Changing the Rules, posted from GH Blog

[alias]

Posted by Joseph Hewitt on the website:

Changing the Rules

You know, the discussion we've been having lately on the forum has got me to thinking about the character generation/advancement rules. I'm going to lay out some radical new ideas I've had which might make things a whole lot better... or they might not. At the moment I'm not seriously planning to do any of this, but it's something to think about.

Before I start on that, though, here are some of the goals I have for character creation.

    * It should be possible to complete the game with a variety of different character types. Not all winning characters should be identical.
    * Outside of a basic competency at mecha piloting, no skill or talent in the game should be mandatory.
    * Different types of characters should lead to different strategies and result in different playing experiences.
    * There should be challenges and rewards for all specialties.
    * Nobody can do everything.

What is a skill? A skill is something that a character has trained to do better than natural ability alone would predict. If a character knows a skill, this should be part of their character concept. Consequently, skills should be things that integrate nicely with character concepts.

What is a talent? A talent is something that a character does better (or differently) than their equally skilled peers. It's a further level of specialization above and beyond a skill.

At the moment, I suspect that there are too many skills in GearHead. Many of them skills aren't particularly exciting. Almost all of the skills are based on a mechanic rather than a concept. There are so many skills that adding content specific to each one is going to be a hassle. Here are some changes that could be made:

    * Reduce the total number of skills. Some skills will be merged, others will be converted to talents, and a few will disappear entirely.
    * Skills should be based on concepts, not on mechanics. Individual skills should be fairly powerful.
    * Increase the effect of stats on the skill score formula, so stat selection and the Jack of All Trades talent will become more meaningful.
    * Delink stat increases from skills. You can increase any stat you have the experience for; the cost to increase a stat is determined by both how many times that stat has been raised and how many total stat points have been raised.
    * Delink skills from stats. Most skills will still mostly use a single stat, but certain skills may use different stats in different circumstances. See the skill list below for details.
    * Because there will be fewer skills total, there will also be fewer skill slots. The basic combat skills may be exempt from the slot limitation.
    * HP, MP, and SP will increase automatically based on experience point total. Certain skills may bestow an additional bonus.

Now, on to the slashed skill list. I've arranged these skills into groups; note that these groups don't have any game effect, they're just helping me to conceptualize how things should work.

Basic Combat Skills: These will presumably be the most used skills in the game. A character with competency in the mecha skills should be able to complete all mandatory combat in the game; some optional content may require a more combat-focused character.

    * Mecha Gunnery: This skill merges Mecha Gunnery and Mecha Artillery into one. Different weapons will use different stats for their attack rolls: small guns will still use Reflexes, and big guns/missiles will still use Perception.
    * Mecha Fighting: This skill merges Mecha Weapons and Mecha Fighting. It handles all sorts of close combat attacks and shield blocks.
    * Mecha Piloting
    * Small Arms: Now covers Heavy Weapons as well. As above, different weapons can use different stats.
    * Close Combat: Merges Armed Combat and Martial Arts. As with the missile weapon skills, different weapons can use different stats. Hammers and maces might use Body to attack, while whips might use Speed.
          o Kung Fu (Talent): Activates the funky martial arts.
    * Dodge
          o Acrobatics (Talent) Allows an extra Dodge roll if light armor worn.

Interpersonal Skills: These skills are used when speaking with NPCs. Nearly every character should have at least one item from this list.

    * Conversation: The art of persuasion.
          o Flirtation (Talent): Gives a +5 Conversation bonus if the NPC finds you sexy.
    * Shopping: The ability to bargain and haggle. Useful not just in stores, but also when making bribes or negotiating.
    * Intimidation: The ability to make an NPC feel very, very afraid.

Advanced Combat Skills: Most characters should be able to get by on the basic skills alone, but if you plan to create a combat monster you'll want some of these. These skills exist to differentiate the MILIT and ADVEN characters from the rock stars who also happen to pilot a mecha.

    * Initiative: Increases your number of attacks per round.
    * Spot Weakness: Increases your chance of scoring a critical hit when using a single-shot weapon.
    * Electronic Warfare: Allows the use of ECM defenses in a mecha. and helps to avoid mecha status effects. The causing of status effects will no longer be determined by this skill, but instead by the DC of the weapon used.
    * Toughness: Increases the PC's HP total, and helps to resist personal status effects. This skill combines Resistance and Vitality. As mentioned above, though, HP will increase on its own as experience is gained- this skill merely provides a bonus on top of that.

Craft Skills: The kind of things Red Green would know if he had a giant robot. These skills deal with the repair, maintenance, and modification of equipment.

    * Repair: Combines Mecha Repair and General Repair. This skill would still allow a recovery roll for friendly mecha, but would not increase the amount of salvage awarded unless the following talent were taken.
          o Tech Vulture (Talent): Allows a repair roll against downed enemies when salvage is being collected. If the entire mecha can't be recovered, attempts to hack off a limb.
    * Mecha Engineering

Medical Skills: Skills known by doctors and nurses.

    * Medicine: Merges Medicine and First Aid. To prevent this skill from being mandatory, a new lancemate recovery item should be added- expensive, probably less reliable than a real medic, but there anyhow. Alternatively, lancemates could be revived at the cost of "karma".

Scientist Skills: Skills known by scientists.

    * Science: Knowledge of sciency stuff.
          o Robotics (Talent): Seriously, is there any roboticist in the source material who is not also a scientist?

Outdoorsy Skills: The kind of things Aragorn would know if he had a giant robot. These skills are useful to explorers and scouts.

    * Awareness: The ability to find secret passages and spot enemies at a distance.
    * Survival: Knowledge about navigation, wildlife, and how to make do without modern technology.
          o Dominate Animal (Talent)

Thief Skills: Sneaky, underhanded skills for Criminal characters.

    * Stealth: Very useful for avoiding detection while robbing a place, and avoiding police patrols afterwards.
          o Pick Pockets (Talent): This one wasn't getting much love as a skill, but might make a decent talent.
    * Code Breaking: Useful for thieves who want to steal items from public buildings or open doors without being detected. Everyone else usually just blows up locked doors.

Religious Skills: This is going to be a short list.

    * Mysticism: This skill's main purpose should be to open up special quest paths. It probably needs a new talent to sex it up a bit.

Coolness Skills: Skills taken by performers, celebrities, and other such ne'er-do-wells.

    * Performance
          o Combat Song (Talent): Use Performance in combat to inspire allies.
    * Taunt

Detective Skills: This is another very short list.

    * Insight

Questionable Skills: There are some skills I'm not entirely sure what to do with. I could leave them as skills, or change them to talents.

    * Biotechnology: I'm not sure about this one; it could be added as a talent for Repair or Medicine instead. Still, I think this could be an interesting skill in its own right, if its role were expanded.
    * Cybertech: Instead of making this a skill, I was thinking it could just be a talent. Everyone would have a natural cybertech tolerance based on their Ego stat; you can install this much cyberware and never worry about dysfunctions.

Deleted Skills: Some skills would simply be removed. Here they are.

    * Athletics, Concentration: Boring. To compensate for their loss, MP and SP will increase naturally with experience gain.
    * Weight Lifting: This one doesn't need to be boring- I could easily see a weight lifting competition quest. However, this skill is almost mandatory for characters without Acrobatics and I don't particularly like the mechanics. In its place the basic encumberance limit will be raised.
    * Leadership: It doesn't have much use at the moment, and I don't like the current mechanics.

There would be 25 to 27 skills in this new system. An average character would likely need 6 combat skills, one interpersonal skill, two concept skills and one free choice- 10 skill slots.

What do you think?

Edit [JH] - Changed the title from alias's "Rewriting most of Game System Content" back to the original as posted on the blog, so as to let people know that it's an extension of that discussion.

[alias]

I like the idea of completely rewriting the skill and talent content because it allows us to sweep up legacy issues without bitching about balancing.  Fresh eyes and a clean slate informed by the mistakes of the past can allow for a better finished product and I like the principles of this except that I wonder about a number of the existing talents: Rolling more up into talents is an interesting start except that now you're proposing talents that are as weak as skills (because they used to be skills) and that's going to throw off talent balancing.
Following on past discussions and the above statement of intent the goal is to reach coherent character concepts and varied gameplay by limiting what a character can do to avoid the, "Every character does everything except for a few things that everybody agrees are useless," concern of the GH1 system.  Unfortunately I don't see that the current system or future proposed system will be any more suited to producing coherent character concepts than the previous one.  It's been my observation that it is a significant general problem of skill based RPG systems that without limits or differences imposed elsewhere in the process that everybody will eventually get every skill at their maximum ability if the system lets them do that.  The number one way I'm familiar with for these games to do away with that is a bonuses and penalties system as found in GURPS and Ars Magica.

I have some minor concerns about the specifics of this draft portion of this plan;

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Scientist Skills: Skills known by scientists.
* Science: Knowledge of sciency stuff.
o Robotics (Talent): Seriously, is there any roboticist in the source material who is not also a scientist?

I can point to Ed from Cowboy Bebop offhand, Ed was a hacker who teleoperationally controlled a million things, and I'm far from the most devoted student of anime and manga.  In a far-future where highly powerful computers, robots and mecha are everyday, commonplace things I don't see why robotics wouldn't generally be the province of mechanics moreso than for research scientists, especially since sentient devices (the three original huge biomonsters) have been around since before the night of fire.  I think if you're going to stick it on any skill it ought to be general repair.

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Coolness Skills: Skills taken by performers, celebrities, and other such ne'er-do-wells.
* Performance
o Combat Song (Talent): Use Performance in combat to inspire allies.

Arrrgh... do we have to have D&D bards?  Music is used to inspire, inflame, arouse or otherwise emotionally-manipulate people... provided they're listening.  I don't see a role for this as-is in combat, although if you ever have anything psychic around you may consider Warhammer 40k noise marines for an idea.

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Thief Skills: Sneaky, underhanded skills for Criminal characters.
* Stealth: Very useful for avoiding detection while robbing a place, and avoiding police patrols afterwards.
o Pick Pockets (Talent): This one wasn't getting much love as a skill, but might make a decent talent.

The reason it wasn't getting much love was because it didn't have a full range of tricks and it had an effect that cost you more that it ever won you no matter what you did with it.  That said this is a good skill to graft pickpocketing to.

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

*Electronic Warfare: Allows the use of ECM defenses in a mecha. and helps to avoid mecha status effects. The causing of status effects will no longer be determined by this skill, but instead by the DC of the weapon used.

Uh... hmm... I know that Electronic Warfare provides an extra partial-dodge IF you have an ECM unit and that made this skill more powerful than a number of the other mecha warfare helper-skills but I don't see keeping a weakened version of this when you've already fused artillery+gunnery and fighting+weapons.  Perhaps it's best to just get rid of it unless you implement multiple-crewmember mecha with a position for an EW chair and have recovery from and resistance to status effects aided by repair since that's what's probably happening on a successful roll (since the pilot is busy with everything else they're doing anyway).  Only problem there is that repair becomes more powerful.  Perhaps not fusing mecha and general repair is the answer to that....

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Questionable Skills: There are some skills I'm not entirely sure what to do with. I could leave them as skills, or change them to talents.
* Biotechnology: I'm not sure about this one; it could be added as a talent for Repair or Medicine instead. Still, I think this could be an interesting skill in its own right, if its role were expanded.
* Cybertech: Instead of making this a skill, I was thinking it could just be a talent. Everyone would have a natural cybertech tolerance based on their Ego stat; you can install this much cyberware and never worry about dysfunctions.

I do think you should make Biotechnology as useful as robotics since biomonsters huge and small are part of the continuity; letting players build hunter-X and gremlin biocritters would be cool.
As for cybertech, the content and rules-wraper of the cybernetics system needs to be redone from scratch, if I had a spare I'd send you a copy of my Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook but you're not getting my last one.  If you're interested I could try to summarise later but for now I go to sleep.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: alias

Rolling more up into talents is an interesting start except that now you're proposing talents that are as weak as skills

Talents aren't more powerful than skills, they are a separate class of thing. That said I think that Robotics is an ability which is on par with the current talents.

Quoting: alias

I can point to Ed from Cowboy Bebop offhand

I don't follow your point. I said that fictional robot-builders were typically scientists, not that scientists were typically robot-builders.

Quoting: alias

I do think you should make Biotechnology as useful as robotics since biomonsters huge and small are part of the continuity; letting players build hunter-X and gremlin biocritters would be cool.

Also according to the continuity creating biomonsters takes a lot of infrastructure and is often unreliable.

[Crucifix]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Talents aren't more powerful than skills, they are a separate class of thing. That said I think that Robotics is an ability which is on par with the current talents.

To be blunt; If talents aren't "more powerful" than skills, why must they therefore be "worse" than skills? There's no hard-coded Skill limit based on total character exp after all.

A talent is by far the most fundamental building block of a character in my opinion, and they should always be valuable and impressive additions that should allow the player to do things "better" than skills do. If you have 15 skill in close combat, then you shouldn't necessarily be "better" in melee than the person with 10 ranks and a supporting talent; they only cost 1000, but their opportunity cost is huge.

But yeah, I'd agree that high-level robotics is a talent-worthy undertaking; you're getting free, pilot, lancemates out of it in the long term. Low level robotics and making 2 HP robo-balls isn't necessarily in the same league though, so might be more neatly capped, as I mentioned in the actual blog entry.

Also according to the continuity creating biomonsters takes a lot of infrastructure and is often unreliable.

Speaking more out of a balance perspective, admittedly, it's okay to create sentient self aware robots out of duct tape and gameboys, but you can't make a cloned gremlin out of a corpse sample and a tissue vat?

You can ask the local street quack to remove your spinal cord, and, indeed, their entire central nervous system, and replace them with fibre-optic cable, but you can't make use of genetically enhanced muscle tissue?

I am honestly confused why Johnny McMecha can, single-handed, install and maintain a sixteen ton multiphasic-plasma-array cannon with just them and their wrench, but things like simple bio technology and "playing god" are impossible, given the obvious level of biotechnological advancement.

[clasic_traveller_diehard]

Quoting: Crucifix

Also according to the continuity creating biomonsters takes a lot of infrastructure and is often unreliable.


Speaking more out of a balance perspective, admittedly, it's okay to create sentient self aware robots out of duct tape and gameboys, but you can't make a cloned gremlin out of a corpse sample and a tissue vat?

You can ask the local street quack to remove your spinal cord, and, indeed, their entire central nervous system, and replace them with fibre-optic cable, but you can't make use of genetically enhanced muscle tissue?

I am honestly confused why Johnny McMecha can, single-handed, install and maintain a sixteen ton multiphasic-plasma-array cannon with just them and their wrench, but things like simple bio technology and "playing god" are impossible, given the obvious level of biotechnological advancement.
Your answer

this can all be easily explained

maybe biotech is a tainted technology. as in there is some sort of underlying dna strand that didn't exist during the age of the super powers that says in the long run any thing made with known biotech techniques will blow up in your face and try to thwart whatever you do in the long run.

as for robots  gearhead seems to be a techocratic society with massive corps that make every thing from plasma cannons to toothbrushes so it stands to reason that all that stuff is sort of plug and play.

[unback]

o Robotics (Talent): Seriously, is there any roboticist in the source material who is not also a scientist?

I can point to Ed from Cowboy Bebop offhand, Ed was a hacker who teleoperationally controlled a million

ye but aint it about *bulding* robots, not using them? i bet ordering full made robot to do stuff dont need any experience, but building one is a bit harder.

Biotechnology: I'm not sure about this one; it could be added as a talent for Repair or Medicine instead. Still, I think this could be an interesting skill in its own right, if its role were expanded.

i think it should be talent for science just as robotics, that *could* sometimes use medicine as reference (for making new human enchancments ie)

* Cybertech: Instead of making this a skill, I was thinking it could just be a talent. Everyone would have a natural cybertech tolerance based on their Ego stat; you can install this much cyberware and never worry about dysfunctions.

well, for resistance to cybernetics faults we have  cyberpsycho talent. for other uses it shall be talent dependant on medicine (instaling) repair (maintence) or science (creation)
cyberpsycho talent should be dependant on body or ego.

* Athletics, Concentration:

i think they shall remain, and make regain of MP/SP faster, instead of making pool bigger. or they shall make both. recovering from very tired state ( 0 sp ) without it should take a long time and require safe enviroment, same goes for mp.

o Combat Song (Talent): Use Performance in combat to inspire allies.

agree with alias. - music can inspire but... in combat ecounter when radio communication *is* important to avoid shooting on ally and/or coorcinate attack, playing song over the comm would be backwards beneficial. not to mention that it would require to make a lance of ppl with similar music taste - hard task it can be.

* Taunt

maybe it shall become talnent under intimidation ?

* Weight Lifting

imo could be renamed to 'heavy load' and moved to be a talent under toughness/body - adds 50% to weight limit.

*leadership

well, i dont know how you're planning to do with lancemates system, but i think it shall be very usefull skill, under 'cool / social' list, allowing players to mantain morale of lance, affecting player standing in his/hers faction, allowing issue of more advanced 'orders' for lance, or ultimatly allowing plaer to give exact orders to lance (ie, taking over lancemates npc actions in combat) should depend on charisma and ego/knowledge and have some subtalents like  
o Born Leader - +x charisma for leadership morale / lance rolls
o Tactic Expert - +x knowledge for leadership combat orders rolls
o Unit Leader - allow more lancemates / npcs under control (as NPC's arent really all need to be combat pilots.. what about having mech mechanic and some tough sf0 combat expert that dont hop in mecha battle at all?)
o Instructions - +x to lancemate skill rolls if player also know the skill and can communicate?
o Glory for the First Man to Die - +x to lancemate morale during combat
etc.

Electronic Warfare: Allows the use of ECM defenses in a mecha.

ECM shall nullify the +targeting bonuses from software/sensors. ECCM should nullity the ECM effect both could require talent under Electronic Warfare... this is very advanced stuff after all...



im pretty sure i forget something but no matter.

[clasic_traveller_diehard]

Quoting: unback

o Combat Song (Talent): Use Performance in combat to inspire allies.
agree with alias. - music can inspire but... in combat ecounter when radio communication *is* important to avoid shooting on ally and/or coorcinate attack, playing song over the comm would be backwards beneficial. not to mention that it would require to make a lance of ppl with similar music taste - hard task it can be.

I don't have much of a taste for anime but even I know that robot pilots fight better when the right music is playing in the background (remember your laws of physics people(no the other laws of physics))

[CCC]

Most of these suggested changes I like. I do have trouble seeing how music could possibly help a pilot fight better (unless it's drowning out his opponent's taunts), but that's a minor thing.

However, why not have talents that have other talents as prerequisites? For example, the Hap-Ki-Do talent currently permits you to block attacks using the Martial Arts skill. With Martial Arts becoming the Kung Fu talent instead, it makes sense that the Hap-Ki-Do talent should require the Kung Fu talent. This permits talents of varying strength (the stronger ones having more prerequisites) and encourages even more specialisation (Hap-Ki-Do becomes a clear sign of a close-combat specialist).

Secondly, some talents have a sensible effect if taken more than once. For example, Entourage might be able to be taken multiple times, allowing an extra lancemate each time. (Others, such as Diplomatic, are not sensible to take more than once). With a skill-tree system, it becomes possible to emulate taking a talent multiple times with multiple similar talents, e.g.:

No talent: 1 lancemate
Entourage: 2 lancemates
Large entourage: 3 lancemates
Pied Piper: 4 lancemates
Personal Army: 5 lancemates

Of course, with each level along this tree you're losing any other possible talent simply for an extra lancemate. Whether that's a good trade-off or not depends on whether your lancemates are any good or not.

[EarthquakeDamage]

Quoting: unback

imo could be renamed to 'heavy load' and moved to be a talent under toughness/body - adds 50% to weight limit.

It'd make more sense to just remove Weight Lifting altogether and replace it with some sort of equipment (cyberware or heavy actuator harnesses aka powered exoskeletal framework that assists with heavy lifting without providing meaningful protection).  I like being able to lift a ton of stuff without having to crank Body at chargen at the expense of something else, hence the equipment options (Heavy Lifting Skeleton FTW).

Quoting: unback

ECM shall nullify the +targeting bonuses from software/sensors. ECCM should nullity the ECM effect both could require talent under Electronic Warfare... this is very advanced stuff after all...

Given the tech level, high-level ECM could also produce optical distortion fields and other crazy things that make you harder to track/hit regardless of sensors.  I think it's fine as is.

Quoting: unback

maybe it shall become talnent under intimidation ?

Taunt, as it's currently implemented, is nowhere near powerful/useful enough to warrant a talent IMO.  It probably makes more sense to make it an extra benefit of Conversation and/or Intimidation, with a minimum skill requirement (like funky martial arts requires X ranks of MA).

Quoting: clasic_traveller_diehard

I don't have much of a taste for anime but even I know that robot pilots fight better when the right music is playing in the background (remember your laws of physics people(no the other laws of physics))

The same ones that say sound is louder in space because there's no air to get in the way?  

[Burzmali]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

I don't follow your point. I said that fictional robot-builders were typically scientists, not that scientists were typically robot-builders.

Depends on the setting.  Samurai 7 has a mechanic that doubles as a robot-builder.  Full Metal Alchemist has automail mechanics effectively creating robots.  Even Gundam Seed has Athrun Zala who clearly has an interest in robotics, but isn't established as a scientist.

[clasic_traveller_diehard]

Quoting: EarthquakeDamage

Quoting: clasic_traveller_diehard
I don't have much of a taste for anime but even I know that robot pilots fight better when the right music is playing in the background (remember your laws of physics people(no the other laws of physics))

The same ones that say sound is louder in space because there's no air to get in the way?

exactly perfect example of the law of fudge

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: Crucifix

To be blunt; If talents aren't "more powerful" than skills, why must they therefore be "worse" than skills? There's no hard-coded Skill limit based on total character exp after all.

Quoting: me

A talent is something that a character does better (or differently) than their equally skilled peers. It's a further level of specialization above and beyond a skill.

Quoting: Crucifix

Speaking more out of a balance perspective, admittedly, it's okay to create sentient self aware robots out of duct tape and gameboys, but you can't make a cloned gremlin out of a corpse sample and a tissue vat?

It's not a balance issue, but a setting issue. The main reason why biotech (or at least the creation of autonomous biotech creatures) isn't extensively used in the modern GH world is the amount of support needed- cut corners and you end up with a disaster like the Hunter-X program. That said, I'm not against expanding the uses of Biotech, it's just that it can't be a substitute for Robotics.

Quoting: unback

ECM shall nullify the +targeting bonuses from software/sensors. ECCM should nullity the ECM effect both could require talent under Electronic Warfare... this is very advanced stuff after all...

EW skill will be used for some of the new systems on the to-do list, so those worried about it being weakened shouldn't worry... not yet, anyhow. My decision to remove EW from the CauseStatus attack roll isn't meant to weaken the skill, it's because I think the current mechanics are bad. In mecha scale EW is used to cause status effects, while at personal scale the appropriate weapon skill is used. The DC of the weapon doesn't enter into the calculation at all.

Quoting: CCC

Secondly, some talents have a sensible effect if taken more than once.

Sensible but possibly unbalanced. Take Entourage, for instance- with a large lance the late game becomes far too easy.

[Skulkraken]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

It's not a balance issue, but a setting issue. The main reason why biotech (or at least the creation of autonomous biotech creatures) isn't extensively used in the modern GH world is the amount of support needed- cut corners and you end up with a disaster like the Hunter-X program. That said, I'm not against expanding the uses of Biotech, it's just that it can't be a substitute for Robotics.

...What's wrong with letting the player start a Hunter-X-esque disaster?  As long as it's made clear to the player what the consequences might be, why not let them tempt fate?  There could even be a story arc around something like that if it happens. :v

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: Skulkraken

...What's wrong with letting the player start a Hunter-X-esque disaster? As long as it's made clear to the player what the consequences might be, why not let them tempt fate? There could even be a story arc around something like that if it happens.

Hmm... Biotech = The Xom skill. That has possibilities.

[Crucifix]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

It's not a balance issue, but a setting issue. The main reason why biotech (or at least the creation of autonomous biotech creatures) isn't extensively used in the modern GH world is the amount of support needed- cut corners and you end up with a disaster like the Hunter-X program. That said, I'm not against expanding the uses of Biotech, it's just that it can't be a substitute for Robotics.

Alrighty, I accept the reasoning of theme over mechanics. But one other important thing that any potential doomsday scenario would have to consider would be scope of project. Does a single out-of-control biosynth constitute a disaster? Only if it can self-propogate. If it's a lone member of an existing species, let's face it, one more Hunter Terminator hanging around isn't going to make much of a difference in a cosmic sense.

Secondly, there's a consideration - Is it like Robotics (something made out of biological duct tape), or is it replication?
If it's just a cloned lifeform (literally taken, more likely than not, from the corpse of one such slain creature), then all you're doing is a simple copy + paste job, no extensive infrastructure needed, no infinite selection of genetic variables to consider - You're pretty sure how they work out, after all, you've seen them in action. Can a creature be tamed? You could probably guarantee yourself a tame rat, there might be a decent chance with a gremlin, but a tiny chance of not accidentally creating a hostile hunter-synth.


But how about the other applications of it however? People are already cloning organs for medical purposes, in Gearhead, tissue cultures are so advanced it's moved to actual replication of tissue as a food source (currently the rate of growth in current tubemeat is enough to make an inch of flesh a grand achievement). Why then, do people have to make use of cybertech (and only cybertech) for medical purposes? Why has "organ enhancement" (like I keep seeing advertised in my email inbox for some reason) not become commonplace?
People take steroids, especially in the fields of athletic achievement, why would they not cut out the middleman and just have their muscles augmented? Or, heck, a steroid gland? People even took GARU serum after all, didn't they?