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Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 17 2015, 10:26 AM

Okay, I've got a question here, and I know it's absolutely anathema to the setting as intended, but...

What if Essence literally only mattered in cases of interacting with Magic?
IE, Cyberpsychosis exists but is hugely overblown by the media, Cyberzombies are rumors without basis, and if someone gets cybered below 0.0, their soul doesn't rip itself screaming from their body, they just continue to become harder to affect with magic, and their Magic score continues to decrease.

Obviously, it would change game balance a hell of a lot, but it would also mean you could go full Jensen on someone. Any thoughts? Input?

Posted by: Mikado Aug 17 2015, 11:00 AM

I always liked the idea of "unlimited" essence loss that grants mundane characters bonus dice to resist magic equal to the lost essence, a mage would gain that but would loose magic rating as well. You can also give a dice pool penalty to social rolls equal (maybe x2) to the lost essence to emulate cyberpsychosis. Perhaps with the added problem of rolling a social dice pool that goes negative to determine if the character does something catastrophic.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 17 2015, 11:08 AM

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking - extrapolating the penalties for buffs and healing spells into a general "someone this cybered resists all essence magic, for better and for worse" magical resistance.



That, however, is exactly what I wouldn't do.

I got out of Shadowrun into Eclipse Phase when 5e came out, partly because of that nonsense. Cyberpsychosis, I say, should be something only a very small proportion of cybered individuals should suffer, much like, say, alien hand syndrome. IE, it's something that should just not be a real concern for players getting chrome, the way that sometimes, people don't come out of anesthesia, but it should not be a real concern for you to sweat over when your doctor tells you that you need to go under.

Posted by: Blade Aug 17 2015, 11:24 AM

Nath has argued that we could allow characters to buy Essence the way a mage can buy Magic, in order to get rid of the cap. While surprising, and even possibly shocking at first, it does make kind of sense.

Augmented mundanes vs Awakened used to echo the Fighter vs Mage of first D&D editions: fighter was better at low level, but mage eventually got better. Similarly, Streetsam used to be better than adepts, but with adepts having a lot more of room for improvement. This has mostly been erased or at least blurred since then, and there's no real point to have this.

In my home system for SR, I went with this:
Essence points are merged with Edge points. They represent that sparks of humanity, the sparks that let you push yourself further. Each point must be linked to a concept that drives the PC forwards (love of someone, hate of someone/something, passion, ambition, belief, etc.). The way Cyberware uses them depends on the setting:

- 2035/Technothriller : Augmentations are tools, but the full cyborg treatment is rare. Essence limit apply, but implants won't eat your soul.

- 2050/80's cyberpunk: Augmentations eat your soul, or so they say. When you burn an Essence point, your character loses the connection with the concept behind it. You can buy back lost essence points with karma (each point costing more than the one before), getting that concept (and associated Edge point) back. You can then decide to use it again for implants, but in that case you completely lose your ties with the concept of the point.

- 2070/post cyberpunk: Augmentations are part of your identity. Implants can be swapped easily (nuyen cost is down a lot), but there's a karma cost to convert Essence points into Implants points. In that process, the concept behind that Essence point has to be converted into something that fits the implant. The "Rage against corporations" point can be turned into "Become stronger (to fight corporations)" when buying muscular replacements. This implant point can then be used for any kind of implant that fit the new concept. The character can buy additional Implants points, but they have to fit the philosophy of existing implant points. A character who don't follow that philosophy might see his body reject his implants.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 17 2015, 11:37 AM

I, uh... Well, that's complicated, and, I guess, thematic, and sure, it works for you, I suppose.

I'd go with this:

-All/All: Augmentations are mechanical, biological, nanological, or genetic augmentations to your person. They work because medical science. There are no limits to them, other than your ability to purchase and install them, because medical science. However, they interact poorly with magic, because magic does not give a fuck about medical science, and freaks out when you force it to interact with someone who got smashed to pieces and then had the Full Jensen Treatment done to restore him. This is a neutral thing for him, because while it makes him much harder to heal or enhance - with magic - it also makes him much harder to negatively effect with magic, unless that magic is being used to evoke a normal physical effect - like, say, a gout of ordinary superheated gasses, conjured by magic but mundane when they hit him.

Posted by: Stahlseele Aug 17 2015, 11:53 AM

It will never happen.
Way too much magic wank.
Way i see it, it's been like this:
SR1: NEW AND SHINEY!
SR2: Cyber is OP! NERF! Make magic better!
SR3: BIO is OP! NERF! Make magic better!
SR4: Nano/Gen is OP! NERF! Make magic better!
SR5: HOW DARE YOU NERF MAGIC!

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 17 2015, 11:54 AM

Good morning, even though it's well after lunchtime for you, I believe.

It can damn well happen in my games if I say it happens in my games. That's what I was talking about, as a possible houserule.

Posted by: Stahlseele Aug 17 2015, 11:57 AM

Yeah, as a House-Rule, i applaud it. Your magic players will whine and bitch and moan and grine and argue against it and for giving it to them too to be more fair FOOREEVEERR!!
And if that does not work, they will argue about it being unrealistic. Wanna bet?

And yes, it's almost 14:00 over here.
Good morning to you though.
And yesterday, i slept till 15:00 *-*


An idea that i'd been toying with for some time was to simply not allow the magic attribute to improved.
You have 6 Magic, as long as you do not use cyber or bio. if you do, you can't get it back up to 6 either.
You can still learn more spells and spirits and learn stronger spells and spirits, but then you will overcast.
Initiation only gives Meta-Tech or stuff like spell formula/focus formula or a spirits true name or something.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 17 2015, 12:21 PM

I haven't gone to bed yet. I meant to go to bed... Fuck, 3 hours ago. Then I thought "I'll just have a quick whip through /tg/. Saw an anon talking about getting into Shadowrun, being a veteran EP player, and advised him to go 4e instead of 5e, as 4e was in my opinion (and I gave my reasons,) closer to EP and what he likes about EP, as well as general reasons why 5e is, in my opinion, a large sack of dongs.

You can guess the rest.

Posted by: Stahlseele Aug 17 2015, 12:24 PM

https://xkcd.com/386/

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 17 2015, 12:39 PM

Pretty much.

http://boards.4chan.org/tg/thread/41923892#p41928658 if you are for some reason mental and want to read a three-hour long argument on 4chan.

Posted by: Stahlseele Aug 17 2015, 12:45 PM

Strangely enough, 4chan is not actually blocked here at work O.o
But it raises an interesting question:
If your smartgun is set up to shoot on thinking "fire" and you have it holstered and see a burning building . . what happens?

Posted by: Teulisch Aug 17 2015, 01:49 PM

the easiest solution to the problem, is twofold.

first, make ware at chargen cheaper. this can simply be a 5-pt positive quality that specifies you cannot have magic or resonance, and then cuts your cost for cyber/bio in half. this would let you take all alphaware, or get more of the expensive stuff. good for street sams, riggers, and deckers. alternatively, we could have a positive quality where every 5 points gives 10k worth of ware (with a 30bp cap, and thus a limit of up to 60k more ware). the latter would have a larger impact on positive qualities, which may not be a desired outcome, as theres a limit to qualities, and a 10-pt quality can cut your essence cost by 10%.

second, give everyone more essence. magic is still capped at 6 (or whatever you bought it up to), and each point of essence lost is a point of magic lost. but if everyone actually has 9 essence, that means that you can get more implants, and also be more resistant to things that damage essence. the mechanics dont change, you just give non-mages more of a buffer to work with.

if you do those two things, then the players have more ware to start with, and everyone can use more ware in total, but the balance of magic is not affected. if anything, it makes having an adept lose a point of essence to grab some ware even less desirable. it does help the street sam reach their archetype goal more easily, and helps the decker to afford more useful implants (decks are expensive after all). essence does matter in the large view for mundanes, as several awakened threats have attacks that result in essence loss, and these can be the greatest threat to heavily cybered characters. also, with 9 essence we would still see cyber-zombies, but they would simply have that much more ware in them. 4 cyber limbs, torso, skull, and wired reflexes will add up very quickly, after all.

Posted by: KCKitsune Aug 17 2015, 03:46 PM

Another way is to allow magic to be improved to a max of Essence * 1.5 (just like every other stat in the fragging game), because the mages would like to be able to grow. This makes getting cyber/bio for the mage that much more costly. I'd still do it for my character, but that's just me.

Also I would make it so that if a mage's Essence ever drops below 1, then his/her magic is GONE! No "well my magic rating before cyber was 12 so I can have 5.9 points worth of cyber/bio and still have a magic of 6" crap either.

Posted by: Stahlseele Aug 17 2015, 05:26 PM

And i say even with the magic attribute limited to 6, a magic person can still grow.
They can learn more different and stronger spells and spirits after all, using the bigger stuff will just be more costly to them.
Meaning there would be a ramping up of the difficulty, instead of stuff just getting easier and easier to do over time, as is the case right now.
And it'd hopefully lead to more diversification and to less specialisation where everything is just geared towards making one thing better.

Posted by: Mikado Aug 17 2015, 06:11 PM

Well... To be honest, I agree with you. I would have cyberpsychosis a negative quality with the game effects I mentioned in my first post.

If mages do not suffer some sort of insanity or superiority complex from wielding "phenomenal cosmic power" why should a mundane suffer for installing cyber to compete against mages that can basically alter reality. Why would a person who lost a hand and replaced it with a cyber one be mentally worse off than the mage who can cast a spell to dominate someone's mind and freewill.

Posted by: Neraph Aug 18 2015, 12:08 AM

This seems like a work-around to "nerf" magic without actually addressing magic at all. Removing the need to police the Essence of your players changes the balance of the game dramatically, especially since you're doing it to give mundanes the ability now to offset the possibility of Awakened characters from theoretically increasing their Magic to nigh-infinity (still limited by karma and Initiation quests) later. It seems sloppy to me.

It also doesn't take into account the inherent fear of Infected that they should have. Now that Essence literally does not matter then Vampires/Nosferatu/Essence Drain becomes a non-issue, as one vampire can feed off of a mortal for forever with no bad side effects, and ghouls lose the threat of their one point of Essence drain straight-out killing a street samurai.

Posted by: Glyph Aug 18 2015, 02:53 AM

Ghouls don't have Essence drain, they just eat you. Actually, that has always been a reason for my street samurai to have a fractional Essence. I would rather have a character be dead, so I can just make a new one, than permanently maimed or turned into undead (and have to pay Karma for having my character ruined). But I have always found this permanent vitality drain of undead to be a grating annoyance, both in D&D and Shadowrun. Critters should never be "scary" because of metagame reasons.


Unlimited Essence is something that needs to be considered carefully, as it is one of the mechanisms of game balance. For example, why ever get anything other than used 'ware, or pick bioware over a cheaper cybernetic alternative, if all losing Essence does is make you harder to affect with magic? And I would be careful piling on a resistance to magic - mages already are rolling skill + Attribute vs. 2 Attributes, with hits capped. Adding another dice pool for the defender could tip it too far.

Posted by: Mikado Aug 18 2015, 03:17 AM

The solution to that is easy... Just have that power permanent drain hit boxes. That is more scary than just essence drain.

Posted by: binarywraith Aug 18 2015, 03:52 AM

I disagree wholeheartedly with the concept.

Essence as a restrictive factor is, honestly, a good thing. It gives a reason for mundane humanity to exist, and for the setting not to have become a case of magic-using Morlocks and cyber-augmented Eloi who exist to be breeding stock for more mages and try to make up their terrible lacks with augmentations.

Posted by: Blade Aug 18 2015, 08:32 AM

I agree. In my rules, for each Magic point bought, the mage has to define one aspect of his belief that will shape his vision of the world and his behavior. The more powerful a mage is, the weirder and more detached from the rest of society he gets.

For a moment I thought that the "everything has a price" motto of SR5 would finally have something like this integrated in the official rules but no, karma is still the only price Awakeneds have to pay.

Posted by: Sendaz Aug 18 2015, 09:44 AM

We had something similar at one table for the Elemental Mages back in SR3, as they initiated they picked up traits according to their preferred element and not just psychological like the book suggested.

It was actually amusing when the Initiated Fire Mage not only grew to be more aggressive and wilful, but actually left scorch marks on things they handled if they were not heat proof while the Water Elemenalist left damp footprints behind them.

While it never happened to any of the players, it was rumoured that high level elementalists could actually ascend to becoming an elemental (aka retired the character and became a NPC)

Posted by: Mikado Aug 18 2015, 10:54 AM

The best way to handle the entire thing is to remove essence completely and rename magic to meta-attribute and have anyone who wants any sort of augmentation (magic, cyber, adept and such) buy that attribute for points to put in magic or essence as the case may be.

I do still think that cyber should offer a mechanical benefit just for being implanted. There are numerous instances in the rules for magic having a difficult time affecting tech so why would you not get a bonus against magic for having cyber. Hell, you get penalized for having cyber when it comes to magical healing, why should a combat spell be any different?

Posted by: Lionhearted Aug 18 2015, 12:13 PM

Funny how it's argued that we need more ware, personally I always felt that you get to much ware at chargen. Every Tom, Bill and Sally can pack themselves so full of chrome that they resemble a fridge. This never made thematic sense to me, chrome is something you get out of necessity and in many cases its frowned upon or restricted.
Bob the accountant isnt going to run around sporting a custom cyber arm, unless he lost his original in a freak accident and cant afford a flesh one. A military grunt would have their wires removed when they left the service unless they went AWOL, A dock worker gonna have second hand skillwires at best. Yet at chargen you can sell of most of your humanity with little issues, which also presents a gameplay issue... where do you go from there? I mean sure going from Wires to MbW is cool n'all but it doesnt offer as gratifying character advancement as say, initiating.
But that's just my 2 nuyen, I like my players to start out mostly au naturelle, have them consider what they put into their body.

Posted by: Stahlseele Aug 18 2015, 12:37 PM

Your opinion.
And it's actually wrong according to both rules and background.
Datajack, chipjack, internal comlink, cyber-eyes/ears. . People get that done in their lunch break!
Technically, most everybody who has a paying job should have eyes and internal comlink at least!
Hell, even Bioware is not much of a hassle, if it's not something hugely invasive and you can not pay for magical healing.
Go to clinic, give tissue sample, wait some weeks, get it implanted on friday afternoon, get back to work monday morning.
Same for most things cyber that are not hugely complicated procedures like bone augmentations or things like that.
Smartlink, Spur, Cyber-Muscle, all that can be done in a day without problem. Stuff that gets attached to the central nervous system is of course still a bit more problematic.
But if you can pay for magical healing? Yeah, out in a week or so . .

Posted by: Lionhearted Aug 18 2015, 01:19 PM

These are the types of augmentation I expect people to have, nothing odd about them, useful in every day life and very common



These are on the other hand I think raise eyebrows in more civilised areas, walking into a fancy resturant with a spur in your arm? why do you have a spur in the first place?

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 18 2015, 01:25 PM

Why would a restaurant even know you had a Spur in your arm to start with, unless you are flaunting it? There are certainly some pieces of 'ware that are questionable (All Cyberweapons fall into that particular category), but you can make a case for most other 'ware as a civilian, even baseline neural 'ware.

Posted by: Stahlseele Aug 18 2015, 01:33 PM

Poser-Shit for egg sample?
Corp Teen Brat:"look at my spur! So street! Much hardcore! Very wow!"
And yes, otherwise if it's retractable, why should it be out anyway?
Smartlink and Muscle-Stuff is perfectly OK for all kinds of workforces.

Posted by: Lionhearted Aug 18 2015, 03:11 PM

Used to run with a group that was pretty black trenchcoat, they had MAD scanners at entrances of higher class establishments

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 18 2015, 03:48 PM

Sure... And in high-end establishments I can see that. But even still, it is not hard to gain entry with cyberware. There are myriad reasons to have 'ware, and the only 'ware that would likely stand out in such a place are the cyberweapons.

Posted by: Lionhearted Aug 18 2015, 04:10 PM

I dont agree completely with that, any obvious chrome would be faux pau at least, and a lot of restricted ware that have very fringe civilian uses would stand out as well, like wires, bone lacing and the like...
This is personal opinion of course, other people might have different mind sets I just dont see people walking around with heavy military ware without people being suspicious

Posted by: binarywraith Aug 18 2015, 04:55 PM

If by 'heavy military ware' you mean 'obvious cyberskulls/torsos with weapons mounts', then I get what your saying. Otherwise, all of the super-restricted stuff is in no way going to be physically visible. How in the hell are you going to spot an encephalon, or mil-spec wired reflexes when someone's just walking around? Much less the guy rocking a cranial cyberdeck and a a bucket of ice-breakers that could eat the NSA.

More to the point, if they're that scared of someone with personal augmentations, why aren't they shitting their pants about every Tim, Merlin, and Harry who can whip up a chaotic world or manaball out of nowhere?

Posted by: Lionhearted Aug 18 2015, 05:16 PM

I wouldnt have to do with fear but rather a totalitarian system where every Tim, Merlin and Harry would have to be able to authenticate their autherisation to be rockin' a manaball less they be hauled off in a mage mask to some dank cell with no windows.
Your average runner is not an Ares military contracter so why should he be sporting bone lacing? and why would a military grunt be let into the exotic diner where you need to book months in advance?
I dont feel like this is contributing to the thread though, so I wont continue this discussion, not here at least.

Posted by: Neraph Aug 18 2015, 05:58 PM

I was referring to the ghoul virus, which drains 1 point of Essence during the transformation.

The solution is easy: kludge together another ad-hoc rule to make up for the change of game balance that I decided to implement because changes to game balance have unforseen side-effects.

Or, you know, you could not tinker with a system that you don't fully understand...


+1.

Posted by: Sendaz Aug 18 2015, 06:57 PM

They are shitting themselves, but the mages are smart enough to mind wipe them so they forget they are supposed to be shitting themselves until the next time someone reminds them.

Oops..

Time for another mind wipe.



Edit: But yeah, saying someone can go get a license to do magic and its all cool seems kind of like issuing a license to own and operate a tank and not expecting problems from that.

Sure they say they will follow the rules, but would you even let them loose in the first place?

Posted by: binarywraith Aug 18 2015, 09:29 PM

The better question is one of setting. Street mages are a thing in Shadowrun. They have to be, for the setting to operate as it does. So clearly there are people outside the system and walking around who aren't in the regimented licensed ritual-sample-on-file ranks of 'trusted' casters. But when you think high-class club, you think MAD scanners and cyberware detection, not anti-mage defenses.

Mostly, I admit, because the setting would rapidly turn into Warhammer 40k if it ever internally recognized how powerful and chaotic a social force mages can be.

Posted by: Isath Aug 19 2015, 03:34 PM

Making it easier to get cyber, adding additional upsides and removing the downsides does not sound good to me and it also seems to be ignoring the actual problem sets.

If using a pistol is so different from using a rifle, that I can be a legendary world champion in one but a complete idiot in the other, then casting an Illusion maybe quite different from casting a combat spell. So I would make it either easier for mudanes getting combat skills or more difficult for mages to get it all. Another way would be to raise the basic formula for drain... and so on.

As for the cyber. If I want to go easy on my cyborgs, I will just allow for more starting ware, by reducing cost and or allowing for graded ware. One way of doing this would be to have 2nd handware use standard ware stats, standard ware using alpha stats, etc. Another way would be to grant every character the biocompatability quality for free... and so on.

In my book cyber grant really nasty boni and does not need added magic resistance beyond what is already RAW. Pricing in SR5 is cruel, but still our Hacker has no natural limb left and is working on Skull and Torso, while still having a deck. Small adjustments are the way to go there, no need to get funky.

Posted by: DarkSoldier84 Aug 23 2015, 06:54 AM

My first SR character was a retired soldier from the SSC. In his background, the state paid for his augs and he paid them back with his service; of course I actually paid for them in chargen, but it fit the theme I wanted. I figure anybody who enlists to get augs needs to read his enlistment contract thoroughly to see whether or not said augs remain property of the state/corp when he's discharged.

Posted by: Neraph Aug 23 2015, 07:42 AM

Hell, the way it works in reality, if you want to keep the gear you're issued for deployments/training/whatever, they just deduct the money from your pay. You want that flak and SAPI plates? Sure, we'll bill you. You want that camelback? We'll deduct it for you.

And that's not to mention all the uniform equipment that's standard issue.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 23 2015, 04:28 PM

Unless, of course, you are coming out of a war and they just stop-loss the equipment and tell you to keep it (sans weapons, of course).

Posted by: Matsci Aug 24 2015, 08:00 PM

Interesting. Make the Spellcasting group into a 5 skill group, and split Spellcasting, up by spell type. Make Counterspelling it's own skill the way Dodge is, maybe fold ritual spellcasting into Regular Spellcasting (4e), or make it it's own skill. Do the same thing with spirit summoning.

That'll definitly slow down mage advancement some, but doesn't quite fix the problem of AdeptRun, featuring Adepts.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 24 2015, 08:13 PM

I've been doing more shower-thinking WRT ways to implement something like this; allowing full-on Eclipse Phase style "medical science rocks, no need to die just because you're heavily augmented."

One I had was to institute essence minimums from augmentation - IE, no matter how heavily-augmented you were, receiving further augmentations could never take your Essence below the augs minimum. This would still leave you potentially vulnerable to death-by-essence-drain and would still make heavy augmentation a no-go for Awakened characters, but would allow characters to get the Full Jensen treatment.

Another thought I had was, perhaps (and I think someone mentioned this before but bugger me if I can find out where,) radically changing the Essence costs of ware, such that standard ware now has the essence cost of Alphaware, secondhand standard ware has the original standard ware costs, Alpha has the Essence costs of Betaware, Betaware has the essence costs of Delta, and Deltaware multiplies essence cost by 0. Gene- and tailored bioware would likewise have an essence cost of 0.

Posted by: Sendaz Aug 24 2015, 08:26 PM

Edit:That could work so long as you make the reduced essence cost apply ONLY to mundanes.
So when a player buys into the Awakened/Emerged roles, they basically get a modified version of sensitive system and have to pay the regular ess cost for stuff, while mundanes revel in full cybergoodness.



Or if you want to go with something out of far left field you could create a third category in the Mag/Res column, The Way of Steel or WoS.

Way of Steel basically opens up 'extra' essence that only applies to cyber/bio gear based on the priority spent, using the concept that followers of this path basically attune their potential to better bond with the machine.

So it would look like this (number still subject to adjusting, this was just off the cuff afterall)
Priority A - 6 'extra' ess for gear
Priority B - 4 'extra' ess for gear
Priority C - 3 'extra' ess for gear
Priority D - 2 'extra' ess for gear
Priority E - Nada, he's just a normal joe

The extra ess is used up first for paying off the cyber.
Admittedly it is an odd one, especially since it could not be reduced by ess loss like Magic/Resonance does since it's focus is all about the ess, but it is an interesting thought.

This way mages/emerged can't get in on this bonus since its in the same column as their magic/resonance and regular mundanes not planning to go full cyber monkey can still just go E, but for those wanting the potential to cram extra stuff in they can have options.

Perhaps there could even be Initiations/ability to buy up their WoS score for those on the Way of Steel to further expand their way into cyborgville so you don't need to go Prio A right out the chargen gate, but could build up so long as you buy in at least with D.

Posted by: binarywraith Aug 25 2015, 07:19 AM

I actually really like the spell skill splitting idea. Leads to more hard choices for the casting crowd because they can't just be good at Every Spell. As far as fixing adepts goes, it's mostly a matter of balancing power costs and reminding players that Adepts are not immune to Background Count, so pretty solvable without huge edits.

Posted by: Moirdryd Aug 25 2015, 10:07 AM

Really don't see the need for Unlimited Essence as that really steps away from Cyberpunk/Shadowrun theme and puts you into RIFTS/Eclipse Phase/ WH40K AdMech transhumanism.

If you're looking as a counter to Magic why are Background Counts always ignored when this comes up? Surely they are the biggest balance for Cyber vs Magic in a situation? Going into the Barrens and it's not your home turf? Lose 1-3dice and similar drop in Hits and/or Force on your sustained spells. An Aztech facility where dodgy blood sacrifice has been happening? Enjoy your BGC of 5 etc

Also, you can easily reintroduce the issues Mages and Adepts had with medical treatments from SR3, you know when taking Deadly Damage and Overflow could reduce your Magic rating, or a Trauma Patch getting used on you could kill a point of Magic? These were Non-Optional unlike the other Stat reduction rules. Made for some interesting situations "Great the Mage is down but we Can't trauma patch him because that coud frag his Magic, we need some cover and some regular first aid for a few Combat Turns and hope the physical damage wasn't too bad that it's screwed his mana flow". Or for a simple conversion there-of...

Houserule- Burning Out: When an Awakened character Stabilizes from Physical Damage that was in Overflow boxes they must make a Magic test with a dice pool penalty equal to the number of Physical Overflow boxes they had suffered. Failure reduces the Current Magic (not Maximum) rating by 1. This is only rolled on the first successful stabilisation check (be it first aid, medicine etc) if Magical Healing is used (Stabilize spell) the penalty is 1/2 the Overflow boxes (round down). If a Trauma patch is applied to the Mage an immediate Magic test is required in addition to the test above regardless of if Stabilisation is successful. This is made at a flat -2 Dice pool penalty results are as above.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 25 2015, 10:39 AM

That was literally my idea: stepping away from Cyberpunk and down the road to full-on Transhumanism. Or at least, the possibility thereof.



Because it's a fiddly fucking pain in the ass for everyone involved, that's what. "Hey, you know all those neat powers you invested in? Here, enjoy a blanket -4 penalty to them, because reasons."

Background counts are like rape. Sure, they're an everyday part of the setting, but as far as the player characters are concerned, it shouldn't come up often, and when it does, it should be impactful. They lose their meaning if they're just a blanket rain of drek constantly falling on the Awakened characters.

So, I just assume that any Awakened character who lives in an urban environment has adapted their spellcasting innately to compensate for general bullshit city background counts. If it's something particularly strong (the site of a furious riot triggered by anti-metahuman hatred, before the street-cleaners have gotten to power-washing the blood away,) or unusual (a peace & love hippy retreat,) then it will affect them.

That said, this was not intended as a "I wanna make Awakened characters suck more" measure, it was an "I want augmentations to be more awesome" measure. Specifically, I think that you should have been able to go full Jensen on someone without the arbitrary game balance limit causing their soul to fall off.



Yeah, no. No, no, no.
"Things got hairy, so here, lose a bunch of shit you invested Karma in, frag you," is not good GMing. As a player, that's the kind of thing that makes me revolt. I'm sure as shit not going to drop it on my own players.

Posted by: Stahlseele Aug 25 2015, 10:46 AM

So . . Deckers do not lose thier Decks, Riggers do not lose Drones, Samurai do not lose hugely expensive equipment like full Powered Armor or Military Grade Weapons either then?
Because that's what's been happening. Everybody else took losses while the mages somehow got a free ride because it'd hurt their karma too much . .

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 25 2015, 10:56 AM

The way I see it, there should never be a metagame of "I can buy this at chargen, using chargen resources, but it's easy to lose, or I can buy this, which I can't in any practical scenarios lose."

The way I see things, invested points (build points or Karma,) are "insured." If some in-character thing happens that means there's no way to explain you not losing them, then you get those points back to spend however you see fit.

Basically, a player should never be put in the position of trying to decide whether they want to continue playing their current character, or just get rid of them and introduce a new one, because their current one has become so mechanically disadvantaged that a new character is an appealing option from a strictly crunch perspective. (Expendables, like grenades and Edge, are not subject to this, nor is anything purchased with acquired in-game.)

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 25 2015, 12:06 PM

Okay, so, I had a shower epiphany on the topic of Essence, and I just had to share.

I'm thinking a two-pronged approach.

Approach 1: Essence Floor.
Basically, an Essence Floor is a lower limit past which your Essence cannot fall, short of magical, Essence-destroying attack. Most people have no essence floor. You can take a positive quality (in 4 ratings) to gain an Essence floor. R1 gives you an Essence Floor of +1, R2 gives you an Essence Floor of +2 and makes it so you round your Essence for in-game purposes mathematically, and R3 gives you an Essence Floor of +3 and makes it so you round your Essence up.
(IE, at R2, Essence 2.5 would round up to E3 for the purposes of, say, magical healing, while Essence 4.3 would round down to 4.)
At Rating 4, it means that your Essence Floor is equal to your Essence score itself; IE, you cannot lose Essence short of magical, Essence-shredding attack. Obviously, this would be prohibitively expensive, and would be impossible to take with anything other than a Latent Awakening, if that.

A genetic therapy modification (possibly Adapsin repurposed,) would also give you a +1 Essence Floor. And yes, this would make it functionally impossible for a character to die of Essence loss from a burnout addiction to hard drugs. That, I consider, to be a feature, not a bug; after all, Mick Jagger.

Approach 2: Essence Buying.
Basically, as with other attributes, you can just buy Essence, up to a maximum of your racial default × 1.5. IE, all metahumans could buy their Essence up to 9. This is, in some ways, a double-edged sword for the Awakened, however, as I'd be saying that the penalty to Mana spells becomes a bonus for someone with an Essence score of 7+, and could potentially give their enemies bonus dice. (Though it would also make healing easier.)

This would have to be balanced, I think, by making the karma costs always start at buying your seventh point of Essence, no matter what your nominal Essence score when you started buying it was. So burning your Essence down to 1 and then saying "Okay, I buy a point of Essence at the Karma cost to raise an attribute from 1 to 2" would not fly.

Posted by: Blade Aug 25 2015, 12:18 PM

In http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=41203&hl=house+rule (beginning of gear part) I've introduced the concept of "investment". Basically, the characters can invest karma into their gear (gear bought at chargen is already considered as investment) to make it sort of "permanent". They'll then always be able to easily find cheap replacement/repairs during downtime. This way, a rigger player will not have to retire his character because he lost his best drone.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 25 2015, 12:58 PM

And yet, if you design with Background Count in mind, it is generally impactful, but not a pain in the ass. And every mage in Shadowrun should be mindful of Background Counts. We have been using it for years to balance out mages and their uberness, ands it works well. I have yet to hear a player (other than those here) complain about it in any meaningful way.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 25 2015, 01:01 PM

Are you telling me that your Riggers are not stealing their best drones? Easiest way to acquire them, and you don't really care if they get broke.

Posted by: Teulisch Aug 25 2015, 02:25 PM

a small side-point- in cyberpunk 2020, implants reduce one of your social attributes when you get them, but you can also buy treatment to restore that attribute. ergo, by paying twice you can get implants without any real penalty.

shadowrun, by comparison, has no such thing- lost essence is simply lost. if we were to simply add a way to keep an implant while healing essence (and there is a way technically to heal essence when implants are removed already in the system), then we would have a way for those with the cash to get a LOT of ware. as this would not really help the mages any (magic loss when essence loss) the system stays balanced. its just a question of spending even more money to get ware.

and as for riggers stealing drones- i almost never see it happen in-game. the one time i did see it happen, my decker hacked and stole a drone (and then used it to shoot the original owner in the seat of his pants with his own ammo) and the van the drone arrived in. a lot of people seem to just not think about how the system/setting really works, sadly.

Posted by: Neraph Aug 25 2015, 02:35 PM

Funny thing - I specifically took Astral Hazing on my most powerful mage just so I could learn to cope with BC and I knew basically no magical opposition would be prepared for me.


Carebear.


I actually used crippling BC in one of my games at a pivotal time for story reasons, and my players loved the fact that they all should have died because of it. That's what you get for taking a radiation mage on his home turf of a derelict hospital with a leaking nuclear reactor. All but two of a 6 person team were captured (because I didn't want to outright kill the players) and the remaining guys had to develop 300 BP mercs who were hired to help get their original characters back. The group LOVED it.


Due to some funny writing, Renfield from Running Wild can give you infinite Essence. Just saying.

Posted by: Blade Aug 25 2015, 02:44 PM

Indeed, the rigger character I play has only one drone: a small rotodrone used to make sure he will have signal nearly everywhere. Every thing else is stolen on the fly.
But this is not the case of all players.

With my rules, if a character has invested into drones you can still use the fluff explanation that they're actually stolen drones. But players who prefer to play riggers who build their own drones can do so without being at a disadvantage. The end result will be the same, no matter the explanation behind it.

Posted by: binarywraith Aug 25 2015, 04:37 PM

Yeah, generally in my games, once the players are familiar with how background count works, they just plan to deal with it. Same way they plan to deal with not having their full firepower in upscale settings where it would attract attention, or not everything everywhere ever being on the Matrix.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 25 2015, 09:06 PM

Hrm, yes. I very much like this idea, it's very congruent with what I did WRT character points/Rez invested into morphs and gear in Eclipse Phase. I'm not 100% in love with the way you worded it, but I hope you won't mind if I institute something to this effect.



I treat magic as a permanent investment. If your maximum Magic score falls below your Magic score, you don't lose that point of Magic, you just lose access to it. IE, Billy Magician has Essence 6, Magic 6, and then Shiawase goes and gives him a surprise cyberarm, reducing his Essence to 5. Now he has Essence 5, Magic 6 (5), in standard "augmented" notation - IE, for all intents and purposes his Magic score is putting out at 5, but if his maximum Magic ever goes back up (IE, by getting the surprise cyberarm removed and having essence rejuvenation therapy, or by Initiating,) he can then use the point of Magic he already has, but which was locked away.



The problem with stealing good combat drones is that it almost requires a Run in and of itself, and it tends to get a lot of unhappy people looking out for any sign of that stolen drone. Thus, it can wind up completely distracting from the main point of the game.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 25 2015, 09:21 PM

Greatly depends upon how good the Rigger/Hacker is, and how selective he is. I always went with a combination of Stolen Drones and Reconstructed drones, with an occasional purchased one for something specific I could not get any other way. Worked out well.

Posted by: Moirdryd Aug 25 2015, 10:04 PM

On the note to Cyberpunk vs Shadowrun for Cyberware 'cost' Shadow has the same thing in a different way. Grades of 'ware. You pay more, it costs less essence, or you can get essence holes with upgrading the quality of your cyber.

We just finished Splintered State tonight with the team getting set up and ambushed (trying to avoid spoilers). My guys loved the threat of going down in this one (especially as the Street Sam went down early) and everyone was super jumpy when it looked like the Adept and the Mage were going to drop because of the Risk of Trauma patches and the Risk of hitting Overflow (we use my houserule/conversion from 3rd). They were getting the dice ready to resist magic loss every time I aimed an NPC at them and muttering "This time I know I'm screwed" with a grin on their faces. Was brilliant.

Posted by: Blade Aug 26 2015, 08:53 AM

No problem ang I'd be interested in knowing how you used/changed it.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 26 2015, 09:18 AM

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1osnsNKzBEAUQvb4pcJio24kH2cWnNCtcGmLSOamgpko/edit# is the (currently very WIP) document I'm using.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 26 2015, 09:29 AM

Danmit, you joined as Anonymous Nyancat, reminding me of the existence of Nyancat, and now I have to listen to Nyancat.

http://web.archive.org/web/20150721135504/www.nyan.cat/

Posted by: KCKitsune Aug 27 2015, 03:59 AM

The biggest difference between the rigger and the Samurai loosing gear is that they can replace it. Sure might take a little bit, but they CAN replace it. SR5 deckers and the cyberdeck... the price tag for that crap is WAY, WAY, WAY too expensive for a 'Runner to have. I still like the idea that you can get a case and put in like 5 or 6 decent commlinks and make a cyberdeck, but no CGL made the "brilliant" decision to make cyberdecks out of gold and diamonds.

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 27 2015, 10:58 AM

Why do people keep talking about SR5 in this thread? I did remember the SR4 tag, didn't I?

Yes, yes I did.

That said, even at SR4 prices, the replacement cost for a Sammy's guns and a hacker's commlink, are literally orders of magnitude apart, especially if the hacker was a dumbshit and didn't have his programs backed up elsewhere. It's just as bad if not worse for the rigger.

A Sammy who loses his "Vera" is probably out, at most, 10K, unless his Vera was one of those apeshit redonkulous guns with high-end commlinks crammed into them for absolutely no discernible reason whatsoever, or was a Thunderstrike Gauss Rifle or something equally crazy.

He can also get himself back up to about 88% combat effectiveness by grabbing a cheap-as-fuck Colt M23 and slapping on a 300 overbarrel smartgun system. Throw in about 2-3 mags of APDS and SnS, and he's back up and running up under 2 grand.

2 grand worth of Commlink does not buy you much commlink. Maybe enough to penetrate a Stuffer Shack, if you're literally FastJack. 2 grand is even less drone, that's in the territory of "spydrones only."

2 grand worth of vehicle is generally "stolen, with the cops still looking for it."

Posted by: KCKitsune Aug 27 2015, 03:46 PM

My apologies. My position is even easier to justify then.

Sure replacing a commlink is expensive, but unless you have to have absolutely the bleeding edge of tech you can replace the commlink with a Signal6 / Response 6 custom commlink for 11,000 using off the shelf components. If you can cook your own chips, then you can spend 16,000 for a commlink with Response 6, Signal 6, Simsense Accelerator, Response Enhancer 6, Armor Case 10, and Hardening 6. Expensive as frak in the best of times, nasty in the worst, but doable.

The above does NOT apply if you're wanting a military grade commlink. My personal opinion is that a military grade commlink should be a cybercommlink and put in a cyberleg (full or lower, doesn't matter) with a armor upgrade. People don't shoot for the leg and your hand can get sliced off pretty easy. You also can put armor on top of the cyberleg to make it even harder to damage the commlink.

Posted by: Neraph Aug 27 2015, 05:41 PM

I've never understood why people upgrade Signal. Get a SatCom and put a fiber optic cable connecting it to your commlink - BAM! Signal 8 for 500 .

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Aug 27 2015, 05:56 PM

That's literally more than the Shadowrun guidelines suggest as the entire team's payment for a whole run which sees you having shoot-outs with vampires, hostile Runners, company men, and if you're really unlucky, Knight Errant.

So that's basically the entire Team writing off a whole run and dipping into the beer money fund, just to get one member of the group back in shape to do their actual job. That's mental, and that's assuming that the hacker has backups of all his high-rating programs.

And the worst part is that, in a lot of cases, the hacker having a white-hot commlink is a boolean pass/fail for your objectives. If the Sammy misses a shot, but doesn't get geeked, he can shoot again next turn, but in a lot of cases, if the hacker triggers an active alert because hi commlink isn't up to snuff (say, because he's being forced to make do with an R3 commlink,) that's it, game over, the system goes on high alert, security spiders start patrolling, the stuff he was trying to hack gets locked down/erased/removed from matrix access.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 27 2015, 06:19 PM

Because putting a SatCom on your Helmet looks silly.

Posted by: Neraph Aug 27 2015, 07:59 PM

Nowhere does it say it needs to be positioned A) somewhere where it doesn't move, or B) somewhere with clear LoS. I mean, do you really think you needhttp://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2012/05/11/8.JPG attached to a helmet for it to work?

EDIT: And I mean, if that's the way your GM really wants to run it, simply get a 1,000 Shiawase Kanmushi and put a 500 SatCom in that, then place it in your pocket turned on.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 27 2015, 08:40 PM

Have you actually looked at the description of what the Sat-Link Looks Like?

Includes a Portable Satellite Dish. It would not include it if it was not a requirement. Vehicles (and yes, a Drone is a Vehicle) have different constraints for such things.

Besides, why do you need the Kanmushi in your pocket? Just link to it wirelessly (which happens automatically if you are in the Mesh and it is in range of the Mesh) and you have a Satellite capable transmission. For that matter, you are almost always in the proximity of a Satellite Dish in any City you happen to be in (again, thanks to the Mesh), so it would automatically route that way anyways. You are going through a lot of effort to have world wide communications when you already have such things. The ONLY time you may need a Satellite Uplink is when you are in the middle of a no-mans land (think remote desert/wilderness area) and have need of contacting someone further than your Signal 4-6 Comlink can communicate.

Posted by: Neraph Aug 28 2015, 04:09 PM

I find descriptions of gear to be secondary to their function, most times - especially when we currently have superior gear with fewer restrictions.

That said: I try never to use the Mesh when at all possible. Everything is done on Hidden mode, encrypted, and direct link. Anything else is far too easy to intercept. That's why I go for signal 8, and that's why I'm directly connected to it and it is encrypted, hidden, and otherwise secure.

Being hacked: ain't nobody got time for that.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 28 2015, 05:15 PM

Modern Real Life makes no nevermind for Shadowrun.

You can't not use the mesh... If you interact with the Matrix at all, you are using the Mesh, in one form or another.

My Cyberlogician (SR4A) Can't even remember the last time he was actually, successfully, hacked. Happened once or twice, to be sure, but secure measures (Milspec hardware and programs) ensure that the rabble stays out.

Posted by: Neraph Aug 28 2015, 07:48 PM

Wrong. Or at least, not entirely accurate.

SR4A, page 218, Matrix Topology, second paragraph, first sentence:
So you can in fact have direct contact with your own devices without any interaction with the Mesh, and through encryption and using Hidden settings essentially create a miniature matrix just for your unit.

Which is what I do. Because privacy and OpSec.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Aug 28 2015, 08:35 PM

Yes, you can have direct contact, however, even a Signal 8 only gives you 100km range (Reality notwithstanding), so anything you are communicating with outside that range (and face it, in Shadowrun, there are a lot of things outside that range that are routinely used, such as Data Searches) must needs be part of the mesh (whether wired or wireless) at some point. Just because you can communicate Point to Point does not mean that your signals do not propagate through the Matrix via the Mesh; you just also happen to communicate point to point as well. You can take steps to minimize that (non-standard Links, Directional Antennae, Super Advanced Encryption Schemes, etc.), but it never eliminates it - after all, even non-standard Links propagate through the Matrix as a whole, otherwise you would never be able to communicate with the Matrix through them.

Opsec is a nice dream, but is never 100% effective. As a Marine, you should understand this. Best laid plans and all that...

Posted by: KCKitsune Aug 30 2015, 07:28 AM

When you're rocking that kind of hardware, then you're worth more than the gang bangers some Johnson would hire to create a distraction. The idea that you would get less than 10,000 for a 'Run that a Johnson NEEDS people of the skill level that your characters represent is ludicrous. I mean lets take it from a BEGINNING street sammy. 400 BP (or 750 Karma) gets you someone who is rocking AT LEAST 150,000 in augmentation alone. Hell, my combat medic MAGE is rocking 170,450 in augmentation* and people are saying that someone like him is going to work for a mere 5,000 ? Are you kidding me? No, people that good are working for some serious cash.


* == to be fair, my combat medic has a a lot of cyber for a mage and that damn Synaptic Booster is expensive!

Posted by: Sengir Aug 30 2015, 07:05 PM

But bear in mind that Humanity Cost in CP2020 was partially random, without a way to compensate for an unlucky high roll players would probably never have dared to install anything interesting

Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Sep 1 2015, 10:55 PM

Well, this is the problem with Shadowrun sourcebooks. It always has been and always will be, apparently. The suggested payout for missions is so hilariously low that you can literally do as good as most early missions, for a fraction of the effort and danger, by remotely hacking SUVs and cars and selling them to chop shops.

Posted by: KCKitsune Sep 2 2015, 02:08 PM

Well whoever is running the games needs to be a little more realistic about the payouts. Shadowrunners should NOT be over glorified car thieves.

Posted by: Neraph Sep 2 2015, 04:52 PM

I think the chargen rules have a decent precedent for payouts. The run should pay no less than 5,000 per point of karma it awards, and it should generally pay more than that. Extenuating circumstances notwithstanding, of course, such as collateral damage.

Posted by: KnightAries Sep 4 2015, 01:27 PM

I've sat here and read all the comments and I have to say there are some good idea and some uummm.... WOW!.!. Complex ideas.
I've seen the removal of essence, the purchase of essence, nerfing mages, boosting Sammies, don't take this away, do take that away, etc. etc. etc...
Everything seemed to be about mundane sammies (scattering of decker and rigger) and mages. I seem to remember between 1st and 2nd ed hardly anyone played mages (too expensive and more likely to kill themselves before a bullet reached them), Deckers (faster and easier to hire out because the matrix rules were wack), Riggers (I'm mostly useless outside of my car).
3rd ed came along and fixed many of the problems but added a few of their own (I actually liked the rule about possible magic loss and medicine as is made them make a choice between possible loosing magic but improved chances of living or less of a chance to live but no loss of magic.). But 3rd ed also added Technomancers and for the most part since 3rd ed the technomancer rules have been similar (nearly carbon copy except with chances necessary to fit into the matrix or control drones)
Then karma is brought up and yes it is slow to raise these characters... Really really really slow... I have to have Karma to submerge/initiate then more karma to raise resonance/magic now I need more karma to get that new complex form/spell ([IIRC] oh wait technomancers can thread forms that they don't know with a high chance of fade) but mages can have focus but it costs more karma (oh and did I forget that too many focus can lead to an addiction and burnout), we can have spirits/sprites (which may cost karma). None of this includes the fact I need to up my skills (cost Karma), up stats to avoid fade/drain (cost karma), up stats to help control complex form/spell (more karma).
Oh I forgot about some other options that are available for mage category Adepts and mystic adepts.
I'll start with the mystic adept since that one will be faster. Mystic adept no astral travel but I can buy (karma) power points for phys adept qualities everything else above applies.
Now for the physical adept to gain powers I have to buy magic (karma) but I've maxed and now need to initiate (karma) but now I need more magic (karma) but like Sammies I need skills and other stats (karma).

Average run for karma award 4 to 6 with 2 to 3 extra for various RP elements if the run was rather long and/or challenging an additional extra of 2 to 4
So lets say we got allot of karma for 1 run at 15. I would initially need about 3 runs to clear the karma costs with that number going up for lesser karma awards and as the price of power increases.

Sammie: I need a new piece of chrome "Here take my " but I only have up to 6 essence. now that piece of chrome isn't cutting so let me upgrade it to alpha "Here take my " but it's nut cutting it anymore let me upgrade to beta "Here take my " oh wait I can get delta "Here take my ". I now have an essence hole to fit more chrome "Here take my ".
That nifty new alpha grade cyber arm got blown off "Here take my " now it's a Beta.

Average nuyen earned from Mr Johnson/fixer 15 - 20k I believe and up to double that (with the rare circumstance of a shit ton more) depending on what come up and players actions... I know there was a run my players went on that they told Mr. Johnson to keep the money and asked for some access to chrome because the stuff the stole was worth more than their pay would have been as each character walk away with more than 1/2 mil at fence prices and they were only make 25k ea from Mr J. Even though renegotiation is normally taboo; Mr J didn't complain as his "corp" was making money (even discounting the gear) instead of spending it. It was a triple win for them. (Job done, got it for mostly free, made money from the runners, made money due to the runs outcome

There is balance there as mundanes advance faster but can cap sooner where technomancers/mages don't have much of a cap but each point of power can seem to take a lifetime to get.

And then there is the great balancer of all things unyielding, doesn't care mage/technomancer/mundane, will strike with no prejudice, doesn't care when/how/who, called a bullet. Oh wait... Sammies tend to shoot A Lot of those and I wonder how many of them hit innocent bystanders. Mages tend to have that LOS thing going on.

Now for my last comment..... I know there are some holes in here from missing information and chunks were very much intentional as I didn't feel like posting the books. And the great thing is it cover multiple editions (I'm still working on reading up on all the 5th ed rules)

I really did like the potential magic loss rule but remember anyone running those rules need to apply them toward resonance as well.
The massive damage rules are nice too. I still use them