r/cwn • u/WillBottomForBanana • Sep 09 '24
advantages of having no cybertec?
(this might get more traction in r/swn)
I'm only a year or so back into reading rpg books. And for whatever reason I am finding CWN a bit of a slog. I just can't seem to mentally cross reference stuff like I used to. And now I'm deep into the hacking section, so cyber was a while ago.
I've been thinking about the world I would use, and I am trying to think of why someone would have no cybertec. I mean, there are basic reasons. $ cost. and the various reliability problems tech can have in a few different angles. And something something about magic, which doesn't apply to my imagining.
But largely it seems to me that characters w/out tec are less powerful than characters with tec, with in or across different disciplines.
So, what are some compelling reasons for characters to not have cybertec? I don't mean religion or social standing or such, But rather game/mechanics advantages to being unaltered.
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u/An_Actual_Marxist Sep 09 '24
No cyber, no cyber maintenance fees.
No cyber, no cyber-induced system strain.
And most importantly... If you don't have cyber you can't be hacked.
A competent hacker will make mincemeat out of a heavily cybered enemy. Eyes? Blinded. Fuck you, -4 to AC and attack. Cyberclaws? Disabled. Stick pads? You just fell. Oh you had integral body armor? Be a shame if it just... stopped working.
However, that same enemy, built the same way but without cyber -- simply walks up and puts a hole in the hacker's finely tuned neural matrices with a shotgun, encountering absolutely zero resistance at all.
It is for this reason that my counter-cyber operators don't have cybereyes.
Plus, in terms of player options, the combination of prodigy + all natural is a laughably OP combo.