User:Bill/Shadowrun 4 Characters/Cyborg Notes
Augmentation introduces the idea of cyborgs as player characters. Sadly these rules are far from complete, making it difficult at best to write up a cyborg. Even worse anthroform drones have yet to be published for SR4, making it nearly impossible to play a cyborg in anything resembling a conventional group. Below are some notes that may serve to redress this issue, though they will not be of much use without the appropriate drone body.
A game featuring cyborg characters as starting characters might use the following alterations to level the playing field. Most of these suggestions are mine, not official.
- 600 Build Points; maximum 300 spent on attributes
- No availability restrictions on purchasing equipment
- No limit on BPs that may be used to purchase Nuyen
- No limit on BPs that may be used to purchase positive Qualities
- No limit on BPs that may be gained from negative Qualities
- Mental Attributes cost double for cyborgs
I also suggest adding the following positive qualities to facilitate the creation of cyborg characters.
Cyborg 50 BP
- The character's brain has been transplanted into a Cranial Containment Unit (CCU), allowing it to be installed into an appropriately modified drone body. The CCU is delta grade cyberware normally costing 250,000¥. For all intents and purposes the character is a permanently disembodied rigger. The character has no physical attributes and may not learn new skills above the rating of its drone's skillwires. Their lifetime of experience allows normal cyborg characters to exceed this cap on any skill they possessed before the procedure, but they also suffer a -1 to all non-skillwire combat, physical, social, and some technical skills. The isolation experienced by these characters causes them considerable mental distress and as a result they must make a monthly Sanity test at -2. Add 8,000¥ to the character's monthly lifestyle costs to accommodate the maintenance requirements of the cyborg. This accounts for weekly maintenance sessions where expendable reagents are replenished; each missed session increases the threshold of the character's monthly Sanity test by 1.
- This quality is effectively a shorthand way of dealing with the nuyen cost associated with the CCU. Allowing this quality eliminates or reduces the necessity of expanding or eliminating the cap on buying nuyen with BPs.
- There are a couple alternatives to using this as a quality though. It may be preferable to use Cyborg as a metatype of its own since it results in significant alterations to the character's attributes. Alternately it may be better to have players pay for the privilege of being a cyborg out of the maximum BP used for attribute points, partially balancing the character's lack of physical attributes. Either of these options would eliminate the necessity of expanding or eliminating the cap on Qualities and may make it possible to include Cyborgs in a more conventional game.
Child Brain 5 BP
- The character was converted into a cyborg as a child. A regiment of drugs, hypnotherapy, and magic have been used to suppress the characters memories; reducing the trauma of the experience. Due to their inexperience characters with this quality may not possess Active skills with a rating greater than 5. Characters with this quality do no suffer any penalty on the monthly Sanity test required of all cyborg characters.
Clonal Brain 10 BP
- The character never had a body and has only known life as a cyborg. Characters with this quality benefit from a +1 to vehicle tests and a +2 to the monthly Sanity test required of all cyborg characters. Active skills are capped at Rating 5 with the exception of skills in the Cracking and Electronics groups for characters with this quality.
These qualities are non-canonical and should not be used without the express permission of your game master.
