Hey DS, there's something I've been thinking about that isn't adequately allowed for in the rules (at least in my perception).

We all know that when you get cyberware (or bioware, or whatever) taken out of you, you do not get the essence cost back. Instead you just get an "essence hole" that you can fill up with other goodies. Essentially this is a mechanic so that you can get your old crummy 'ware pulled and put in that super-sweet deltaware you can finally afford.

However, it seems to me that there would be a fair number of people (especially the down on their luck kind of people that are running the shadows) who have had some 'ware pulled out but never got around to getting it replaced. So, I was thinking there should be a nice cheap disadvantage you can buy to reflect an essence hole. I was thinking something like:

Essence Hole (+5 BP)
Your character used to have substantially more 'ware in them, but for whatever reason it was removed. Perhaps you served a large organization and were given experimental 'ware that was pulled out after you were re-assigned. Or maybe you just never could afford the replacement Wired Reflexes after your other ones got a little twitchy. Either way, your character suffers an additional 2 points of essence loss that cannot be filled during character creation (note that your essence cannot be reduced beyond 0.01). After character creation, any 'ware purchased will fill up this essence hole before affecting your essence score.

This seems balanced to me because it is an interesting bit of flavor (especially when combined with existing advantages/disadvantages) and the penalty still applies because it limits the amount of cyber you can get at creation and also makes magically healing go less then optimally for you.

Well DSers, what do you think? Feel free to tear me to shreds, I can take it.

This is about as much a "Quality" as Born Rich or Restricted Gear.

So you're saying its a freebie? That is one of my concerns, might be too good for its cost.

It is interesting Fluff Wise... and is a pretty severe disadvantage (-2 Essence... Wow) for just about any 'Runner in my opinion... I do not see anything wrong with it myself...

Keep the Faith

I think it adds a bit of flavor, the "benefit" of this quality is not overpowered in my eyes. New cyberware is hard to get and to start with less effective healing and health spells together with increased weakness to HMHVV makes it look quite balanced. I like it.

I'm saying this is the same kind of Can o' Worms - just worse, like In Debt.

You'll have people swarming around telling you the character can't use that essence hole until he paid the karma to buy off the quality.

At first glance, it looks to me as if this could allow a player who plans for his PC to have implants anyway to build up expensive things like an Attribute or a Skill with BP and get the gear later when money comes from some runs. The net result may be a cheaper way to get to point B from point A. Does this make sense?

The fluff aspect is perfectly sensible to me. I have one PC who defected from her corporation into the shadows to avoid the 'repo'.

If the intent is to effectively trade essence for starting BP,
then this is underpowered if anything.
Just considering the essence cost alone this is expensive.
Factor in that qualities are also finite and the cost goes up again (albeit slightly).

On the other hand, in a game with little to no magic,
this might not ever become an issue.

Essence matters even in a world with little magic. Any First Aid checks made to heal an injury take a -1 penalty for every 2 points of essence lost.

Not a huge difference, but it matters.

Isn't that the case for a majority of all qualities? A player who knows what qualities to take and how to only minmax stats and skills will get to B for a considerably lower price. 50 BP gets you Logic 6 and intuition 1 or logic 3 and intuition 3. To raise those to Logic 6 and intuition 3 costs 25 karma for the first character but a massive 75 karma for the second despite same end result and same starting cost...

Could be.

Actually, 50BP would get you Logic 4 and Intuition 3, so it's 25 Karma vs 55 Karma, but your point remains valid.

Think of it in these terms though – the first guy, although being a super-logician, is walking around with an Intuition of 1. That's almost no use at all and in the case of defaulting it IS of no use at all. The second guy, meanwhile, can be expected to accomplish things with either stat making him more versatile and more prepared for unexpected tests. It will take more than a couple of runs to get 25 Karma so even if you have nothing better to spend it on you're walking around for a good while with an almost null stat.

To default with 0 or 2 dice is rarely a big deal and you get intuition 2 for just 10 karma already but nevermind that since the solution to that (for those that care) is karmagen that exist in raw ^.^

My point was mainly to point out that most qualities are simple "You get better at X but in a cheaper way" and that they indeed can be quite boring.

The negative quality Enemy or positive quality Juryrigger gives new ways your character works and opens for new interesting plot ideas while Sensitive System on a shapeshifter has no effect at all or Impared Attribute (Strength) that is just more free BP since no character concept have any use for maxed strength or why not Incompetence (Pilot Aerospace or other obscure skill never used) that are just more BP for virtually no negative effect.

I'm not just thinking of balance stuff here but also uniqueness of characters with interesting Nemesis, quirky behaviour or a special talent for picking up young boys at bars that makes them so much more memorable than the boring "Aptitude (Killing)", "Focused Concentration for drainfree magicspam", "Metagenetic improvement"-changelings over the cute animal looking ones and so on.