firing situations, I don't see it helping enough to make a statistical difference in a fluid, non static combat situation. Fast draw sweep shooting (standing rooted in one spot, and sweeping the gun side to side at the same elevation) MAYBE. but running, dodging, jumping ducking AND shooting (like most combat situations) I can't see it at all.

I'm thinking a good compromise option for Partial-Arms & Pistols is to treat them the way Full Arms (x2) & Rifles/Melee is done.... IE. Average it.

So a Partial Rt. Arm (ForeArm) with Natural-Agi-3 & Augmented/Enhanced-Agi-9 firing a Pistol is averaged at Agi-6.

This seems, to me, to be a good compromise to the "Partial is Gimp v/s Overpowered" issue.  And matches the way its handled for 2HD items.

Thoughts?

[I_AM_ZHOUL!!!]

A good house rule is that cyberlimbs start with metatype minimum attribute value plus two (base strength of a troll cybernetic limb will be higher than base strength of a human cybernetic limb).

Another good house rule is that you can only customise the limb up to your natural rating (instead of metatype maximum) and from there enhance the rating by 4 (instead of 3).

...and if you later increase your natural rating then you can customise the limb up to your new natural rating.



This address a few issues
- cybernetic limbs cost for trolls and orcs
- agility 9 arm of death on a low agility decker
- scale post chargen

So basically you make Cyberlimbs completely & totally irrelevant. That sucks... the game itself already does a very good job of punishing them except in very niche characters, you smash the niches too. There is very little value for a Street Sam in taking Cyberlimbs currently, that houserule eliminates the Decker or Face Gunarm(s) option as well. Since your Movement is tied to your Natural Agility (without an houserule for both legs counting) & not being factored into Physical Limits so any decent hit is going to knock you down without good stats already. It is much better for a Sam to have good stats and then raise the Stats themselves without sinking the +70,000¥ (×2 for a Sam so they can use 2 handed weapons) (counting the full cost of the extra gizmos) for a Human, more more for Trolls & Orks. Used Muscle Toner 3 costs 72,000¥ & you get that bonus to Movement & Sneaking/Gymnastics tests for only .75 Essence as opposed to 2 Essence needed for Assault Rifles, Longarms, & Heavy Weapons.

So it will cost twice as much to have higher strength (or the same for similar strength scores), some Armor, & a couple neat gizmos at almost double the Essence Cost with a slower movement speed. The Archetype Street Sam is about the best possible example of Cyberlimbs since he is Sword based melee... using a Monofilament Whip makes even that obsolete though.

[Marcus]

I'm thinking a good compromise option for Partial-Arms & Pistols is to treat them the way Full Arms (x2) & Rifles/Melee is done.... IE. Average it.

So a Partial Rt. Arm (ForeArm) with Natural-Agi-3 & Augmented/Enhanced-Agi-9 firing a Pistol is averaged at Agi-6.

This seems, to me, to be a good compromise to the "Partial is Gimp v/s Overpowered" issue.  And matches the way its handled for 2HD items.

Thoughts?

The problem remains, 3 dice for .45 essence and 35k+, and you're still not making the character viable while creating a trap option within the rules. On top of that we still don't know what to do with the hand category. Until all those points are addressed we don't have a useful solution imo.
 

[Reaver]

I guess that depends on your defination of 'viable'....

Not everything has to be about shooting better.

A cyberforearm still provides armor, a place to hide items, the option for a cybergun (if you really HAVE to weaponize it)....

In short, there are plenty of options for partial arms, and no, they don't HAVE to boost your ability to go 'bang'

[Overbyte]

So basically you make Cyberlimbs completely & totally irrelevant. That sucks... the game itself already does a very good job of punishing them except in very niche characters, you smash the niches too. There is very little value for a Street Sam in taking Cyberlimbs currently, that houserule eliminates the Decker or Face Gunarm(s) option as well. Since your Movement is tied to your Natural Agility (without an houserule for both legs counting) & not being factored into Physical Limits so any decent hit is going to knock you down without good stats already. It is much better for a Sam to have good stats and then raise the Stats themselves without sinking the +70,000¥ (×2 for a Sam so they can use 2 handed weapons) (counting the full cost of the extra gizmos) for a Human, more more for Trolls & Orks. Used Muscle Toner 3 costs 72,000¥ & you get that bonus to Movement & Sneaking/Gymnastics tests for only .75 Essence as opposed to 2 Essence needed for Assault Rifles, Longarms, & Heavy Weapons.

So it will cost twice as much to have higher strength (or the same for similar strength scores), some Armor, & a couple neat gizmos at almost double the Essence Cost with a slower movement speed. The Archetype Street Sam is about the best possible example of Cyberlimbs since he is Sword based melee... using a Monofilament Whip makes even that obsolete though.

Although I get what you are saying, I don't reach the same conclusion at all. I find cyberlimbs actually to be quite good if only for the Armor. Your point about multiple limbs is well taken but looking at a single cyberarm for characters that use one-handed weapons it is excellent. For 1 essence you can have +3 agility, +3 strength and +3 armor (+2 at chargen) and then on top of that have other fun toys built in, like cyberguns and spurs without any extra essence cost. Its a fantastic deal.
They may not be the best choice for full body enhancement, but as always.. there are trade-offs.

[I_AM_ZHOUL!!!]

So basically you make Cyberlimbs completely & totally irrelevant. That sucks... the game itself already does a very good job of punishing them except in very niche characters, you smash the niches too. There is very little value for a Street Sam in taking Cyberlimbs currently, that houserule eliminates the Decker or Face Gunarm(s) option as well. Since your Movement is tied to your Natural Agility (without an houserule for both legs counting) & not being factored into Physical Limits so any decent hit is going to knock you down without good stats already. It is much better for a Sam to have good stats and then raise the Stats themselves without sinking the +70,000¥ (×2 for a Sam so they can use 2 handed weapons) (counting the full cost of the extra gizmos) for a Human, more more for Trolls & Orks. Used Muscle Toner 3 costs 72,000¥ & you get that bonus to Movement & Sneaking/Gymnastics tests for only .75 Essence as opposed to 2 Essence needed for Assault Rifles, Longarms, & Heavy Weapons.

So it will cost twice as much to have higher strength (or the same for similar strength scores), some Armor, & a couple neat gizmos at almost double the Essence Cost with a slower movement speed. The Archetype Street Sam is about the best possible example of Cyberlimbs since he is Sword based melee... using a Monofilament Whip makes even that obsolete though.

Although I get what you are saying, I don't reach the same conclusion at all. I find cyberlimbs actually to be quite good if only for the Armor. Your point about multiple limbs is well taken but looking at a single cyberarm for characters that use one-handed weapons it is excellent. For 1 essence you can have +3 agility, +3 strength and +3 armor (+2 at chargen) and then on top of that have other fun toys built in, like cyberguns and spurs without any extra essence cost. Its a fantastic deal.
They may not be the best choice for full body enhancement, but as always.. there are trade-offs.

I agree... it's a good investment for a Decker/Face/Rigger who is going to be a secondary fighter. My point was that Xenon has a houserule that smashes that usefulnes... by limiting the Customization of the Limbs Attributes to the Attributes you currently have then requiring Enhancements to go father, it's better to just boost your Attributes with Used Muscle Toner. Even if you raised your Agility with Karma that'd then require a new customized cyberlimb to be bought without another Houserule about adding customization after creation. I'm leery of houserule holes where you have to keep repeatedly making new rule changes to accommodate previous rule changes.

[Overbyte]

I agree... it's a good investment for a Decker/Face/Rigger who is going to be a secondary fighter. My point was that Xenon has a houserule that smashes that usefulnes... by limiting the Customization of the Limbs Attributes to the Attributes you currently have then requiring Enhancements to go father, it's better to just boost your Attributes with Used Muscle Toner. Even if you raised your Agility with Karma that'd then require a new customized cyberlimb to be bought without another Houserule about adding customization after creation. I'm leery of houserule holes where you have to keep repeatedly making new rule changes to accommodate previous rule changes.

I'm a little confused. Muscle Toner, which at Rating 3 would cost 140,000 nuyen and 0.75 essence and gets you +3 Agility. How does this even remotely compare to a Cyberarm with 3 Agility and 3 Str and 2 Armor that costs.65,000 nuyen??

[Marcus]

I guess that depends on your defination of 'viable'....

Not everything has to be about shooting better.

A cyberforearm still provides armor, a place to hide items, the option for a cybergun (if you really HAVE to weaponize it)....

In short, there are plenty of options for partial arms, and no, they don't HAVE to boost your ability to go 'bang'

 I'm not saying every option needs to be equally good, I'm saying we should not allow options we know are non-viable or if you dislike the way I use viable how about, options that will prevent a character from being of meaningful use in what likely will be a common situation over the course of a run. Is that more clear?

[Xenon]

So basically you make Cyberlimbs completely & totally irrelevant. That sucks...

I made them viable for a physically strong orc street samurai to get cyberlimbs (which is pretty darn iconic if you ask me).

SR5 corerules only promote physicality weak characters to get get agility 9 arm of death and armored feet/hands. It is very hard/expansive for a troll samurai to get an arm under current rules, but very powerful for a decker...

[I_AM_ZHOUL!!!]

I agree... it's a good investment for a Decker/Face/Rigger who is going to be a secondary fighter. My point was that Xenon has a houserule that smashes that usefulnes... by limiting the Customization of the Limbs Attributes to the Attributes you currently have then requiring Enhancements to go father, it's better to just boost your Attributes with Used Muscle Toner. Even if you raised your Agility with Karma that'd then require a new customized cyberlimb to be bought without another Houserule about adding customization after creation. I'm leery of houserule holes where you have to keep repeatedly making new rule changes to accommodate previous rule changes.

I'm a little confused. Muscle Toner, which at Rating 3 would cost 140,000 nuyen and 0.75 essence and gets you +3 Agility. How does this even remotely compare to a Cyberarm with 3 Agility and 3 Str and 2 Armor that costs.65,000 nuyen??

Bad Math.... 32,000×3×.75=72,000 have no idea where you got 140,000 from.

So basically you make Cyberlimbs completely & totally irrelevant. That sucks...

I made them viable for a physically strong orc street samurai to get cyberlimbs (which is pretty darn iconic if you ask me).

SR5 corerules only promote physicality weak characters to get get agility 9 arm of death and armored feet/hands. It is very hard/expansive for a troll samurai to get an arm under current rules, but very powerful for a decker...

Even there it makes the very best possible version a joke, which was the last place it wasn't. The Street Sam Archetype has his Strength maxed at 11 for his Sword Mele, the monowhip just barely beats it out... your houserule kills even that tiny claim to fame. Reduces down to 9 at best.

I agree that armor hand/Feet abuse it just that Abuse. Being able to shoot is very nice but when you can't run, jump, dodge, hide, or climb too... not game breaking. Do you use Grids for Combat or is it more just descriptive storytelling based? Grid based Combat shows how not that amazing they really are while a storytelling based combat can mitigate those deficiencies to a higher degree.