Cyberwares are full of fun choices to make  

Again that post is dedicated to newcomers, so we are going to focus on them and how the game is intended to be played the first time: “It’s always Street level” (p.392). That’s why this post will not address FBC at all. They are “endgame content” (quoting James Hutt here) therefore not a priority to understand.

Of course for your second campaign or even at the end of your first, you can go epic level, no problem, that’s your game. Have fun. 

As stated in my very long post about Combat, everything is about choices in CPR : Character creation, Character improvement, Gears and Tactics. And everything is linked. If you play the game as intended, a job will pay around 1000eb + loot. That’s not a big amount of money but it’s directly linked to the Street level philosophy, that’s why you shouldn’t give more unless very hard job.

And with such a small amount of money we are back to the main point : Choices. Which cyberwares will you buy and why ?

• More damage in hand to hand combat

• More HP & better Death save

• More Initiative > better battlefield control

• More perception

• More movement while running

• More Chance to hit

• Negate some malus (seriously wounded, Night & Smoke, movement penalty)

• Immunity against some critical injury

• Immunity against x2 damage multiplier when being hit by a headshot

• Better resistance

• Make some weapons/armor/item concealable and will conceal without a check

• Nullify the need to spend an action in order to stow some weapon, item.

• Immunity to Disarm action

• Immunity to agent hacking

• Set any skill to level 3.

• Improve some skills

• Give you permission to do some new stuff

• etc....

I’m not going through each cyberwares in the game. I just want you to get the mindset around cyberwares in CPR with some examples. It’s far from being exhaustive. That’s not the point.

More Awareness, and visual malus mitigation

Cybereyes : They cost a lot in term of Humanity loss because you need 2 eyes for the most effective option and you have to pay twice as much money and humanity loss. Except if you go for the Kiroshi MonoVision, but that's a dangerous choice as critical injuries to the eyes gonna hurt you twice as much. And EMP gonna blind you.

• Low Light/ Infrared/ UV : 2slots and must be paired - negate night and smoke malus (-4) it's a must have.

• Image Enhance : 1 slot and must be paired - +2 to Perception (visual), Lip reading, and Conceal/Reveal

Radar/Sonar Implant : Internal body cyberware, detect movement out on the open and not behind cover like a door, range : 50m.

Tactile boost : Chipware, it boosts the user's sense of touch, allowing them to detect motion within 20m/yds of them, as long as their hand is touching a surface.

With these cyberwares it's harder to ambush you. On the outside it's even more complicated.

Armor Concealment

You can’t always wear an armor SP11 as it’s quite visible, it’s worst with head armor as it’s not cool at all. Style over Substance choom !

Subdermal armor is here for you with a nice SP11 for your head and body. You can go to this nice event in a beautiful dress, you are still protected without anyone noticing.

That's also the best friend of paranoid Solo, you will survive a headshot(sniper).

Armor without penalties

Later with a lot more money you can have a SP13 heavy subdermal armor without any armor penalties if you have body 14. (full tank mode without being a FBC yet).

More Strength and Resilience

• GMBL will increase your BODY by 2 each time (max BODY 10)

• Internal Linear Frame can set your BODY up to 17 (very costly).  

At character creation you can reach up to BODY 12 with a starting BODY of 4 and 2000eb

The benefits are :

• More HP, and by consequence the Seriously wounded malus will be triggered later (half your HP).

• Better death save = a far better survivability

• More damage in hand to hand combat (more D6 for striking and more direct damage for Choke and Throw)

• Body 8 à Allows you to wield 2handed Melee weapon with one hand

• Body 11 à Allows you to use mounted weapon with your bare hand (Hurricane, Helix, CowBoy, etc..)

Drawbacks

• Costly in eddies and Humanity loss (start game)

• Internal Linear Frame are not so hard to spot unless you TechUP them (GM fiat here).

Better resistance

• Nasal filter : immunity against gas attack

• Toxin binder : +2 to Resist & Drug : Poison, Biotoxin, Drugs, & Sleep ammo. (RAW : flashbang)

Immunity to headshoot bonus damage

Cyberskull will negate the x2 damage when hit in the head. That's huge... the price is huge too 5000eb - borgware

More Chance to hit

• Subdermal grip + Interface plug (+ Smartlink) : +1 to hit

• Targeting scope : + 1 to hit when performing a Aimed shoot

• Teleoptics : +1 to hit at 51m+

With an Excellent Quality weapon that's the way to raise your chance to hit, which is kinda important.

Getting Skills with money

Chipware socket and Skill chip : will SET a skill to level 3.

Sounds not so useful.... think about it :

• If you have REF 7+ & Air vehicle (x2 skill) or land vehicule chip : Base 10 and you can drive / pilot whatever you want without a check.

• If you have TECH 8 + Medscanner & Paramedic (x2 skill) chip : Total 13 in paramedic without spending an IP point in it. If you have some Luck to spend, you can fix some pretty bad Critical Injury. (and save lives obviously)

• If you have REF8 + a Smartlinked and EQ weapon + Precision attack 1 & Heavy Weapon (x2 skill) chip or Autofire (x2) chip : Total 14 in heavy weapon or for Suppressive fire. More than enough against a lot of opponents.

• If you have COOL 8 + 3 light tatoo + Agent and clothes up to date + A sytlish Superchrome weapon & Wardobe and Style chip : Total 17 in Wardrobe & style (you can go higher)

Let's build some fun packages because combat packages are easy to build and misses the point about all the fun stuff we can have here. For the record, Interface vol.2 have a lot of Exotics packages. They aren't about effectiveness they are about Style. Keep in mind, most cyberwares can be useful and some of them requires you to be quite active if you want to get the best out of them.

Sea Nomad

You're a pirate and you have some nice tools to do your job. Infiltration on someone else boat or straightforward old pirate style attack. As you live on your boat, it's quite complicated to corner you as you can swim away under water.

• Gills

• Radar/Sonar

• Tactile Boost

  • • Cyberlegs

    • Webfoot

    • Jump Booster

• Cyber eyes + Low Light/ Infrared/ UV (it's quit dark under the sea at night)

• Cyberarm

  • • Pop-up Melee weapon (cutlass

    • Grapple hand

Face

Again. This time it was harder, you need to keep it tight in term of Minimum Humanity loss. Here it's 20 --> EMP 6 if you started at 8. That's enough to keep a high level in Conversation and Human perception.

With the Bodyweight AutoInjector you can boost your persuasion a lot while being discreet, you are just playing with your agent.

• Cyberaudio suite

  • • Voice stress Analyzer : User adds +2 to their Human Perception and Interrogation Skills

• Fashion wear :

  • • light tatoo x3 (+2 wardrobe and Style)

    • Chemskin and Techhair (+2 personal grooming)

• Cyberarm

  • • pop-up VHP

    • Subdermal grip

    • Superchrome® Covering (+2 wardrobe and Style)

• Neural link + Chipware socket + whatever Skill chip you need

• Bodyweight AutoInjector : Smash (+2 persuasion and other stuff)

• Bodyweight AutoInjector : Prime time (+2 COOL and WILL but with temporary humanity loss)

• Toxin binders

• AudioVox : Vocal synthesizer. User adds +2 to their Acting skill and also adds +2 to their Play Instrument Skill while singing

Infiltrator

This one will use stealth (but there is only ONE cyberware that boost Stealth and it's NOT discreet) AND his capabilities to lie and to impersonate someone else. That's not a ninja only counting on Stealth and diversion. That's more a spy

Apparence : when you activate these fashionware you can change a bit your apparence.

• Shift tact

• Techhair

• Chemskin

Social

• Audiovox : +2 acting

• Bodyweight AutoInjector : Smash (+2 persuasion and other stuff)

• Bodyweight AutoInjector : Prime time (+2 COOL and WILL but with temporary humanity loss)

• Voice stress analyser

• Impersonate a person (expensive as you need to redo it each time)

• Chipware socket + Poser chip (this chip help you to impersonate 1 person)

• Biosculping

Awareness

• Radar/Sonar

• Tactile boost

• Cyber eyes

• Low Light/ Infrared/ UV

• Image Enhanced (+2 Lip reading, Conceal/Reveal and Perception - visual)

• Cyber audio suite + Amplified Hearing (+2 Perception - hearing)

Combat

• Wolfers : HMW in a meat arm, very discreet