[Shane Granger]

I have a new campaign in the works, its based around Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I'm incorporating the Deus Ex world into the Shadowrun world so there will be magic, and all the other fun stuff. The PCs will be working directly under Adam Jensen as security for Sarif Industries, at first as just basic on site security and VIP escort. As well as any public events organized by Sarif. Ultimately though I want them to play a larger role in the planning and executing of black ops or even other corporate stuff if they show an interest.

I was thinking about having the players draw up two characters one for the assault team/security team and one for the higher up politics and planning. So the higher up characters would plan and set up the missions that the assault team would go on. I liked the idea at first and the players seem to like it, but I'm questioning it now, I'm thinking it would be more fun and rewarding for the original characters to earn respect and gain a position of power themselves. I'm still on the fence with this one so any input would help.

I also feel like magic characters will be getting the short end of the stick on this one, there will be steep discounts on some pretty cutting edge augments, I'm not sure how to balance this out.

I ported the few augments in Deus-Ex that weren't already in Shadowrun. Mind you I don't have any of the core supplements so they may already exist.

I added the Cassie social enhancer, I modeled it after Kinesics adept power only without the enhanced control over subconscious body language. Basically just add the rating (max 3) to the dice pool for any social tests, or judging intentions test.

The Icarus landing system is something I'm having trouble with, its simple enough basically it just negates fall damage. but I could see it being very unbalanced, it does say it has a limit to how far you can fall before it fails but it doesn't specify a height. and I'm not sure if I like the idea of my players leaping out penthouse windows... 

Finally there's the Typhoon, this one was easy It basically just turns the player into a grenade firing ball barrings out of their arms back and legs. I just took the stats from a frag grenade and used it for this. to balance things out I made it have a huge essence cost seeing how it requires extensive leg torso and arm augmentations. plus it cannot be purchased by conventional means sarif designed it and sarif will only allow a player to have it once they have proved their worth. mostly because the idea of turning my players into walking hand grenades scares the shit out of me, I need some time to prepare myself...

and I think that's it, oh wait, I forgot the x-ray vision.. I guess that one would be pretty easily integrated.

If anyone knows of some augs I forgot or has any cool ideas I'd love to hear them.

[Tsuzua]

Sounds interesting.  As for magic/mundane balance, you shouldn't worry too much about it.  Magic gets a lot of advantages ware can't get like spirits.  Also if everyone is running around with lots of cyberlimb armor, direct combat spells still do well.  What you might see a decent amount of though is augmented awakened since you can fit a lot of stuff in one essence with deltaware.  But I think that's fine in a "Deus Ex" themed SR world.

As for the augments, CASIE seems fine.

As for Icarus Landing System, it's going to be less unbalanced than you think.  In the SR world, you already have all sorts of flying things like drones and spirits.  Thus, you might have stuff that can catch you as you fall.  Anyways, the ability to go down is less useful than the ability to go up and down the flying things listed above can provide as well as stuff like Levitate.

As for the Typhoon, I also don't know if you have to worry about it.  You can already just put a grenade launcher inside of yourself.  With the Typhoon, you gain the ability to not hurt yourself at the cost of range which is an arguable tradeoff.  You can do the Typhoon as either just a normal grenade launcher that trades out range for not hurting the user, or make it better than the cyber grenade launcher.  You can have it do higher DV/more even damage or make it smaller so you actually fit into a cybertorso.

[JustADude]

The Icarus landing system is something I'm having trouble with, its simple enough basically it just negates fall damage. but I could see it being very unbalanced, it does say it has a limit to how far you can fall before it fails but it doesn't specify a height. and I'm not sure if I like the idea of my players leaping out penthouse windows... 

I'd treat that like a max-rating Hydraulic Jacks (12 meters, the equivalent of a 3-4 story building). Since they work on two different methods, though, I would go ahead and allow the two (Icarus and Hydraulic Jacks) to stack, if they want to get the military grade shock-absorbers in their armor or cyber-legs on top of the Icarus.

[Valashar]

Something else to consider about the Icarus system is that it kicks in automatically once it determines that there's 3 meters or more between you and the ground. It slows you down and doesn't allow you to interact with anything outside the bubble it generates. So that penthouse window you mention will involves a long drop of 2-4 combat turns where the falling character can't do anything against the things that can start shooting at them or working to catch them (security spirits and drones). Might consider the bubble to offer some additional armor protection or perhaps make it difficult to target the person inside (I'd go with making it harder to hit them due to the bubble warping visuals and deflecting projectiles).

All in all, not really an unbalanced system. Just one which the user would need to consider the pros and cons. It's less useful for those extreme height issues (where a wingsuit would be much more relevant) and more for those jumps in the 2-5 story range where you'll be on the ground in a couple seconds and able to go about your nefarious business.

[BRKNdevil]

actually if you reread the icarus landing system and notice the ingame effects, the thing is silent, it seems to wow people enough for people not to shoot, and if they do, the thing works off of magnetic repulsion so everthing metal is sped away from you, of course dunno on what happens with capsule rounds and the plastic rounds.

[Mercer]

That strikes me as funny.  "We got a floater boys!  Switch to gel ammo." 

[Xzylvador]

I added the Cassie social enhancer, I modeled it after Kinesics adept power only without the enhanced control over subconscious body language. Basically just add the rating (max 3) to the dice pool for any social tests, or judging intentions test.

That's actually in SR4A itself already, not even a supplement. Check out Tailored Pheromones. Sure the fluff is different but the effect is the same.

Something like Cassie is in Arsenal: Empathy Software. A software you can run on sensors (in this case, most likely cybereyes) which analyze a persons (subconscious) behavior and adds its rating to social skill tests. But it's so cheap and easy to get it is often considered too cheesy and gets banned of nerfed.

[Shane Granger]

I was planning on replacing the Tailored Pheromones with the CASSIE. In the game it releases pheromones anyway.

I was thing about tweaking the CASSIE so it doesn't always give a dice pool modifier but gives the players a running commentary on the subject's current state just like in the game. For example "The subjects heart rate spiked after you mentioned so and so." the players will have the option to release the pheromones at any time as well to gain the bonus dice. Maybe have a limit on how often they can use them though.

After reading a few post I'd be comfortable with the ICARUS and TYPHOON being available off the start.

Thanks for the tips. The campaigns starting to come together.