You can permanently burn one point of edge to escape certain death, as per the rules on page 68.
There is nothing in this section that says that it can be used only once, or that it lowers your maximum edge possible. So you should be able to use this, then spend karma to raise your edge back to its previous value.

This says two things to me.
1) I need to be meaner when GMing SR4.
2) Unlucky characters are penalized less than lucky characters, since restoring a 2 edge is cheaper than restoring an 8.

Note: This is not to be confused with the Hand of God rules on pg 277, as those apply to prime runner NPCs.

Thoughts?

Well from a pure story standpoint the interpretation that it can be done more than once it can make for some characters with really cool histories.

So taken out of context of the rest of the game, the rule could be said to be penalizing lucky characters...

I still don't see that. Lets say you're doing a dangerouse run, on 3 seperate instances all characters have to avoid near death and die. The guy with 2 edge is just dead...he doesn't have that 3rd edge point because he's not lucky enough. And the guy with 8 edge is sitting prety at 5 edge and can keep going. I don't see how he's being penalized there.

Furthermore, shadowrun isn't a game of one rule. It has many rules working TOGETHER to provide ballance.

So no I can't agree with you.

I think you're missing my point. I agree with you. In Shadowrun, the character with less edge is penalized more. The lucky character is better off. The sum total of all rules, this rule and all others, benefits the lucky character.

Maybe this example will make things more clear.
PCs are sitting in their apartment. PC#1 has edge 2. PC#2 has edge 8. No run. All PCs have full edge. Asshat GM drops Thor Shot on PCs. Both use this rule. Both survive. Edge pools refresh. PC#2 spends more karma to restore his condition prior to asshat GMs thor shot than PC#1 does.

I'm not saying it's a flaw with the rule, I'm not saying it's a flaw with the game. I'm not saying it should be changed. All I'm saying is, this rule, all by itself, away from all the other rules in the game, away from realistic gameplay scenarios and non-asshattery, penalizes lucky characters more.
I'll I'm saying is, this rule, taken out of context of the rest of the game, penalizes lucky characters more.
That's all I'm saying. That's what you're saying.
That's all we're saying.

Well done.

Allso take into account, that the Edge 2 PC probably invested his spare points in other usefull traits, i.e. thrown weapons, Ref, Agil, etc., so he dosn´t have to use his Edge as often as an Edge 8 PC.

The implication of this rule are interesting.
It basically means you can't possibly die at the beginning of a run. You can be taken out, dragged out, captured by the opposition (and maybe killed), or have all sorts of bad things happen, but you can't die until after you've been fighting hard for a while, narrowly escaping death repeatedly as it creeps closer and closer (i.e. spending your edge pool as the run goes on)
It sort of means that characters can only die dramatically after a long, hard fight. Any other time, they can just escape certain death. The run is still botched, your rep takes a hit, lots of bad stuff happens, but you don't die.
To me this is interesting, and greatly impacts the flavor of the game.

It adds to the "cinematic" (read: unrealistic-for-sake-of-entertainment) aspect of the game.

I'm personally okay with it, because that means from a metagame standpoint that no one is going to get killed to a fluke d6 incident and then spend the rest of the evening sulking with the Xbox. Also it makes the endgame more tense, as Edge is running low at that point and every decision gains greater weight.

It outright sucks to spend a lot of time chargenning and developing a character only to have him die in his first combat. I had a D&D fighter of my own whose career and character build was planned out in great loving detail, but he ended up dying in his first combat. To a single underequipped, underskilled orc. My guy swung his weapon three times during the entire adventure and missed all three times.

Yeah, I don't have that d20 anymore.

Well put. I like your definition of "cinematic."
I think I like it, too. It's a built-in mechanic for punishing bad luck/stupid choices that doesn't involve any fudging, or ending a cherished character or campaign.
And like I said, if everyone is as big of a karma-whore as my players are, the fear of death will still be very real.

I think I like this, too. But only because I´m such a squishy GM, I almost never let pc´s die, but cripple, mutilate, put them into coma or destroy gear instead and let them from the hook.
Most players in my games only died, becaus they practicaly baged for it. Not surendering to Lone Star when the only alternative is to be mowed down by a Yellow Jackets LMG and/or the shotguns and AR´s at the Roadblock, the character was trying to force thrugh with no need (and after some other dumb decisions) is plain suicide. He kneew it and he just didn´t care anymore at that point.

But I think, I won´t tell my players about this until the time comes (they are not the book neards to know this rule), only hinting that spending all Edge is unwise, since one may need it to survive a tense moment.

I allso wont allow the rule, if I´ve got the impression, the player chose his fate, like stated above.

i don't mind the edge rules as is, but i realized something interesting. Let's say you decide to alter the rule so that burning a point of edge reduces your maximum edge as well. One PC in our game is a Mr. Lucky, and by that i mean he maxed out his edge at 8. Now, if you think about it, Lucky really has 9 lives. The first 8 times you kill him won't really count.

i just thought that was kind of cool.

Interesting points. I've been thinking about ways of house-ruling karma burning. But now I feel this rule will greatly benefit my playstyle.

Combined with the unrealistic healing rules, this will mean a lot more action and mutilation is coming my player's way!

I don't normaly allow characters to die either. I think I will appreciate not having to be too worried about it.

Yea, much fun is coming the GM´s way, less pulled punches against the PCs. May they live in interesting times!

I don´t like the superfast healing and magiclike first aid. I modyfied them a bit. Gooing to the Shadowclinic and paying mucho nuyen, the characters can still regain full health in a matter of hours. On the run or laying in thair squat however, thay may be stuck with thair ailment for days and weeks.

I am also in the squishy-GM camp. They have to do something pretty stupid to actually die. They're more likely to get maimed, lose gear, gain gear (cortex bomb), lose contacts, lose reputation, etc. I spend too darn much time on a campaign to let a couple bad luck rolls of the dice to spoil it all. There are plenty of other ways to penalize the characters.
I like this rule, 'cause it means I don't have to fudge to keep them alive. I can just point to this rule. And it's far from a get-out-of-jail-free card. You don't die, but deliciously bad things can still happen to "save" you.

Space Ghost: I thought about lowering the maximum edge for a character using this rule as well. I'm not sure about it, though. I see pros and cons either way.

MK: I'm adding critical damage. If you take 6 points of damage in one hit, you've broken some bone or punctured some organ or something. If you take 9 points in one hit, you've broken your skull or something else that could have instantly killed some people. What this means is that you simply can't heal the damage without proper medical attention. I think that will suffice for now.

One nice bonus of this is that it makes trolls look tough again. They may take more penalties if they're really hurt than humans do, but what do you expect when they're walking around with a broken skull?

Sounds cool, mintcar, I´ll probably steal this idea. I have got a decent secondary damage system from SR3 (modified from the implant & attribute stress in M&M) which works well in SR4, but, I´m mostly too lazy to apply it or simply forget to. I´ll take your system as default, whenever I wnat the combat to roll quick.

I´d allso probably lower the Edgecap after efcd, this way, the champain doesn´t become Dragonball and it may allso lead some pc´s to actually retire when thay´ve "lost thair Edge", I really like that. (My players normaly don´t let thair pc´s retire, cuz, you know, they are only getting better).

Indeed. that's amusing in its own way, and the massive edge makes up a little for the severe limitations he must have, lol...

Of course, when edge runs out....

Still, fun!

@Cold-Dragon

You should start calling him lucky, although asking for some of his juice or throwing him into a mixer may go to far. HAA HAA

EDIT: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, UH

Lowering the maximum Edge each time this rule is used is a neat idea, but according to the RAW the stat is lowered by one point, and there's nothing stopping you from buying it back up with karma, and repeating an arbitrary number of times.
I think part of my concern with this rule was that it would lead to characters that won't die, ever, no matter what.
But I guess if you use the Escape Certain Death rule and your team is dragging your limp body away from a run and manage to get themselves blown up, and you're out of edge and can't use this rule again then you could die. I guess.
Maybe it's not really a problem, I just have this nagging doubt and fear that it's giving Runners "extra lives". I don't want SR4 to turn into "Oh no, Shadowrunner Mario got killed by a fireball. It's okay, he still has three lives left to defeat Koopa, I mean, Mr. Johnson."
Meh, I'm probably worrying about nothing. If it becomes a problem I'll house-rule it so the stat maximum is lowered, too.

That is my concern too, which is why I´ll houserule the capmodifire. Allso, it´s probably more the fealing that you do only loose some karma and won´t die ever, that detracts from my gaming experiance. Really ceating death should only hapen so often even in a heros live, and he should not be the same person after that. With the cap modifire, the cooki pc gradually realizes, that he cant go on for ever. Like in fiction, the odd runner, thats very smart AND lucky retires one day, all of the others simply die!

Have you ever considered raising the amount of Edge burnt, depending on the situation? A minor but unavoidable death is cheap, but the big drek that only a miracle would solve requires more?

That, and enforcing the concept of only raising edge back up a point at a time would help.

Here's my little summary of the situation as I see it.

Per the RAW: If you're about to die, you burn a point of Edge, which can then be raised later by spending karma.

What that sort of means is that "death" basically creates karma debt. Paying it back is optional, but in the meantime you're at a -1 penalty to your Edge.

The part that seems unbalanced is that people with high Edge get more "debt" than people with lower Edge. However, the people with higher Edge ratings are (theoretically) less likely to get into a situation where they'll incur that debt.

Now, that autobalancing scheme can be negated pretty easily by either the player pushing his/her luck or the GM putting that player into overly deadly situations too often. That's fundamentally a social dynamic of the metagame, though, and can be adjusted for by both the GM and player if needed.

That is to say: If your GM is too harsh, then don't play someone who relies on Edge. If your player is too foolhardy, then either step back the lethality or let Darwin's Law do its thing.

In any event it makes Edge-heavy characters have to actually think more about its use than relying upon it like some sort of "Easy Button." No GM wants to hear a player scoff at a dangerous situation and say "Bah, I've got plenty of Edge, I'm not worried."

If you're going to lower the stat maximum by 1 each time this rule is used (which may be a good idea), what about this:
Character has edge 5, escapes certain death, goes to 4. In order to raise it back to 5, they have to pay karma as though they were raising it to 6. If they escape certain death again, dropping their karma back to 4, in order to raise it back to 5 again they have to pay as though they were raising it to 7 (assuming they could)
In a sense, rather than decreasing the stat, you're assigning a permanent -1 to the stat for each time it's used.
This way, it becomes progressively more expensive to restore the missing point, and there is no difference (in karma cost) between a character that raises edge by 1 and loses it, compared to a character that loses a point and gets it back.
I feel like I'm not phrasing this well, but I think you can see what I mean. Thoughts?

@Shrike30
I had the Idea, that the moment you hit Edge 0, you are not going to rais it ever again, even if it was not at max before, just like a burnd out mage or faded TM! At this point it´s the players choice if he wants to (and can) have the pc retired or go on and bite it, the next time he´s in a tight spot, going down figting or even in a blaze*. Of cause he´ll have a hard time running with no Edge, which will eventually deminish his job oportuneties, if he can´t cope with it. Allso, I´d consider giving him a point of Notoriety, both because, people notice, he´s "geting old" and because he´s going to be desperate, which makes him more dangerous and untrustworthy.
*This may even inspire some heroisem in the Cyberpunk genre at last (though it´d still be a rather gritty, cyberpunkish heroisem, i.e.: let me do this, I´m going to die soon anyway). Very cool!

@Moon-Hawk
This is a very good idea IMHO. Instead of handling it like a racial cap modifire, deal with it like with magic or resonance loss (which would allso fit in with the above). Intuitively (I´m to lazy to calculate) this seams to me more fair karmawise, too. Does that actually eliminate the problem of different karma-cost, that started this threat?

Guys & Gals, I´m just starting to love this houserule

I think it does.
Assume, for purposes of this discussion, that characters out of chargen are balanced, and that increases before and after chargen are balanced.
If a character starts with 6 edge, and escapes certain death six times, they have zero edge. Duh.
Compared to a character that starts with 1 edge, raises it to 2, loses 1, raises it to 2, loses one, repeat until they've lost it all.
If you don't use the rule I suggested, PC2 gets off light, spending a tiny amount several times for a total of six edge. If you do use the rule I suggested, PC2 ends up paying for a six edge, just like any other character would've.
It mean, in terms of karma cost, there's no difference between buying the stat and losing it vs. losing the stat and buying it.

I am definitely liking this rule.

I'm still not totally sure about the edge-burnout at edge 0, though. That virtually guarantees that no one will ever dare take a low edge, and I'm not sure I like that. You can still "burn out" when you've raised your edge to it's maximum and your "negative edge" is equal to that amount. Then again, I do like the parallel to magic and resonance. Hmmmm.

I can't remember the Flaw that reduces your max in a stat by 1, but think of applying something like that to Edge. The character finds himself at 0 Edge, he picks up this flaw, and can't raise his Edge again until (out of game) he buys off the flaw and (in game) he does something to prove to himself and everyone else that he's not "lost the edge," it was just a stumble. Think of it as being a mid-life crisis for runners... guy nearly gets killed because he wasn't able to zig fast enough (or chose to zag instead), starts thinking about where this is going, thinks about throwing in the towel and working at McHugh's... decides to stick it out, gets stubborn, and pulls off something truly impressive and gutsy and street-legendary... and he can buy off the flaw, get his Edge back, and go back to work, confident in himself again.

Well, I like the whole -1 bit, it means that even if you do get near death frequently, it just reflects that whole 'pushing the line' bit without the complications being mentioned. ^-^

and everything everyone else has said.

and if for some reason you're doing a high power game, you finally have a use for that extra karma! lol...

This -1 thing can be done by keeping a separate track of Burned Edge. When calculating cost for increasing Edge, and when compairing with the racial maximum, you add together your current edge and Burned Edge.

Well, the whole -1 to the max for edge burning, bothers me a bit, as i don't like ending my players as "edge burnouts".
But i would like to consider a variant on the method Cold-Dragon proposed a while ago. C-D mentioned to mentioned to name the karma burn cost depending on the circumstances.
While this could lead to some "interesting" discussions, as Moon-Hawk pointed out, why not steadily increase the cost for this, depending on the times used?
I have something in mind akin to the old SR3 costs.
1st Time: 1 point
2nd Time: 3 points
3th Time: 6 points
4th Time: 10 points (isn't normally possible except for some unusual housrules or very strange circumstances)

Each time the time needed to recover the ability to do it again raises, while not letting the characters "run out of luck" in the end, and increasing the costs involved.
The karma costs aren't negligible and they won't be able to do it everytime.

Another thing came to my mind a wile back during this discussion, but I forgot about it in the mean time.

What about burning Edge to buy a critical success? I´d lean towards not permanently burning Edge out to do this, but that would rais the problem of higher cost for more "edgy" characters, again.

One idea would be, not burning Edge for critical successes but making it use up ALL Edge of the character (and a minimum of 2). That way it would cost more as simply buying extra dice o.s.s.t. but it would allso risk the character, cuz he would be vulnerable to actually die! Again this costs a bit more for high Edge characters, but there would be a nice storry effect to it, too.
A character accomplishing a spectacular feat, woul not have the chance to escape death soon after that, which gives rise to even more heroic tales. I think this would at least be more satisfying to a player, than having his pc die without a superstunt to save the day one scene before (at least I´d feel this way). It raises cinematic dramatics one more notch.

What do you think?

Can't NPCs use these rules too? SHould we start shooting each enemy in the head 8 times, just to be on the safe side?

If you need to kill them, you should make sure you did. Most of the time knocking the good guys out is enough.
This rule doesn´t change enything for NPCs though, since the GM can allways use his, ehr, the Hand of God

I don't think it's unreasonable to limit the use of Edge in this manner to once a run.

Death would still be a very real threat this way since it's Shadowrun... if you get shot at you have done something wrong and are probably about to die. There will be other points in the run that perhaps you wish you hadn't spent that edge point.

Even without that little houserule - the way I read the rule as written was that something BAD happened to you instead of you getting geeked. Well, couldn't something BAD take you out of the run? Having to sit there because their character miraculously survived a head shot but is comatose is penalty enough to make most players play carefully.

@Mr. Platinum: By 'repeatable', I just meant that it could be reused an arbitrary number of times during a runner's career, as opposed to the old "Hand of God" rules (not to be confused with the new Hand of God rules) that could be used only once during a character's lifetime.

@Nezumi: I think you're supposed to use Hand of God pg227 for NPCs. I think 'Escape Certain Death' is the version intended for PCs. This is just inference, on my part, I don't have a rule to quote. It's just the impression I got from reading the rules. Normally I hate double-standars for NPCs vs PCs, but in this case it seems appropriate. After all, NPCs and PCs can still do the same thing, they just accomplish it through a slightly different mechanic.

@MK Ultra: Who is it around here that has/had, as their sig, "Anything worth shooting once is worth shooting six times and then blowing up." or something to that affect. (my apologies to whomever I'm poorly quoting)
But you bring up a good point about automatically achieving critical success. I agree that this sort of thing shouldn't permanently decrease edge in the way that we've been discussing, but then it does definitely punish "edgy" characters more. If anything, a lucky character should be more able to get away with that sort of thing, not less. I would almost prefer one of the following mechanics: (this is just brainstorming, so forgive me when it's pointed out how idiotic these are)
1) It costs edge as normal, it just costs more than 1 point. Say, for example, 2 points. 1 edge characters can't use it, but that's okay with me, they're not lucky anyway. It's still more expensive than other uses, but not quite so much. This definitely "cheapens" it, making it more accessible, so maybe this is bad.
2) Semi-permanent loss. You spend a point of edge, and it doesn't refresh for a month, or an adventure, or three sessions, or whatever. Some period of time significantly longer than the normal refresh time. It's not a permanent loss, but you're going to have to live without that point of edge for a while. It does refresh eventually, though. I like this option. It still "cheapens" this use a little, but not as much. The other downside is that it adds bookkeeping.

Thoughts?

edit: @BuddyKowalski: By my understanding of the rule, using edge to escape certian death usually does take you out of the action. I completely agree with you on that. Of course, being out of the action doesn't mean you're out of danger. Your mates are now lugging your body around, and plenty of bad things could still happen to the lot of you that would make you ask your GM to use the escape certain death rule again.

@ Moon-Hawk
1) I think 2 would be too cheap, some luck-O-holics would use this all the time. If using this rule, I´d make it at least 3 points.
2) sounds pretty cool to me, only the bookkeeping would bother me. How about not having the point refreshed after a certain time, but only if the player gets a genuin critical success? This way, Youd only have to mark one Edge (or more) as non-refreshing and only refresh it, when a real critical succes comes along. Maybe the skill used with the false crit. should be noted and only real crits. from this skill should refresh the used edge. This way you wont se players buying crits for skills the pc does not have at a decent level, or if they do, the pc will most likely "learn" from his critical success, as the player would spend karma on the skill to eventually get back his edge.
I think I like that one, it´s a bit more bookkeeping, but in the end, you´d only have to mark one Edge as nonrefreshing and the corresponding skill with a little sign each time.

What do you think?

Here's the problem I have. According to the RAW, when you burn Edge, it doesn't say that you have to burn unused Edge points. All it says is that you reduce your permanent Edge by one. So, Mr. Lucky not only can get eight extra dice, eight times per game, but can survive eight direct hits from a THOR shot after doing so. Needless to say, this means munchkinous PC's will be virtually impossible to kill, no matter how hard I'm being.

It's not like SR is turning into a video game/Paranoia (Remove a clone and continue):

I don´t see the problem. How much karma do you guys get?

Even the second point of edge costs you 6 Karma, and you are still in a world of hurt, just alive. Wouldn´t want to do that multiple times.

In case of the thor shot, just say "no".