Making Essence Loss not matter for mundanes?, Some thought experiments here. Options

[Lionhearted]

Your opinion.
And it's actually wrong according to both rules and background.
Datajack, chipjack, internal comlink, cyber-eyes/ears. . People get that done in their lunch break!

These are the types of augmentation I expect people to have, nothing odd about them, useful in every day life and very common

Smartlink, Spur, Cyber-Muscle, all that can be done in a day without problem. Stuff that gets attached to the central nervous system is of course still a bit more problematic.
But if you can pay for magical healing? Yeah, out in a week or so . .

These are on the other hand I think raise eyebrows in more civilised areas, walking into a fancy resturant with a spur in your arm? why do you have a spur in the first place?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

These are on the other hand I think raise eyebrows in more civilised areas, walking into a fancy resturant with a spur in your arm? why do you have a spur in the first place?

Why would a restaurant even know you had a Spur in your arm to start with, unless you are flaunting it? There are certainly some pieces of 'ware that are questionable (All Cyberweapons fall into that particular category), but you can make a case for most other 'ware as a civilian, even baseline neural 'ware.

[Stahlseele]

Poser-Shit for egg sample?
Corp Teen Brat:"look at my spur! So street! Much hardcore! Very wow!"
And yes, otherwise if it's retractable, why should it be out anyway?
Smartlink and Muscle-Stuff is perfectly OK for all kinds of workforces.

[Lionhearted]

Used to run with a group that was pretty black trenchcoat, they had MAD scanners at entrances of higher class establishments

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Used to run with a group that was pretty black trenchcoat, they had MAD scanners at entrances of higher class establishments

Sure... And in high-end establishments I can see that. But even still, it is not hard to gain entry with cyberware. There are myriad reasons to have 'ware, and the only 'ware that would likely stand out in such a place are the cyberweapons.

[Lionhearted]

Sure... And in high-end establishments I can see that. But even still, it is not hard to gain entry with cyberware. There are myriad reasons to have 'ware, and the only 'ware that would likely stand out in such a place are the cyberweapons.

I dont agree completely with that, any obvious chrome would be faux pau at least, and a lot of restricted ware that have very fringe civilian uses would stand out as well, like wires, bone lacing and the like...
This is personal opinion of course, other people might have different mind sets I just dont see people walking around with heavy military ware without people being suspicious

[binarywraith]

I dont agree completely with that, any obvious chrome would be faux pau at least, and a lot of restricted ware that have very fringe civilian uses would stand out as well, like wires, bone lacing and the like...
This is personal opinion of course, other people might have different mind sets I just dont see people walking around with heavy military ware without people being suspicious

If by 'heavy military ware' you mean 'obvious cyberskulls/torsos with weapons mounts', then I get what your saying. Otherwise, all of the super-restricted stuff is in no way going to be physically visible. How in the hell are you going to spot an encephalon, or mil-spec wired reflexes when someone's just walking around? Much less the guy rocking a cranial cyberdeck and a a bucket of ice-breakers that could eat the NSA.

More to the point, if they're that scared of someone with personal augmentations, why aren't they shitting their pants about every Tim, Merlin, and Harry who can whip up a chaotic world or manaball out of nowhere?

[Lionhearted]

More to the point, if they're that scared of someone with personal augmentations, why aren't they shitting their pants about every Tim, Merlin, and Harry who can whip up a chaotic world or manaball out of nowhere?

I wouldnt have to do with fear but rather a totalitarian system where every Tim, Merlin and Harry would have to be able to authenticate their autherisation to be rockin' a manaball less they be hauled off in a mage mask to some dank cell with no windows.
Your average runner is not an Ares military contracter so why should he be sporting bone lacing? and why would a military grunt be let into the exotic diner where you need to book months in advance?
I dont feel like this is contributing to the thread though, so I wont continue this discussion, not here at least.

[Neraph]

Ghouls don't have Essence drain, they just eat you.

I was referring to the ghoul virus, which drains 1 point of Essence during the transformation.

The solution to that is easy... Just have that power permanent drain hit boxes. That is more scary than just essence drain.

The solution is easy: kludge together another ad-hoc rule to make up for the change of game balance that I decided to implement because changes to game balance have unforseen side-effects.

Or, you know, you could not tinker with a system that you don't fully understand...

I disagree wholeheartedly with the concept.

+1.

[Sendaz]

More to the point, if they're that scared of someone with personal augmentations, why aren't they shitting their pants about every Tim, Merlin, and Harry who can whip up a chaotic world or manaball out of nowhere?

They are shitting themselves, but the mages are smart enough to mind wipe them so they forget they are supposed to be shitting themselves until the next time someone reminds them.

Oops..

Time for another mind wipe. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)



Edit: But yeah, saying someone can go get a license to do magic and its all cool seems kind of like issuing a license to own and operate a tank and not expecting problems from that.

Sure they say they will follow the rules, but would you even let them loose in the first place?

[binarywraith]

The better question is one of setting. Street mages are a thing in Shadowrun. They have to be, for the setting to operate as it does. So clearly there are people outside the system and walking around who aren't in the regimented licensed ritual-sample-on-file ranks of 'trusted' casters. But when you think high-class club, you think MAD scanners and cyberware detection, not anti-mage defenses.

Mostly, I admit, because the setting would rapidly turn into Warhammer 40k if it ever internally recognized how powerful and chaotic a social force mages can be.

[Isath]

Making it easier to get cyber, adding additional upsides and removing the downsides does not sound good to me and it also seems to be ignoring the actual problem sets.

If using a pistol is so different from using a rifle, that I can be a legendary world champion in one but a complete idiot in the other, then casting an Illusion maybe quite different from casting a combat spell. So I would make it either easier for mudanes getting combat skills or more difficult for mages to get it all. Another way would be to raise the basic formula for drain... and so on.

As for the cyber. If I want to go easy on my cyborgs, I will just allow for more starting ware, by reducing cost and or allowing for graded ware. One way of doing this would be to have 2nd handware use standard ware stats, standard ware using alpha stats, etc. Another way would be to grant every character the biocompatability quality for free... and so on.

In my book cyber grant really nasty boni and does not need added magic resistance beyond what is already RAW. Pricing in SR5 is cruel, but still our Hacker has no natural limb left and is working on Skull and Torso, while still having a deck. Small adjustments are the way to go there, no need to get funky.

[DarkSoldier84]

A military grunt would have their wires removed when they left the service unless they went AWOL.

My first SR character was a retired soldier from the SSC. In his background, the state paid for his augs and he paid them back with his service; of course I actually paid for them in chargen, but it fit the theme I wanted. I figure anybody who enlists to get augs needs to read his enlistment contract thoroughly to see whether or not said augs remain property of the state/corp when he's discharged.

[Neraph]

Hell, the way it works in reality, if you want to keep the gear you're issued for deployments/training/whatever, they just deduct the money from your pay. You want that flak and SAPI plates? Sure, we'll bill you. You want that camelback? We'll deduct it for you.

And that's not to mention all the uniform equipment that's standard issue.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Hell, the way it works in reality, if you want to keep the gear you're issued for deployments/training/whatever, they just deduct the money from your pay. You want that flak and SAPI plates? Sure, we'll bill you. You want that camelback? We'll deduct it for you.

And that's not to mention all the uniform equipment that's standard issue.

Unless, of course, you are coming out of a war and they just stop-loss the equipment and tell you to keep it (sans weapons, of course). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Matsci]

If using a pistol is so different from using a rifle, that I can be a legendary world champion in one but a complete idiot in the other, then casting an Illusion maybe quite different from casting a combat spell. So I would make it either easier for mudanes getting combat skills or more difficult for mages to get it all. Another way would be to raise the basic formula for drain... and so on.

Interesting. Make the Spellcasting group into a 5 skill group, and split Spellcasting, up by spell type. Make Counterspelling it's own skill the way Dodge is, maybe fold ritual spellcasting into Regular Spellcasting (4e), or make it it's own skill. Do the same thing with spirit summoning.

That'll definitly slow down mage advancement some, but doesn't quite fix the problem of AdeptRun, featuring Adepts.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I've been doing more shower-thinking WRT ways to implement something like this; allowing full-on Eclipse Phase style "medical science rocks, no need to die just because you're heavily augmented."

One I had was to institute essence minimums from augmentation - IE, no matter how heavily-augmented you were, receiving further augmentations could never take your Essence below the augs minimum. This would still leave you potentially vulnerable to death-by-essence-drain and would still make heavy augmentation a no-go for Awakened characters, but would allow characters to get the Full Jensen treatment.

Another thought I had was, perhaps (and I think someone mentioned this before but bugger me if I can find out where,) radically changing the Essence costs of ware, such that standard ware now has the essence cost of Alphaware, secondhand standard ware has the original standard ware costs, Alpha has the Essence costs of Betaware, Betaware has the essence costs of Delta, and Deltaware multiplies essence cost by 0. Gene- and tailored bioware would likewise have an essence cost of 0.

[Sendaz]

Another thought I had was, perhaps (and I think someone mentioned this before but bugger me if I can find out where,) radically changing the Essence costs of ware, such that standard ware now has the essence cost of Alphaware, secondhand standard ware has the original standard ware costs, Alpha has the Essence costs of Betaware, Betaware has the essence costs of Delta, and Deltaware multiplies essence cost by 0. Gene- and tailored bioware would likewise have an essence cost of 0.

Edit:That could work so long as you make the reduced essence cost apply ONLY to mundanes.
So when a player buys into the Awakened/Emerged roles, they basically get a modified version of sensitive system and have to pay the regular ess cost for stuff, while mundanes revel in full cybergoodness.



Or if you want to go with something out of far left field you could create a third category in the Mag/Res column, The Way of Steel or WoS.

Way of Steel basically opens up 'extra' essence that only applies to cyber/bio gear based on the priority spent, using the concept that followers of this path basically attune their potential to better bond with the machine.

So it would look like this (number still subject to adjusting, this was just off the cuff afterall)
Priority A - 6 'extra' ess for gear
Priority B - 4 'extra' ess for gear
Priority C - 3 'extra' ess for gear
Priority D - 2 'extra' ess for gear
Priority E - Nada, he's just a normal joe

The extra ess is used up first for paying off the cyber.
Admittedly it is an odd one, especially since it could not be reduced by ess loss like Magic/Resonance does since it's focus is all about the ess, but it is an interesting thought.

This way mages/emerged can't get in on this bonus since its in the same column as their magic/resonance and regular mundanes not planning to go full cyber monkey can still just go E, but for those wanting the potential to cram extra stuff in they can have options.

Perhaps there could even be Initiations/ability to buy up their WoS score for those on the Way of Steel to further expand their way into cyborgville so you don't need to go Prio A right out the chargen gate, but could build up so long as you buy in at least with D.

[binarywraith]

Interesting. Make the Spellcasting group into a 5 skill group, and split Spellcasting, up by spell type. Make Counterspelling it's own skill the way Dodge is, maybe fold ritual spellcasting into Regular Spellcasting (4e), or make it it's own skill. Do the same thing with spirit summoning.

That'll definitly slow down mage advancement some, but doesn't quite fix the problem of AdeptRun, featuring Adepts.

I actually really like the spell skill splitting idea. Leads to more hard choices for the casting crowd because they can't just be good at Every Spell. As far as fixing adepts goes, it's mostly a matter of balancing power costs and reminding players that Adepts are not immune to Background Count, so pretty solvable without huge edits.

[Moirdryd]

Really don't see the need for Unlimited Essence as that really steps away from Cyberpunk/Shadowrun theme and puts you into RIFTS/Eclipse Phase/ WH40K AdMech transhumanism.

If you're looking as a counter to Magic why are Background Counts always ignored when this comes up? Surely they are the biggest balance for Cyber vs Magic in a situation? Going into the Barrens and it's not your home turf? Lose 1-3dice and similar drop in Hits and/or Force on your sustained spells. An Aztech facility where dodgy blood sacrifice has been happening? Enjoy your BGC of 5 etc

Also, you can easily reintroduce the issues Mages and Adepts had with medical treatments from SR3, you know when taking Deadly Damage and Overflow could reduce your Magic rating, or a Trauma Patch getting used on you could kill a point of Magic? These were Non-Optional unlike the other Stat reduction rules. Made for some interesting situations "Great the Mage is down but we Can't trauma patch him because that coud frag his Magic, we need some cover and some regular first aid for a few Combat Turns and hope the physical damage wasn't too bad that it's screwed his mana flow". Or for a simple conversion there-of...

Houserule- Burning Out: When an Awakened character Stabilizes from Physical Damage that was in Overflow boxes they must make a Magic test with a dice pool penalty equal to the number of Physical Overflow boxes they had suffered. Failure reduces the Current Magic (not Maximum) rating by 1. This is only rolled on the first successful stabilisation check (be it first aid, medicine etc) if Magical Healing is used (Stabilize spell) the penalty is 1/2 the Overflow boxes (round down). If a Trauma patch is applied to the Mage an immediate Magic test is required in addition to the test above regardless of if Stabilisation is successful. This is made at a flat -2 Dice pool penalty results are as above.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Really don't see the need for Unlimited Essence as that really steps away from Cyberpunk/Shadowrun theme and puts you into RIFTS/Eclipse Phase/ WH40K AdMech transhumanism.

That was literally my idea: stepping away from Cyberpunk and down the road to full-on Transhumanism. Or at least, the possibility thereof.

If you're looking as a counter to Magic why are Background Counts always ignored when this comes up? Surely they are the biggest balance for Cyber vs Magic in a situation? Going into the Barrens and it's not your home turf? Lose 1-3dice and similar drop in Hits and/or Force on your sustained spells. An Aztech facility where dodgy blood sacrifice has been happening? Enjoy your BGC of 5 etc.

Because it's a fiddly fucking pain in the ass for everyone involved, that's what. "Hey, you know all those neat powers you invested in? Here, enjoy a blanket -4 penalty to them, because reasons."

Background counts are like rape. Sure, they're an everyday part of the setting, but as far as the player characters are concerned, it shouldn't come up often, and when it does, it should be impactful. They lose their meaning if they're just a blanket rain of drek constantly falling on the Awakened characters.

So, I just assume that any Awakened character who lives in an urban environment has adapted their spellcasting innately to compensate for general bullshit city background counts. If it's something particularly strong (the site of a furious riot triggered by anti-metahuman hatred, before the street-cleaners have gotten to power-washing the blood away,) or unusual (a peace & love hippy retreat,) then it will affect them.

That said, this was not intended as a "I wanna make Awakened characters suck more" measure, it was an "I want augmentations to be more awesome" measure. Specifically, I think that you should have been able to go full Jensen on someone without the arbitrary game balance limit causing their soul to fall off.

Also, you can easily reintroduce the issues Mages and Adepts had with medical treatments from SR3, you know when taking Deadly Damage and Overflow could reduce your Magic rating, or a Trauma Patch getting used on you could kill a point of Magic? These were Non-Optional unlike the other Stat reduction rules. Made for some interesting situations "Great the Mage is down but we Can't trauma patch him because that coud frag his Magic, we need some cover and some regular first aid for a few Combat Turns and hope the physical damage wasn't too bad that it's screwed his mana flow". Or for a simple conversion there-of...

Houserule- Burning Out: When an Awakened character Stabilizes from Physical Damage that was in Overflow boxes they must make a Magic test with a dice pool penalty equal to the number of Physical Overflow boxes they had suffered. Failure reduces the Current Magic (not Maximum) rating by 1. This is only rolled on the first successful stabilisation check (be it first aid, medicine etc) if Magical Healing is used (Stabilize spell) the penalty is 1/2 the Overflow boxes (round down). If a Trauma patch is applied to the Mage an immediate Magic test is required in addition to the test above regardless of if Stabilisation is successful. This is made at a flat -2 Dice pool penalty results are as above.

Yeah, no. No, no, no.
"Things got hairy, so here, lose a bunch of shit you invested Karma in, frag you," is not good GMing. As a player, that's the kind of thing that makes me revolt. I'm sure as shit not going to drop it on my own players.

[Stahlseele]

So . . Deckers do not lose thier Decks, Riggers do not lose Drones, Samurai do not lose hugely expensive equipment like full Powered Armor or Military Grade Weapons either then?
Because that's what's been happening. Everybody else took losses while the mages somehow got a free ride because it'd hurt their karma too much . .

[ShadowDragon8685]

So . . Deckers do not lose thier Decks, Riggers do not lose Drones, Samurai do not lose hugely expensive equipment like full Powered Armor or Military Grade Weapons either then?
Because that's what's been happening. Everybody else took losses while the mages somehow got a free ride because it'd hurt their karma too much . .

The way I see it, there should never be a metagame of "I can buy this at chargen, using chargen resources, but it's easy to lose, or I can buy this, which I can't in any practical scenarios lose."

The way I see things, invested points (build points or Karma,) are "insured." If some in-character thing happens that means there's no way to explain you not losing them, then you get those points back to spend however you see fit.

Basically, a player should never be put in the position of trying to decide whether they want to continue playing their current character, or just get rid of them and introduce a new one, because their current one has become so mechanically disadvantaged that a new character is an appealing option from a strictly crunch perspective. (Expendables, like grenades and Edge, are not subject to this, nor is anything purchased with (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) acquired in-game.)

[ShadowDragon8685]

Okay, so, I had a shower epiphany on the topic of Essence, and I just had to share.

I'm thinking a two-pronged approach.

Approach 1: Essence Floor.
Basically, an Essence Floor is a lower limit past which your Essence cannot fall, short of magical, Essence-destroying attack. Most people have no essence floor. You can take a positive quality (in 4 ratings) to gain an Essence floor. R1 gives you an Essence Floor of +1, R2 gives you an Essence Floor of +2 and makes it so you round your Essence for in-game purposes mathematically, and R3 gives you an Essence Floor of +3 and makes it so you round your Essence up.
(IE, at R2, Essence 2.5 would round up to E3 for the purposes of, say, magical healing, while Essence 4.3 would round down to 4.)
At Rating 4, it means that your Essence Floor is equal to your Essence score itself; IE, you cannot lose Essence short of magical, Essence-shredding attack. Obviously, this would be prohibitively expensive, and would be impossible to take with anything other than a Latent Awakening, if that.

A genetic therapy modification (possibly Adapsin repurposed,) would also give you a +1 Essence Floor. And yes, this would make it functionally impossible for a character to die of Essence loss from a burnout addiction to hard drugs. That, I consider, to be a feature, not a bug; after all, Mick Jagger.

Approach 2: Essence Buying.
Basically, as with other attributes, you can just buy Essence, up to a maximum of your racial default × 1.5. IE, all metahumans could buy their Essence up to 9. This is, in some ways, a double-edged sword for the Awakened, however, as I'd be saying that the penalty to Mana spells becomes a bonus for someone with an Essence score of 7+, and could potentially give their enemies bonus dice. (Though it would also make healing easier.)

This would have to be balanced, I think, by making the karma costs always start at buying your seventh point of Essence, no matter what your nominal Essence score when you started buying it was. So burning your Essence down to 1 and then saying "Okay, I buy a point of Essence at the Karma cost to raise an attribute from 1 to 2" would not fly.

[Blade]

The way I see it, there should never be a metagame of "I can buy this at chargen, using chargen resources, but it's easy to lose, or I can buy this, which I can't in any practical scenarios lose."

The way I see things, invested points (build points or Karma,) are "insured." If some in-character thing happens that means there's no way to explain you not losing them, then you get those points back to spend however you see fit.

Basically, a player should never be put in the position of trying to decide whether they want to continue playing their current character, or just get rid of them and introduce a new one, because their current one has become so mechanically disadvantaged that a new character is an appealing option from a strictly crunch perspective. (Expendables, like grenades and Edge, are not subject to this, nor is anything purchased with (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) acquired in-game.)

In my house rules (beginning of gear part) I've introduced the concept of "investment". Basically, the characters can invest karma into their gear (gear bought at chargen is already considered as investment) to make it sort of "permanent". They'll then always be able to easily find cheap replacement/repairs during downtime. This way, a rigger player will not have to retire his character because he lost his best drone.