How well can characters in game measure Essence? I've made a couple of posts recently about how adept street sams get the best of both worlds and can look forward to spending both karma and nuyen (instead of one or the other being relatively useless) and about how it's cheaper to get things that way.

But can characters in game measure Essence? Is it well known? How feasible is it that characters can measure down to the .01 how close to the line they can get before their body breaks down completely? Low Essence characters already suffer penalties to all healing tests, so they can already see that their body just isn't working quite right anymore, that they're in a state akin to a person in advanced chemotherapy -- parts of their body just aren't working anymore.

So we know that they can qualitiatively state that their bodies just aren't working very well anymore. But can they quantitatively state this? Can characters in game measure exactly how much Essence they've lost and see exactly how much they have left?

I generally assume that there are lots of different scales, metrics, etc, and taken all together can give the character a pretty accurate idea of how they're doing.
So I'd generally say 'yes', but not in as simple of terms as we can discuss it using game mechanics.

In SR2's Cybertechnology, it is stated that even though there is debate in the Sixth World as to just what Essence is and how it works, they do know how much of it a person has. They make the point that if a dwarf and a troll both get a cyber arm, that they will both lose the same amount of Essence in spite of their size difference. It goes on to state that essence levels can be measured.

So, while the character might not be able to look at themselves and see how much essence they have left, the medical establishment has the ability to do so. Just how this works isn't stated, however. It would be reasonable to assume that they know from experience how much essence each type of cyberware costs, so they can look at what the character has implanted and work from that.

A mage skilled in Assensing could also tell just how much essence a character has. the chart on P 183 of the SR4 rulebook states that with 4 hits, the character knows exactly how much essence the subject has. That would probably be the most exact way to track essence.

Four hits on an assensing test.

In my games, no. Much for the same reasons that characters in my AD&D games don't talk about their experience or hit points.

To make it short, if your magic rating is 0, you are mundane. No more mojo.

I happen to think that a street sam adept is a collosal waste of karma. To keep the magic end up you're going to be burning karma to offset the 'ware reducing your essence and thus your magic cap. You're not going to be as good an adept as a straight out adept that has avoided the 'ware, especially since the majority of adept powers don't seem to stack with 'ware. In many cases cyber and bio don't stack.

Basically if you have enough yen and karma to do this you should be pulling some pretty impressive jobs, and you won't be as good at carrying them out as someone with the same amount of yen and karma who hasn't gone the 'ware + magic route.

No, Mr. Patient. Our tests have shown, implanting that fingertip compartment will almost certainly kill you. We won't do it unless you sign these papers first.

Mr. Sam: Dr. Dr. I accidentally hammered this nail into my finger.
Dr.: Looks in a book Don't worry, that does not count as an implant.
Mr. Sam: So I wont die instantly?
Dr.: Not untill you kill somebody with the nail. In this case it counts as a combat implant.

When you lose an adepts essence for ware. (and thus magic) its little different then having spent it.
An adept could get rating 3 alphaware muscle aug and toner for a single point of essence and magic.
(not at creation mind you)


Its not anyware near the waste of karma as you'd have to increase those stats with magic permantly.

As long as you use a light touch, its a good idea

But a cybered adept who uses the costs less in essence than power points argument is obviously a min-maxed character and the GM shouldn't let them be made. Cyber Adepts are cheap anyways.

I think essence can be measured since the book gives guidelines on how to measure it.

Cyber adepts rock. They are the true evidence that magic and machine can work together.

Doctors in my games have a broad idea of how much they can put into a person but when it gets closer to the edge it becomes harder and harder.
Basically what I do is say that you can get basic cyberware and spend up to 4 pts of essence with a street doc. Higher grades and getting closer to the edge require better and better doctors. Basically I assigned different levels as connection ratings for doctors and you have to have a higher rating contact to have higher rating cyberware implanted.

I am also fairly mean to characters that want to mix magic and tech. You loose all magic when you go below 3 essence and each point of essence loss counts as a threshold to using magic (the magic won't flow through the artificial material well).

I want various character types to stay descreate from each other. I have noticed that the players that want the character that can do it all are also the ones that cause the most problems in my games. I don't have a problem with powerful characters but I hate characters that want to take over everyone else's roles.

Essence (and hitpoints) should be measurable on any standard biomonitor. In fact, just about everything on your record sheet is probably measurable in the sixth world and built into your SIN somewhere or somehow.

Furthermore, when we eventually get rules for cyberpsychosis, I imagine medical psychology will be caught up with that science too.

And yes, I could see someone denying surgery on the grounds that a person's essnece isn't high enough. I don't think they'd actually call it essence, but I don't see why not. Especially if the connection between magic and essence loss is widely known (and I don't see why it wouldn't be).

For D&D and the like, I don't like characters knowing their stats (because that's just silly), but in a Shadowrun game it seems to make sense. Especially in the new SR4, which gives the characters technology that allows them to communicate with each other, instantly look up information from whereever they are, and otherwise blur the line between player and character.

---

Street Sam: "You'll like it here. They have a house special, but you have to know how to ask just right. I've known the waitress here for years, so I'll hook you up. She's the chummett who gave us that tip about the thing in the place that one time... you remember? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Hacker: "You shouldn't eat that; you have too much drek in your bloodstream as it is."

Street Sam: "What?!"

Hacker: "Seriously, I'm subscribed into your biomonitor feed and its not pretty."

Street Sam: "I told you to stop doing that."

Hacker: "You know, you're fatigue ratio is almost 400% above normal? 386.98%. Didn't you sleep last night? What were you doing?"

Street Sam: "I told you to stop that!!!"

Hacker: "Wow, you're stress levels are spiking. Hold on, I'm downloading a nutrient guide for you."

Street Sam: "I don't want to have to kill you. It spoils my appetite, and the food's real good here."

Hacker: "Am I going to have to edit your personafix chip again?"

I think we've invented a new product: AR-inhibiting clothes.

in SR3, essence isn't precisely measurable in-game because of the essence cost and essence reduction surgery options, unless surgical skill (and other factors) are also precisely measurable. which, technically, they are, but we ignore that. anyway, those options increase and decrease the essence cost of implants according to factors that can't be precisely measured, but can be guestimated (really good surgeons generally reduce essence costs, poor surgeons increase them).

that means that the essence cost of an implant can be measured closely but not exactly. surgeons know that you can't fit a standard grade VCR-1 and wired reflexes-2 into one body.

I do know that they (used to be able to) measure Matrix security along the same scale as we used to measure in-game stats. Extrapolating from that, I'd say that they can measure Essense.

If only because it generates a little 4th-wall touching, but generally not breaking, humor.

I seem to recall that there is an Essence Index in-game. I want to say the folks who did the early thaumaturgy-as-physics research (Kano - Whiteagle?) went on to quantify the astral damage to living things due to cyber and/or essence draining creatures.

I'm not 100% where this would be from, possibly the 1st ed BBB or Grimoire, neither of which I have touched in ten years.

Well we never use these terms in game, too. But my point is, that a doctor might know the "essence rating" or whatever he calls it.

So the answer to the question: Is essence measureable in game? is still: yes. And I think it is in your game, too.

you know, a similar question killed my d+d campaign a few months ago(it was a well along game to, we were 9th lvl). the question in my campaign was that whether or not the "characters" have knowledge of their injuries on a numeric scale, meaning whether characters know their own hit point values. the gm was trying to tell us that he would just tell us how we felt and we would just have to guess at what our hit points are.

well my chummer veteran kamakazi described the counter argument best, and i quote "well as the gm i know your hitpoints but your characters dont really know how bad they are hurt so ill handle your hit points, and well your characters dont really know how well they can defend themselves against any situation so ill handle your AC to, and your characters dont really know how well they can hit either so ill handle your BAB as well, you know what just give me your character sheets and ill just hold on to them while we are playing".

as you can see it kinda got outragous in the end. but the point is that altho the characters dont have a little ticker on their forehead that shows the numeric value of their essense, the rules use a numeric value to make the game easyer to handle. its and abstract number, not an internal clock. however if a character did want to have a little number pad put in that showed what the numeric value of his essence was it should be possible, i mean common. its freaking 2070, you get to work on the flying shuttle. techonology has come a long way and im sure that using a combination of constant assesing and medical tech(a combination that is found regularly) you could do it.

I know they had it in SR3, but I don't recall seeing any rules in SR4 for modifying the essence cost of implants based on surgeon skill.

Still, I tend to just discourage the players from talking about character stats in game, and won't ever describe an NPC as having "about 0.5 essence", instead of "heavily augmented". It's pretty moot anyway, since the only reason they might want to know an NPC's essence is to determine how heavily augmented it is.

Essence measuring 101

Is it alive? Then it has Essence

Is it dead? Then it doesn't have essence!

Relative quantity and quality of essence requires the grad level course.