Cybernet - Rewards and Wealth

[psyclonejack]

Oh well. This book rules! I was happy to see that armor gave you DR, but I was not happy to see DC's for buying stuff, I kinda hatted that, cus its hard to find out what to hand out when im GMing.

Are you trying to come up with a real figure to pay the players for an job. IE: You each will recieve 5,000 in a private account upon completion of the job?
Or don't know what cyberwear/equipment to hand out?

Personally I plan on slotting them each a Cred Stick. It will grant them a +1 wealth bonus. And they can try to buy whatever they want. They make it the card suffers the -1 Wealth from a purchase above DC 15. They fail, the account doesn't have enough to cover it. Or you could give them a +2 Cred stick, etc.

Well, like if say the grupe is hired by some corp and is going to be paid .5 mill, I cant just say "eveyone goes up to 23" or something like that, can I?
I dont care about cyberwere. they can strip it off some dead punks body for all i care. Its just like if someone has a +1 wealth and they kill a dude with say, 350 on them, do they go up +1 or what?

Think of it this way. After a gun battle, the players pick up some guns, a few cred sticks, and the package they were sent to 'collect'.

Most handguns are Wealth DC 15 or over, so since the gun-n-go around the corner isn't gonna pay full price for second hand hardware. For every two guns the player sells it grants a +1. Maybe every 3 is +1 cause the hardware is in bad shape. Your the GM your call.

As far as the Cred Stick on the Goon Problem, I would say don't worry about it. Unless they had a good chunk of change, it won't effect the overall wealth of the players. Now if they sell the car the goons were driving, that would be a chunk of change, but pocket money is nothing. Remember Wealth doesn't go down when you buy something under DC15. Anyway, when they level and make a profession skill check, Wealth will go up, You could simply say collecting from goons helped in that wealth increase.

If you want to play out the details of making money off of a job, this was a couple of things my character use to do in an old Cyberpunk 2020 game.
First, I always took a quater of my fees in legal medicinal drugs. These I turned over to the Fixer to sell to the street level med-techs. At worst I'd only loose a few creds on the deal and gained the rep of being able to supply clean material to the docs.
Second, I would use part of the cash to buy, and then rent out, high quality gear to other street teams. The deposits and rental fees would keep me in spending cash after the balance of the job money ran out.

 

[skandall]

Ok, I can't count how many times I've been playing Cyberpunk and the entire plot got derailed because some meathead player shouted something about taking all the guys they just killed off to the body shop for some cash. Hoping to get on with the plot I say, okay fine you get X Euro per body, let's move on. Next thing I know, it's all about dragging bodies to the chop shop. Or in Underground, players KNOW that virtually everyone is a body donor to Tastie Ghoul so the same thing happens even though they aren't related they try to collect the cash (which is such a small amount that it's hardly worth the effort). Players are always drunk with the dreams of cold hard player cash and what it can buy them.

Ah but now GMs have a weapon to combat this evil headed coinage. Wealth and purchase DCs are awesome. Simple to deal with, not a lot to keep track of. Players don't have to balance their characters check book each game session. The focus of a Cyberpunk game should not be on how much cash the character has and what they can sell the dead bodies for! I think this system will help put the focus back where it belongs; on the role-playing.

As for how much to pay PCs for a mission... Wealth seems to be pretty much all inclusive. It assumes that you do whatever you have to in order to have the Wealth level that you do. Going on jobs to collect a package would already be factored into your Wealth level because it is jobs just like it that allow you to have it that high in the first place. As for grabbing all the gear and junk of the dead, again I expect that's already a part of your Wealth level. If the PCs are sent on something that's going to be a stretch for them, then I strongly like PsycloneJack's idea of giving out CredSticks that offer Wealth Bonuses and all purchases subtract from that until it's depleated. An awesome idea that I plan to us in my games.

So, it seems to me that it's better to have this kind of system rather than actual monetary values. Without them players still like to pick up equipment and such, but they're less likely to turn it into shopping list gaming where it's all about how much cash you're earned and what it can buy you. After all, money is a tool of the System, and the System is no friend to a True Cyberpunk.

 

[psyclonejack]

Thanks for the Compliments Skandall, glad I could help. I was recently comparing the Purchase DC's to my 2004 Buyers Guide. In order to figure out DC's for Guns that are not listed. I came up with some intresting figures. All are in US dollars.

Beretta 92/96 - $999.00. Cybernet DC-16 purchase
Glock 17 Classic - $616 to $800. Cybernet DC-18 purchase
Colt 1991 - $699 to $800. Cybernet DC-15 purchase
Desert Eagle .50 - $1699. Cybernet DC-18 purchase
Barret Model 82A .50 Cal Rifle - $7,300. Cybernet DC-22 purchase

Taking this into Consideration, I feel that any modern firearm that one can find the price of can be translated into Cybernet Wealth Checks. I would love to have some feedback on this. Not for use in Game other than to figure out DC's of equipment and weapons that are not mentioned in the main book. My attempt to come up with a very rough chart looks something like this:

~$500 DC-15
~$750 DC-16
~$1000 DC-17
~$2000 DC-18
~$2500 DC-19
~$3000 DC-20
~$4000 DC-21
~$6000 DC-22
~$8000 DC-23

Looking for some feedback,
Psyjack

 

[Payote]

Hey Jack this looks good for small stuff. Iam still a little worried about letting my players get that much wealth. I just cant see living on the edge and being rich as Bill Gates. Players should have some cash for pay offs
and bribes of course. I just dont want them to have alot of cash. Less than 15000. Id rather pay off in equipment or favors.
Small cash rewards are ok too.

 

[psyclonejack]

Hmm,

But wouldn't a run pay off big, and the runner simply go party and blow it all. Look at my new wheels, and my new gun, and my new arm, and hey where did my money go. . . .

Besides, a big payoff or a new set of wheels is a great plot hook. After all characters are more likely to go gunning for that gang leader after he test fires his new batch of stingers at there car, or a random bombing takes out that apartment they rented. :twisted:

Just remembering back to my Fixer who had a big pay off of over 100,000 and the next day found out some nethead weefle runner hacked his account and left him with zilch.

Grinning evilly,
PsyJack

 

[Anonymous]

Don't forget that in the d20 Modern book, selling used items drops their Wealth Level by 3. If that amount is below your current Wealth, you gain nothing worth tracking.

 

[psyclonejack]

Okay everyone here is a question:

Quick Nick (Connection) purchases some requested Cyberware for his client. (DC 27) Nick's Wealth is currently 17. So the purchase costs him 2 wealth points. (1 for over 15 and 1 for 10 over his wealth) Nick meets his client a cyberware freak by the name of Clang. Clang has been doing some runs for Nick so Nick decides to cut him a deal and only sell it to clang for cost. Clang has a wealth of 5. He would not be able to normally purchase the cyberware, but since Nick is willing to only break even on it, Clang pays Nick and now has a wealth of 3? While Nick's wealth is unchanged?

Or would clang have to pay 2d6+1 wealth in order for Nick to get his 2 points of wealth back?

Still trying to get a handle of wealth in game . . .
PsyJack

 

[Socket]

Okay everyone here is a question:

Quick Nick (Connection) purchases some requested Cyberware for his client. (DC 27) Nick's Wealth is currently 17. So the purchase costs him 2 wealth points. (1 for over 15 and 1 for 10 over his wealth) Nick meets his client a cyberware freak by the name of Clang. Clang has been doing some runs for Nick so Nick decides to cut him a deal and only sell it to clang for cost. Clang has a wealth of 5. He would not be able to normally purchase the cyberware, but since Nick is willing to only break even on it, Clang pays Nick and now has a wealth of 3? While Nick's wealth is unchanged?

Or would clang have to pay 2d6+1 wealth in order for Nick to get his 2 points of wealth back?

Still trying to get a handle of wealth in game . . .
PsyJack

The rules don't really cover this but...
If clang is an NPC I wouldn't worry about it....if he is a fellow PC then I think taking the 2 pts away is fair enough or I would have him pay what the seller lost plus 1. This is fudging the system a little but who cares!
I

Socket

 

[kipicgold]

As printed in the d20 Modern Book

p.204, table 7-1, Purchase DC

Iem cost Purchase DC Item Cost Purchase DC
$5 2 200 12
12 3 275 13
20 4 350 14
30 5 500 15
40 6 650 16
55 7 900 17
70 8 1200 18
90 9 1500 19
120 10 2000 20
150 11 2750 21

9000 = 25 35000 = 30 150000 = 35 650000 = 40

As you can see, the "vaule" of the wealth score is higher the more you go on. Hope this helps, and let me know if you want an expanded list

 

[kipicgold]

Selling Stuff (Regaining Wealth) as it is in d20 Modern p 94

Selling an object can provide an increase to your Wealth bonus. The increase is the same amount as the Wealth bonus loss you would experience if you purchased an object with a purchase DC equal to the sale value. For instance, say you have a Wealth bonus of +9. If you purchased an object with a purchase DC of 23, your Wealth bonus would decrease by 1d6+1. Therefore, when selling your Chevy Cavalier (sale value 23), you receive a Wealth bonus increase of 1d6+1

Hope this helps you all out

 

[Socket]

Selling Stuff (Regaining Wealth) as it is in d20 Modern p 94

Selling an object can provide an increase to your Wealth bonus. The increase is the same amount as the Wealth bonus loss you would experience if you purchased an object with a purchase DC equal to the sale value. For instance, say you have a Wealth bonus of +9. If you purchased an object with a purchase DC of 23, your Wealth bonus would decrease by 1d6+1. Therefore, when selling your Chevy Cavalier (sale value 23), you receive a Wealth bonus increase of 1d6+1

Hope this helps you all out

Don't forget when you sell stuff that you have to subtract 3 from the purchase DC. It wouldn't have made a difference in the above example but it is an often forgetten piece of the equation.
If you characters are going to be purchasing things to resell then they shouldn't be paying retail price

 

[slingbld]

If you characters are going to be purchasing things to resell then they shouldn't be paying retail price

HA! You assume the players are actually BUYING the stuff they're selling...
I've been in Cyberpunk games where half the time we were doing jobs the other half we were robbing potential clients blind...

 

[psyclonejack]

Yeah most items are from the nice 5 finger discount rack.

PsyJack