[Wakshaani]

Spinning this off from a different discussion, and to give you an eyeball of game design from someone who *isn't* on the rule team but who thinks about this stuff, I figured I'd go ahead and set a couple of things out for people to try and gauge for themselves. Here you'll get to see several opinions in action, and you'll find that some people are rather firm in their belief in solution A or solution B, while others are more flexible. If you're the one who makes the final call on these matters, or who puts people in the position to be the Final Word, you also approch things differently than someone with their own vision. The end goal, of course, is to try and make the best game you can, but defining that can be tricky.

So, the examples.

We have some legacy gear that needs o be prepped for 5th edition: Muscle Replacement (Cyber), Muscle Augmentation (Bio), and Muscle Toner (Bio) ... we want to keep them all in the game, keep the rules as close to what they used to be as possible in terms of benefits, but we have a new cost structure and balance in mind. The general theme of "Cyber is cheap but invasive, Bio is expensive but less invasive" should be kept, and certain things are known going in.

We know that Essence is 6.0 for everyone, regardless of race.
We know that Karma is valued at 2000Y each and vice-versa ... thus, 5 Karma and 10,000Y as rewards is equivilent.
We know that increasing a stat costs 5 Karma * the attribute target (IE, going to a 5 costs 5 * 5 = 25 Karma)
Muscle Augmentation has been +1 Strength
Muscle Toner has been  +1 Agility
Muscle Repacement has been +1 to both Strenth and Agility
All three of these have generally been created with a (Rating times price) format, rather than a more complex "Figure out the final bonus/what the final number raised to is nd adjust accordingly) system, similar to Wired Reflexes.

So, what sort of costs should be associated with these bits of 'ware, both in terms of Nuyen and Essence? Should there be a price change depending on if you're raising a Strength of 1 to a 3 vs raising a strength of 6 to an 8? Should race matter? At what point should Alpha/Beta/etc Cyber and Bio cross up, if ever, where the cost for one is the same as the cost for the other (For instance, if Beta Muscle Replacement 1 costs the same as standard Muslce Augmentation and Muscle Toner 1 combined, generating the same benefit), should the secondary cost (Essence) be the same as well or different? Should it even be possible to cross these with one another? Just how valuable is Essence, anyway?

So, here you go. You can see what was ultimately put in place in regards to those prices. Several people have disagreed with those values. Now, here's you making the case, and having some very simple augmentations to work with... do you want to put a replicatable mechanic in place (IE, +1 to an attribute should be worth X), do you put a different value on attributes (Agility is worth more than Strength, so should cost more), or do you just wing it and say "Blank sounds about right. Let's go with that."? Keep in mind, you're also dealing with a core rulebook and setting it up for new players, so simpler is generally better ... but not always the case. (The cost of this enhancement is the square root of number Z, divided by base attribute X, then reference height chart Y for a modifier...)

Try to stick with just Muscle Aug, Muscle Tone, and Muscle Replacement here. Put on your developer hat and have a go. Just be prepared to defend your work.

(And a quick editto fix a couple of typos. Including the thread title. Sheesh.)

[All4BigGuns]

The problem with the pricing of the example implants (the most obvious problem prices) is that they were jumped up in price to 50% more than SR3 when in SR5 you get-at most-less than half the character generation resources.

[Herr Brackhaus]

*grabs popcorn*

For what it's worth, Wakshaani, I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but ooooh boy, this could get interesting...

Oh, and I'm in the camp that don't think the increased ware prices are all that bad. *shrugs*

[All4BigGuns]

Heck, do you want to know what I did with Predator with the million nuyen starting resources in SR3? I skimped on gear and implants and got a permanent Middle lifestyle and a couple years of Super Platinum Doc Wagon because it seemed fitting for her.

[Wakshaani]

Oddly not a big factor. Your starting funds changed over several editions from having up to a million available to having 400K available, but your starting attribute points changed (Heck, whole new attributes were invented!), rules are different, and so on. You can blank slate older editions in the consideration for things across the board if you need, or you can try and hold to legacy prices while changing the economy.

Your choice, but choices gotta be made.

That's why we're sticking with a relatively easy one for now.

How much is raising an attribute (In this case Strength) worth, via the trhee methods provided here? Later complexities would feature cyberlimbs and short-term drugs, but, that's for another time. Right now, we're just focused on Muscle Aug, Muscle Tone, and Muscle Replacement.

If you want to invoke the cost from a previous edition, or use that cost in your discussion (Since it used to cost X when Y was your resources), you can, but remember that you have to finish the thought line. (Thus it stands that in an edition where you Get B instead of Y, then it should cost A, which is teh same as a ratio between Y and B.)

[falar]

I love this. But there are some things that I would make a deeper change in. For instance, the fact that getting one point of Strength for a Troll costs a minimum of 30 karma, but for a Human, it costs 10 karma. I'm a big fan of static prices for increasing attributes where your base score doesn't figure into it. Adding 1 additional point of Strength beyond your minimum should cost the same no matter what your minimum is. That's pretty divisive, but I'll stick with it.

I'm having trouble restricting myself to just the cost of 'ware though. I keep wanting to balance other numbers with other beliefs of how advancement should go. I believe that, at the start of your career, you should be able to advance in some meaningful way just about every other run.

[All4BigGuns]

Oddly not a big factor.

It should have been the single biggest contributing factor bar none.

No matter what edition you're using or how many editions removed you are from when it was first built, you should still be able to exactly replicate a character's capabilities unless you choose to change them.

[Hobbes]

Don't forget Availability.  It's not really a cost, but it is a limiter.  It's very clear that the intention is for players to build a character and upgrade the augments down the road.  The fact that the RAW makes it unlikely to ever be able to go from Muscle Toner 2 to Muscle Toner 4 is a huge disconnect, IMO.  It's also why a lot of optimizers settle on Used Muscle (whatever) 3. 

The additional arbitrary restriction on grades is also head scratching.  Given the Availability mechanic the grades are self limiting, or a really obvious Positive (or Negative!) Quality.

The increased costs are no big deal, IMO, but the Availability mechanic causes a lot of your more interesting acrobatics by players.   

[Wakshaani]

I love this. But there are some things that I would make a deeper change in. For instance, the fact that getting one point of Strength for a Troll costs a minimum of 30 karma, but for a Human, it costs 10 karma. I'm a big fan of static prices for increasing attributes where your base score doesn't figure into it. Adding 1 additional point of Strength beyond your minimum should cost the same no matter what your minimum is. That's pretty divisive, but I'll stick with it.

I'm having trouble restricting myself to just the cost of 'ware though. I keep wanting to balance other numbers with other beliefs of how advancement should go. I believe that, at the start of your career, you should be able to advance in some meaningful way just about every other run.

Trolls will be the next topic I cover here (The headaches trolls caused chargen are well-known outside the development table, but the exact details haven't been shared (and won't be!) ... you've already seen one factor that'll come up. Advancement may well be #3. I'm hoping to keep this thread running for a while, to chat about certain aspects of the process and to share some of it with the whole... after all, every single person writing the books started as a fan. Thinking about this stuff when you're a fan could, one day, turn you into one of the designers. It goes back to a management technique and that's a whole OTHER other discussion. I'm wandering. Back to cyber!

It should have been the single biggest contributing factor bar none.

No matter what edition you're using or how many editions removed you are from when it was first built, you should still be able to exactly replicate a character's capabilities unless you choose to change them.

This isn't a design factor... heck, 2nd edition came out, what, 2 years after first? And removed the Program Carrier, and the entire concept of running naked from the game in a way that's *never* come back. You can 'echo' a character, make one similar in many ways, but an exact duplication runs afoul of too many rules changes. (Try to move your character from 1st ed D&D to 2nd using the Skills and Powers book to 3rd ed to 4th. Now try to move them from 4th to 3rd to 1st. It ain't pretty.)

What we want to focus on, here, is the one simple question: What's a fair price for those three augmentations? You can pull your reasoning from all manner of location, including "It should cost exactly what it did in Edition X", but you need t put forth some numbers and some reasoning. Keep in mind, you're not being graded on it! Many people will agree, many won't agree, and that's fine as it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but, you want some kind of process in place, right?

[Beta]

NM -- off topic.

[All4BigGuns]

Don't forget Availability.  It's not really a cost, but it is a limiter.  It's very clear that the intention is for players to build a character and upgrade the augments down the road.  The fact that the RAW makes it unlikely to ever be able to go from Muscle Toner 2 to Muscle Toner 4 is a huge disconnect, IMO.  It's also why a lot of optimizers settle on Used Muscle (whatever) 3. 

The additional arbitrary restriction on grades is also head scratching.  Given the Availability mechanic the grades are self limiting, or a really obvious Positive (or Negative!) Quality.

The increased costs are no big deal, IMO, but the Availability mechanic causes a lot of your more interesting acrobatics by players.   

While this is true, it just means that the reduced generation resources makes even less sense. You already couldn't get the highest rating or best grade (or both) in the implants, but to reduce resources just means that things that might seem cool but not absolutely essential get cut as 'non-options'. If we still had the opportunity to have a million nuyen, the prices wouldn't sting so bad.


I know that some people claim that things considered 'essential' should have a premium cost paying through the nose, but the fact is that the more expensive those boosts are, the less likely people are to take the 'cool stuff' especially when curtailed in available resources.

[MijRai]

Here's my response to Wakshaani's points:
Should there be a price-change for the variables in starting Attributes?  I say no, mostly to keep the system smooth.  Thematically, I personally think that all 'ware has the ability to hit a peak past the metahuman's natural maximum.  That said, the 'ware has limiters 'plugged in' to keep you from ripping your own body apart or some other horrid event as caused by your too-powerful for the metahuman medium bits (the source of the Augmented Maximum).  Everyone gets the same kind of 'ware, it is just calibrated to your body; when you upgrade an Attribute, some of that Karma spent apparently went to getting a recalibration!

Should Race matter?  Given the rules have explicitly changed it to Lifestyle increases already, I would say no.  Again, mostly to keep things smooth.  If Race had to matter (which I do prefer for granularity, a troll shouldn't be able to buy a shirt for their 8.5 foot frame with allowances and reinforcement for their dermal armor as cheaply as a human), I'd just add a chart/table with overall Price Multipliers (1 for Elves/Humans, 1.25 for Dwarfs/Orks, 1.5 for Trolls, 2.0 for your metasapients).  Doubling gets a little expensive for your average troll, and the basic design is the same, it is just a change in some proportions and the amount of materials.  You're asking for it if you're playing a pixie (unless you only wear pastel colored children's clothes, with holes torn open for your wings) or centaur, and your Sasquatches are generally a foot and a half taller than your trolls.  Certain metavariants (Wakyambi and Giants right off the bat) would probably best be reallocated on the chart as well, if you're using them.

As far as the cost/value of Cyberware vs. Bioware in the same situations goes, I'd make it simple.  Make Bioware cost half the Essence for twice the price.
Looking at the current prices/costs...
A Muscle Replacement gives you 1 point of Attribute for 0.50 Essence and 12,500 nuyen.
A Muscle Augmentation gives you 1 point of Attribute for 0.20 Essence and 31,000 nuyen. 
A Muscle Toner gives you 1 point of Attribute for .020 Essence and 32,000 nuyen.
Keep in mind they all have the same Availability. 
Bringing up Muscle Toner and Augmentation to 0.25 Essence per point while cutting their prices down to 25,000 each would fit my concept, make them a little more affordable and keep it simple. 

To continue from this point, I'd make all Attributes have the same cost in Essence/Nuyen in their category of Cyberware or Bioware, all-in-all (for my idea, it'd be 0.50 and 12,500 or 0.25 and 25,000 respectively, with a base Rating x 5 Availability).  This does not factor in things like adding bonuses to other tests (such as the Initiative Dice from Wired Reflexes and Synaptic Boosters).  Sure, one can argue Agility is 'better,' but it is even and simple this way.  I mean, look at the difference in Toner and Augmentation anyways; 1,000 nuyen. 
Wowe.  Such difference.  Many expense.
This may not be sticking to the idea of only using those three basic 'wares, but the Cerebral Booster (which applies to Logic) costs 31,500 (x6 for the Availability, however).  A grand total of 1,000 Nuyen difference to upgrade three different Attributes, same Essence cost.  On the other side of the argument, Reaction Enhancers are merely 0.30 Essence for 13,000 Nuyen, which is 0.20 Essence cheaper than Replacement's Value while only being 500 Nuyen more expensive (Again, the same Availability as Replacement, Augmentation and Toner).  I mean, generally Reaction is one of those 'high-power' Attributes, and here it is cheaper than Strength and Agility, Essence-wise!  Applying my concept across the board makes things simpler, and if a table wants to create some 'ware to increase Intuition, or a cyber version of he Cerebral Booster, they'll have a balanced price on hand in seconds.  This would also affect the prices of your Wireds/Synaptics, etc. 

I'm not getting started on how I'd change Cyberlimbs right now. 

EDIT: I just checked out Orthoskin/Dermal Armor, and it turns out those follow my formula as well!  Not the same case for Bone Lacing/Bone Density, however.  In that case, the Bioware is both cheaper AND takes less Essence, at the cost of losing the extra 1-3 points of Armor (but also having a 4th level, unlike Lacing).

[Herr Brackhaus]

Heck, I'll try my hand at this. I'll be looking at the cost of raising Strength AND Agility by 1 point through cyberware and bioware for the express purpose of comparing nuyen/Attribute point cost by reviewing previous editions.

First off, some disclaimers:
I personally think an attribute like Agility should be more expensive to increase than an attribute like Strength purely for mechanical reasons, as the former is used in far more tests. But, this is not reflected in any other part of the entire system (i.e. same karma cost to raise for everyone, same power point cost for adepts, etc). So, I will set aside my personal feelings and instead turn the other way by equalizing all the nuyen costs for attribute increasing ware, unless they have other, additional effects as well.

ETA: I'm with MijRai on this; if it costs X Karma to raise an attribute, I think it's needlessly complicated that raising Strength costs Y nuyen but raising Intuition costs Z nuyen.

Furthermore, raising one attribute with Karma on a normal, unaugmented human (all attributes at 3) costs 20 karma, equivalent to 40,000 nuyen. And this is where it gets tricky; how do you calculate karma equivalency of 'ware? Simple answer; you don't. At some point, it's going to be less expensive to get wared up vs spending the karma on it and that's just a fact we'll have to accept.

And finally; the discrepancy between metatypes. The karma cost of a Troll raising STR by 1 point from racial minimum is 30, while the karma cost for a human doing the same is 10. This is a significant difference that only gets exponentially worse the higher the attribute, but with ware being the great equalizer this phenomenon actually makes ware even more of an attractive option in these cases. Regardless, I'll choose to ignore this issue except to state that I think all metatype racial minimums should be treated as 1 for the purposes of raising starting attributes with attribute points, but that's not really relevant to this discussion.

Comparisons
SR5
Cyberware: Muscle Replacement costs 1 Essence and 25,000¥ per rating.
Bioware: Muscle Toner and Muscle Augmentation both cost 0.2 Essence per Rating, but the former is 31,000¥ per rating while the latter is 32,000¥ per rating

Cyberware costs 0.5 Essence and 12,500¥ per Attribute point, but can only be bought together. Bioware is 2.5 times more Essence effective at roughly 2.5 times more nuyen.

SR4
Cyberware: Muscle Replacement costs 1 Essence and 5,000¥ per rating.
Bioware: Muscle Toner and Muscle Augmentation both cost 0.2 Essence per Rating, but the former is 7,000¥ per rating while the latter is 8,000¥ per rating

Cyberware costs 0.5 Essence but only 2,500¥ per Attribute point, and can only be bought together. Bioware is 2.5 times more Essence friendly but at 3 times the price.

SR3
NOTE: Bioware in SR3 had a Bioware index cost instead of a straight Essence cost, and a character could have Essence + 3 points worth of Bioware making this comparison a little wonky,
Cyberware: Muscle Replacement costs 1 Essence and 20,000¥ per rating.
Bioware: Muscle Toner and Muscle Augmentation both cost 0.4 Bioware Index per Rating, but the former is 20,000¥ per rating while the latter is 25,000¥ per rating

Cyberware costs 0.5 Essence and 10,000¥ per Attribute point, and can only be bought together. Bioware has an entirely different effect on the body, with a Bioware Index cost of .8 per rating and at roughly 2.25 times the price of cyberware.

SR2 and 1
Not really a valid comparison, as bioware wasn't quite a thing if memory serves. For the purposes of this discussion, though, Muscle Replacement cost 20,000¥ per rating in both SR2 and SR1.

Conclusions:
All of these costs are relatively meaningless without some frame of reference of what a certain amount of nuyen meant for a starting character. So, let's look at what starting characters receive in terms of funds using the standard, unmodified character generation rules presented in each edition.
SR5: Up to 450,000¥
SR4: Up to 250,000¥
SR3: Up to 1,000,000¥
SR2: Up to 1,000,000¥
SR1: Up to 1,000,000¥, but used a somewhat different system entirely where you modified archetypes

Let's assume you put your highest priority in resources in all five system. Interestingly, throughout 1st to 4th Edition, the cost of raising Strength and Agility by 1 point with Cyberware represented only 2% of your maximum starting resources (20,000 out of 1,000,000 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, 5,000 out of 250,000 for 4th). In 5th Edition, however, this changes to more than 5.5% of total starting resources (25,000 out of 450,000), while the Essence cost across all five Editions remain unchanged.

If one wanted to argue that the four previous editions had the cost of cyberware at an adequate level, one could also argue that 5th Edition either gives you too little starting resources (25,000 would represent 2% of 1,250,000), or that prices of 'ware is too high (2% of 450,000 is 9,000¥). This could be resolved by changing the price of ware (extremely time consuming as you'd have to go through the entire list of ware and calculate old vs new prices) or simply use a higher starting resource pool (A=1,250,000¥, B=825,000¥, C=412,500¥, D=125,000¥, E=12,500¥, with reductions of roughly 33, 66, 90, and 99 percent, respectively).

It's worth pointing out that previous editions had much more severe reductions per point of priority in terms of starting resources; 1st Edition gave a Priority E resources a measly 100¥, 2nd Edition increased this to 500¥, 3rd further increased it to 5,000¥, and 4th used Point Buy which allowed you to choose your own starting resource level up to the maximum cap. In fact, given 5th Edition's tagline of "Everything has a price", it's interesting to note that picking Resources E in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition represented a FAR worse off character in terms of money.

It's hard to argue what's "fair" here, given that different tables will have different power levels, but objectively speaking I find it hard to ignore that the math conclusively proves this specific piece of cyberware (Muscle Replacements) significantly increased in cost relative to starting funds in 5th Edition.

So what would I do, personally? Well, nothing. I don't mind the cost of ware as it is, really. But if I wanted to make magical characters more balanced with ware'd ones, I'd probably shift the starting funds as opposed to reworking the entire cost system of the ware rules. This would have the unintended side effect of simultaneously making magicians more powerful, as they could suddenly afford more foci, reagents, and other paraphernalia they might want or need, but it's a valid approach as I see it if you want to give non-Awakened characters a straight up boost.

That being said, I can't even begin to think what kind of crazy 5th Edition characters 1.25 MILLION nuyen might result in, so I'll leave that to those who actually care enough to build one

Final thoughts
This is obviously a somewhat weighted analysis as we're only comparing a single piece of cyberware. Whit that being said, I also reviewed a few other pieces of ware that have been in the game since 1st Edition (Datajack, Dermal Plating, and Wired Reflexes), and found some interesting results.

Ware	SR5	SR4	SR3/SR2/SR1
Datajack	1,000¥	500¥	1,000¥
Dermal Plating	3,000¥/6,000¥/9,000¥ +++	5,000¥/10,000¥/15,000¥	6,000¥/15,000¥/45,000¥
Wired Reflexes	39,000¥/149,000¥/217,000¥	11,000¥/32,000¥/100,000¥	55,000¥/165,000¥/500,000¥

Compared to previous editions the simple Datajack has a much higher entrance cost (0.1% of maximum starting resources in SR1, 2, and 3 vs ~0.2% in SR4 and 5). If I was to speculate, I'd say this is likely due to the wireless bonus it has gained.

Dermal Armor has actually gotten far cheaper (6-15k per point in SR1, 2, and 3 vs 3k flat per point in SR4 and 5, with 5 allowing up to 6 points vs the 3 allowed by SR4), likely due to the difference in armor values between editions.

Wired Reflexes is probably the biggest variable; in the first three editions of the game this piece of ware cost anywhere from 5.5% to 50% of a characters maximum starting resources. In 4th Edition, it cost anywhere from 4.4% to 40% of maximum, and in 5th it was up to anywhere from 8.67% to 48.2% of maximum.

All of this put together tells me that the pricing of ware isn't a simple formula of "x+y%" between editions, and I think it'd be way too much work to redo the entire system. I find it would be far easier to just adjust starting resource pools if you think gear dependent characters need a boost. My personal recommendation would be to take the ratios from 3rd edition and apply them to 5th; A is 100% of maximum, B is 40% of maximum, C is 9% of maximum, D is 2% of maximum, and E is .5% of maximum. Make A 750,000¥ on a whim, and you've got a decent base.

[All4BigGuns]

In fact, given 5th Edition's tagline of "Everything has a price", it's interesting to note that picking Resources E in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition represented a FAR worse off character in terms of money.

Actually, in SR3, the Priority E for Resources was only 1,000 less than SR5, but there wasn't any of this drek of having to broadcast a SIN in certain areas (wireless was pretty rare thing back then even IRL) so unless you were always going around trying to make nice with high society as a SINless slob, the fake ID wasn't as important. The Unarmed Troll Adept could just buy an Armored Jacket and call it good.

These days, however, you really need a Rating 4 Fake SIN to really do much outside the Barrens, so that's a 10,000 tax before the associated licenses (which for just one identically rated Fake License is 1,600) on just about every character. So Resources Priority E hurts a LOT more in SR5 than SR3.

That being said, I can't even begin to think what kind of crazy 5th Edition characters 1.25 MILLION nuyen might result in, so I'll leave that to those who actually care enough to build one

I know what I'd do. I'd probably make a character that had that permanent Middle lifestyle with a month of Super Platinum Doc Wagon again. Probably have a pretty nice car on the character (best I could get within the Availability).

[Herr Brackhaus]

In fact, given 5th Edition's tagline of "Everything has a price", it's interesting to note that picking Resources E in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition represented a FAR worse off character in terms of money.

Actually, in SR3, the Priority E for Resources was only 1,000 less than SR5, but there wasn't any of this drek of having to broadcast a SIN in certain areas (wireless was pretty rare thing back then even IRL) so unless you were always going around trying to make nice with high society as a SINless slob, the fake ID wasn't as important. The Unarmed Troll Adept could just buy an Armored Jacket and call it good.

These days, however, you really need a Rating 4 Fake SIN to really do much outside the Barrens, so that's a 10,000 tax before the associated licenses (which for just one identically rated Fake License is 1,600) on just about every character. So Resources Priority E hurts a LOT more in SR5 than SR3.

I was more comparing the difference between maximum and minimum resources with that statement. I.e. a character in 1st through 3 with Priority A in resources had a cool mill to work with, while Resources E meant you had pocket change. My 3rd Edition book lists priority E for resources as 5,000¥, 2nd Edition is 500¥, and 1st Edition is 100¥. All three editions capped out at 1,000,000¥ for Priority A.

Comparatively, it'd be like a 5th Edition character with Resources E being given 45¥ (1st Edition) or 2250¥ (3rd Edition).