Essence, what is it good for?, Absolutely nothin'! Options

[Straight Razor]

ok. i was thinking, any one ever though of having Tn's for mana based spells be the same as it is with the healing spell.

[Dog]

I am now.

[Herald of Verjig...]

The net effect I see is that it changes the mana-tech paradigm to be more in line with the significantly contrarian nature of the two as displayed in Arcanum ™. Some may prefer this magic XOR technology style, but as someone who always hacked my Arcanum techie to be able to learn teleport, resurrect, shrink and invisibility, I am averse to playing under that rule.

Try it and let us know how it works.

[Glyph]

Considering that most sammies probably have a fractional Essense, that means that spellcasters will be looking at TNs of 9, while sammies will not have to worry about Willpower except for something they don't want too low, as it affects their Combat Pool. Also, those same sammies also tend to have very high Body scores, so spells like powerbolt won't be effective either. I foresee a lot of mages having a sudden enthusiasm for damaging and control manipulation spells.

I'm not knocking your house rule, just pointing out that implementing it will dramatically shift the balance of power between mages and cybered folk, to the detriment of the mages (which, as far as I know, might be your intention). And low Essense will actually be a good thing to have.

On the other hand, adepts will be pretty easy to blast, and pity the poor shapeshifters with their Essenses of 8. :)

[Straight Razor]

I'm sorry my train of thought de-railed.
what i wanted was for the TN to be there essence for mana spells.

so the shape shifter is hard to nail with a mana spell, but the sammy is easy picking.

[Glyph]

Hmm... almost too easy pickings. I mean, even a sammie with a Willpower of 6 is already in trouble against a spellslinger. He only has his Attribute to roll to resist the spell, while the spellslinger can use his skill, spell pool, and in some cases totem bonuses, an elemental aiding sorcery, or magical foci. Now picture the same lopsided contest, only the mage has a TN of 2. This really isn't good for the sammie, and by that I mean that sammies really become close to impossible to play - who wants to play someone who can get killed or knocked out with such ease?

[nezumi]

I like the original idea much better. After all, the game is already setup so a mage can beat a sam such that the same can't fight back, but the reverse isn't really true. I would actually prefer to make low essence an edge against magic. For one, it puts some more bite into the phrase "I'm more machine than man now."

I still want to play a character who doesn't make willpower tests but object resistance tests.

[lorechaser]

Agreed. There's already a disparity between mages and sammies, to some degree or another. To make it trivial for a mage to affect a sammie, even if only with mana spells, would make mages the be all end all, I think.

However, I like the other option as well - it does create an odd situation, though, where a sammie is simply inserting random cheap, high essence items in to their bodies to make them more magic resistant....

[Dog]

"...and don't gimme none of that betaware crap!"

[lorechaser]

"Hell, you got anything that can be installed incorrectly? I feel like I got about .5 essence to burn...."

[fistandantilus4....]

this does happen when essence goes to negative in the case of cyberzombies. The negative essence because a modifier (absolute value -3 essence becomes a +3t#), so there is soem precedence if you want to apply it. The reason though is that the rituals used in cyberzombies create a hazing effect on the astral, sort of like a mobile background count. That wouldn't be the case in normal cyber, but you can always change that.

[Gabriel (Argus #...]