[FuelDrop]

Hi all, first time poster here. hope you all are well ect...

I've had an idea, and i was wondering what everyone would think of it. GM opinions especially welcome!

as we all know, for a street sammie relying on 'ware there are three paths to reliable multiple initiative passes at char-gen. there's wired reflexes, the 'cheap and cheerful' option that costs a metric ton of essence. there's the 'restricted gear + move by wire' option that has a ton of perks but also costs more essence than is really good for a 'ware-happy camper. finally there's the holistic approach, which is synaptic boosters. the last one's what i'll be comparing my idea to, as it has the closest essence equivalent.

i've figured out a way to get 4 reliable initiative passes for less than the cost of synaptic boosters 2, and for only 0.9 essence. here's your recipe:
1) Chemical Gland with internal slow release (so you're always on whatever drug you choose) and cram: 0.3 essence, 32000 nuyen
2) as above only with Jazz instead of cram: 0.3 essence, 38500 nuyen
3) another chem gland, this time filled with kamikaze: 0.3 essence, 41000 nuyen.
Total bonuses: +1 body +1 agility +2 reaction +2 strength +1 willpower +3 initiative passes pain tolerance rating 3.
Total costs: 0.9 essence, 111500 nuyen. oh, and never again being allowed anywhere that does a drug screening or has a chem sniffer! (you should also keep a supply of slab handy, as it's the only way you're ever going to sleep again...)
you never 'come down' off the high, so you never end up taking the damage normally associated with the drugs. for added cheese take addictions to cram, jazz and kamikaze as your negative qualities 

So if you were a GM and found yourself confronted with such a blatant piece of powergaming, would you allow the character?
if you were a player and went this path for power how would you play the character, Roleplay wise?

thanks for reading!

[All4BigGuns]

Hi all, first time poster here. hope you all are well ect...

I've had an idea, and i was wondering what everyone would think of it. GM opinions especially welcome!

as we all know, for a street sammie relying on 'ware there are three paths to reliable multiple initiative passes at char-gen. there's wired reflexes, the 'cheap and cheerful' option that costs a metric ton of essence. there's the 'restricted gear + move by wire' option that has a ton of perks but also costs more essence than is really good for a 'ware-happy camper. finally there's the holistic approach, which is synaptic boosters. the last one's what i'll be comparing my idea to, as it has the closest essence equivalent.

i've figured out a way to get 4 reliable initiative passes for less than the cost of synaptic boosters 2, and for only 0.9 essence. here's your recipe:
1) Chemical Gland with internal slow release (so you're always on whatever drug you choose) and cram: 0.3 essence, 32000 nuyen
2) as above only with Jazz instead of cram: 0.3 essence, 38500 nuyen
3) another chem gland, this time filled with kamikaze: 0.3 essence, 41000 nuyen.
Total bonuses: +1 body +1 agility +2 reaction +2 strength +1 willpower +3 initiative passes pain tolerance rating 3.
Total costs: 0.9 essence, 111500 nuyen. oh, and never again being allowed anywhere that does a drug screening or has a chem sniffer! (you should also keep a supply of slab handy, as it's the only way you're ever going to sleep again...)
you never 'come down' off the high, so you never end up taking the damage normally associated with the drugs. for added cheese take addictions to cram, jazz and kamikaze as your negative qualities 

So if you were a GM and found yourself confronted with such a blatant piece of powergaming, would you allow the character?
if you were a player and went this path for power how would you play the character, Roleplay wise?

thanks for reading!

I'd surely allow the character if I was running, but I probably wouldn't play it because I really dislike using drugs with my characters (I want to avoid the crap that comes with addictions).

[Solomon]

Drug interaction and overdose problems would kill that character in about two game sessions. The body would just shut down in any game I ran because that is exactly what would happen in the real world. The essence loss included in burnout pretty much reflects that in the system. Of course if somebody managed to role play all the various side effects and personality quirks I would totally give them extra karma for the replacement character

[FuelDrop]

I'm beginning to think that this is exactly the kind of character for the 'Borrowed Time' negative quality... which (at 20 bonus bp iirc) almost exactly covers the cost of the augmentations in the first place. it's definitely the kind of combo that works best for one-shot characters.

[_Pax_]

So if you were a GM and found yourself confronted with such a blatant piece of powergaming, would you allow the character?

  No.  And I would subject that player's next three to five characters to greater scrutiny in the future, to boot.

  Because that's not merely powergaming.  It's munchkinism.

[FuelDrop]

So if you were a GM and found yourself confronted with such a blatant piece of powergaming, would you allow the character?

  No.  And I would subject that player's next three to five characters to greater scrutiny in the future, to boot.

  Because that's not merely powergaming.  It's munchkinism.

agreed, but if a player in any game i'm involved in tried it they would probably be allowed to have it... because if they're munchkining it instead of using it for some fluff reason (ex-ganger, test subject ect...) they'd find that there's a lot of price for this power that isn't obvious at first glance. for instance, given how cheap it is to get a chem sniffer there's no reason why every building wouldn't have one at the door. even a basic chem sniffer should pick up this cocktail of combat drugs, and if it doesn't set off some alarms then your hacker friend is obviously already in the system. then there's the fact that with this many stimulants in your system you're not going to go to sleep without help from even more drugs, which can of course lead to another addiction check (which you're probably going to fail due to the number of drugs already in your bloodstream. "where's Bob?" "oh, he's still sleeping off his slab from last night. we're going to have to start the run without him.") and that's without going into the side effects of the drugs... with three high-end stimulants in you you're probably going to be as twitchy as heck, at the very least. please note that anyone doing this for a concept rather than just for munchkining is going to have all of the same problems, but that's probably an important part of their character's history, personality and growth, so they're probably not going to mind so much.

munchkin away. when i called this thread 'power at a price', i did mean price...

PS: just to be clear the combo was built as a thought experiment, not as something i'd ever actually run in a game.

[Sichr]

Looks like nice idea...and has a potential to be really nice character for roleplay. Id welcome it at my table. Hell I even recall this taxidriver from"When gravity falls" having his left lung replaced by dope machine to stay in heaven for the rest of his life...
And..as a GM, Im not afraid of powergaming. I have meanings to respond on it. Character boosted up for combat is usefull...just in combat. means about 5% of time runners spend working...

[Thrass]

can you point me to the rules of "slow release" please?

[Ympulse]

I'd ask the player what the overdose rules are, and then ask them how the character has lived long enough to even BE a shadowrunner.

At which point I'd either rule that they had a tolerance, and as such no longer benefited from the bonuses, or ask the player to reroll, based on their answer to the above.

[FuelDrop]

can you point me to the rules of "slow release" please?

augmentation, page 68

[Tsuzua]

Addiction is very much "GM discretion" playground so really it depends on how strict/lax your GM is.  Assuming you have a moderate* GM using the optional drug rules in Arsenal, you'll likely have to make fairly regular Body + Willpower - 1 (threshold 2) tests to avoid addiction.  Being on a drug 24/7 should be considered repeated/habitual use and you take a -1 for speedballing.  Failing the test means you get addicted.  The hard part isn't the addiction per se, but the tolerance rules which means you'll now have to take two doses of whatever drug to get its effects.  That'll mean you'll have to start installing more chemical glands.  There may or may not be short or long term side effects again depending on your GM.

Wired Reflexes 2, Suprathyroid, and Muscle Augmentation 1 gives you +1 Body, +1 Agility, +3 Reaction**, +2 Strength, +2 IP and costs 84000Y and 3.45 essence.  That's a lot more essence for ~30,000Y saved.  You get +1 Reaction instead of +1 Willpower which is arguable.  The drugs gives you an extra IP which is cool.  Overall you pay slightly more and carry a high risk of GM aggro for major essence savings and +1IP. 

*- Moderate being between "sure no problem" and "you have a heart attack and die," but taking a more "let's roll this out" approach.
**- I'm assuming Wired Reflexes and Suprathyroid stacks.

[Mad Hamish]

Hi all, first time poster here. hope you all are well ect...
i've figured out a way to get 4 reliable initiative passes for less than the cost of synaptic boosters 2, and for only 0.9 essence. here's your recipe:
1) Chemical Gland with internal slow release (so you're always on whatever drug you choose) and cram: 0.3 essence, 32000 nuyen
2) as above only with Jazz instead of cram: 0.3 essence, 38500 nuyen
3) another chem gland, this time filled with kamikaze: 0.3 essence, 41000 nuyen.

Can a chem gland actually produce them though?
"A chemical gland is a sac lined with cells that are genetically tailored to produce a single, naturally occurring compound."

I wouldn't have thought that cram, jazz and kamikaze qualified

[Thrass]

so a natural occuring compound would be something like... adrenaline and/or noradrenaline?
do magic drugs which naturally occur in magic plants count?

[Mara]

Can a chem gland actually produce them though?
"A chemical gland is a sac lined with cells that are genetically tailored to produce a single, naturally occurring compound."

I wouldn't have thought that cram, jazz and kamikaze qualified

You know..when I make a Juicer, I prefer to go with Auto-Injectors...

[ArkangelWinter]

Can a chem gland actually produce them though?
"A chemical gland is a sac lined with cells that are genetically tailored to produce a single, naturally occurring compound."

I wouldn't have thought that cram, jazz and kamikaze qualified

You know..when I make a Juicer, I prefer to go with Auto-Injectors...

Thats basically what this is, a port of Palladium Juicers. Makes me want to build a Ley Line Walker and a M.O.M. Crazy