Cybereyes for a Mage, Let's Fight About Them Options

[Nifft]

It seems to be a popular opinion that mages can do great things with cyber eyes. The only thing in the rules that allows cyber-eyes to be used at all is p.183 ("Physical cyber- or bio- enhancements paid for with Essence can be used to spot targets"). At least, this is the only thing I can find. If you know of a better rule, please tell me!

- - -

The argument for using cyber-enhancements seems to be:
1/ Base cybereyes have Capacity; and
2/ You paid for your base cybereyes with Essence; therefore
3/ Anything you stick in the base cybereyes -- whether you pay Essence or Capacity -- is fair game.

This is used to justify thermographic & low-light vision enhancements, which might be fine, but it seems that this argument works just as well for commlinks and ocular drones -- and that can't be right.

- - -

A simpler line of reasoning takes the rule on p.183 at face value. The test for a mage being allowed to use a cyber- or bio-enhancement for targeting would simply be:
- Is it an enhancement to your senses?
and
- Did you pay for it with Essence?

For the base cybereyes, it's obvious:
- Enhancement? [✓]
- Paid Essence? [✓]

For vision enhancements, it's equally obvious:
- Enhancement? [✓]
- Paid Essence? [ ... ]

You can pay Essence for thermographic & low-light vision, so you could pay for those separately, and use your excess Capacity for things that don't involve magic -- like flare compensation, smartlink, retinal duplication, etc. -- which would allow you to use your thermo + low-light for targeting magic. Just like if you'd kept your real eyes, and paid for those two enhancements with Essence.

Note that my interpretation does NOT allow magical targeting through ocular drones -- they can't be paid for with Essence, only Capacity.

Does yours? If so, is that desirable?

Cheers, -- N