Essence Costs: Bioware and Cyberware, Do They Stack? Options

[Panda Bear]

I'm not sure if this has been asked before, or if this is covered in the book, as I have not seen it anywhere, but I'm going to ask anyway.

Essence reductions happen for many reasons. Whole limbs get ripped off, things that aren't suppose to be part of the body are placed within it, permanent damage is done to the body. But how does essence reduction work with replacement bioware and cyberware?

Say I start the game with Muscle Toner 2 at the standard essence cost of .4, making my current essence 5.6. Later I decide to upgrade my Muscle Toner to rating 4, but using deltaware bioware instead. This would cost an essence of .4 instead of the standard's .8.

For the question; would replacing the bioware for a much better version still stack the essence cost? Would my essence loss be .8, or would it stay the same?

[Strobe]

When you upgrade bio/cyber you are basically having the old one pulled out and a new one shoved in. When the old one is taken out you end up with an essence "hole" so you don't get it back but it is used when you get new gear.

In your example you would just end up with essence loss from your toner would stay the same.

-Strobe

[toturi]

For now, before Augmentation, there's no "Essense hole". So there should be an additional Essense cost. But - if your GM is being kind(best way to ensure that is by not being a munchkin), he could House Rule the Essense hole in, especially since the rule was around in previous editions.

[Strobe]

Yeah, I guess strict RAW is like that but I think it is just an oversight. Otherwise what happens if you cyber gets broken and you need it replaced. Does it cost additional essence? Even for the same model cyber?

I would personally continue to use the essence hole rule but Toturi is technically correct.

-Strobe

[Abbandon]

Cyber seems totally fubared compared to magicians and adepts. All an adept or mage has to do is dump some karma into magic and poof they are more powerful. Street Samurais have to get a huge load of cash together, have surgery, have some downtime to heal. And to top it all off if they drop down to 1.0 essense with all their crap ware then they have tha penalty for the rest of their life even if they upgrade to all delta grade. Thats -5 to all magic heals, and -3 to all biotec rolls.

Do Street samurai's ever get to be loaded out wih delta grade cyber to make up for all this?? I dont know but certainly not on the forums lol.

I think maybe there should be some special BP to nuyen ratio specifically for cyber at character gen. Or they should just make it common knowledge that if you remove something that costs 3 essense and put in something that is 1.5 you get 1.5 BACK. This represents regenerative measures. We are not far off from having this anyways. If they keep messing with embriotic and other types of cells they will learn how to regen limbs and body parts.

[Critias]

Right, but regeneration has nothing to do with Essence (unless they've grossly changed what "essence" is supposed to be in SR4, compared to earlier editions). It's not just a matter of chunks of your body being gone, it's all sorts of zany new-age mumbo jumbo about wholeness of spirit and crap like that.

Just losing an arm in a car wreck doesn't result in essence loss. Replacing that arm with a cybernetic model, integrating it into your body and your sense of self, though? That represents the sort of change that costs you essence points.

...which isn't to say I don't think it would be nice if there was a way to get essence back (I much prefer CP:2020's humanity ratings). Just that regenerating limbs and body parts, alone, has little to do with how they've described it in the past.

[Synner]

Hmmm, that's the second time this week.

[odinson]

Isn't complaining about how much better magic is than cyber something that occurs multiple times every week?

I think that the cyber just needs to be a ton more powerful. It should be ultra munchkin compared to magic. I also like the idea of essence loss due to over damage though. Use the standard rules for magic loss but make it essence instead. Thats all the balance a sammy needs, constant threat of death.

Oh and I don't like the idea of essence holes. I think that you shouldn't be swapping cyber around like that. If you pull out a piece of cyber and it cost you 0.5 essence thats 0.5 essence you're never getting back.

[redne]

You'd like street sammies to be faster, stronger, better than the even-hollywood-thinks-this-is-unrealistic cybermonsters we have today and to die easier at the same time?

You must like generating new characters :)

[Eleazar]

Correction:

Sammies need to be "harder, better, faster, stronger".

[Wakshaani]

Well, the "Essence Hole" theory is a nice halfway measure. Basicly, if you got, say, a Cyberlimb, that 1.0 Essence is gone. You're disrupted, daddy-o, and it ain't ever returning.

But!

If you later got rid of it for a replacement clone arm, that 1.0 "Hole" is still there ... you can afford to get some dermal plating and maybe a datajack, using up some of the "Hole", without cutting into teh Essence you have left.

Yeah, if you think about it too much, it breaks your brain (Wait. I replaced my arm, and that means that later I can get bionic eyes and ears? WHafu?!), but, it wound up being the most fair option. You don't want smeone getting their essence *back*, but you also want to leave the option for future upgrades (C'mon, adventure, momma needs Beta Reflexes!) which a full "Burning" of essence wouldn't allow.

So, we fanagle it a bit. :)

[Buster]

Since the book doesn't mention "essence holes" anymore, it seems like the designer's intention is when you remove a cyber/bioware item, you get your essence back. As mentioned previously, a cybersamurai upgrading to delta mods late in his career could have 3 essence instead of 0.01 essence. Removing essence holes is a nice boost for sammies in the new rules.

[Eryk the Red]

I don't think that's the designers' intention at all. I mean, you can ask. Some of the writers are here, after all. A strict reading of the book doesn't indicate any way to get the essence back, including removing the cyber.

That said, I use the "essence hole" rule because I like it, it allows cyber-guys room for enhancement, but it means that body augmentation is a commitment with consequences that you can't avoid or fix. I like that.

[hyzmarca]

You can get Essence back if you gain the Essence Drain power and eat people. Street Magic even provide a viable way for PCs to gain this power, making a Pact with a Free Blood Spirit.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

It's easier:

Any tradidtion with Guardian Spirits that learns Invoking and Sacrifice is able to blood-invoke Guardian Spirits which use Endowement to grant anyone they are ordered their Essence Drain Power.

So you just have to find such a mage and pay him for a renewment session, puppies included.

[laughingowl]

page 84. main book

[FrankTrollman]

The rules go about saying it in a very roundabout way, but it is said:

• When your Essence is lost, it does not come back (p. 61).
• When you get more cyberware, calculate your whole Essence cost, then adjust your Essence if appropriate (p. 84)

So yes, the rules do have an Essence Hole in them, it just isn't called anything. If you remove cyberware, your Essence doesn't come back. But if you put new cyberware in, your enetire Essence cost will be recalculated to see if you lose any more - so if the new cyberware costs the same amount as the old cyberware - you don't lose any more Essence.

So yes, while this will be made explicit in Augmentation, even with RAW BBB, the Essence Hole is in there.

-Frank

[toturi]

[Jack Kain]

[bait]

Now theres an actual point to essence loss, you hit zero and your checking out. ( Addiction rules now play into this.)