Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?

Yes, I've been looking for the smallest reason to ask that.

Functionally, right now the only downside to having a low Essence as a mundane is that you lose a few dice when healing. That is, the Heal spell works less effectively on you and extended healing tests are harder.

As a side note, if you've got a reallyreally low Body, Willpower, and Essence you apparently would be incapable of healing on your own without medical assistance. Fun, eh?

EDIT: Oh! And per the social modifiers table, if someone is obviously dangerous-looking for some reason (they're much bigger than you, they have a gun pointed at your head, they're an obvious chrome deathmachine, or the like) then they get +2 to their Intimidate rolls.

Even Cyberpunk abandoned the concept. All over the genre, the move seems to be towards a more "Cyberware makes you magically taste bad and is somewhat bad for your health" rather than the early eighties "prosthetic arms turn you into an inhuman killer robot!" Personally, I'm thrilled. The idea that implanted cell phones turned people into soulless killing machines was always retarded.

-Frank

But what if they are AI controlled Octopus arms directly connected to your spine?

Whenever I see someone make this particular typo, I get mental images of "cyber wear" fashion shows, kinda like springwear fashion shows.

Until those damn telemarketers get hold of the number.

Actually, owners of cell phones are usually much more psychologically influenced by those than owners of knives.

... that was in the Technomancy book, right? But I thought there were actual modifiers listed for having Essence below 1. Am I hallucinating again? Can anybody confirm or deny?

It wasn't therapy, quite clearly it was only available in scandanavia, so was due to the life affirming effect of six foot blonde nurses

For the record I hate cyberpsychosis, some people should go nuts from having cyber fitted nut not everyone, I always felt the body being overloaded with alien material killing you was more realistic. Then aagain I hate the Punk system.

Ortho still decreases touch sensitivity, IIRC. But yay indeed on the platelet factories. It got to the point where I just had that auto-injector implant as a package deal with the old platelet factory.

Not really, it is just only virtually indistinguisable from normal skin.

No, but with a spur AND a implanted cellphone, if a telemarketer calls you at 3 AM, you can go to the call center and gently explain him that if you don´t have your 8-hour-straight sleep, your cyberware makes you want to stop all those fragile bags of blood and spit of coughing around you, with their... meat... smelling, like it´s already dead or just about to die.

He´ll understand when he sees your blood-shot eyes and the 10-inch blades sprouting from your hands.

I guarantee.

Musta been my Prior-Edition Bleedover Syndrome acting up. I sit corrected.

I always thought orthoskin reducing touch sensetivity was a bit odd. It's not like bioware eyes can see worse or bioware kidneys filter less effectively, if you are having your skin replaced I see no reason not to be able to increase touch sensetivity.

Note that skin actualy has four senses, touch, hot, cold, and pain. It should be possible to ramp up the sensetivity of touch, hot, and cold, and tweak pain so that it only triggers at a level that would damage otrhoskin, rather than a level that would damage normal skin. Presto! you need never use oven gloves again, and can tell by holding a beer whether it is cool enough.

Cyberpsychosis always annoyed me too, fair enough if you have an arm that is superhumanly strong you may begin to delude yourself into thinking that you are superhuman, but to be honest most people not constantly tearing open bank vaults and punching through people as part of their lifestyle would not notice any increase in their strength unless the force-feedback system was knackered.