I have always assumed that when a Mage, Shaman or Technomancer loses Essence, Essence caps his Resonance or Magic attribute. But I have been reading the books and I can't find this anywhere.

Am I operating in an assumed fallacy? I only ask, because I recently obtained a copy of the DM Screens and the book that comes with it and upon pursuing the SR3 to SR4 Conversion rules, I came across the example of an Otaku that was being converted to a Technomancer. He had an Essence of 2.8 and therefore, could only have a Resonance of 2. he sacrificed 3 of his submersion grades to then raise his Resonance to 5.

What I ask is, should I allow my regular players to raise their Magic and Resonance with karma, beyond the Essence rating? Anyone have the rules in a digestable and easily searched form to see if the RAW forbids this or not?

All help will be greatly appreciated!

Page 62 of the main book, under the Essence heading, states clearly that each point, or partial point, of Essence loss reduces the maximum Attribute rating for Magic or Resonance by one.

However, you can use submersion (for technomancers) or initiation (for mages) to raise the limit of Magic or Resonance by 1 for each level you take.

For example, a mage with a Magic of 6 gets some cybereyes. Due to the Essence loss, his Magic drops to 5, and his maximum also drops to 5. However, he initiates once. His maximum Magic is 6 again, so if he wanted to, he could spend Karma to raise his Magic back up to 6.

Thank you so much! I have been slaving through the books and trying to find this and totally did not comprehend that. My players will be very ecstatic! One of my mages has been dying to get the new bioware and now he can and with a little work, can get his magic back up.

Also be aware that, by RAW, the cost to raise the magic attribute is based on the current magic cost. For example, if you had magic of 6, got a point of cyber ware (lowering it to 5), and then initiated, you'd only pay for going to magic 5->6; not magic 6->7. Though some house rule that the cost should include the lost magic point, and cost the increase from 5->6 to include the lost point, so the same price as magic 6->7.

I assume you mean maximum and current rating as per BBB p164.

Another quick question.

Is Essence Drain permanent? Does this mean that if a Vampire drains one point of essence from someone, that they permanently have 1 less Essence, forever?

That seems a bit harsh with no way to regain it...anyone have a House Rule that makes this less permanent but still severe? If not, I will be trying to figure one out myself. That is just too harsh.

Augmentation has a genetweak for regaining essence. It's bitch-expensive though, and returns 0.1 essence a month.

This does NOT return essence lost due to implants unless the implants are removed.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that any sort of essence loss is permanent unless it says otherwise or you restore it with gene therapy. I would houserule that it takes 1 month to regain a point of essence lost from an Essence Drain power, because otherwise it's just ridiculous.

(Doublepost, ignore)

You've doubleposted.
Anyway in Augmentation there's a thing called Cellular Repair or something like that that is much cheaper than Revitalization (again I think that it was the name) and takes only few weeks, it gives back essence lost to drugs, illness, critter powers, but not implants.

It should be noted that even with gene therapy you cannot undo the damage to your magic/resonance score. Even if you restore your essence, your lowered supernatural ability cap remains.

Erph? I thought the rule was your maximum magic is your Current Essence(round down)+ Initiation Grade. So that you could regain your magical potential...you would just have to pay the Karma to get the Magic back.

Hm. That's a good point. I always thought your Magic Cap remained reduced, but you're right, you might lose Current Magic and that doesn't come back.

FUQ it?

They specificly state that they do not restore the magic cap. Unless a new FAQ came out. I answered this in a different thread a month or two ago.

That's what I've assumed.

I've got a related question. I know in pre SR4 that your magic started off at 6 (to match your essence) but now in SR4 you can start off will less magic/resonance then your essence. Does this mean that you need to go through initiation to raise your magic up to match your essence? Or are there separate rules for increasing your magic up to your essence and then initiation to take your magic beyond your essence?

Magic (and Resonance) can be raised like any other attribute up to your Maximum Attribute Rating, which for both of them is 6 unless you Initiate/Submerge. Unlike earlier editions, Initiations and Submergence don't automatically increase your Magic Attribute, only your Maximum Magic Attribute. Thus, you could have a Magic of 6 with a Maximum of 6. When you Initiate, you end up with 6 out of 7 and have to pay with Karma as normal to raise your Magic from 6 to 7.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotate.gif)

is it only maximum magic that is reduced? not current magic also?

Meaning if I have magic 5 and gets myself a nice cerebral booster worth 0,4 essence, I would only have my max reduced to 5? or would I reduce my magic to 4?

I have been in doubt about this alot and this might help a player in my game ALOT.

No. When Essence is reduced, both current and maximum Magic/Resonance are reduced accordingly.

It would be interesting from a story point of view if it only reduced your maximum rating (and if your max was reduced bellow your current rating then your magic was reduced). This would play well into the idea that a person wouldn't think that cyberware could hurt them till it was too late (reminds me of Cybermancine and the story of the mage that becomes burnt out).

In the Revitalization (the one that can repair aura damage from implants and has a rate of healing of 0.1/month) description is stated clearly that the maximum magic/resonance reduction stayes in place, on the other hand Cellular Repair (the one that can't repair essence lost to implants) lacks that statement enterely meaning that it brings up the cap; in the end Cellular Repair is for repairing damage from accidents and critter powers, things that would screw up awakened/emerged characters big time (potentialy making the GM an asshole) if not reparable, while being unable to repair essence lost to implants (thing that the 99,99% of times is due to a player choise).
Also remember that even if Cellular repair restores the cap it won't help if the awakened/emerged had permanentely burn out/faded due to magic/resonance dropping to zero.

That is a house rule that more than a few people use, I am sure.

Now that I think of it if Essence loss took away from The Max rating of your Magic/Resonance rather then directly from your Magic/Resonance itself (until the Magic/Resonance rating was equal to your max rating) then that would make Essence drain dangerous rather then horrific. I suppose that could be a house rule, then vamps couldn't easily neutralize the mage/technomancer right off the bat.