Either you don't understand my point or you don't want to understand me. Anyway I see no benefit in this discussion. Just let's say, you handle it your way and if I'll ever use such a power in my game I'll handle it my way.

You are the one missing the point, there are references to something there are no spelled out rules for. Because there are not spelled out rules for it, you are claiming it shouldnt exist.. The book makes a direct reference to Doc Wagon doing it and previous editions had rules for it. It is something that is in the setting that was just left out of the current edition, that doesnt mean it shouldnt be in the game. If you dont want something in the world setting to be in your game, that is up to you. There are others that want players to be able to do things that currently are only available to doc wagon though.

So tell me, did TBRMInsanity miss the point as well?



The rules tell me exactly what happens when taking damage. As long as there are no other rules to be found, this rules are the one and only valid ones and overrule ominous statements. Especially when the statements can be read perfectly in line with the existing rules. Don't blame me for ambiguous statements in the SR rulebooks. Unfortunately that happens all the time.

I've played SR since first edition and I don't remember EVER seeing it written that Doc Wagon can bring you back from the dead. The more expensive your Doc Wagon Contract the faster they came and the better they could stabilize you if you went into overflow, but the second you passed overflow you were beyond help and there was nothing that would bring you back. Period.

Also, where the heck ARE these 'special rules from past editions?' I've sure as heck never heard of anything that doesn't have a direct analogue in SR4 that works past the "Dead" point, in least in SR-R and SR3. Except Cybermancy, which is under such controlled conditions that I hardly think it applies.

Everything I remember about DocWagon from previous editions (have played in all previous editions of SR) is that if they can get to you body and you haven't died, you basically won't die.

If you are in overflow, they save you. As long as there's a pulse or workable lifeforce, they can keep you alive. Go past that overflow and you are dead, kaput, a goner.

DocWagon has never been able to bring you back from the dead. As is, in current day RL... when they revive someone who was seemingly dead, they in reality were not dead. Sure, we have a definition of clinically brain dead. Doesn't mean the person is dead in reality. People have woken up in funeral homes as they were being prepped for a funeral.

BTW, if someone is bleeding out in SR, there's couple of existing spells that will help. Stabilize being one. There's another called Hibernate that gives a multiplier of time to save someone based on net hits. See page 208 of SR4A. Another good one would be Increase [Attribute] for Body. Bump up the Body score and give them extra overflow = extra time. It even mentions that using the one for Body gives extra damage boxes.

Something to keep in mind about a Resurrection Metamagic... if it were better than Cybermancy, they'd use it to keep people alive instead. So it would need to have enough negatives to make it a tough choice between the two options.

Hmm, if Raise Body actually DOES give more DamageBoxes, and a Character is at Deadly+1, so one Box in Overflow . .
And now Raise Body is cast on him. Let's say good enough that he gets 2 more Damage Boxes. He is now back one Box below Deadly Damage?
Only Serious Damage?
So he goes from dieing to "It's only a Flesh-wound" in a matter of seconds?

And cybermancy's already a fairly dicey prospect, from the mage's point of view. You need to have it prepped well ahead of time, require a very powerful spirit under your control, need an astral portal, sacrifices (and not just of the Blood Magic kind), need to take a journey to a Deep Metaplane and come back with your sanity intact...all for something that, after 20 years of development still falls apart in only a few years or less.

I think that's what really bothers me about this idea. Shadowrun, for all of metahumanity's focus on materialism, is quite a spiritual game, with a lot of metaphysics that guide its' mechanics behind the scenes, even if they're not always very obvious. Anything that cheapens the "Dead" condition is playing around with a lot of things that are, historically, Bad Juju. If the speed people die at once they're in Overflow bothers you, someone suggested the idea of changing the bleed-out time to Body (Minutes). That will make heavy gunfights a lot more survivable for the side that wins, and might need some additional tweaking, but I think it's a far better thematic solution than trying to 'patch' it over with special tech only a few megas have access to and rare metamagic.

Which is why I suggested that you can't perform Resurrection Metamagic (or it will be extremely difficult) if you have lower essence. I modelled Resurrection after Cybermancy as I feel they are functionally the same procedure, the ultimate goal is different of course but they would both use the same Blood Magic based magical techniques.

Just adding a note: Doc Wagon will get a flashing light the moment you're charcter's hit by something. They're not finishing their caf and waiting for a flatline before heading for the patient. They'll arive on scene within minutes after the first injury. If you're lucky, they will arive before the end of the overflow monitor. If you have no gold contract or better and play the hard guy who doesn't push the button under 9 boxes of physical damage, don't blame DW for possibly arriving to late.

Cybermancy is not designed to 'keep people alive'. It is used to push people past 'mortal limits' of augmentation, with additional benefits in the process. To simply keep people alive, genetic treatments are used. To create stupidly powerful 'super-soldiers', Cybermancy is used. Please note that cybermancy cannot be used on a subject already dead - they must be alive & above 0 Essence when the ritual begins.



For whoever is interested, here is what I am working with on a Resurrection metamagic - I should have a complete writeup sometime soon.

• Advanced Metamagic: Requires Essence Transfer (essentially exact opposite of Essence Drain; metamagic technique).
• For one to live, one must die: Resurrection requires a sentient prepared Living Vessel, which is consumed/destroyed in the process, replaced with the subject's physical body. From a fluff perspective, this makes resurrection an "inheritly evil" act.
• Requires a Force 12 Lodge.
• Metaplanar quest to a Deep Metaplane: Similar to cybermancy, except the goal is not to find a way of preventing death when it should occur, but to "acquire" an echo/soul/whatever of the subject sufficient to restore life with, or make an identical copy, or whatever the theory is.
• Opposed Test between the subject & Vessel: Intuition + Willpower vs. Intuition + Willpower. The magician performing the operation may add their Binding skill to either dice pool as desired; by increasing the subject's pool, the resurrection is more likely to be a success. By increasing the vessel's pool, the magician can try to prevent any future resurrection (see below).
• If the vessel succeeds (at least one Net Hit), their body (using attributes at time of death) replaces/consumes that of the vessel. They have no form of augmentation, and possess an Essence attribute equal to that of the vessel. In addition, they gain the Essence Loss weakness. While Genetic Restoration can be used to heal lost Essence & keep them alive, many choose to seek a Spirit Pact or Infection for access to the Essence Drain power.
• If the vessel does not succeed, effectively nothing happens. Any time an attempt to resurrect someone is made beyond the first (including after being resurrected then dying again), there is a cumulative -2 penalty to the subject. If the subject's dice pool is ever reduced to 0, they are forever gone and all future attempts automatically fail.

Depends really.

In SR3 and earlier, you had 10 boxes of damage + overflow (which was equal to Body).

So if you were at Deadly + 3 (and had 4 Body), you'd die soon... if someone boosted your Body via a spell, it'd give you a bit more time before dying.

Under SR4/A, your damage track is 8 + 1/2 Body. Assume same stats as before and you have 10 Boxes + Overflow. Say that you have 10 boxes filled. You are now in danger of bleeding out and dieing. Someone buffs your Body up to 8 from 4. Your damage track is now 8 + 4 instead of 8 + 2. You are no longer in danger of dying. I'd think you'd wake up during the next combat turn and be in fairly bad shape.

But yes, he could potentially go from dying to 'It's only a flesh wound' if the spell were strong enough, the damage taken was enough to make them enter overflow, and the character didn't have their body already at the augmented max.

I see your point, the resuscitation references could just be refering to recovery from physical damage overflow, and not death. In that case though, Doc Wagon is almost useless in the current edition as there is no way they can get to you in time unless you have one of the abilities that drasticaly extends the damage you take once you go into overflow. The average human would be dead in 27 seconds if they went one box into overflow. A max human with 6 body would be dead in 108 seconds.
By this, only trolls (of those with stuff that drastically extends the damage time scale) should bother with Doc Wagon, as they might get there in time to save a troll, but it isnt likely.

They dont head to the patient, until the patient calls or the band is ruptured. If you are saying the 8000 nuyen resuscitation is just a stabilization service, it means they wont get to really bill people for that service, as almost anyone that needs it will be dead long before they arrive. I dont know how combat goes in your games, but in the ones I play in the difference between half dead and PDO is from 0 to 6 seconds, that isnt really time to call Doc Wagon and have them show up before you are long dead.

I think maybe you're missing who DocWagon is really marketing to. Sure, if you're a runner and you're signed up they'll do their best, but most of their business comes from the insurance premiums you pay up-front (or from the city, if you're lucky enough to live in one of those municipalities that pays for Basic for everyone.) In a given year, the emergency medical provider is banking on most of its' customers not needing an FRT at all, let alone an HRT. Furthermore, most of their FRT calls are going to be for relatively mundane problems. Aging corp exec who has a heart attack on the street. Worker who falls off a ladder at his warehouse job and breaks his leg. Allergic reaction leading to anaphylactic shock. Even in the case of HRT calls, most of their pickups will be wage slaves caught in the crossfire of a gang shootout who pop their bracelets right away when they get hit.

For a runner, DocWagon or its' local competitor can be a miracle last-minute save, particularly if you manage to get away from a fight with heavy physical damage, the rest of your team is hosed, and you've got no other way to safety. But anything beyond Gold is supposed to be a questionable investment. And, really, if you're actually using the super platinum free HRTs on any sort of regular basis, you've got a bigger problem than your health coverage not being adequate.

Spell Draft:
Final version will most likely be a cleaned up version of this.

Resuscitation (Health)
Range: Touch ∙ Duration: Sustained ∙ Drain: (F÷2)+5
This spell allows the caster to halt cell death of a recently killed subject. The Force of the spell must equaL or exceed the number of minutes the target has been dead (round up), and has a Threshold equal to the damage in excess of the target's Overflow track + 1. If successful, the target is treated as a living being for the purposes of all healing effects for the duration of the spell. If the subject is healed a sufficient ammount to be considered alive (damage equal to or under the Overflow maximum, no missing vital organs), the target is returned to life & the spell immediately ends. If the spell ends before the target is restored to living condition, they remain dead.

I'm not sure I like this spell. It's too overpowered IMHO. Spells are accessible to any Magic wielder and as such you can have any mage cast this spell. Resurrection IMHO should be an initiate only spell (like Cybermancy is).

Basically, this is TURN UNDEAD right?
What would happen if you were to cast this on HMHVV-Things?
Or Cyber-Zombies? Or regular zombies but don't try to heal them?

Here is my advice for near death situations:

* If your not "dead" (ie overlow) yet then use a Heal spell or First Aid.
* If your "dead" (ie in overflow) use Stabilize or a trama patch till you can get to a hospital or Street Doc (cross your fingers to see if you will live).
* If your dead (ie past overflow) then either have a house rule to deal with dead characters, or start writing up a new character.

On a side note I have some ideas for life after death characters:
* Have a conjured humanoid spirit, that of your fallen character
* A raid on a high level Matrix company reveals a machine that will download your conscience into the Matrix as a AI.
* Have house rules for some form of technological or magical reincarnation.

Again, not a resurrection spell. A halt-death-temporarily-so-repairs-can-be-made spell. Explain how you think it is overpowered. It has high Drain. It has very limited application (time-frame). You must have access to the body.


No idea how you got 'TURN UNDEAD', as that has no relation whatsoever. HMHVV are living beings. Cyber-Zombies are 'objects'. Zombies are Possession Spirits. I don't know how it could be unclear.


If you are in overflow, the character is still alive but dying, not "dead". Where you seem to get overflow=dead but resuscitation works from I have no idea; you are very much alive, just unconscious & bleeding out.


And this is different from what I have done how?

As I said above any spell can be learned by any mage no matter their training. A spell that subverts the game mechanic of death (even for just a few rounds) that isn't restricted to higher level characters is overpowered. Power of life and death (which is exactly what this is) is too powerful for non-initiate characters.

So pretty much you must have hated 2nd edition with its 10 min wait between damage while in overflow, I take it? Since this spell doesnt really even bring survival up to 2nd edition standards. (although I do find it odd how fast you die when you go into overflow in 4th, yet damage heals stupidly fast..)

btw, do you think it is overpowered in real life when doctors bring patients back that have been dead for several minutes? Do you consider that "resurrection"?

No, I would (in game terms) say that person's player invoked their Hand of God ability.

Let's just say I'd be damn scared, if an emergency doctor would start rolling a handful of dice beside an accident victim.

I didn't mind the 10min between overflow damage in 2ed but it worked in that system. I would also like to point out that you can technically take more damage in 4ed over 2ed (in the case of a Troll quite a bit more) so it evens out.

As for your second point, there is a difference between real life and game mechanics. Game mechanics are in the game to bring balance and not be 100% accurate to real life (it states that in the beginning of the SR4 book, maybe you should read it again).

Hmm, here's how I would abuse it...

Go find a target, perhaps one for extraction.
Put a bullet in his head or other sensitive spot that will 'kill' him by sending him into Overflow +1 or +2.
This makes him dead.
Immediately cast this spell giving myself a low Force requirement and low threshold (due to controlling the amount of damage done past overflow).

I sustain the spell / slap a sustaining focus on the guy to hold the spell indefinitely.

Alternatively, a start up a company that specializes in time capsule treatments for people. Those who want to go into suspended animation for X years come to me, I put them down, cast the spell, and sustain them for the time contracted for, heal them on the designated time, and voila, they are awake and in the future at the same age and longevity they were at when originally put under.

Good try on your part, but it needs something to limit the duration.