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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Essense Loss and Magic Increase

Posted by: Nightwalker450 Jan 14 2008, 04:05 PM

Ok last session my group had an in character discussion, that then had to go out of character to speak mechanics.

The in character discussion, our cyber face trying to explain to a (technologically inept) adept that he could increase his peformance by adding cyberware, if he went sparingly and selective the boosts out of the cyberware could offset his loss of magic prowess.

The mechanics, when do you increase your magic? Before implant, after the implant, or it doesn't matter. The player that is the face is of the opinion that since your magic drops, from 5 to 4, the cost to raise your attribute is 15 Karma (New attribute value x 3). This is the base reading from the book. But I feel that since cyberware inhibits your magic you would still have to pay for it compensating for the essense loss. Since in creation this must be done, it only makes sense for it to be done during play as well. Unfortunately there is no place in the book that goes into this.

Here's where I see the problem with just allowing the attribute x 3. Here are 3 characters that are exactly alike, only difference is their timelines. The cyber spirit slayer, has 1 adept power of astral sight, 5 essense worth of cyberware installed, and carries a weapon foci.. All of these end with Magic of 1, and Essense of 1

1-Ready at creation (65 BP)
2-Basic Adept (Mag 1, 0 BP), who increased his Magic over time to 6 (60 Karma), then decided to go chrome and replace everything with cyber except for the 1 point. (0 BP, 60 Karma)
3-The Muchkin... Basic Adept (Mag 1, 0 BP) In Game Increases his magic by 1 (6 Karma), then installs another Essense of Cyber (Magic +1, Essense -1) Rinse and Repeat this until he is the same as the others
(0 BP, 30 Karma)

So there's the breakdown should the Muchkin be able to do this using half the karma as the other person. Creation doesn't differentiate from when you got the gear so why should in game?

Posted by: Kyoto Kid Jan 14 2008, 04:36 PM

...the way I understand it, if the character loses 1 MA to implants this drops her cap to 5 for the purpose of requiring initiation. So, if she wanted to later raise her MA to 6 she would also have to initiate.

Posted by: Dashifen Jan 14 2008, 04:45 PM

@Nightwalker:
You have one problem with your example: adept with astral sight begins game with a Magic of 1 that "may not be increased during character creation or raised with Karma" (p. 24, Street Magic). Thus, a person with that quality and 5 points of cyberware no longer has a Magic of 1.

However, your question is still valid for other examples.

If you have a character A with a magic of 1 who subsequently pays 6 karma to raise her magic to 2 and the installs 1 point of cyberware, re-lowering her magic to 1 and also lowering her cap to 5, one can repeat this process 5 times spending a total of 30 karma.

However a second character first raises his magic from 1 to 6 for a total of 60 karma and then installs the same 5 points of cyberware. These two characters might end up numerically similar, but have spend vastly different amounts of karma.

I don't know that I have a problem with this. One represents the very careful manipulation of the body's energies with respect to cyberware and magic -- probably a long term goal or experimentation over the course of years by a corporate R&D lab or some such. The latter seems to represent a life-changing event in the course of someone's life, perhaps an accident?

Either way, two different ways to end up at the same place.

Posted by: Ryu Jan 14 2008, 04:52 PM

You can save a few points of karma if you go with low magic for quite some time. That is balanced, so we go with new attribute*3, based on magic after implants. RAW does not support a virtual magic rating anyway.

(Ruleswise you are fine (for implants below 1.0 Essence cost) to go 2-1-2-1with presaved karma, and go straight for max magic afterwards. I personally would have a talk about metagaming vs. gaming with the player in question.)

Posted by: Exodus Jan 14 2008, 06:44 PM

Yes Actually, I'm planning on making an adept with the Synaptic Boosters. Much more Magic Effective than the adept ability. But in order to get rating 3 Synaptic booster I need to purchase 2 more points of magic, so I can inturn lower two points without affecting my other Adept abilities. Full speed adept with lower cost to essence.

Posted by: Nightwalker450 Jan 14 2008, 07:55 PM

Adept Power Astral Sight, not Astral Sight Positive quality for any that misunderstood.

I like the idea of the person carefully working, in order to do it. It sounds great, but the karma reflects that they actually put half of the effort into it than the other person.

The way our group started drawing this out is like a circuit. You have 6 lights, if you install cyberware it doesn't just remove one of the lit ones, it effectively replaces that light with a resistor. You need the same amount of magic to maintain as you did before just 1 point of that you're not getting anything out of.

Posted by: Ryu Jan 14 2008, 08:21 PM

What is the problem with different costs for different histories? You have the same issue with different costs for attributes bought at/after chargen, so you could say the same about min/maxing there (We houserule attribute increase cost for the attribute before racial mods, reducing the effect).

About the only thing I care for is that a magic 6 character with cyberware will have spend much karma on maintaining that magic rating. A weak magic rating is easy to repair, it should be cheaper than maintaining the maximum natural magic rating (which would even require initiation for that). And most magic 6 builds I´ve seen could, from the power level, well take the disadvantage of a few karma compared to the rest of the group.

Posted by: DireRadiant Jan 14 2008, 08:47 PM

There is a tradeoff. It's not like someone is sitting around doing nothing while earning the karma for the big bump life altering event. During that time the advantage of the high Magic isn't available. So yes, karma efficient, but will actually survive to spend it?

So I don't think there's any difference in which approach, up to the player, there are tradeoffs.

Posted by: Jhaiisiin Jan 14 2008, 09:28 PM

It'd take more bookkeeping, but I'd prefer to run it as the karma expenditures being based off the "unaltered" magic attribute, meaning, what it was before you cybered up. So if you started at 5, and took 2 points of 'ware, then it'll cost you the same cost to move from your current 3 to a 4 as it would for an uncybered person to move from 5-6. Your ability to improve your arcane connection should not get easier with the more ware you install.

Posted by: Kyoto Kid Jan 14 2008, 09:37 PM

.in previous editions this was the way I went with adepts - most notably the original KK (#94) because I was reluctant to take her MA above 7 due to the Magic loss rule for wounds. With that now gone in 4th ed, I am more likely to keep an adept purely magic (Ki, chi or whatever you want to call it) based without optimising through Bio/Cyber implants.

Yeah, increasing MA above 6 is expensive Karma wise (& the dumb er I mean, Short One will most likely never be able to find a group as that requires an Arcana [logic] test), but the idea of running a totally "pure" physical/gunslinger adept is now more intriguing. True the slightly augmented adept is more powerful but also more limited if she wants to mprove her adept abilities at a later time as this will cost more Karma. Also doing so at Chargen it is a more expensive proposition for as I illustrated in another thread, that Synaptic booster I effectively costs 16 BPS on top of the 10 BPs (possibly 25 if she starts with an MA of 6) for the MA point sacrificed.

KK4.1 (the "test"version for learning the 4th ed ruleset) with an MA of 5 and no implants was pretty darned effective and that was in a fairly tough campaign.

Posted by: Ryu Jan 14 2008, 09:41 PM

The way I´m comming from, you are not improving your arcane connection, but you have to repair it. And your overall potential shrinks. If I improve something, I want it to be better than before.

Posted by: Jhaiisiin Jan 14 2008, 09:50 PM

EDITED:

Recreating this post due to me being able to better address your concern, once I actually paid attention to it.

You're still improving your attribute. Say you have a magic of 5 with 2 points of essence lost. Effective magic of 3. You pay the karma costs to improve your magic rating to 6, raising your effective rating to 4, because 2 points are still inhibited by unnatural modifications. That's how I see it anyway

Posted by: Ryu Jan 14 2008, 10:05 PM

Ah ok, that is valid. Deviations from RAW are par for the course.

Posted by: Jhaiisiin Jan 14 2008, 10:12 PM

Don't have my books with me, atm due to being at work. So RAW basically states that they get the lower cost? Damn. Nod to the cybered goons again I guess. *shrug*

Posted by: FrankTrollman Jan 14 2008, 10:21 PM

QUOTE

What is the problem with different costs for different histories? You have the same issue with different costs for attributes bought at/after chargen, so you could say the same about min/maxing there

Well, many people don't like that either. Both Serbitar and myself have house rules which eliminate that particular discrepency.

-Frank

Posted by: Riley37 Jan 15 2008, 02:09 AM

I'd write MAG stat in a format similar to aumented stats, as if Essence penalty was a negative form of Augmentation. If you start with 5 STR and 5 MAG, then you get Muscle Augmentation 2, you end up with STR 5/7 and MAG 5/4.

If you then spend 15 Karma on STR, you get STR 6/8
If you then spend 15 Karma on MAG, you get MAG 6/5

If you start with 5 STR and MAG 1, though, and get Muscle Augmentation 2, you end up with STR 5/7 and MAG 1/0, and once MAG reaches 0, it stays 0 forever (BBB p.164)

Posted by: Ravor Jan 15 2008, 02:35 AM

Do you also do the same for Edge?

Posted by: Riley37 Jan 15 2008, 03:24 AM

Cogent point - if you burn Edge for Hand of God, what do you pay to increase it?
Edge 3/1 if you started with 3 and burned Edge twice?
Then pay 12 Karma to go to 4/2?
If you have Edge 1, and burn it, what happens? 3 Karma to increase 0 to 1?
If you just pay based on current value, I can see the temptation to take Edge 1, and occasionally burn Edge for a critical success, and regain it for 3 Karma. But that's not my own play style.

Posted by: Ravor Jan 15 2008, 03:28 AM

My perhaps mistaken understanding is that the Devs have said that you only pay your current Edge when increasing it, which is one of the reasons that I went and house-ruled Magic Loss so heavily in my games.

Posted by: Nightwalker450 Jan 15 2008, 05:37 PM

Justifications- For various things

As to metatypes not having to pay for their racial bonuses. physical attributes should be harder to boost as you reach the high end, just by the amount of effort to keep breaking a higher and higher barrier. And for metatypes with bonuses how can you improve yourself when most equipment isn't made for that STR or BOD, or whatever you are trying to exercise. How can an elf improve his CHA when the number of people he can talk to on his own level is so few, he has to dumb down his negotiations so he doesn't loose the gangers he's talking to.

If you were hit by some paralyzing car wreck that actually lowered you existing attribute and your max, you should pay more karma to raise it. Its the price of overcoming your handicap. And its this principal that makes me think that a mage should have to pay to overcome his handicap, the cyberware.

Burning edge doesn't lower your max edge. So its really not a permanent affect on your character. He's not inhibited so much as used up his luck in that one shot. But yes this can easily be abused, and if someone was burning edge at least once per session for critical hits, I would recommend charging more for his edge. Can only ask so much from the Hand of God, before its going to want more in return.

Posted by: Jhaiisiin Jan 15 2008, 06:05 PM

In the case of a permanent burn of Edge, sure, I'd make him play by the same rules we're suggesting for magic or attribute loss.

Posted by: Moon-Hawk Jan 15 2008, 06:14 PM

QUOTE (Nightwalker450)

And for metatypes with bonuses how can you improve yourself when most equipment isn't made for that STR or BOD, or whatever you are trying to exercise. How can an elf improve his CHA when the number of people he can talk to on his own level is so few, he has to dumb down his negotiations so he doesn't loose the gangers he's talking to.

I know you're just trying to justify the way things are, but just for the sake of devil's advocacy:
You're suggesting that a strength training Troll is unable to find a heavier object to lift? Sure, maybe the Chuck Norris Home Gym isn't made specifically for him, but he can just bench press the couch. Unless of course you make it a habit of charging karma based on the quality of their exercise equipment.
Based on your argument for the Elves, would you charge them less if they were living in one of the Tir's and everyone else they interacted with (even the gangers) had the same +2 Cha they did. And Elf in Elfland gets just as much Charisma-exercise as a human in humanland, after all.

I don't generally mind the disconnect between BP and karma, although I know it bothers some people more than others. But when it comes to positive attribute adjustments the disconnect is absolutely massive.

Posted by: Jhaiisiin Jan 15 2008, 07:54 PM

Hmm... Yeah, attribute improvements like that would be out of sync. Maybe the base (non-racially-modified) stat for physical attributes, and the racially modified version for mental attributes. That would seem to deal with the disparity...

Of course, all this leads to a silly amount of bookkeeping.

Posted by: Moon-Hawk Jan 15 2008, 08:05 PM

QUOTE (Jhaiisiin)

Of course, all this leads to a silly amount of bookkeeping.

Agreed.
You pretty much have to settle for raising them based on racial modifiers or not.
Fortunately, SR4 doesn't have any negative racial modifiers (just lower maximums) complicating the issue.

Posted by: Karaden Jan 15 2008, 11:57 PM

I'll present you with a bit of research I came up with after the question came up in the thread for a PBP game. It was most notable because of the fact that we where starting the game with 300 karma spent, and so of course this question came up with an adept. We ended up ruling to use the augmented idea for the sake of stopping easily passing the akward phase of gaining 30 karma with 1 magic. (Granted it was a social adept so much more plausable)

Here is some stuff that I've come up with since then.

QUOTE (p62)

For each point or partial point of Essence below 6, the character loses 1 full point from her Magic or Resonance and the maximum for that attribute is reduced by 1. The maximum rating for Magic is 6 + initiation grade (see Initiation, p. 189); for Resonance the maximum rating is 6 + submersion grade (see Submersion, p. 238).

Unfortinatly this is virtually (maybe even entirely) the only quote in the entire book relating to the magic loss from essence. Now, there are some important things to note here. First off, nowhere does it mention anything about 'augmenting' the magic rating. It says loss. Next note that it says that the maximum rating for magic is 6 + initiation grade. Note that it doesn't say 'the maximum augmented rating...' If you take this, then you are faced with a choise of either a. it is a loss and not augmented, or b. having a 6(5) magic rating with 5 essence would be impossable without going through an initiation, since the maximum would be exceeded.

Now, this may not be enough to convince everyone, so I have one other thing to present.

QUOTE (Street Magic p.25 'Latent Awakening')

When the gamemaster decides the character has Awakened, the character immediately gains a Magic attribute of 1. If the character has an Essence lower than 6 (due to implants or other causes), he still starts with a Magic of 1, but his maximum Magic attribute is adjusted according to the Essence loss. If the character’s Essence is less than 1, he has lost any chance to be Awakened.

So, this quite clearly indicates that magic is a stat that is lost from losing essence, not adjusted. Otherwise it would be impossable to do a latent awakening if your essence was less then 6, because your magic would be 1, adjusted to less then 1 by your lowered essence. Notice that it once again states that the maximum magic possable (not current magic) is augmented based on the lowered essence.

I think the cause of the 'unclarity' here is the fact that if you read just the rules on magic loss, there is no reason to think it would be an augmented stat. It is only when you consider that most other stats are augmented in some way, and you look at the option of min/maxing, that it is considered. Since the rules as writen offer nothing that says that the magic stat acts as an augmented stat, there was no reason to spesificly state that it wasn't augmented, as it was assumed people would take 'lose a point of magic' to mean 'lose a point of magic' and not 'your magic stat is augmented to be one lower then it previously was'.

Of course I agree with what some others have said. If someone wants to save a bit of karma by slowly building up their cyberware and karma, then fine, they'll be paying for it early on by being much less powerful. Also, since they arn't contributing as much, they are likely to get less karma (Unable to get some of the bonuses because they arn't as powerful as they should be perhaps) and thus it evens out in the end. Especially since the same thing holds true of stats. It is cheaper to start with a stat of 1 and raise it with karma, but you have to live with a stat of 1 for a while.

Anyway, I think I've said enough here. Oh, and if I didn't say it already, I did orignially assume the augmented stat idea as well, but reading more carefully seems to clearly indicate that magic doesn't get augmented like that.

Posted by: Karaden Jan 16 2008, 12:01 AM

QUOTE (Nightwalker450)

Can only ask so much from the Hand of God, before its going to want more in return.

Sorry for the double post, but forgot about this little thing. The rules spesificly state you can only use HoG once per character period, so it doesn't matter if they have 2 edge or 2000 edge, it only happens once.

Posted by: Fortune Jan 16 2008, 12:24 AM

QUOTE (Karaden @ Jan 16 2008, 10:01 AM)

The rules spesificly state you can only use HoG once per character period, so it doesn't matter if they have 2 edge or 2000 edge, it only happens once.

I know that was certainly true for SR3, but I don't recall any such rule applying in SR4. Can you give me a quote for that?

In the Edge section, Under Burning Edge, it states ...

QUOTE (SR4 pg. 68)

BURNING EDGE

In certain drastic situations, even spending Edge may not be enough. A character can choose to burn a point of Edge—permanently reducing his Edge attribute by 1—for one of the following effects:

- Automatically achieve a critical success on one action. The character must be capable of carrying out the action — you can’t buy a critical success for something you have no hope of achieving. (Note that you do not refresh a point of Edge for getting a critical success in this case.)

- Escape certain death. This use of Edge represents another shot at life — something the spirits are rare to provide. The streets have decided that they have more uses for this character before she’s discarded to the trash heap and miraculously pull her from the jaws of Death. Gamemasters can explain this phenomena with any rationale they like, from sheer coincidence to the intervention of the gods. Note that the character is not necessarily unharmed by the action; if shot in the head, for example, she may be knocked into a coma and appear dead to her enemies, but she will survive to get revenge another day.

Posted by: Karaden Jan 16 2008, 12:42 AM

Odd, could have sworn I read that, and I know I've not read the SR3 book nearly that much to have caught it. Of course I'd think it compleatly within the GMs right to make such a rule or simply disallow the person using it too much "something the spirits are rare to provide. " being all the backing the GM needs to justify it. Of course in the case of spending 3 Karma for a critical success, I honestly don't see much problem with it. 3 Karma is enough of an expence to make it a decently sized investment, and of course that means most of the time the person is going to have only 1 edge most of the time, and 0 edge fairly often, which is a fairly large disadvantage.

Anyway, no more on the subject I think, not what the OP was about.

Posted by: Cthulhudreams Jan 16 2008, 03:38 AM

I think the 'rules as written' support the 'pay less' because like edge you actually loose points in the stat.

To me that is stupid/broken, and it is an overwhelming argument that you need a linear costs system in the game, that is the same before and after character generation, and Build points do that and we should get right on it.

Posted by: Jaid Jan 16 2008, 04:17 AM

QUOTE (Cthulhudreams)

.... you're going to make Frank link to his BP character advancement rules again?

bah, just to save frank some time, i'll link you myself =P (he's busy with school and all, you know

)

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=9901

Posted by: Ravor Jan 16 2008, 06:03 AM

In Fourth Edition "Hand of God" is something that NPCs can do only once, and at a heavy price.

Which of course is a rule that I promptly threw out.

Posted by: Ryu Jan 16 2008, 10:32 AM

QUOTE (Cthulhudreams)

The rules as written have only one price for a given attribute level after chargen. They do not differentiate why you have to raise that attribute in the first place, replacement or first time training to that level. And that is fine IMO, not broken at all.

The other issue, the base for Franks houserules, is differences in cost between chargen and afterwards. Linear costs do solve the equality issue you have, but also take the meaning of high attributes and skill (IIRC he removed or increased the caps).

What you could do is to have a virtual magic rating, with constant costs for removing the magic reductions. Say getting one point of magic back always costs 10 karma. Be prepared to see more augmented mages.

Posted by: Cthulhudreams Jan 16 2008, 10:36 AM

I'm playing in a game using frank's rules atm in the 'welcome to the shadows' forum, they do power up the game slightly because skills a cheaper, but eh.

But yeah the problem is it's more effective with the differential costs to wait until after character generation to spend karma, advance, install cyber, go backwards, spend karma, because in many places 1 BP = 1 Karma, so spending BP at a ratio of 2 BP = 1 karma (the effectiveness of advancing a stat from 1 to 2 with karma) is clearly silly. This is further compounded by the non linear costs system of karma advancement.

Thelack of clarity in the rules about how essence loss via magic works though is also an issue.

Posted by: Ryu Jan 16 2008, 11:23 AM

Oh, the rules are quite clear. Implants lower essence, loosing essence reduces magic. Attribute increases cost new level*3 karma. The whole virtual magic rating idea is an SR3 thing only. If you like the way SR4 handles things - thats another point.

I´d personally walk down the other road (one Frank takes care to post via Serbitars rules), and have karma-based costs at chargen. I very much like systems that give incentives for broad skillsets and balanced attributes.

Posted by: Stormdrake Jan 16 2008, 09:23 PM

Well all I can say is my group seems to be suffering a disconnect some where. The way it has always been presented to me by various gm's is that if you have a magic rating of 3 and you get some nifty bit of cyber ware that drops you a point you can increase the stat by 3*rating. However the rating is what it would have been without the magic loss. In effect even though you lost a point of magic, you did have it at one point so the cost for the next point is still going up. Are we way off here or am I missing something?

Posted by: Fortune Jan 16 2008, 09:28 PM

QUOTE (Stormdrake)

Are we way off here or am I missing something?

Not way off, as what you describe is how it worked in previous editions.

Posted by: Stormdrake Jan 16 2008, 09:44 PM

Ok, so I am not nuts just behind the times. So 4th edition lowers your max. magic attribute possible for the implimentation of cyberware. Does it do anyhting else to the mage?

Posted by: Fortune Jan 16 2008, 10:00 PM

QUOTE (Stormdrake)

So 4th edition lowers your max. magic attribute possible for the implementation of cyberware. Does it do anything else to the mage?

One point of Essence loss (from whatever source) ...

- Lowers your current Magic Attribute by one.

- Lowers your Magic Attribute maximum by one.

That's about it. No automatic Gaesa or anything either.

But! And it is a big but ... there is no offsetting the Essence loss from implants through the use of Gaesa in SR4, as there was in previous editions.

Posted by: FrankTrollman Jan 16 2008, 10:08 PM

QUOTE

I´d personally walk down the other road (one Frank takes care to post via Serbitars rules), and have karma-based costs at chargen. I very much like systems that give incentives for broad skillsets and balanced attributes.

Note that Karmagen does not by itself dispel the tomfoolery of lowering stats to repurchase them rather than vice versa in order to save Karma. I think that Serbitar's rules in particular have a thing about virtual magic rating to universalize magic costs. BP Advancement does not have that issue at all.

---

An intersting thing about both Karmagen and BP Advancement is that both of them incentivize purchasing attributes over skills at the book costs. Skills are too expensive in the basic book, but they are more too expensive with Karma than they are with BP. This means that on a straight Karmagen system you purchase skills only as a last resort, and in BP Advancement the incentive "better buy them now because it will really suck if you buy them later" no longer exists.

Thus it is unsurprising that both Serbitar's system and my own have a reduced Skill cost mechanic built in.

-Frank