If you upgrade to the next level of cyberware or do something else to reduce the Essence costs of your 'ware, do you regain the Essence difference?

I'm in a Cyberpunk game and it allows you to regain the difference in your Empathy modifier, but I can't find anything related to it in the SR4A book.

Not exactly. You can take ADAPSIN treatments to recover the Essence loss. Otherwise, there's an Essence hole that remains with you (that can then be filled by other 'Ware). Empathy Modifiers and Humanty (???) are different beasts.

No. When you remove ware you end up with an "essence hole" which can be filled by other ware without penalty. Upgrading creates the hole, then partially fills it.

Where does it say this at?
I can't find it.

That's because it isn't in there, but in Augmentation.

Bye
Thanee

GAH!
*beating my head into the wall*

Now wherere's thus ADAPSININ stufffffff.....

GeneTech, Augmentation.

Augmentation pg 90 to be specific. Yay SR4A

It doesn't say it fills the Essence void, just that it decreases the Essence cost by 10% for all newly implanted Cyberware.

Ok, people are confused here.
Whenever you remove ware, you have an "Essence hole". Whenever you add another ware to your body, the Essence hole is filled first.
Now, there is a genetic treatment (whose name I can't recall, which it is not Adapsin, but it is in Augmentation though) that allows you to recover that Essence hole, making your Essence go up.

It's actually Revitalization. It's on p88. You repair 0.1 Essence per month for a 75,000¥ startup cost and then 20,000¥ each month. It takes 7 days of treatment a month and if you drop out for two months, you have to TOTALLY restart, including the opening 75k¥.

Thank you.

Sort of sucks that you can't get your Magic/ Resonance to return though.

And it has to be done after taking out one implant and before putting in the new one is what I'm guessing, since it says the implant can't be there while the treatment is going on.

Or maybe it can be used with the new implant that costs less, so it just fills the hole.

It's saying it won't repair Essence for stuff that's still in there. Like, say, you take Titanium Bone Lacing for 1.5 Essence, you can't do anything to repair it. If you upgrade to Alpha Titanium Bonelacing, it would be 1.2 Essence and you'd be left with a 0.3 Essence hole that you can fill with cyberware. Do Revitalization for three months and you get that Essence back.

I think you misunderstand something...

When you remove cyberware, your essence doesn't change, so if you had 3 essence and then took away 1 essence worth of cyber, you would still have 3 essence. However, if you later took .5 essence worth of 'ware, your essence still wouldn't change, because the total essence cost of all the 'ware in your body is only 2.5. So your essence would stay at 3 (because you still haven't filled up that essence hole). If you again later took 1 more essence point of 'ware, your essence would go down to 2.5, because 3.5 is now the total essence cost of all your 'ware, and you've filled up your original essence hole and then some.

Basically, if you want to add or remove 'ware, keep track of your 'ware's current essence cost and of the max essence cost your 'ware's ever been at. So long as you don't take more 'ware than that max essence cost, your essence rating will stay at it's lowest point, but never go lower.

The revitilization therapy mentioned in Augmentation can restore lost essence from an essence hole or that lost to the Essence Drain ability. Mostly, it's just there for mages who want to increase their max magic rating that they've lost to 'ware or Essence Drain. If you're a cybered, non-magical character, you probably don't need to worry about it much.

Unless you're a cybered-up street sammy when your GM decides it would be an awesome time for a surprise Latent Awakening - and you roll with it and have him realizing how much he's impurified his body and wants to do something about it ...

^_^

Latent Awakening is interesting that way, no matter what your essence before you awakened, so long as it's 1 or above you'll still start with a magic attribute of 1. If you wanted to increase magic without initiating, yeah, you'd have to use the therapy, but besides that there isn't much of a penalty to Awakening while cybered.

Was that changed or does the RAW still imply that if your essence is lower than 6 by the time of your awakening, you don't get no awakening at all?

RAW says Essence caps uninitiated Magic. Essence less than 6 is fine. Essence less than 1 is Unawakenable.

so it is not that you have to have the maximum possible magic anymore?
i think i remember there being more than one debate on this topic.
dunno if it ever got solved. one part of the boards said the latent awakenings magic was the maximum magic.
so if you lessen you maximum magic by one and your maximum magic was one to begin with, your maximum magic is zero.
other part of these here fine boards generally said that as long as your essence was above 1, you could still awaken with one point of magic.
did that ever get cleared up?

Or fill it with 0.3 of more 'ware.

The only people who would benefit from it are magicians and technomancers but even then, they still wouldn't recover the lost Magic/Resonance attribute, even with the treatment. However, they could spend the karma to raise it again up to their (new) maximum.

- J.

You never awaken with the Maximum amount of Magic in SR4... it is always at 1...
Maximum Magic Rating is equal to NAtural Essence (6 Normally) + Initiation Grade... Magic cannot exceed Essence unless you have initiated as Essence caps your Magic Rating if you are uninitiated (What a mouthful...)...
Latent Awakening gives you a magic point of 1, as long as your Essence is 1 or greater...

So you could jam in 4 points of Cyber/Bio and then latently awaken with a Magic Rating of 1... your max would be 2 until you initiated... if your essence was .99, you would never magically awaken, as your essence is below 1... however, if your essence was repaired back above 1 before you latently awakened, and you had a Essence of 1.09, then you would start with a Magic Rating of 1... Latent Awakening only cares about essence at the point of awakening (or not, as the case may be)...

Hope that this bit of rambling prose helps...

Keep the Faith

The problem is at chargen you would then need to invest in 6 points of Magic AND then fork out the cost for cyberware. This is an INCREDIBLY expensive proposition at chargen (talking 75BP + costs of 'ware). I don't know if this is softened with karmagen, but you're better off taking the Latent Magician positive quality for 5BP (or whatever it is called) out of Street Magic if that is what you're after. I can't even recall if this is even an option for prospective TMs because I don't think they have a latent TM positive quality (a lenient GM may house rule it, I would).

- J.

It is Indeed Problematic... and no, I am pretty sure that TM's do not have that option at character generation (Latent Awakening that is, though much like you, I would also allow it)...

Keep the Faith

latent technomancer, page 37, Unwired.

Cheers. Away from books atm.

- J.

Well, if you finish Delta-ing all the 'Ware you ever want, and your Essence hole pushes you over, say, 3.9 to 4.1, it would be a "useful" treatment to make Health Spells more effective on you.

Thank you, everyone, for fixing that up for me.

I think it would be a bit funny to grab that technomancer that's always been screwing with your character and cyber him up to less than 1 Essence, then pop it all back out and let him heal up, since it would, IMO, drop him to no magic.

You'd need a good amount of cash for it, but that would really muck up someone's life.

Just remember that cyberware and bioware leave different essence holes, not a generic one.

Which is dumb. In my eyes. But then, using Essence for Bioware in the first place was dumb too. In my eyes. And especially doing that thing where the lesser of two eveils to your essence only counts by half. Which is dumb. In my eyes.
Essence for Cyberware, Bioindex for Bioware. Bioindex is Essence + 3. Simple enough.
Under SR2, Bioindex was Body+3. Yes, you could get about 20 Points of bioware into a Troll. But back then, there wasn't enough Bioware around to fill up 20 points.

I think it was done just to simplify the whole process.
That's what everyone is looking for right?
Right. Because we say so, that's why.

Yep... Don't know how I missed that... but there you go...

Keep the Faith

I don't know of anybody who actually keeps track of the seperate cyber/bio Essence holes. That just seems like way too much bookkeeping and work for something that was never actually that big of an issue. In any case, typically a person is going to have either more cyberware or more bioware, and it's going to stay that way. Seems rather pointless to enforce the rule. It's best ignored, sorta like the old ruling that said you couldn't combine reaction enhancers with wired reflexes.

I Actually keep track of that...

Keep the Faith

So do I.

Ignoring the rule would cost more Essence loss.

Actually, one valid reason for people with no Magic/Resonance Attribute to use Revitalization: getting Essence back above 1 to get out from under cyberpsychosis. It's not going to come up in a game very often, I think, but there it is.

I've never had anyone in my group ever end up with an essence hole. We've never upgraded ware, or had it removed. Mainly because we usually couldn't afford it. The only group of characters we ever played that *could* have afforded it were all awakened, and had no ware for various reasons.

I just discovered that rule last night. Too late for me. I ripped out my wires about 80 karma ago, and replaced them with much basic, alpha and beta bioware.

The latent awakening quality lets you bypass the normal process of Magic loss at char-gen, but it has a lot of disadvantages, too. You are starting out with a Magic Attribute of 1, no awakened skills, and no spells. So you are way behind the power curve, even without factoring in how your implanted 'ware drastically lowers the maximum of that Magic Attribute.

Buying Magic up to 6 at char-gen, and losing a point or two of it due to some choice 'ware, may be more expensive, but it still tends to result in a more effective awakened character.

I disagree. My reading of the rules is that BPs describe your character at the second the game starts. The BP you spend on gear represents gear, bought, stolen, or self-coded. The BP you spend on attributes are your attributes now. I'm doing a horrible job explaining myself. Your character doesn't have to buy the magic up, then loose it to the ware. The ware will set the limit on how much you can get - take three points of ware, your essence will be 3, and you can only get a magic of 3 at chargen, but that will cost you (quality)+35.

That is how both my GM and I read it, though your millage may vary.

The unreleased errata for Augmentation (included in the german release) removed that.

But the section on attributes comes first. Ware comes later. And I'm almost certain its actually stated somewhere.


For instance, what stops me from buying Magic 6 and getting a point of 'ware? I bought up my magic first, then got the ware. Doesn't happen the other way around.

Definitely. 'Ware subtracts from your actual Magic, not just your potential magic. You buy your Magic attribute, and then the 'ware sucks it away.

It talks about it in more detail on pgs. 62 (under Essence rating) and 84 under Cyberware and Bioware) in the core book (not sure where it is mentioned in SR4A), and the subject has been hashed out in exhausting detail in this forum. Nothing wrong with house ruling it differently, but the RAW is very clear on the subject.