Ahh! I see what you are saying. I wouldn’t have a problem with that. The reason being is that they are creating a major limitation to their physical development and their Ascension path by getting Implants. Anyone other than an AI can only get bonuses to their implants until they have 50% of their Physis score. Plus in the case of Cyber Arms, each point of increased strength not only adds 2 points of impurity but costs 600T. Also with Impurity’s effects on Ascension, people should definitely take that into consideration before they decide to get one.

I just see the fundamental problem of a body cannot support stronger arms cause the minute you tried to lift something requiring the stronger arms they would rip themselves off the weaker body.

Arms should have no effect on your manageable weight in terms of carrying capacity. When you wear a backpack you don’t use your arms. But if you were just using your arms, say to swing an over-sized object then you would use the arms Strength Score. As for increasing beyond the score I have no good ideas so far…

This forum is must for people like me.s

Regards

Finn203

For me this was a tough question, because the RAW do not really explain how to take this into account. I found the perfect solution was to look at the arms themselves. I pictured myself with two new beefy bad ass cybernetic arms. I could punch a horse to death, swing a battle axe through a Buick, all sorts of new arm strength related things… but that would be it in the Str department. So for me the Str would ONLY relate to activities done with the arms. You could get pretty creative when it came to the arms, but it would not help me jump over a house or kick a door down. So in short keep the core Str of the arms separate and only apply to “arm strength” situations.

In my little story/example as I get stronger though hitting the gym, getting mutated by meteors, or whatever, the cyber arms would still be just as beefy as before, but would not get any stronger. So in short keep the core Str of the arms separate and let the rest of the body grow more powerful around the arms.

AI players feel that their cyber arms should grow with them because they are machines, “Why shouldn’t CDP upgrade new machine arms when it upgraded my old machine arms.” The answer to that lies in the bio matrix. These new arms are awesome, but as your bio-mechanical platform optimizes over time the store bought arms will remain just as strong as when you bought them. Again keep the core Str of the arms separate and don’t let them upgrade with the platform. This will entirely eliminate munchkining the rules.

P.S. Same thing goes for cyber legs and the Agi they provide.

P.P.S. I did have a player suggest that cyber arms/legs should have the ability to add Str and Agi to both the legs and arms, but again only for applications of the specific limb.

I think that basically what we’re all getting at here is that you need to annotate and track separately the Base Quality and the Modified Quality.  As with similar games that use such things as cyberware or other ways of modifying the body, using a slash or parenthesis would work…

ie. Strength:  14 / 16

This would be a character that normally has a Core Quality Strength of 14, but due to the addition of cyberarms, has an augmented Strength of 16.  As pointed out in the previous post, that modified Strength would only be used in those cases where it would make sense, and would have to be adjudicated by the GM.  If hitting someone with a melee hand attack, use the modified value.  If kicking someone, use the base value, etc.

If you also have cyberlegs and the GM wants to give you a STR bonus for kicking someone, then you would just have to start having the extra paperwork to annotate that.  Maybe having something like this:

Strength: 14 / 16 / 15

where you know where each value comes from, or write small above each “arms” “legs” etc., or:

Strength: 14 / A:16 L:15

where you use a letter or abbreviation to somehow denote the different strength values., or:

Strength: 14 *

then you just have to put a note somewhere that describes the “*” and what is different and when.

the point being, you really should track the values separately…

MSL-CD - 06 March 2011 01:07 PM

I think that basically what we’re all getting at here is that you need to annotate and track separately the Base Quality and the Modified Quality.  As with similar games that use such things as cyberware or other ways of modifying the body, using a slash or parenthesis would work…

ie. Strength:  14 / 16

This would be a character that normally has a Core Quality Strength of 14, but due to the addition of cyberarms, has an augmented Strength of 16.  As pointed out in the previous post, that modified Strength would only be used in those cases where it would make sense, and would have to be adjudicated by the GM.  If hitting someone with a melee hand attack, use the modified value.  If kicking someone, use the base value, etc.

If you also have cyberlegs and the GM wants to give you a STR bonus for kicking someone, then you would just have to start having the extra paperwork to annotate that.  Maybe having something like this:

Strength: 14 / 16 / 15

where you know where each value comes from, or write small above each “arms” “legs” etc., or:

Strength: 14 / A:16 L:15

where you use a letter or abbreviation to somehow denote the different strength values., or:

Strength: 14 *

then you just have to put a note somewhere that describes the “*” and what is different and when.

the point being, you really should track the values separately…

Replacing Legs does the same thing as arms, except it modifies Agility and not Strength.

I’d like to know what the official ruling or intention of this is as well. I am starting my campaign in a week and one of my players is an AI. Someone pointed out to him that he could drop his stats to 1, buy the arms and legs and then use a combination of trust and the AI core quality points to get very good attributes for a starting character. From what I could tell, advancement would be complicated but there was nothing that said the character could not do this.

Is there a balance to this? Possibly weight or equipment damage, etc..?

Sure, your AI can take 1’s in their Quality Scores and take a bunch of new cyberware, as long as it does not exceed his/her Physis Rating!!!

The core rules clearly state in the Augmentation section 9.6.1 that non-AIs are limited to 50% of their Physis in ALL augmentations - cyberware, necrotic, mesh, etc.  AI characters can go up to 100% of their Physis (but can only use cyberware, of course). 

Since your friend would only have a Physis of 1, that’s going to put a kibosh on the munchkin beefing using cyberware.  Cyberarms at base 15 Strength and Cyberlegs at the base rated Agility cost a total of 6 points of Impurity Rating, thus requiring a Physis of 6 (a starting AI that does not change Quality Scores will have a Physis of 9, so that’s not a problem).  Plus, why bother?  I’m sure that with the 50 bonus DP you get just for Quality Scores, you could raise them much higher than if you reduced them to 1 and then added the cyberware (which starts you at 15).

This rule forces the AI to spend points on improving their Quality Scores in order to get more cyberware.  Think of improving the Quality Scores as upgrading their “stock” frame and infrastructure.  This then allows them to get “after-market” enhancements that are better/improved from the “stock” values.

BTW, purchasing just the normal cyberarms and legs costs 4,800 Trust, which means you would have to also have to spend a minimum of 60 CDP in order to get a Windfall of 4,000 T (30 CDP only gets you 2,000 T, with your starting 2,500 T is still not enough) in order to pay for the cyberware.