Restoring Essence, Should it exist within a game? Options

[Talia Invierno]

Ever since encountering Maria Mercurial, my Phoenix shaman PC has had a continuing quest to discover a way of undoing 'ware damage and restoring Essence. (Call it a "cleansing fire", within her Weltanschauung.) As she sees it, this would not be a one-time special thing but a continuing ability, to be invoked as she sees fit. (For what it's worth in our game, she would only ever use it within situations where the person had 'ware installed and/or Essence stolen in situations beyond their control: where they were certainly not willing parties thereto.) It is entirely likely to remain a driving goal for the remainder of the game - however many years that will take.

Some issues which arise include questions of game balance (how does it alter the traditional and continuing 'ware trade-off equation among PCs?) and overturning a core concept of the SR world (how would such knowledge affect the greater SR world?).

Should a method to restore Essence ever exist within a game? Is it something feasible and/or reasonable to exist within the SR world? Would it make a difference whether it were a one-time deal or a continuing ability?

If you have such a method and have managed to make it work, how? What limitations did you assign? What complications have you encountered?

[Tanka]

If I were to allow it (That's a big if there), it would be as little as one point per year, or if I was feeling really, really nice, one point per month.

Cyberware really screws up the person's aura/soul, this is why you lose Essence. It's not like your aura/soul suddenly goes "Oh, he's back to normal now!" and go straight back to 6 Essence.

[Prototype]

A character in one of my games lost a point of essence when he became a partial ghoul, he eventually managed to cure, circumvent or otherwise get around most of the side effects through gene-therapy, drugs and the like but the essence point was a stickler.

He got his chance though in the metaplanes... the characters went on a metaplanar quest and one of the planes had a healing fountain in it, rumoured to cure all ills - during the final confrontation on that plane he saw his chance and raced toward the fountain (would've worked to!) at which point one of the other PC's involved in the confusing battle accidently scored a missile hit on it blowing it and our part-ghoul PC into tiny salsa sized pieces!

[Jason Farlander]

Many years ago, when I first started playing SR, my GM at the time simply allowed players to buy back essence with karma, one level at a time, at a cost of 3xdesired level. If I remember correctly, as far has he was concerned you didnt even have to remove the 'ware. You were still limited in the amount of cyberware, in total, you could recieve by your starting essence, but the increased essence would negate penalties to social situations, make magical healing easier, reduce the risks of essence drain -- basically offset the penalties to the character that result from a low essence score. The reason he did it was because he felt the game would be more fun if the penalties to characters for their decisions were fewer and less harsh, and, above all, the point of playing the game is to have fun.

Was this perfectly balanced? No. I would never allow this, specifically, in my games. I do consider his point to be a valid one, though. As such, while I've never really encountered the request, I would personally allow a player to undergo a treatment (either magical or genetic) to restore essence lost. I would be more inclined to be lenient in this regard in your particular case, since the player doesnt seem to just be whining that there isnt a way, but, rather, has taken an active interest in the game.

Obviously it makes a difference in the overall power of the treatment whether its a one-time thing or a repeatable process. The only thing I have to say here is that your decision should depend on what you think would be best for your group. If you think the group would abuse the ability (getting ware installed for a specific mission, then removing it when the mission ends and regaining the essence would be an example of such abuse) then make it one-time. Since this doesnt seem to be the case from what youve said, I see no other reason to make it a one-time deal unless you just want it to be more dramatic.

One interesting take that I just thought of would be that a portion of the karma required to regain lost essence has to come from someone else... I kinda like that.

[L.D]

I have allowed it in my game.

It works like this. The only way of regaining essence lost to cyberware is if you remove all cyber. When all cyber is removed the persons aura and his body begin to "heal" and slowly you regain essence. Since I haven't had any player take me up on this I haven't decided how fast, but I was thinking somewhere between 0.1-0.5 essence gained each month.

[tete]

i've allowed it... I just had the guy initiate and tied magic and essence together (yes this means they had to initiate more than once to get 1 point)

[Talia Invierno]

[Playing Games]

Well,I do it this way.One whenever cyberware is removed you still have the lost points,you can replace with other cyberware,up on witch if the cyberware is more than the old ,you lose more.If not you have nothing to fear,as you'll regain the Essence in time.

The time scale changes from game to game,but it is almost always one tenth of your current Essence a weak.

And so far,aside from upgrading stuff,and prison/jail only players doing it for IC reasons have bothered doing it.Well,and three magic types.

No one got waer for a run,then removed for new waer the next run.

[RedmondLarry]

I won't allow lost essence to be recovered.

[moosegod]

I have to agree.

You damage the flow of magic, you do it for good.

[toturi]

I only allow recovery of essense during SURGE. For example, the partial Awakening SURGE Edge gives you 1 Magic, if your Essense is less than 1, it is brought up to 1.

[Fortune]

I've never allowed Essense to be regained in my games, and my players would be hard-pressed to convince me that it is a good idea to start.

[Crusher Bob]

To come at it from the other side, what difference is it really going to make to let the PCs gain essence back? Will it unbalance them with the rest of the world (who would also get essence back)? not really. Would it unbalance PCs vs each other? Probably not.

So what difference does it really make.

The real questions should be: how will this affect game balance if I do things this way? Will it make some players unhappy? Are there any unintended side effects? Will this require changing other sections of the game world (see my earlier post about the pricing of cybernetics)?

A simple 'no, I wouldn't allow that' (because of canon) is not really helpful for those of us who have left canon behind long ago.

The thing I can think of off the top of my head are: those things that drain essence become much less 'nasty' when essence grows back. If you want to keep them nasty, maybe add some other feeding conditions (like they much kill to get any essence).

Most ware is too expensive to just 'pop-in'/'pop-out' While letting your .01 essence sam decrease his magical healing TN by 1 after upgrading his ware may seem a bit cheesy, I've found that long hospital times for characters can be equally bad for the game, do you want they player to sit out?

The largest change that this seems to bring to the game world is mostly a metaphysical change rather than a 'rules' change. Depending on which plot threads you are using, this may change how certain things work. Also you may want to consider how this change effect astral space (reducing/increasing background count, etc).

Depending on how you want to do the regenration (as a 'natural, everyday' process; as a 'hero's journey/shamic quest, or whatever) will also affect how it is used in the game. If it is a natural process, then you can just sit in from of the trid drinking beer while your essence grows back. If it is a hero's journey you have to descent into the underworld...

[BewilderedGM]

I havent really considered any other essence loss, than that through cyberware.

I kinda view it as an inhibitor rather than stealing/killing essence. Recently a player in my group got a rather nice favor from Novatech and decided to cash in by getting Wired Reflexes 3 (alpha) :cyber:

His remaining essence was not enough to pay for this, obviously, so we put him in hospital and cut off his cyber arm, regrew an organic one and yanked out his old Wired 2 (standard) and stitched him up with the new ware installed.
Only thing I had to calculate on was how long he had to spend in bed.

This cost him, well nothing nuyen wise (cept for the arm), but he lost about 2 or 3 months in game time (missing about 3 runs).
On the plus side of that he got to try some new chars and skills

If one never gets any essence back or if it regrows slooow, then how would one ever be able to upgrade cyberware. Usually the sams have less than 1 essence and usually far less :D If the sam in question would like to upgrade his, lets say, cyber eyes with alphaware would he in effect be paying for both orginal and the new ones (essence wise). Doesn't seem fair to me :(

edit damn spelling

[RedmondLarry]

BewilderedGM, the rules cover upgrading cyberware, where taking out the old leaves an "essence hole" that the new cyberware uses up before taking away any more.

You did the right thing for the character who got the Wired Reflexes 3.

Edit: Here's an old thread on essence loss. Filling the essence hole (79 replies)

[Panzergeist]

One point per year sounds good. I think essence should be able to regenerate naturally. Maybe meditation or something could make it work faster. I think that essence loss doesn't mean that your soul is being damaged, but rather that the conection between your soul and body is being weakened. Since the soul itself is fine, it should be able to re-establish that conection when the offending cyberware is gone.

[Tziluthi]

I think I'd go for the middle-ground: You might not be able to regain essence, but just so long as you have a sufficient essence gap from the last lot of cyberware you just had ripped out, you don't lose anymore essence from a new implant, just so long as you don't overfill that gap.

[MooCow]

I have allowed the regaining of essence in my games. I used the cost chart from Initiation, required that you remove an equal amount of cyberware, and had to be under the care of a healing mage.

Healing mages who know how to restore essence are very few and far between. Finding one is a very difficult process, and requires alot of roleplaying. This is not something that is done with dice rolls.

It also requires lots of time. I think I went with 2 months per point, plus 1 month for each point below natural max. IE, a player with a 2 point essence would take 6 months to gain 1 point back, 5 months for the next, 4 months for the third, 3 months for the fourth. 18 months total.

Massive injury will greatly disrupt the task. Also I think the one time I had a player take me up on this I required them to also spend Karma to learn the meditation skill, to reflect the soul searching that they were going through.

I think it should be allowed because it represents Redemption, which is always a good theme. However, it should never be done lightly. It's a major story arc, and just finding a mage who can do this should require several gaming sessions of intense roleplaying. At no point should a player be allowed to roll dice or revert to skills. If the player wants this for their character, the /player/ has to earn it.

[Velocity]

I think it should be a given that Essence can't be regenerated until the offending cyberware is removed: when the component is gone, then healing can begin. It strikes me as a gross violation of the spirit of the game to have someone walking around with, say Wired Reflexes 3 (basic grade) and an Essence stat of 3 or 4.

[Siege]

I've never objected to the idea of regaining lost essence, as long as the cause of the essence loss has been corrected.

As Vel suggested, if a character has 5 points of essence sacrificed to getting Wired 3 implanted, essence cannot be regained until the offending ware is somehow modified to require less essence:

1) Remove the system
2) Upgrade the quality -> standard to alpha, for example

I draw a parallel to the human body and essence --> you can't gain more essence than you had initially and you can't pack on more essence when you have something impeding the essence you started with.

For a character to regain essence, I would require cloned replacements implanted to repair the damage.

And the clonal method of replacing Essence will not return lost magic points -- once those are gone, they're gone for good.

Just my credstick's worth.

-Siege

[GunnerJ]

I allow it as follows:

[Velocity]

[Tanka]

[Siege]

The human body is capable of limited repair, sure.

But if you're yanking out 5 points of Essence-eating cyberware, it's not gonna happen.

For removing cyberware, I assume the doctor will patch or implant enough biological matter to keep the character from expiring immediately, but it's not the same as the original tissue. Mechanically speaking, your body is still suffering from a massive wound -- not unlike a physical injury. From my essence point of view, anyway.

To repair such a massive, gaping wound, a band-aid isn't going to do it.

People today can get lifelong injuries that never fully heal. In 2060, I doubt there are too many wounds that fall into the "irrepairable" category, given enough time and money.

Repairing essence is much the same, but the entire balance of the biological system has to be restored which I require cloned tissue to patch.

I don't know if this is making sense...

-Siege

[Talia Invierno]

Agreed to the given: that to even consider this, the cause of Essence loss must be first removed completely, regardless of other factors. (Incidentally, that is another part of the quest mentioned in the first post: to be able to safely remove cyberware which could not normally be removed without causing further damage, owing to the way in which it was installed.)

I've always worked that the rules applying to the PCs also apply to the rest of the world - and this is one of those cases which definitely could alter game balance, depending upon details of interpretation.

If the PCs can get their Essence potentially restored simply by removing the offending cyber and waiting however long for it to regenerate (and then being able to install an entirely new and upgraded system without all those nasty Essence holes and pieces of forever-lost in-between-systems Essence!) - well, that applies to the corps' best company men too. After all, restoring Essence has always been one of the holy grails of corporate 'ware research. In this specific case, why wouldn't the corp invest the time to optain optimal results in their best human resources? Corps aren't nearly as limited as the PCs themselves in the number of people they have available to do a given job.

So perhaps, as well as removing the cause for Essence loss (which in extreme examples could and maybe should result in permanent impairments - consider it the "price" which needs to be paid, while simple clonal regrowth of a limb to replace would not be adequate in and of itself), the reason for such loss should also be relevant as to whether a possibility might exist for its return.

ie. Voluntary

* voluntary cyberware (and consequences)
* voluntary addiction to potentially Essence-lowering substances (before having kicked the habit - and invested appropriate karma, if a Flaw)

Involuntary

* cyberware installed in an unwilling person who would have it immediately undone if the means existed
* some Essence-draining critters
* Essence-lowering actions taken while under mind-altering magic or drugs, which would not otherwise have been taken
* other?