The Cyberpunk RED Rules

BY NEIL BRANQUINHO cyberpunk red FAQ last updated 7.28.2021 Rules clarifications and questions answered about Cyberpunk RED Version 1.3 • Additions since 1.2 marked with @ Covers the Cyberpunk RED Corerulebook. Copyright © 2021 by R. Talsorian Games, Inc., Cyberpunk is a registered trademark of CD Projekt Red S.A. All rights reserved under the Universal Copyrights Convention. All situations, governments, and people herein are fictional. Any similarities portrayed herein without satiric intent are strictly coincidental. 1 CYBERPUNK RED FAQ an I do X when I roll y? Ccharactercreationcharactercreation @ We've had some questions along the lines of "does rule X apply to dice roll Y", so we've prepared the following table to help explain it all. Can Benefit from Wound Critical Success Spend Subject to Critical Complimentary State Roll Type or Failure Luck Situational Injuries Skill Check and/ Penalties Applies? On? Modifiers? Impact? or Extra Time? Impact? Skill Checks (STAT + Skill YES YES YES YES YES YES + 1d10) Initiative YES YES NO YES NO NO YES (only Death those that NO NO NO NO NO Saves increase Death Save) Charismatic Impact and YES YES YES YES YES YES Interface Checks haracter Creation Ccharactercreationcharactercreation Q: When making a Character, do you get the full benefits of their Special Ability at Rank 4? I.e. if I make a Medtech, do they have 4 points to distribute between the three specialties (Surgery, Pharmaceuticals, and Cryotech Operation)? A: Yes. Treat it as having gained a Rank, four separate times. ombat Ccombatcombatcombatcombat Q: Do area attacks (grenades, shotgun shells, rockets, and so forth) reduce the SP of armor in just the body location? Or in both the body and head locations? A: SP is only reduced in the body location. All area attack effects cannot be used to make an aimed shot and thus cannot target the head. Q: What happens when you roll a 1 when attacking with a Poor Quality Melee Weapon? A: The grip falls off, the blade bends weirdly, the handle becomes loose, or perhaps because of the weapon's terrible design, something even more annoying happens. Whatever happens, you'll need to use an Action to reverse it before that weapon can be swung again. 2 CYBERPUNK RED FAQ Q: How does the Spot Weakness Specialty of the Solo’s Combat Awareness Role Ability interact with Autofire, where you multiply the damage before you subtract any armor SP? A: You add the damage just after the Autofire damage is multiplied, right before you subtract the armor's SP. Total Damage = [(2d6 * amount you rolled above Autofire DV, up to weapon's Autofire limit) + Spot Weakness damage bonus] – SP Q: How does the Spot Weakness Specialty of the Solo’s Combat Awareness Role Ability interact with a Head Aimed shot, where you multiply the damage after you subtract any armor SP? A: You roll damage, then add Spot Weakness Damage, then subtract SP, then multiply the damage that gets through the armor by two. Total Damage = [(weapon damage + Spot Weakness damage] – SP] * 2 Q: How are surprise attacks handled? An example would be a player doesn't see the Solo hiding around the corner and walks past them. What about silent killing. What rules you could provide for GM and players to resolve silent instant kills, ambushes and surprise attacks? A: Use the Ambush rules on pg. 399 of the core rulebook: Anyone about to be ambushed gets to make Perception vs Stealth Contested Check against all prospective ambushers. If even one Perception Check wins out, they'll raise the alarm and bam you are in combat. If all Stealth checks win, theoretically, they can all use the Hold Action and fire at the same time, after which bam you are in combat, roll Initiative. You can still miss a shot due to poor marksmanship, but if they don't see you, try taking Extra Time and using a Complementary Skill (both pg. 130) to make that headshot of your dreams possible. You can't dodge something you don't sense coming, so all Melee makes a great stealth tool, capable of no-roll head aimed shots. Completely Silent Instant Kills are essentially perfect ambushes with silent weapons (bows and crossbows, dart guns, thrown melee weapons, melee weapons) that do enough damage to instantly reduce a victim to 0 HP, after which the target must also fail their Death Save immediately. This is the fate of nameless night guards without helmets who meet the swift skeletal hand of fate embodied by your player Solo. Attempting to make a silent kill should be a risky moment of high tension within a “stealth mission”. It shouldn't just be the roll, but also the context of the silent kill that should make it dramatic and tense. 3 CYBERPUNK RED FAQ Q: Some questions about anti-electronics weapons like Microwavers and EMPs. First, how do they interact with drones and defenses like turrets. Do they shut them down entirely or do they do damage as if they were normal weapons of the type (pistols and grenades). Second, how do they interact with vehicles like motorcycles or ground cars? Finally, what’s the largest electronic device they can shut down? Can they shut down something the size of a fridge or cryotank or an external linear frame? A: If it's not EMP shielded, an EMP effect that's powerful enough to do so can impact any device. But if you read the full text of the EMP Ammunition (pg. 345) and the Microwaver (pg. 348), you'll see that these EMP options are anti-personnel in nature, and their effects are temporary. They aren't intended to interact with vehicles, or non-held electronics as written. As written, they only impact “cyberware” and “held electronics”. This is intentional for game balance. It's up to your GM how the Microwaver or EMP Ammunition could work on things they are not designed to work on. Be warned. It would be, dare I say, imbalanced if the Tech Role in Countering Electronic Security with the appropriate Skill could be easily replaced with a 500eb rechargeable gun. Q: There seem to be three options for defenses: controlled by a demon, controlled by a Character, and not controlled at all. How do you determine Initiative for the defense in each option? A: Initiative is determined as follows. • Controlled by Demon: Initiative of the Demon (see Demons, top of pg. 212) • Controlled by Character: Initiative of the Character • Not Controlled: These enter Initiative at the exact moment their “trigger” goes off, and then stay in Initiative at that spot in the queue if they have a repeating effect. If the defense triggers combat, act as if it won Initiative and put them at the top of the queue. Q: Can someone with a REF of 8 dodge an indefinite amount of bullets in a turn, or will they tire out after a set number? A: Somebody with REF 8 can theoretically dodge an indefinite amount of bullets in a turn, but they will eventually roll a one and get shot of course… @ Q: Assuming you can dodge ranged attacks, do you declare your intention to make an Evasion Check before or after your opponent makes their Attack Check? A: You declare, and make, your Evasion Skill Check before your opponent makes their Attack Check. Your Evasion Skill Check sets the DV for the Attack Check. @ Q: What Check do I make to see if I succeed at a Choke or Throw Action against an opponent I've grappled? A: No Check needed. If you have the target grappled you automatically succeed if you choose to perform a Choke or Throw Action against them. 4 CYBERPUNK RED FAQ ritical Injuries Ccriticalinjuriescriticalinjuries Q: When you roll two or more 6s on an area attack’s damage (grenades, shotgun shells, rockets, and so forth) how do you determine Critical Injuries for anyone in the area of effect? Do you apply Critical Injuries to everyone? And if so, do you roll each person’s Critical Injury separately? And which of the two tables do you roll on? A: For an area attack that rolls two or more 6s for damage, everyone hit by the attack gets a Critical Injury. Everybody rolls what Critical Injury to the body they get separately. Q: When a Critical Injury is applied outside of rolling two 6s on damage (via a Martial Arts Special Maneuver, an Aimed Shot to the legs, as the result of a ramming attack with a vehicle, and so forth) do you apply the bonus damage and the effect of the injury or just the effect of the injury? A: Yep, in those cases, you apply the bonus damage and the Critical Injury effect. We specify whenever you don’t cause bonus damage with a Critical Injury. Teargas Ammunition specify that they don’t cause bonus damage with their injury effect, so look out for that. Q: Do martial arts crits stack? For example, If a PC rolls Bone Breaking Strike and is successful then applies the bonus 5 Damage directly to HP and the broken ribs Critical Injury and then rolls 2 6s on the damage roll, do you apply another 5 damage and an extra crit? Seems unlikely that a strike specifically targeting the ribs could also apply Dismembered Leg. A: If the damage you roll for Bone Breaking Strike gets double 6’s, you get both Broken Ribs and another Critical Injury, which you roll for. The GM is always free to throw out a Critical Injury result they feel doesn’t make sense but feel free to get creative and descriptive.

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