Ooh, I like that. I always wanted an essence of 60,000.

Alternatively get a calculator.

Alright now, be honest. Who is a big dork and checked my math on the fractions thing?

sorry, i just had d&d flashbacks and walked away...

Huh. Silly me. I just do math. Never realized how complicated it was.

meh, i just round after each halving. sure, its not accurate, but it saves a bit of work

Nowhere in the rules does it state that you must go out to 4 decimal points. If you want to and can do math in your head quickly, by all means, do so. If not, then round, and call it "Close enough." This is cybertechnology not rocket science.

Rocket Science, no. Brain Surgery, yes.

I prefer to think of cybertech as rocket surgery.

hmm, rocket powered cybertech anyone?

Go, go gadget cyberskates!

But seriously, folks...

The words fuck off you dim wanker do spring to mind.

Thats aimed at Cain

I don't round. I just cut everything off at two decimal places. Does it mean that a careful planner can pack a little extra ware into a character? Yeah... but my players were rarely that efficient, and I don't mind if some people seem to have a tiny bit more chrome than others.

In SR3 there was a little known rule that stated that you did, indeed, round Essence costs up to the nearest 100th (two decimal places). So that 0.0625 cost would actually be a 0.07 cost. This applied to adept powers as well if memory serves (though I think that rule had you round up to the nearest 0.25). I tried looking for a similar rule in SR4 without much luck, but it seems a very reasonable house rule to me if you really have a problem with it.

Personally, I don't see that much of a difficult change between two decimal places and four decimal places. It's only a perception problem, really, and one someone else already pointed out with their "just multiply everything by 10,000" example. Sure, it would be nice if everything was dealt with in whole numbers, but the game already goes to two decimal places so... how is 0.0625 that much more difficult again? Especially when it only shows up with a precious few implants that have an x.x5 Essence cost, none of which are all that fantastic.

If folks want to insult one another please do it privately.

Well, if you think about it since bioware costs essence now that means that any augmentation (even if it's cultured from your own tissue to prevent rejection) will cost you essence.

So if a shop teach cuts off a finger on accident, it spoils, but has a new one grown from his own tissue and replaced... voila! Essence is lost.

Honestly this is stupid, but the way the state it in the book makes it true. Even cultured bioware costs essence even though it grown from your own natural tissues. Kidney, heart, liver... any organ grown in a vat should cost essence. Why? Simple, it's not your natural organ, you weren't born with it, and doctors had to put it in, thus it costs essence, just like bioware. Even if you had it cultured from your own tissues. Sorry Mages... don't drink too hard, it might cost you later down the road.

I understand the logic mind you, Bioware is making the body do things that God(?) didn't intend for it to do, but I do not agree that it should cost essence. The old body index system was fine (to a point). I still use it and it permits characters to go 'all natura' and 9 times out of 10, while they may be able to throw down with a CyberedSam for the most part the CyberSam usually has a few distinct advantages. Fights are close, but fair.

Optional Rule (Hartbaine's Game): Body Index – Just like Essence the character has a Body Index of 6 (Oh no! One more Attribute! OMGWTFBBQ!) It works just like Essence, drop it as you buy it. You may not 'double dip' effects. If a piece of Cyberware emulates the effects of a piece of Bioware then you must decide which you would like (Cyber or Bio) you may not have both (GM may rule otherwise). Examples of non-compatible items are (but is not limited to):

1. Bone Density & Bone Lacing (both increase body, and grant physical damage in unarmed strikes, the ballistics and impact bonus from bone lacing I feel was not sufficient enough to merit bone lacing completely separate from bone density.)

2. Wired Reflexes & Synaptic Booster (the description clarifies this already, these are pretty much the same thing who are we kidding?)

3. Muscle Aug/Toner & Muscle Replacement (again, the rules clarify this for us)

Additionally Essence and Body Index are linked, like a Magicians Essence and their Magic Attribute, the more cyberware you have implanted the less 'meat' there is for the bioware to do its job. As Essence drops also reduce a character body index (rounding down to the nearest whole number). So if a character had simple datajack installed (5.9 Essence left) their body index is 5 (all the nemonic webbing across the brain that supports the DNI makes it difficult for other bioware to function properly).

Love it or hate it, that's the system that works for us. Magicians and Adepts still lose magic for Bioware (not that they should, they're not quite broken enough already as it is...) so it keeps everyone playing in their respective niche'.

On a side note... is the Hydraulic Jack system compatible with the Cyber Schlong? If so... it's head board breakin' time! Or maybe Cyber Jubblies where the nipples open like Irises and little Ocular Drones can hover out...

Or... or... maybe they just 'unscrew' and little mechanical spider legs pop out from under them and (BAM POW) you have Jubblie Drones... complete with firmpoints.

Can you imagine the screw ups at the local Patch n' Fix Clincs? A woman walks in for a memory upgrade and walks out with 36EE breasts.

I'll quit now...

I would just like to chime in that while four decimal places may seem annoying at time, that is still early elementary school math so.... everyone should be able to do it, and for the most part in their head. Definitely on paper. If it annoys you, then round up to two, one, or no decimal places. Don't force your players to, but allow them to do it if they don't like math. In general I am my group's mathematician. Most of them can do it.... they just don't want to and know if they spit out the numbers I'll return the totals to them free of charge.


No, I'm not calling anyone stupid, just saying that it's not as bad as it seems at first glance.

Chris

I may be wrong, as I don't have Aug yet, but cloned replacements don't cost essence. Things that change the way the body functions cost essence. I mean, yeah cerebral boosters are grown from something that resembles your own tissue, but your brain wasn't built to have that much cerebral cortex around it. It takes a lot of rewiring to add that much matter, just because it comes from tissues very similar to your own doesn't mean it's not very disruptive to do. It is supposed to be a "delicate balance of body and mind required to channel mana" when you take someones' brain and add a hunk of tissue and re-route things so it's used in this and this process etc.... It is going to alter that balance some. Or at least I would assume it would.


Just saying, Cultured Ware isn't cloned, cloned is identical. Cultured Ware is grown to have similar proteins so your body won't recognize it as foreign. It isn't your own tissue, it is an augmentation for a reason.


Chris

Do Essence values ever have to be calculated on the fly?

It seems that all this math homework is getting done at character creation, or in down-time between runs when you get new 'ware implanted.

Neither situation requires the math to be done quickly, nor in your head. And it takes up another eighth of an inch (~0.3125 cm) on paper to fit in two more digits.

You're completely wrong and your argument is totally off base.


I write big.

I don't dispute that there's a lot to keep track of. It's kinda inherent to how everything is tied in. Cyber affects atts affects magic affects etc., etc. I guess I never equated "takes some time" with complicated though (I guess part of that is that complicated has somewhat of a negative connotation to me, more along the lines of "hard"; denotatively, it is somewhat complicated).

After doing it a few times (in SR3; have only made one character in SR4 so I'm still finding it) you find your own "process". *shrug* Never really bothered me.

I've made a few. The times involved ranged from several hours to several days. Each time with a calculator. Even with "easier math", it's still tedious and annoying.

I guess the cardinal sin is this: I hate to waste an entire game session generating a character, instead of playing one. Give me Savage Worlds or Wushu, where character generation is completed in five minutes or less (and offer as many options/a lot more action that Shadowrun does.) If you want a better system, then learn from the other systems out there, instead of.....no, I won't go there in this thread. Let's just say there's a difference between education and imitation.

Being familiar with both of those systems, I personally disagree that the characters have as many options as those given in SR. I'm not sure that it's really worth comparing them anyway, however, as the type of game (mechanically and otherwise) is vastly different. The "options" given a SR character pertain directly to the setting and mechanics of SR, whereas in a setting-not-included game like Savage Worlds the mechanics specifically don't directly relate to any given setting (unless you're reading a setting book, of course), and in a game like Wushu, well...

Yes, you could play a "cyberpunk meets magic" game using SW, and perhaps even Wushu, but it would hardly be Shadowrun to me.

But in the end, it's just personal taste anyway, and I don't think there's anything to be gained by every game trying to cater to every player out there.