Good advice.

From Augmentation Page 128:

Which makes bookkeeping (where it the streamlining in that?) and the change between cyberware and bioware very complicated, sometimes almost impossible and limits the developing possibilities of cybered player characters.

Please: just remove the bold sentence.

SYL

To answer those questions:
Yes
No
Yes

The key to the situation is everything is tallied up, the values compared and then the smaller is halved.

If you add to either side, then the new totals are compared.

So the cyberware would become 1.0 of implants filling a 1.0 hole because [b]both the cyber and the cyber hole decrease[b]

You old essence loss would be 1.5, 2 from cyber, 0.5 (1/2) from bio and
your new essence loss would be 4, 3 from bio, 1 (2/2) from cyber.

EDIT: I decided to go back and look at the original question to try to see an example of the banking issue.

Could someone do a nice clean showing the maths seperate example of the banking issue?

So the cybernetic Samurai is not intended to be able to change to a Biosamurai?

The sample samurai from the BBB has a starting essence of 0.8 and 5.2 essence points worth of cybernetic implants. He could implant bioware around 1.4 worth of essence.

Image he is doing that:
5.2 cybernetic essence loss (which gives the character a cybernetic essence hole of 5.2) + 1.4 bioware essence loss = 5.2 + 0.7 (wich gives the character a bioware essence hole of 0.7), for a total essence loss of 5.9, out of a maximum of 6 essence. The samurai changes his opinion and has only one cyberimplant worth of 1.2 cybernetic essence loss (for example because he is upgrading or downgrading his cyberware). Now his essence costs changes to 1.4 bio-essence and 0.6 cyber-essence.

The 0.6 cyber-essence can use the cybernetic essence hole, but the sudden increase of the bioware-essence will push him over the edge and the samurai will die. Or did i misunderstand / miscalculated the rules?

Considering starting resources and many GMS hesitating to give out huge payments to the characters it seems to me that this limits the development of cybernetic characters.

SYL

Gene therapy costs hundred of thousands to millions of ¥ and take months to years to complete.

SYL

Thanks Synner and Frank for the feedback:

1) So you are not taking the actual essence loss, but the cybernetic and bioware essence hole for deciding the primary and secondary essence loss?

2) Shifting from heavy cyber to heavy bioware becomes not only difficult, it becomes almost impossible. If you had heavy cybernetic essence loss, you have a life long cybernetic essence hole and you cannot change into heavy bioware because you don´t have room for a large bioware essence hole.

3) IMHO, Revitalization is not really an option, not considering the costs, the time and the description as a SOTA recent medical breakbrough. If you are playing "Lofyr, my favorite Johnson" or "Damien, old pal", then yes, you have the resources (but not the time) to change your essence holes.

And where is the fun if the character is taken out of the game for a half year, considering that awakened characters are not that limited in development ...

I think a "removed implants just create a "credit"/ essence hole ready to be filled again" would have been enough, especially regarding the balance to awakend characters and sometimes huge costs for implantes AND the new costs for implant surgery.

SYL

Back to AwakenedRun, I guess - good implant's cost enough, needing to pay large sums to even be able to install them leaves the Mundane with no money to get them. Unless, of course, you start as non-cybered Mr. Lucky... Ware ist a waste of good BP, anyway.

Or simply stay with the BBB rules, that had an auto-adjusting hole since you recalculated from scratch.

Under the BBB there is no reference as to whether there is an Essence hole or not and there is no reference as to what happens when you remove an implant.

The Augmentation rules specifically states you recalculate the subtotals before calculating the total Essence loss.

So to correct you under Augmentation, Bob keeps his 3 point Essence loss cyberware (sub)total (including a 2 point hole) and raises his bioware Essence losses (sub)total to 3 too. Since the subtotals are both 3, the GM could call it either way on which one is "dominant", but only now is the total Essence loss is recalculated. The final Essence loss is 3 (for whichever subtotal is dominant) + 1.5 (for half of the other subtotal) = 4.5. leaving Bob with an Essence of 1.5 (ie. no bye bye Bob) and an Essence hole/"credit" of 2 points to his cyberware subtotal still available for implanting.

Just to carry through on the example: months later Bob implants 2.2 worth of new cyberware using up that (cyberware) Essence hole and increasing his cyberware subtotal to 3.2 (making it once again dominant). The two Essence subtotals are compared again (now 3.2 for cyberware implants, 3 for bioware implants) and total Essence is recalculated = total Essence loss is now 4.7 giving leaving Bob with an Essence rating of 1.3.

Apple's evaluation is correct though. This makes shifting from cyber to bio more complicated, so make your choices wisely.

If you want to nitpick on that kind of details, there isn't even a reference what happens when the focus shifts, as that requires you to recalculate from 6.

So recalculating from 6 (or lower, if drained) was the SOP people managed to perform anyway, and combined with 'no Essence back' it worked with removing implants without even the need of defining Essence holes.

You don´t really have a choice. Starting with bioware is extremly cost-intensive which leaves you with two options: start as a weak mundane character with little bioware and little cyberware and hope for a generous GM or start with cyberware and be never be able to change to heavy bioware implants because of the cybernetic essence hole.

SYL

The SR4 and Augmentation rules state that you keep separate tallies of cyberware and bioware essence losses and only after each is calculated do you calculate total Essence loss (total Essence loss being = full value of the higher total + half value of the lower total). Total Essence loss is calculated after all adjustments to the subtotals are made (because of this you won't normally see huge shifts to the total Essence loss unless you're implanting something seriously Essence intensive to one total or another).

With the Essence costs of cyber and bio in SR4 you get a lot more flex than you think, particularly if you start calculate in higher grades. I suggest you try it out before writing it off.

The difficulties you're noting tend to arise when you've got more than 4.5 Essence committed to one subtotal or the other.

Revitalization is indeed quite expensive and time consuming (recovering a 0.1 cyberware Essence hole takes 1 month and 95k nuyen iirc).

On the other hand it means that augmented characters who take a heavily cybered path or a heavily bio-oriented path are committed to one or the other and have different strengths and development options.

Enough problems cropped up with the single Essence hole approach during playtesting that we decided otherwise. As a gamemaster it is entirely up to you to use the single Essence hole option Frank suggested.

I'm curious: What problems?

That's how everyone, up until Augmention, played.
Now, suddenly all modified characters are wrong and their heads pop.

Somehow I got the feeling that the need for the implant book to subtely screw over cybered characters was carried over from SR3...

What are the exact strengths and development options heavy cybernetic or bioware users have, considering implant costs, grade costs (and you need higher grades because of cyberscanners and the combination of bioindex and essence loss), essence hole rules and surgery costs?

Because these costs are quite high, especially with SR4 trying to bring the game back to street level, which many GMs see as a reason the tune down the payments.

IMHO characters with lot of implants are sometimes truly handicaped, not by the world but by the way rules work in SR. But thats another discussion, so I am on my way out.

Thanks for the feedback.

SYL

Ranneko actually pointed out the most common point of confusion:

This is compounded when later modifications are made to either subtotal due to implantation and/or to the final Essence total via drainage.

I just proved your calculations in the Bob example were wrong (ie. his head doesn't pop). Maybe you could provide another example where heads pop (in fact we found it quite hard to make the heads of starting characters and starting character + 100k nuyen pop). Problems do arise when investment in one subtotal rises over 5, but because of the way total Essence loss is calculated this is rarely a problem in terms of making heads pop (though it might limit the character's options in the future - per my reply to Apple).

Note that the banking aspect was noted and taken into account, it was considered to partially offset the loss of flexibility in changing from cyberintensive to biointensive augmentations (though in practice the nuyen costs restrict that shift in most characters anyway).

I beg to disagree. A cybered character with 4.4 Essence loss to cyberware and 3.0 Essence loss to bioware is very serious business. A character who goes over the 4.5 mark in one Essence subtotal is seriously commited to either bio or cyber but given the options available with high end cyber and nanocyber and high end bio + genetech they are by no means gimped.

That's not a problem. You noted down the final Essence value.
Than you remove something. It stay's the same.
Then you install something. You recalculate and deduct from 6(minus drain).
You have to recalculate and deduct from 6 anyway as soo as the predominant factor changes.
The result is still higher than the noted Essence value? It stays the same.

That's because it isn't really an Essence hole, but an Cyber hole... missed that, sorry.

In fact, with Augmention, they die once they exchange 4 Cyber for 4 Bio.
And 4 points of standard cyber is nearly nothing, given the essence costs for wired reflexes and muscles. If you want to play a Street Samurai, spending 4 point on cyberware will barely get you started... but 4 points of bioware are out of the question at chargen, because you can't pay that - so you bought that good stuff later.
With the rules of the BBB, that was no problem, and thus, done... and now, everyone who did that suddenly explodes.

Sorry, but that sucks. Better build an Adept with Type O quality.

Now it's nearly impossible. Thanks.

Disagree all you like, but Bioware ist the SotA stuff you can't really get at chargen - so your only option to ever play a Bio Samurai is to start low on implants... meaning you probably won't survive to get payed.

You are assuming the single Essence hole leads to less accounting, it doesn't. Typical issue raised by the single Essence hole system:

Jackknife Sue has 2.4 Essence losses in bioware and 3.2 Essence losses to cyberware. This means a 4.4 Essence loss total [(cyberware) 3.2 + (bioware) 1.2 (2.4/2)] and an Essence rating of 1.6.

She decides to remove some 1.2 Essence worth of cyberware, openning a "generic" Essence hole of 1.2. Neither her Essence loss total nor her Essence rating change. In fact, when removing the implant(s) she does nothing but jot down "generic" Essence hole of 1.2 next to her Essence total. [This is more or less the same whether you use the Augmentation version or the single Essence hole approach, differing only on where you place your Essence hole].

So far so good.

Next, Sue decides to implant a 1.6 piece of new bioware. She has the nuyen to pay for it so its just a matter of getting upgraded. She gets the implants installed and then recalculates the (dynamic) bioware and cyberware (sub)totals. [Again the same in both rules].

She adds up the new bioware essence loss (sub)total and gets 4.0. Then she adds up her updated cyber essence loss total and gets 2 (3.2-1.2). This is where the two rules differ. Again the same calculations are required in both rules but Augmentation factors in the Essence holes at this point.]

This is where people had problems or thought it got unnecessarily complicated.
She then moves on to calculate her new total Essence loss and gets 5.0 [(bioware) 4.0 + (cyberware) 1(2/2)]. At this point she subtracts 1.2 (for the "generic" Essence hole/credit) from that 5.0 to gets 3.8 (note this total is no longer directly derived from the subtotals which several people found counter intuitive). She must then compare 3.8 to her prior Essence loss of 4.4 (or if she hadn't kept track of that she would subtract 3.8 from 6 to compare Essence ratings 1.6 before vs. 2.2 newly calculated). Since 3.8 is lower than her previous total, her total Essence loss remains at 4.4 (and her Essence rating at 1.6). However, she must now subtract the difference between between 4.4 and 3.8 to give her updated Essence hole of 0.6. This is calculated differently under Augmentation since the Essence holes factor into the bioware and cyberware (sub)total calculation when adding the implantation costs and the Essence total is the final figure you deduct from your Essence.

As I said, SR4 is designed to be easily customizable. If you prefer Frank's single Essence hole system please feel free to use it.

Sorry, not seeing the issue here.

If she had not removed the stuff and had
2.4 Bio
and 2.0 cyber

(and thus 3.2 Essence used)

And then added 0.5 cyber

She would have ended up with 3.7 essence used because the numbers would have changed.

Either I am missing something from the original rules or the moving and readding the ware changes nothing at all from not removing anything and just adding new stuff.

Why? With the BBB, you needed three numbers:
Essence, Cyberware, Bioware.

With Augmention, you need five:
Essence, Cyberware, Bioware, Cyber-Hole, Bio-Hole

Now comes the fun part:

If Cyberware > Bioware ever goes to Cyberware < Bioware or vice versa - you have to start over from 6 (minus other losses) again - both in Augmention and the BBB.

The point is, she added a 0.50 implant and only lost 0.30 Essence from it (when it should have cost either 0.25 if cyberware were the lower total or 0.50 if it were the higher total; the latter being the case in this example). The middle step (removing all the ware) was just an attempt to make the point more clear, which it failed to do.