I don't want to say that you are wrong old dancer, but i would like to hear your reasoning for this O.o
He goes down to 0 Essence, he gets changed, all his cyber and bio gets kicked out, he is basically a completely new entity.
He starts like all other vampires with 0 Essence or something like that and then has to feed off of someone unfortunate enough to be close enough by.
Then he adheres to the usual vampire rules which say he can feed up to a certain ammount. Vampires have variable essence numbers anyway, they go both ways.
Up and down and up and down. Elevator up and down. So why should the fact that he had a maximum of 0,5 Essence in a past life be carried over to this "life"?

I mostly agree with you Stahlseele, but don't forget they can only go to max essence x 2. While they usually have a max of 6, there are ways they can lose max essence just like anyone else (Addictions, cyberware, etc), so you can't say that their max essence doesn't matter.

However, AFAIK essence drain from the power of the same name is permanent by all regards, and is considered essence loss in the same way that cyberware is (Except that you don't get to filll the hole with new toys). So, if a newly formed vampire can recover from having their essence drained by the old vampire, why wouldn't they be able to recover from the essence lost from all that old cyberware now that it is gone? Honestly because of the unique nature of their bodies and spirits, I figure even if they had delta grade implants that stuck with them (And thus lowered their max essence) but then later got rid of them, there is no reason their bodies and spirits wouldn't be able to completely recover the essence lost from the ware, pulling their max essence back up to 6.

I suppose an infected in full sunlight could function as long as they wore a full set of armour. But the visuals couldn't be optics, electronic - otherwise their eyes would be getting a full dose of sunlight.

He still retains the essence hole from his cyberware. Hence, he still retains the negative essence from said 'ware. You don't remake a character, you simply add a template.

But the cyberware is pushed out, so theres no reason for there to be said hole, unless you really just want to screw over infected characters, which is what it sounds like.

And that template includes the power of regeneration. Augmentation has less intensive healing procedures which repair essence loss, and I see no reason regen would not be able to manage this little trick so long as the vamp in question as even a single point of magic to be making his roles with.

Magic + bod, so he doesn't even need magic (But vampires start with 1 point of magic anyway)

Don't they lose regen if they have no magic? I could be wrong on this, but I thought they did. If no, then ya, so long as they have a single point in body they should continue to heal.

Just because you lose the ware doesn't mean it comes back; otherwise characters could get their ware taken out and go chomp on some immortal flower. I could see geneware since the code is rewritten entirely, but not much else.

Because being turned into a vampire doesn't totally rewrite your genes (Which by the way makes you unable to get any sort of geneware). The main differences between vampires and basically every other kind of PC are 1. The essence shuffle that vampires do naturally and 2. Regeneration power. Both of these would seem to strongly suggest that a vampire would be able to recover from 'ware essence hole.

Also, AFAIK there isn't any direct rule that says no magic = no special abilities for vampires, but I could be wrong.

If Cyberware is removed from the Body it leaves an Essencehole. Thats the Rule. I'm sorry I can't provide the exact Page in the BBB. but It can be looked up.

And the Power Regeneration does not regenerate Essence(not by RAW) !

HougH!
Medicineman

Read the rules on Infected. Specifically Runner's Companion. It explains this quite well.

- J.

In a few Days I will get the german copy, then I'll re-Read it. Thanks

Hough!
Medicineman

Looks down to Stahlseele

now let's just hope the german edition did not get any modifications and does not suffer from the translation too much . .
also, a "few" days, not a 'vew' days

Augmentation says: The removal of an augmentation that costs Essence results in an “Essence hole” that does not normally regenerate. However being transformed into an undead bloodsucker is not exactly what I'd call "regenerate normally", neither is a vampire's healing ability. So unless it got changed in the German ed (like the difference between cyber and bio essence holes), I would say that there is no RAW for this scenario and the GM has to decide for himself.

You can say that if you like, however your wrong. It's like saying that your ares predator can cast fireballs because the rules don't specifically state that it can't. Essence hoels do not come back without very specific curatives. Vampirism is not one of those stated curatives. If they had meant otherwise (which there isn't evidence they did) they should/would have spelled that out.

The regeneration power specifically states that it can only regenerate physical or stun damage. Last time I checked, Essence loss is not even damage, it is a loss of essence.



Yes... If the area you're reffering to is the Magic and Essence header, the problem is that that is intended to be read by people who are creating an Infected in gameplay. If you are instead referring to HMHVV I, that section is ambiguous. It does not properly cover what happens in cases when the Infected has low essence from other sources before Infection.



Emphasis added, inherent tpyographical errors included.

Emphasis added. Now, the real debate would be whether or not Regeneration is a magical or physical power. Since it requires a Magic + Body Test, I could see a strong argument for it being a magical power. On the other hand, however, since you cannot regen magical damage, I could see an argument made that it is in fact a physical power.

That's your interpretation. The rules simply state that a Vampire's essence becomes 1, not a single word on how this works with previous essence loss.

Exactly, and that is why you are totally and completely wrong Sengir, if the default and universal rules that govern Essence Holes were meant to be overruled by vamperism than the devs would have spelled that little tidbit out.

Exactly, and that is why you are totally and completely wrong Ravor, if the default and universal rules that govern vamperism were meant to be overruled by Essence Holes than the devs would have spelled that little tidbit out.

Nice try, but the Essence Hole Rules are applied universally across the board to everything in the Sixth World, you can't say the same about vamperism or I want regen for all of my characters damnit!

Or to spell it out as simply and slowly as possible the Essence Rules are the Status Quo and if any given part isn't directly overidden by another rule then you are SOL.

This is a much more aggressive version of my belief, but I do side with Ravor (*gasp!*). The longstanding rule of Essence holes existed before Infected were playable characters, so by Law of First Mention, that rule stands and Infected have to follow it.

...which is what we are talking about: Does "essence becomes 1" override previous essence loss or not? I can see common sense reasons for both sides, but the RAW are completely ambigious.

We're not really talking about the infected character's starting essence, but about the infected character's max essence, right? So the question seems [to me] to boil down to whether the newly-infected character is the same being with the same aura as the original, or if the vamp is a new being freshly created, who happens to possess the memories, skills, and abilities of the original.

The original question was open to confusion because his pre-infection essence was 0.5 and he could infect and wake up with 1.0 essence without violating the 'max times 2) restriction.

Another variation of the question: If a near-CZ character with only 0.01 essence left gets infected and becomes a vampire, how much essence does he awake with? The rules unambiguously state that he wakes up with 1 essence and a ravenous hunger. But the rules also state that his essence can't be boosted beyond his max essence times two. If you believe that essence holes carry over, then his maximum possible essence after he feeds is 0.01 x 2 = 0.02. Which rule stands?

Frankly I'm amused enough by both options to roll dice to see what happens, lets call it an edge test threshold 2:

A full essence regened vamp who feeds and then follows the default vamp rule. you are now one of the infected... congrats I guess?

or

Keep the essence loss and make a .02 essence vamp who is always scant hours away from starving to death. A ravening beast that soon gets put down. You have escaped what some call a fate worse then death... congrats I guess?

Both make me laugh.

Hm, I considered both of those to have the same essence hole...so under the "holes remain" assumption, a formerly augmented character could awake with 0 essence, as "a starved predator that hunts for fresh Essence with mindless ferocity".
If starting essence is always at one but the max essence is influenced by essence holes, it gets downright silly (see your example).

So for me the possible options are:
1.) Both the starting and the maximum essence of the new Vapire are modified by the essence losses from his old life. But hey, you are immortal so maybe you will live to find enough delta implants to fill those holes and a clinic willing to install them.
2.) Essence is reset, along with the whole DNA, aura, metabolism and whatnot. The char starts at 1 Essence with a maximum of 6.


Oh, another question: What happens with preinstalled deltaware during the transformation? Sure, Vampires can accept deltaware because it is custom made for their body, but what about the implants which were made to fit their old body?

yeesh. this discussion has gone places I'd never have imagined...

Ya they'll do that...

Starting a topic on any forum is like GMing.

GMing is like herding cats. Wet, angry cats who are pumped full of LSD and methamphetamines.

Oiy, when Neraph and I start agreeing tis surely a sign that the end is nigh. (Even if we agree for what I think are totally different reasons.)

Now that I'm slightly less cranky (Flirting with a pretty girl tends to do that even though it was cut short since she ended up in the hostiple.) I'd respond that beings we've been told repeatably that vampires don't really die when they ae turned and aren't undead and that we should consider them as people with magical AIDs as opposed to monsters then they don't get a new shiny aura and their max Essence stays the same.

Of course this means your ( Essence 0.01 ) Street Sam turned vamp is either a mindless monster with zero Essence or simply fails to be turned at all due to a rounding error, but I see the rules as being fairly solid on the matter.

OMFG, how did you flirt a girl into the hospital? I hope it's a good story so we can use it against you at a later date.

I apologize to the OP in advance if this derails the thread, but I simply must know.

*Warning, emoticon induced overload imminent...*

This is the one I agree with. Their cyber gets pushed out, bioware gets cannibalized, and geneware gets rewritten. Theres no reason, except the screwing over of the player, to retain the idea that somehow someone who is drained to 0 essence and comes back with 1, but someone with less than 6 maximum essence because of cyber(that gets pushed out during the transformation anyway) has to be treated differently. If you still want the mindless bloodsucking monsters, ghouls still work.

Why because she ran out into traffic to escape my bad poetry and even worse singing of course.


In all seriousness though she was already sick when I saw her today and her coworkers were able to covince her to go in, thank god.

Yeah, a likely story...

*Operating on what conspiracy theorists laughingly consider 'logic'*
This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, therefore, it must be the truth.

Oh, that's quoted in my sig from now on. I hurt from laughing. Thank you for that.

To post something on topic, I'd honestly go with the re-writing of the victim's DNA such that it repairs things to full essence. The reason for this is that the virus is automatically making *massive* physiological changes to the victim to create the vampire, enough so that the resulting being requires it's own statblock and in-game scientific classification. For all practical purposes, that which you were no longer exists, thus you're starting as a nice shiny new vampire.

That said, the rules as written are obviously ambiguous or we wouldn't be having this discussion. I can see it going either way. Though honestly, I'd personally never subject a near-CZ sam to this treatment without the player giving the OK, especially if we keep essence holes.

Naw, we're Dumpshockers, we can argue over the meaning of even the clearest written of rules.

Tachi I wish, at least than I'd have an idea of how bad it was, its probably nothing, but I hate not knowing...

I'm just of the opinion about the regen issue that if you can undergo a cellular regeneration treatment and get your essence holes filled in, having a body that does that all the time, 24/7 is likely going to have a similar effect. As far as previously existing deltaware goes, the reason a vamp can accept delta ware is because its made with allergens his body doesn't want to touch to expel, so unless his doctor had the foresight required to include those allergens in the pre-vamp delta ware, it should get pushed out along with everything else.

I have to disagree, if the implants were laced with allergens it would seem to me that the vamp's regen would completely cease. Tis my understanding that the surgery is done with allergen laced tools but not the implant itself.

Deltaware Cyber/Bio is just so compatable with the vamp that her own body can't tell the difference.


You do bring up and excellent arguement for resetting the vamp's max Essence though, I'll have to give the issue more thought from a fluff standpoint.

"essence becomes 1" is very different than "you have 5.5 points of essence lost in a vaccum".

EDIT: this was written before I read page 8 of comments. I really need to get Running Wild in order to understand where everyone else is coming from, because evidentally it has a lot of info about this.

Go to the hospital and ask. Show that you care. Chicks dig that shit y0 O.o

Thought about it, but we are still in that extremely arkward phase where neither one of us is quite sure where the comfortable bounderies lay and I don't want to come off as too strong either, when I said flirting that is what I meant. Besides, can't get a sitter for my daughters so tis a moot point.

If she's still in there tomorrow I'll have to do that.

But the fluff still states that there are massive changes to the whole organism (complete DNA swap included), and the aura at least gets modified to show the new, infected, infected, nature.
On the other hand, fluff also says Vampires don't have own essence (and thus have to get it elsewhere), so one could argue that this also means they don't get any essenc back.



Well, Sams are praying all the time that the Universe does not run on Pentiums...

Sure, but bare in mind that everytime you get a cold your aura reflects that change, and the fluff also tells us that the vamp is just a person with magical AIDs, albeit magical AIDS that requires the newly minted monster to literally devour souls in order to stay alive.

it's also somewhat harder to catch than AIDS/HIV. well...the vampire strain is anyways. The ghoul version is actually easier to catch than HIV and a lot less fun.

Sure, but that is neighter here nor there, although if we are going to talk about how easily transmittable the various strains are the ghoul strain is almost as easy to catch as the common fragging cold and without some of the best medical care the Sixth World can provide you will transform into a monster.

...and completely rewrites the victim's DNA, probably along with the mitochondrial DNA (since Vampires have a _slightly_ different metabolism). In other words, an Infected is literally no longer himself.

Take flowers...

Sengir sure, but my response would be that if the virus did all that to that point then the vamp really shouldn't be considered merely a person with magical AIDs and be moved into the monster side of the line. Also unless the virus has the capable for "Naming" then the DNA rewrite should cost Essence as opposed to restoring it.

Tachi moot point, she's fine and we're back to happily flirting with each other.

Since when did HMHVV completely rewrite the Infected's DNA? It was my understanding that it was simply a magical retro-virus, which only rewrites a section of the DNA. If it completely rewrote DNA, many things would change, such as: gender, height, weight, hair color, eye color, kind (dog, cat, horse, human...), metatype, metavariant, ethnicity, body shape, ect, ect..

And by the writing it appears that any additional Genetech added is rewritten, but previous Genetech should remain, as it has been successfully assimilated as part of the natural DNA prior to Infection.

In many cases, bodyshape, eye colour, hair (amount), weight can change. Massive bodily changes, like, say, secreting acid or growing armour plates or having your hormonal secretions change to drive you utterly berserk once a month.