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Cyberware Rules


Cyberware is any form of technological aid or prosthetic that is grafted to the body, and either provides new abilities, or enhances normal functions. Cyberware is metal, ceramics and plastic. Cyberware is chrome. Cyberware is attitude.

Getting Cybered

Something happens when you start adding metal to people. They start to change. And it isn't pretty.

This is called cyberpsychosis, a form of alienation caused by the impact of artificial enhancements on the human psyche. A cyberpsycho gradually loses his humanity. He finds it difficult or pointless to interact with people. Eating and sleeping become less important. Some cyberpsychos become crazed berserks while other display less obvious disorders such as compulsive lying, paranoia, sadism, multiple personalities or violent mood swings. It is possible to treat or prevent cyberpsychosis with therapy.

Cyberware is bought as cyber schticks which cost 3+X experience points. Therapy is included. After all, we don't want the players to go on a berserk killing spree, do we? Some player will still want to role-play various personality disorders, but that is up to them.

Installation requires surgery. The gamemaster can make a montage of this. Let the player describe the operation where his character gets his new cyberlegs, physical rehabilitation from his first wobbly steps to a flashy sequence where he kicks holes in concrete walls and runs faster than a speeding dachshund and the mental anguish over his lost humanity. You get the picture.

Getting it Out

It is possible to remove, replace or modify cyberware in your body, though this will force you to undergo renewed rehabilitation and rest. Cyber schticks can thus be exchanged, upgraded and altered over time. This usually does not require any role-play, though the GM may make a montage of it. The major exception is Badware.

Freebies, Fashion, Chrome and The Perfect Enhancement

A cybered character has as many interface jacks as desired. With these, he can use devices that require a cybernetic connection to work properly. He can also use simsense and do netruns without having to resort to clumsy tortoises.

Refined cyberware modifications might be available, that have none of the drawbacks mentioned in these rules. These go along with genetic programs and other glitchy hi-tech. Their effect is to provide a motivation for those absurdly high attributes you already have.

Your cyber can come in a wide range of designer colors, as well as neutral flesh tones of various shades. Some people use cyber as a fashion statement. If you have cyber, you can get chrome. This is cool doodads that can be installed in your cyber. You can have glowing eyes or a cigarette lighter in the thumb of a cyberarm. More useful chrome includes hidden compartments in a cyberlimb or built-in lock picks in a cyberhand. Cosmetics is perhaps the most extensive area of cybernetic development. A cybered character can basically appear however he wants. Want to look like a bunny, with pink fur and four-foot, floppy ears? That's just $5,000, bunny-chummer.

Prosthetics give no bonuses but replace functions that were lost due to injury. Upgrading them can be an excellent excuse for getting more new cyber.

Badware

Few individuals can afford the monetary costs associated with extensive cyber modifications. Instead, it is governments, corporations and other organizations that install cyberware into recognized operatives. But trust only goes so far, and many organizations install more than you bargained for in order to maintain control.

Such detrimental cyberware is collectively known as Badware. The GM may give you a piece of Badware or two as a part of the character generation process, or you may ask to have some nasty surprises installed, in which case the GM might be nice and give you extra “free” cyber schticks equal in number to your Badware schticks.

Living Cybered

Cyberware usually have a specific effect or replace a certain value under certain conditions. Only rarely is a skill involved, and this is usually Guns, Martial Arts or Fix-It. There is no special skill governing the use of Cyberware.

Electric Shock

A cybered character hit by an electrical attack, such as that from a sorcerous Lightning blast, risks having his cyber scrambled. For one shot per point of outcome, he suffers impairments equal to half the number of cyber schticks he has (round down). The cyber schtick Hardening alleviates this problem.

A special EMP weapon does no normal damage, but scramble your systems for one sequence per point of outcome. Even a hardened system is scrambled one shot per point of outcome by such a weapon.

Hiding Cyber

Most cyber in T3 is not hidden. Anyone can see that you are half man, half machine, with the attitude of the later. This does not mean they can tell which specific cyber enhancements you have.

It is possible to hide cyberware. Hidden cyberware is called slick, and is hard to spot. Extensive, advanced sensors, such as those at important secure installations in modern junctures, can detect it, as can a medical examination and close examination of your chi flow. But normal sensors, such as those at an airport, cannot.

Certain cyber is always slick, that is noted in the description of the particular stick. Otherwise, the most common way to turn your cyberware slick is by using the Skin Graft schtick.

Even that cannot hide all cyberware, though. Some modifications, noted as bulky in the schtick description, are so extensive that they will never become fully slick. A character with such schticks will always register on X-ray scans and can be easily perceived by anyone who can sense chi flows. Generally, those cyber schticks that can be taken multiple times are slick at one pick and bulky at three picks. Four picks require such extensive modifications that they are obvious to anyone.

Note that cyber can be both slick and bulky, meaning that it's hard to see with the naked eye, but obvious to sensors. Obvious cyberware can never be slick, though.


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Copyright © 1998 and onwards, Carl Cramér. Page downloaded times. Last update Monday, November 04, 2002.