Hey, I’ve a character that recently suffered a Characteristic critical injury and the spot has a cybernetic on it. Does the cybernetic take the injury first, likely destroying it, or does my base characteristic take it?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's a RAW ruling on this. I expect that it would be that it goes against the player's natural Characteristic, but depending on the circumstances (and my natural distaste for permanent Characteristic drops) I might rule that it simply destroys the cybernetic.

I would argue, for the sake of simplicity, that you simply treat all hits to a characteristic as damaging the "meat". A cybernetic right arm hit doesn't mean it was just the right arm necessarily. It could mean the right arm area, which the cybernetic implant itself resists and remains undamaged, but the surround tissue where the implant meets the normal tissue could also be damaged which reduces functionality overall.

Alternatively, you can decide the hit does render the cybernetic implant useless until a repair check is made. Or perhaps it is completely destroyed by a hit that does permanent characteristic loss.

This way, the player can simply pay the cost of the implant again to avoid permanent characteristic loss.

I handle permanent characteristic loss with cybernetic implants myself. While a character with Brawn 4, who takes a -1 Brawn reduction, could get a basic arm replacement, their Brawn would still be 3, whereas they could get the +1 version and go back to a 4.

I prefer to allow basic cybernetic implants to restore characteristic to their max normal rating, and then the improved version still gives the +1.

So the Brawn 4 character who takes a -1 Brawn from a right arm hit can restore their Brawn to a 4 with a basic implant, and still go to a 5 with the +1 version. The trade off is that they still have only a 3 Brawn if the cybernetic is rendered inoperative for some reason.

This helps avoid a bad crit weakening a character and possibly making things less fun while still making it a cost to recover.

Critical Injuries don't damage cybernetics. Instead of the Critical, it is possible to spend Advantages and/or Triumphs to damage gear, and this includes cybernetics.

4 hours ago, jaethe77 said:

Alternatively, you can decide the hit does render the cybernetic implant useless until a repair check is made. Or perhaps it is completely destroyed by a hit that does permanent characteristic loss.

This way, the player can simply pay the cost of the implant again to avoid permanent characteristic loss.

That's how I would handle it. Especially given how expensive some cybernetics are, not to mention rare. I would have it completely and irreparably destroyed, though. Then they have to pay the full cost to increase that characteristic back to where it "should be." It also gives you a nice opportunity to make it a plot point or obstacle rather than just a penalty or something quick and easy to recover from.

A reduced characteristic can be interesting for role-play or character development, but it can also really derail a character build, especially if it happens more than once. I've thought before about how to role-play a Characteristic that is reduced until healed. Perhaps the character develops a stutter when they lose a point in Presence. Then, even after the crit has been healed, you role-play them getting over their stutter. Or if they lose a point in Agility, perhaps they have stiff fingers, so they do PT during down time (role-played down time, like at a cantina or what not) to work on their dexterity and restoring their fingers to their previous ability to operate.

Perhaps a way to handle a "permanent" characteristic drop is to require the character to spend XP to purchase that rank back (40 XP for Agility 4, for example). That means that it is not permanent, it doesn't take a Dedication, but it still penalizes them for longer than the alternative.

One of my big reservations about the crit is that you can have someone who just gets really unlucky and it unbalances the party or pretty much breaks the character. Generally, a party will all have about the same number of characteristic points. If a character gets that crit twice, now they have two less. If they are really unlucky and it hits them in their preferred characteristic, well now they've got a lot of wasted XP until they catch back up or build around it by buying multiple skill ranks to compensate (but their Triumph potential is still neutered). And sure they can get Dedication, but Dedication is a finite resource that is very hard to get to, and you can only get to it at about a rate equal to the others, which still leaves you behind.

For me, I think it would depend on the situation and the character.

Depending on who the attacker is, they might intentionally target the cybernetic or the meat. If they target the meat, then the cybernetic might be relatively undamaged and could just be reattached with an appropriate medical check.

Or, there might be a big narrative reason for the character to suffer the injury to one side or the other.

OTOH, the attacker might not care and the narrative might not be a factor. In which case, I might ask the player which option they prefer.