Essence Loss and Recovery Options

[Faenor]

Hey all. I was curious if there were any rules about raising your essence after having cyberware removed? I recall reading somewhere about how you never gain that back. But, since drug addiction causes essence loss alon with major trauma (deadly wounds, etc), it'd make sense that you can get that back up with physical therapy and counselling. I had a thought of buying the attribute back up just like a regular attribute with a TOTAL CAP of 6, and having the time to raise it be one week per point of karma spent, and a cost of 500 nuyen per karma point. So, to raise a karma from 0 (a reformed street samurai) to one would be two karma, two weeks in game time, and a thousand bucks.

Does anyone else have any other ideas for this? I'd also say that for magicians they would need to initiate/ take a geasa to gain back the magic point, or does that seem too harsh? Or just double the costs to re-attune to their magic rating as well, but make them initiate if it takes them over 6?

What are everyone's opinions on this? Any alternate mechanical rules or ideas? I'm more than welcome to them.

[Mr Cjelli]

Essence loss from cyberware (and for the most part from everything else) is permenant. It is possible to implant cyberware in the 'essence hole' left by removed cyberware, however.

[Velocity]

My players and I never cared for the "permanent Essence loss" rule and ditched the concept in favour of a slow, incremental recovery of Essence brought on by a lifestyle change in addition to removing the offending cyberware. Eating better, socializing and forming good relationships with people, interacting with your community, quitting smoking and BTLs, spending time in the 'natural' world, etc. are all ways to promote holistic health (and, in game terms, recover lost Essence). This is a slow process, taking months or even years, and is intended for retiring PCs (although technically there's no reason why it couldn't work in-game, if enough time passes and the character can balance shadowrunning with spiritual health).

Given that Shadowrun is 'cyberpunk-lite' and that magic, spirits and the whole 'sixth world' aspect is supposed to convey a certain hopefulness and optimism whicho mitigate--to a certain extent--the nihilism of cyberpunk, we always felt that permanent Essence loss ran counter to the spirit of the game.

[hyzmarca]

There is a canon method to regain lost essence. The only problem is that this method isn't available to canon PCs.

My solution, Essence Transfer metamagic. This allows a character to heal someone else's Essence by sacrificing their own. This metamagic is usually coupled by Essence Drain metamagic and together they are used to heal rich drug addicts and such.
Fees are steep and the Poor SINless pay the highest cost, their lives as the healer uses them to replinish his or her own essence.

These metamagics can be taught by Free Spirits with the Essence Drain power or an initiate. Sacrificing is a prerequisite for Essence Drain and Essence Drain is a prerequisite for Essence Transfer.

Essence Transfer and Essence Drain metamagics cannot be used to heal essence loss from cyberware that is still implanted

[PlainWhiteSocks]

Velocity's system seems to make the most sense and it will help deter blatant rules abuse.

As for hard numbers for the system how about having to buy a permanent middle or higher lifestyle.
Then adding in a cost of the new essence rating multiplied by 4 karma as well as spending the new essence rating multiplied by 3 months in relatively safe normal living downtime.

So going from 0 to 1 essence would take 3 months and cost 4 karma to get. Going from 5 to 6 essence would cost 24 karma and take a year and a half to achieve.

That year and a half could open new doors for runs as the character in question tried to setup a year and a half of normal living downtime.


It would also open up the possibility of being an active runner while getting essence back.


hmmmm... the more I think about this the more I think I'll implement it.

Thanks for the great ideas.

:)

[eidolon]

Velocity, consider that YOINKED. ;)

[Velocity]

Glad you all liked the idea, feel free to yoink it. :)

To give credit where it's due, Nova--the sammie in my group--first mentioned it when he was talking about his eventual retirement. In addition to the rationale I described above, (i.e. 'game flavour'), we reasoned that:

• Given the human body's sometimes-miraculous ability to heal itself;
• Given the mind's ability to do the same;
• Given the fact that -- from a strictly game-balance perspective -- there's no way this will contribute to über characters;
• Given that it could lead to some good roleplaying opportunities as grizzled, cynical shadowrunners try to change and heal some of the damage their extraordinarily punishing lifestyle has wreaked on their psyche (soul/Pattern/whatevah);

... it seemed unnecessarily harsh to flat-out prevent Essence from ever recovering.

[mfb]

i tend to prefer permanent essence loss for those same reasons. without it, it seems like SR becomes a much happier, hopeful place. i like the idea that there are some things that even magic can't fix.

hyzmarca, i'm only aware of two instances in SR where someone regained their essence. one involved the intervention of a totem, and the other involved SURGE. are you thinking of something else?

[Kagetenshi]

[hyzmarca]

[Doc Byte]

-deleted-

[FrostyNSO]

[Sunday_Gamer]

I would find it difficult to disagree more.




Not a Monkey shaman are you?

Kong

[Birdy]

Always treated "Essence Loss" like the "Humanity Loss" in CP - the more metal you have, the less human you are. As for the effects on the "Rapdancers" and "Pointy-Heads": All psychology! Those Mage-types are sissis, plain and simple.

So if you replace metal with cloned flesh again, the essence returns. Now doing so can be a bit complicated and costly. And it might not effect magic (never had a cybered mage in group) since the psycho-effect remains

Birdy

[noname_hero]

I can add that we use a system similar to the one Velocity mentions for more than two years, and we've never had problems with players abusing it.

To put it simply, leading the kind of a life that doesn't make your essence drop is enough to let your body (and spirit) regain some of the essence you're missing. The basic rate is 0.05 essence per month of game time if you live a medium lifestyle in Seattle, 0.1 essence per month if you leave for some human-friendly and essence-friendly place (nice people, lots of nature, good food, no stress...).

This means regaining one point of essence usually takes almost two years, long enough to prevent most abuses, and the rule lets us ignore the whole "essence never returns" thing without making a big impact on gameplay. And if you're a normal person who's an unlucky victim of a vampire's hunger (but you survived), after some time you are as healthy as if nothing happened.

[Demon_Bob]

How long is temporary essence loss supposed to last?
If a character has a encounter with something with the temporary essence drain power and survives how long would he be affected?