Syringe Boosts

Hi! If you've played Daisy, Scout, or run Cyber-pig, this post is not for you.

What I'm Looking For: I need some ideas on effects that might come in syringes to boost my player's character. And I need to know if the way I'm looking to balance some of these might have some unintended consequences. Thanks!

So for everyone else, I'm looking to stand up my magic campaign, albeit with a different structure and premise than I had originally thought of. It's going to be more of a bounty-hunting campaign set in Night City. One of the things I was thinking of was to bring in some Witcher flavor by giving my PC some augmented boosters that give her things she doesn't normally have access to.

In-game, these would probably be manufactured by BioTechnica, until she can crack them on her own. Most of them will be made using monster parts, so you can't exactly just reverse engineer it from a chemical analyzer.

A few ideas I've got so far:

  • Augmented Senses: Hearing, sight, smell, etc. Useful for running investigation scenes.
  • Straight-up boosts: extra hp, higher REF / DEX, etc.
  • Social boosts: you know that drug that the Martian interrogator took in The Expanse? Something like that. Alternatively, you remember those old Axe body spray ads? Something like that, too.
  • Purgatives: Ends the effect of all drugs on the character, but there's always a hideous mess to clean up (puke, sweating blood, massive diarrhea, etc.)

Now, I don't want these to be balanced by making them addictive, because then my player won't interact with them. And I don't want them to drain Humanity, because the character will just devote all her downtime to Therapy and that's not interesting.

So I'm thinking of balancing them by slightly mixing up RED's standard drug mechanics. Here's an example:

Third Eye

Cost Per Dose: 500 eb (Expensive)

A BioTechnica-crafted drug cocktail made from fairly potent toxic compounds. Vastly boosts and expands the user's range of senses, but can also cause hallucinations and liver damage to those unprepared for the effects.

Primary Effect:

  • Lasts 1 hour
  • The user's perceptions are boosted to the very limit of human capability. They receive a +4 bonus to all checks made using skills in the Awareness skill group (Concentration, Perception, Lip Reading, Tracking, Conceal / Reveal Object).

Secondary Effect (DV 17):

  • The user takes 1d6 damage (does not ablate armor)
  • The user begins to hallucinate, which makes interacting with people difficult. They take a -4 penalty to all checks made using skills in the Social skill group.

More powerful effects (especially combat effects) come with higher DVs, more damage, and more potentially dangerous side effects.