I have a PC in my group who is looking to become ghoulified. He's a physical adept. Of course, the description of ghouls suggest that cyber-eyes may overcome the blindness, and I'm going with that interpretation (as the GM).

For .25 power points, an adept may get an improved sense "not normally possessed by his race". Could a physical adept who caught HMHVV, upon getting his next power point, spend .25 to regain normal vision? What if he has other senses like thermographic vision, how would that function without the normal vision to go along with it?

My inclination is to say with just astral, he suffers a +2 to mundane tasks. Hitting enemies with his weapon focus is mostly magical, so I'd probably reduce it to +1. Just thermo would also be +2, but he has echo-location akin to the cyberware in M&M, reducing THAT to +1. If he can buy normal vision for .25, it would just negate the blindness flaw altogether.

interesting . . i never thought to use that power that way O.o . .
but what the heck . . with SR4 Tech there should be corrective eye-srugery available that does not cost any essence at all i'd think x.x . .

Being able to see in low light is merely adaptation - rods and cones. Being able to see thermographically is one step into fantasy. But ghouls and their blindness/astral vision is something else entirely. Why would they have eyes that function on one plane and not another? Would that be able to be corrected by surgery? I would tend to think it's a mystical phenomenon, and therefore not correctable by surgery or cyberware. Nor bought as a 1/4-point adept improvement to otherwise normal vision, since he has no physical sight at all. (A metahuman with thermo, or whatever, loses it when he becomes blind).

However, you might consider allowing him to take the reverse of the 1-point Astral Sight edge. Say, the Physical Sight version for astral/dual beings.

I agree that the option of essence wouldn't work but I was always under the impression that cyber eyes would work.

it's pretty much official, that cyber/bio stuff can make a ghoul able to live in human society without being noticed immediately . . there's just the dietary requirements, everything else can be literally bought off ^^

The module Eye Witness actually had a ghoul business man who could pass for human with cosmetic and cyber help but still needed cologne to hide the smell.

even for that there's bioware . . scent-glands . . on implantation you chose how you want to smell . . roses, lilies, orchids, violets, usual sweat, NOTHING AT ALL . .
It even says something about that in the SR3 Companion Part about ghouls i think . .

We had trouble with that run- at the meet we set up to negotiate and end to it, the ghoul tried a double cross. We fought our way out but no one knew our johnson (Alpha Blue) had been infected in the fight. After she turned she expressed a strong desire for revenge, and lunch.

if a comeplete replacement fixes it . . one should do less and less replacement to see where it stops being usefull . . kinda try and error with less and less metal, to see how much is needed to keep sight from going "fuck you, i'm outta here" . . if it is anything like grey/green star . .(in german it's grüner/grauer Star, no idea what the exact translation is) one of which means the lenses of the eyes get foggy and one means the inner pressure of the glass body of the eye is too high it should be pretty easy to fix it given SR's Technological developement . .

hmm . . maybe make the power cost 0,5 for a -1TN to tests including combat time per level and cap the level at magic attribute . . so a ghoul that buys 5 levels for 2,5 points still has a +3 to his tests at char gen and would have to be at least level 3 initiate to get to magic of 8 so he can have his normal sight again . . and let him shut off astral perception if he buys the usual adept power . . still leaves the not magical ghouls . . .

In Sr3 Ghouls pick up the Blind Flaw from page 19 SRComp. This gives a +6 to visual perception checks, so it is not complete blindness.

yes, yes, i know, i'm having this same discussion with a buddy of mine for the better part of an hour right now . . because blind fire has an +8 modifier, same with total darkness . .
also: cloned eyes . .
will they go blind again if you use gen-material from before you became a ghoul?
are they even compatible with your new ghoulified sockets?
can you clone new eyes that are not blind from an allready ghoulified body?
or will those cloned ghoul-eyes come out of the vat allready blind?
do cloned eyes use up essence if they are from your own body?
especially if they are delta grade and you happen to be a Type-O Ghoul?

I would allow a ghoul to get "normal" vision as a 0.25 improved sense, just as I would allow that same ghoul to get cybereyes (the text specifically states that cybereyes can fix the problem, so they don't have exactly the same thing as the Blind flaw, which can't be corrected that way).

I don't think surgery or cloned tissue would work, though. The ghoul is still altered, and infected, so any uninfected tissue would get infected again. For a permanent vision fix, it's gonna cost either a bit of Essense or a bit of adept ability.

most people will go with a bit of adept ability, even if they were to use my approach and buy off the blindness level per level, capped at magic attribute . . as a bit of essence tends to take a chunk of adept ability too *g*