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Cybertech (Cyberpunk RED)

Skills

Definition

Cybertech is the skill for chrome: installing implants, repairing damaged ones, diagnosing a malfunction, and understanding the neural interfaces that connect hardware to a person. In a setting where most characters are partly machine, that makes it both a technical and a medical discipline. At the table Cybertech is what keeps expensive implants working. Cyberware takes damage in fights, degrades, and occasionally fails at the worst moment, and a proper clinic is not always available or safe. It is also the skill for the darker side of the setting: identifying what somebody else is running, removing something that should not be there, and knowing what an implant is doing to the person carrying it.

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How it works

**Linked Stat**: TECH **Category**: Technique **Resolution**: 1d10 plus TECH plus skill level against a DV set by the complexity of the hardware and the quality of your workspace. A natural 10 lets you roll again and add, and a natural 1 makes you roll again and subtract, which during an installation is a genuinely bad outcome. **Workspace matters**: Proper facilities and tools lower the DV sharply, and field work raises it. A failed installation harms the patient rather than not working, which is why nobody sensible chromes up in a parking structure.

Tips

**Best for**: Techs and Medtechs, and any crew that runs enough cyberware to need it maintained. **Character concepts**: A ripperdoc who lost their license, a Tech who builds custom implants, a Medtech who handles the crew's chrome, a scavenger who strips cyberware from the dead. **Synergies**: First Aid and Science cover the biological half of the work. Basic Tech handles the general hardware, Human Perception matters because Humanity starts at EMP times 10 and every install lowers it, and Trading sources the parts.

Frequently asked questions

Can I install my own cyberware?

Technically the skill allows it, and it is a very bad idea. Self-installation carries a heavy DV increase at most tables, and a failure damages you rather than the implant.

Does Cybertech affect Humanity?

Not the skill itself, but everything it installs does. Humanity starts at EMP times 10 and each piece of chrome reduces it, so the person doing the installing is often the one tracking the crew's psychological cost.

Cybertech or Basic Tech?

Cybertech for anything implanted or neurally linked. Basic Tech covers general machinery. External gear that plugs into an implant sits in the middle, and GMs usually allow either at a penalty.

Further Reading

First Aid SkillBasic Tech SkillAll Cyberpunk RED Skills
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