Leveling Up Bionic Characters

[jhhaley]

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to level up bionic characters as they gain experience? My mutant and magic characters have clear upgrades to their powers as they increase in level, but bionic characters seem to be stuck with the same set of hardware unless there are in game additions made to their tech. How do folks handle this disparity, or is it just a downside to choosing that power type?

[eliakon]

Basically Bionic, Robot, and the like are "front loaded". They get a bunch of power at the start and then if they want to get anything else they need to find upgrades in game.
That said it isn't hard for a GM to provide those upgrades. There are enough gadgeteers, aliens, secret agencies and what not running around to ensure that you can provide new widgets and do-dads for your cyborg.

[ShadowLogan]

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to level up bionic characters as they gain experience? My mutant and magic characters have clear upgrades to their powers as they increase in level, but bionic characters seem to be stuck with the same set of hardware unless there are in game additions made to their tech. How do folks handle this disparity, or is it just a downside to choosing that power type?

Taking a page from the Mystics in Rifts/PF2E... you could simply have them "unlock" new features they did not previously know about (or knew about, but couldn't access). I'd keep these to the "reasonable" level (ie, no forearm blaster if you didn't already have one).

Given they can't "heal" damage, when they go in for repairs they could receive new features or other adjustments (they might not be told about them).

External Equipment designed to only work with them (or their specific model as the case might be).

[Stone Gargoyle]

Make upgrades to their bionics available as they level. Most bionics characters were created somewhere or have access to places where they can be repaired and upgraded.

[RockJock]

It greatly depends on how you play the bionics character, and what sort of game you run. It is easy enough to have a genius type build new tech, or the sponsoring agency give more toys. Hand held weapons, and bionic armor are perfect for this. You can easily take your normal, man sized cyborg have a sort of Hulkbuster style upgrade. Another possible buff could be learning the heavy metal version of skills like boxing, or Martial Arts,

Bionic and Robotics characters, like their Rifts counterparts tend to be pretty front loaded as far as power level. They start out very powerful, but other classes gain ground overtime.

[eliakon]

It greatly depends on how you play the bionics character, and what sort of game you run. It is easy enough to have a genius type build new tech, or the sponsoring agency give more toys. Hand held weapons, and bionic armor are perfect for this. You can easily take your normal, man sized cyborg have a sort of Hulkbuster style upgrade. Another possible buff could be learning the heavy metal version of skills like boxing, or Martial Arts,

Bionic and Robotics characters, like their Rifts counterparts tend to be pretty front loaded as far as power level. They start out very powerful, but other classes gain ground overtime.

I was in an HU game where one of the players was a huge fan of Battle Angle Alita. Thus they wanted their cyborg to be able to do that sort of thing.
The GM complied by creating a set of custom bionic skills, a few bionic martial arts and offering some mods that catered to the 'cyber-warrior' (aka they took some of the Eugenics mods, and made them implants that could be used with 'proper training') and presto, Cyber-Ninja Dude.

A different game the player started out as a regular high school kid who was critically injured in an industrial accident. To avoid a massive liability case they opted to pay for medical prosthetics (basic full body rebuild). However since playing a basic no frills civilian medical borg is boring the GM arranged for them to have regular access to additional 'upgrades' (the cyberdoc that they went to moonlighted as the cyberdoc for professional cyber-gladiators and was able to get him 'slightly used' combat ware).

Both of them were able to 'level up' in play and had their capabilities evolve over time.

[taalismn]

If you can make in-game contacts or acquire favors with the gizmoteer culture, create Superpower-imitating bionic upgrades with oodles of attendant technobabble. Make it a 'power of the month' sort of deal, but fraught with experimental peril. Furthermore, the powers in the hardware themselves don't gain with experience(GM's prerogative as to what level they're 'fixed' at). Then maybe with each level of experience, the 'Borg gets to keep a 'perfected' power implant...typically something akin to a Minor power, or maybe a Major each 3-4 levels of gained experience.

[RockJock]

You can always specialize the cyborg after a time. Various Rifts books offer everything from giant, almost monster cyborgs to stealthy espionage types. Heck, the new Soventski book has a half borg/half motorcycle in it.

China 2 has some interesting borgs, some with sort of martial arts like combat skills.

Japan has stealth/ninja and samurai borgs.

Warlords of Russia has BIG machine men.

New West has gunslinger borgs.

All of these can give you ideas on how to either improve skills in a certain direction, or upgrade the machine parts towards a goal. Many more cyborg pieces are scattered in Rifts and other books.

I'm not saying copy Rifts, but the Rifts books give a general outline for lots of possibilities that keeps you from going totally from scratch.