OK, we've decided to give SR4 a whack and my friend wants to make Adam Jensen, from Deus Ex 3. OK, can we do this with just the core book? I'm not overly familiar with all the ins and outs and would appreciate any advice. It's the arm blades and the camo-field we're really looking at. I'd assume the cyberlimb weapons from the core would be good, but is there something better?

Melee combat is distressingly ineffective in a world where combat is measured in seconds and everyone has guns, but yeah you can. The Stealth Suit is a digital color changing chameleon costume and the cyber spurs are decent enough wrist blades.

His augmentations are:

Cybernetic Limbs: ditch these because the core cyberlimbs suck ass (the ones in Augmentation are better). Get some Muscle Augmentation and Muscle Toner and call them augmented limbs.

Wrist Blades: Cyber Spurs

Head Mounted Sunglasses: those are silly, but your cybereyes can come with flare compensation and you can call those head mounted sunglasses if you want.

Infolink: in shadowrun, those are called "Internal Commlinks".

Heart Upgrade: Not only does that exist (synthacardium), it's actually really good because it adds to your defense pool when using gymnastic dodge (which you will therefore use all the time). Totally get that.

---

Basically, not only can you make Jensen as a SR4 cyborg, but it's really pretty close to the standard SR4 Street Sam layout. Makes me wonder if some of the Deus Ex: HR team were playing SR4 while designing the game.

-Frank

Oh, and before I forget: Jensen's signature augmentation susceptibility is actually a quality you can get in Augmentation. It's called Type O system, and it makes getting Muscle Augmentation and Muscle Toner and Synthacardiums and stuff a lot cheaper.

-Frank

So, get Augmentation?

Quote from: FrankTrollman;478057Cybernetic Limbs: ditch these because the core cyberlimbs suck ass (the ones in Augmentation are better). Get some Muscle Augmentation and Muscle Toner and call them augmented limbs.-Frank

Why do they suck?

Quote from: Talking_Muffin;478095So, get Augmentation?

I feel weird about plugging a book I wrote some chapters for, but yes.

The canonical Adam Jensen equivalent person from whose tissue the universally implantable enhancement tissues were cloned is named Owen Whiting, by the way. I wrote him into the setting a few years back in order to retcon the thing where old editions talked about Type O organs could be implanted into anyone (which is true for blood but not for more complex tissue) into making sense. "Type O Organs" is shorthand for "Owen Whiting".

QuoteWhy do they suck?

They are just really expensive and the capacity limits don't let you have strength and agility significantly above that of a normal human. About the only thing they are good for is being slow and weak and covered in armor, which is about 0% of what people who want a cyberarm actually want to do with it. They want a hammer, not a shield.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;478097I feel weird about plugging a book I wrote some chapters for, but yes.

Dude! Now worries.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;478097They are just really expensive and the capacity limits don't let you have strength and agility significantly above that of a normal human. About the only thing they are good for is being slow and weak and covered in armor, which is about 0% of what people who want a cyberarm actually want to do with it. They want a hammer, not a shield.

-Frank

So are they different by design, or are the ones in Augmentation a kind of "errata"? Either way, I'm all about getting Augmentation as well as Arsenal.

The additional cyberlimb options in Augmentation are essentially errata. You can buy the "basic" cyberlimbs in the basic book if you want, but the Augmentation "enhanced cyber limb options" are way better. There was a heated argument amongst the authors as to whether it was a better idea to issue a straight errata that would let people get the kinds of super strength they wanted out of cyber arms, or whether to issue a nominally different item you could buy instead (and thus obviously would).

I was actually in the former camp, but the dev wanted to go with the latter option, so that is what happened.

-Frank