I'm hopeing for some advice / discussion on the possible benifits / drawbacks (besides the obvious) of a mage getting some cyber put in.


At present I have a street mage whos Magic 5 Spellcasting 6 (coupled with a focus he's pretty handy in a fight) In conversation with my GM there was the possibility of me maybe losing a limb (proberbly hand / lower arm) and the discussion went on to possible cyberware to replace it. My mage himself is abit self taught from stolen books and virtual grimoirs so is borderling Chaos Mage anyway so I'm not seeing major issues from a RP side of things.

Before I do or allow something drastic to happen to him I was wondering what peoples thoughts might be. The upsides I can see apart from the possible RP parts which can out weigh alot of the negatives would be access to capacity for some interesting items within the limb (maybe a shock hand for a suprise or a smuggeling container to hold a focus or something) The main negatives of course being the loss in magic.

The thought that appeals is a few runs feeling weaker magically and playing up the mental struggle but with the possibility to increase the magic back again (I'm already initiated with space to grow my magic upwards) at a later date. In my minds eye I can see a astral image of him with the mana flowing back down the replaced arm as his magic comes back to him.

The only real question apart from simply what do you think is the costs for rebuilding the magic that one point. Would I be buying effectivly the sixth point (cost of 30k) or rebuying the fifth point (cost of 25k) not that it really matters in the long run really


Any thoughts would be appriciated

I believe it is considered rebuying the 5th point, but only after chargen. Similar to burning Edge.

Crunch wise, there's a lot of things you can do with that arm, what works best for your character will likely depend on what he needs. Just take a look through the list of capacity items, at some point something will jump out and you'll go, "THAT! That's what I want."

I do this all the time when building characters. My current character has a glass cutter which I didn't even know ShadowRun had listed as equipment. Still waiting for a good opportunity to use it.

I'm away from my books, so I can't give you an optimized shopping list. What I will tell you is that if you go with a cyberlimb i would suggest you get a nanohive. You save on the essence loss that way and it opens up some cool toys you may be interested in.

Of course if you don't want to lose magic at all, you could always clone yourself a new limb.

If You loose the Arm and essence your MAG drops to 4 and you Pay 25 Karma to raise it to 5 which is your Maximum (+ Initiation)
I'm playing myself a Mage with one lower cyberarm(modular) .It is very usefull and enhances
the Possibilities (Dronehand,Medkithand,Cybergyro,Cyberarmor,Nanohive,etc)
he made a deal with Satan ,got tricked and nearly lost his Soul. The Hand that made the Deal
was tainted with Satans Aura so the Char had to chop of his lower Arm to get rid of this Curse
now he is a Hermetic that follows Sun,the Patron that helped him ( his Story is even longer)

with a shorter Dance
Medicineman

Looks Down to Doc-Byte
Wolf has allways been a Sam in my Eyes thats why I didn't mentioned him
(and because he's well ....cybered up,it's not just a Question of loosing only 1 Point Essence )

I'm disappointed Medicineman. I'd have expected you to mention my name when speaking of cyber-mages.

@Lansdren: I'm playing a cyber-mage who started as a nearly burned-out mage. But I've always been playing him like a streetsam with some magic and not like a mage with ware.

Character record sheet

That is very cool,

One idea for the hows and wheres for mine losing a limb would be the old fashioned zombie hunt (ok Ghoul) Our current game has house ruled that infection can only be through bite or direct fluid transfer and that severing the point of infection can save the person (yes very house ruled but from a RP aspect has possibilities)

Oh yeah, I forgot about the nanohive. Very sweet device that is, especially for mages (if they're willing to take the essence hit).

The idea of Nanohive plus the healing nanos (symbiotes of some form I think) appeals. From a RP aspect they put it in to make sure theres no rejection between me and the arm, but the upside is less downtime from drain damage. Maybe some dynamic nano tattoos just for flavour as well.

I've wanted a character with one (or more?) of those for a while now, but I keep playing drakes which get a very short end of a very long stick when it comes to cyber and bio. Not only is your magic permanently reduced across both forms, but you don't get the benefit of the augmentation in dracoform!

Minor edit:
Now that I think about it, nanites + nanohive would work: the nanites wouldn't vanish, and they don't lose their rating for a whole week!

You've probably played every drake who ever ran the shadows by now, eh? Really, why'd yah need more than one- did the first few get killed?

Underlined: haha! XD No, only two (wait! That was all of them! D: )

And the first one never died. In fact, no one knew he was a drake--which I regretted. That game fell apart, so my new drake was a retry attempt at building a character that didn't have this "do I go drake?" choice beyond "well duh!" The former had no advantages in drake form (other than +2 Agility, helping with the whole "shooting guns" thing) and a hefty downside of significantly less armor. The latter? +2 Agl, astral perception, enhanced senses, +4/+4 armor, flying....

Downsides?

None.

I've always been a member of the belief that you can sacrifice one point of essence to enhance your mage and still have him be great. I'd personally go with cerebral boosters to increase logic since that'll increase your Astral agility stats as well. (Swinging at a spirit on the astral plane with your weapon foci and a 9 agility makes for a grand old time...)

But like the others said, make sure its worth it. Will you use it? Will it save your life? These are the questions you need to ask.

Sign--
Wacky

While I've never actually put it on a mage yet, I'd think the pain editor would be a nice addition to a caster if you've got .4 essence you don't mind losing, ignoring all effects of stun is a pretty nice effect on a mage.

Cybereyes and an UWB Radar system makes for a great pairing. If your GM doesn't allow for the vision mod to provide LoS through walls, there's always the option of indirect fire via Area of Effect spells.

Also, UWB nullifies enemy visibility mods like chamo suits or invisibility spells. Everybody needs a UWB...

It's worth noting that you can get a new limb grown and attached with zero essence cost.

Check the chart on page 127 of Augmentation. It's expensive but it may be worth it; I don't think you really want to lose the Essence if you can help it.

OMG, that character just blew my mind.

Oh, Frag yeah! I have a chaos mage with cybereyes and two cyberhands. He has a commlink in one and UWB and olfactory booster in the other. He also has a synaptic booster 1. I know I could go faster with a sustaining focus, but not having to worry about wards is very nice.



Sure you can regrow the arm, but honestly, why? If you don't get stupid with 'ware you can increase your chance of survival greatly.

Just to make something clear, you do not lose Essence or Magic for the loss of limb. You lose it for the implantation of foreign stuff. So if the character loses a hand through GM Fiat, he could just walk into the next clinic with the stump and order a cloned hand. He would have to make do for a couple of weeks with only one or non-cybered prosthetics to wait for the hand to grow, but after the cloned limb is attached, he will be good as new. No Magic or Essence loss.

Are you sure? I've always been under the impression that Essence was lost for lost limbs, but that it returns rather seamlessly on replacement. It's just not something that comes up all that often because there's no specific hit areas in the combat system.

Pretty sure, the books always only talk about losing essence from the implantation.

Even the optional rules for severe wounds in Arsenal never list essence loss as a consequence, not even with severed limbs or failing organs (death however may be a consequence of it).

I believe that the rule existed in previous editions, in fact I am almost 100% positive that it used to be a rule. That said I have not found it in the current edition's rules.

Graywulfe

Correct as well. In previous editions almost anything could incur magic loss - even healing. SR4 went a different route by penalizing the healer and making the treatment of the awakened less effective.

It must be a fluff vs. RAW thing then.. I got this vibe that limb loss generally did cause loss of Essence.

Way I see it, anything that causes your body to be less than 100% natural healthy and complete can potentially cause Essence loss. If addictions can cost Essence, then limb loss (which is comparably traumatic) should also do so.

Fluff is one thing; application demands great care. It's no fun to suddenly lose Essence for something you didn't really have all that much control over. Addiction is something you're responsible for, but dismemberment is usually involuntary.
People are very sensitive about things that violate and diminish their bodies, and this also tends to apply to their characters.
Essence is also too important to just "take it like a man" when you lose it, so it's better from a player-fun standpoint to gloss over it and say "you paid a lot of nuyen for a new cloned hand, but got it fast enough that the Essence loss from losing the original didn't become permanent."

Fictional reality may be dramatically dark and gritty, but it sometimes needs to bend the noir-rules a bit to keep it fun.

No, loosing a Limb doesn't cost any essence ,only replacing it with Cyber.
Your vibe's wrong
I can only confirm Dakka's Post.
and yes Drug abuse can cost Essence lost ,but IIRC only with a crit Glitch
But Its your (and your Groups ) Fun to Play as you like. I just wanted to Post that ,by RAW ,loosing a Limb incurs no Essence loss


with a confirming Dance
Medicineman