So I was recently thinking of a multiple of Essence as an Initiation/Submersion hard cap. This would have 2 effects:

1) No unlimmited growth for TMs & Mages, which is one of the big disparities to mundanes by RAW.

2) Beyond the immediate damage of Essence Loss, it curps the future potential of the Superpeople, thus reducing the appeal of Augmentations for the awakened.

My main concern is 2, as I always fealt a little essence loss was not enough of a disadvantage, especcialy with some adept types, but further direct magic loss seems too harsh to me and wouldn´t be a slippery slope to burn out.

If this is a concern, you're 1) dishing out way too much Karma and/or 2) not offering up enough risk to the characters.

I think what you really need to focus on is making Essence loss more risky for such characters since augmentation for Awakened characters seems to be your major beef. This particular rule certainly won't do much of anything to stop it, especially for players who like to blow one or two Essence points on implants.

If it's really a problem for you, look at alternative ideas that directly affect a character. For instance, you could create a house rule where each point (or partial point) of Essence below 6 inflicts a -2 dice pool penalty to any awakened/technomancer related tests. Or 6-Essence is added to the threshold of any such tests. Or any other similar game mechanic where having an Essence below 6 is a detriment for non-mundanes.

But a flat limitation on a character's submersion/initiation grade isn't going to do it, especially with the values you're listing in your poll (aside from the x0 one which is just silly). I rarely see characters go beyond a grade of 4 or 5 anyway. And if they are regularly getting to the double digits, well, see the first part of this reply.

Of course they are not usually going that high. I am aware, that the theoretically limitless Grades are pretty much limited by Karma. In my games, I think the highes Initiate PC was 7 or maybe 8, which was in 2nd or 3rd Ed (except when some munchkin player tried to start a game with a Grade 11 PC or so, disregarding all rules).

I haven´t thought much about this yet, either - hence the poll. But I liked the idea, that the limit is too high to change much for non augmented characters, but stops low Essence magic munchies.

According to many, magic users will always win any fight; therefore they are already overpowered and should not be able to advance further.

None of these options would have significantly impacted any character I have actually seen in play, with the exception of x0. The lowest essence mage I've seen in play was essence 3.2 or so, and the remainder have all been essence 5 or 6. The highest initiate grade I've seen on an actual PC was 5. So even the impact on the uber cybermage would have been minimal.

I had come up with essence=max initiations a while back. Generally, it doesn't come into play except in high-level games. Where it does make a real difference, it is pretty decent.

It doesn't make a notable difference even then, since they can just spend their Karma on other things.

I don't see that as a bad thing.

The point is that it doesn't do what you're trying to suggest it does. Or what MK Ultra wants. Or anything noteworthy whatsoever.

If you're going to introduce a rule, it should at least serve a worthwhile purpose.

What is the over arching problem you're confronting? Theoretically every class has unlimited growth potential just the technical types are going to do it by buying ever nastier toys in larger quantities in combat I'm not sure if I'd be more worried about the grade 7 mage or the rigger with an entire wing of Mini-gun armed armored stealth roto-drones. Both seem grossly overpowered but indifferent ways. If the power scale is the problem just scale back the rewards, if your problem is that the non mage non technomancer characters are getting sidelined then there are a couple of options. The Karma for Cash and the Cash for Karma optional rules do help level the playing field so the tech & toy based characters can trade in Karma for extra cash to help develop. Another thing to do is put situations in to play that play way from the technomancer or mages specialties. If you're unfortunate enough to have a player who just needs to always be the center of attention then you need to handle that out of game and just have a talk with them about how the rest of you guys feel about him or her dominating the game.

We haven't made it this far yet in SR4. So I don't know just yet.

@Ol' Scratch
It does that. It kind of stops the cybermage which is one of the most powerful build in the game to begin with.
Yes, it does not hinder a pure adept much, thats true or a pure mage.
But those are not really that game breaking afte all.

But an adept with 2 or 3 points of ware is, after the rules, bound to become much, much better than every sam could ever hope to be.
Lets take a simpe example:
Adept:
Magic: 1
Ware: 4 (Essence 2)
Thats how you could start. (I won't be going with the latent awakening cheese)
This guy will be not that good as the avarage Sam, because he lacks 45BP.
But as soon as you drop some Karma on this guy, he is going to get much better.
10 Karma->Magic 2
15+13=28 Karma-> Magic 3
20+16=36 Karma-> Magic 4 (It can be reduced anyway)
Yes, the sam has a bit more of ware and some additional Karma to spend. But it will not make up for this.
This does not include the possibility to just go ware/magic/ware/magic and other tricks. (Ending up with maybe 100 Karma spend for 5 points of ware and 3 Points of magic)

@stevebugge
I guess the issue is that essence loss does not hinder magic. It only cost a bit of Karma. (And this amount can be reduced with a bit of metagaming...)

I'm well aware of the "cheese" of such things, though I disagree vehemently with it. Especially any possible belief that the Latent qualities are in any way, shape, or form "cheesy" since the GM has complete and total control over when and what happens with them.

And, again, this does little to nothing to avoid or stop such characters from being made. Especially since initiation is not this uber all-powerful thing you people have deluded yourselves into thinking it is. The best thing about it is that it opens up new options, and that's about it. You still have to pay an arseload to raise your Magic if you want to do that (I don't think I ever have), and the extra power point you gain comes at the cost of no metamagic technique, which in my opinion isn't a bargain at all since there's so many that are so much fun or a near necessity. Masking, Improved Masking (assuming you want to protect your foci), Psychometry, Divination, Centering, etc.

But I'm digressing. Sorry, but no. Even if a character is limited to his Essence in grades, you're alleged "uber adept" can still initiate twice. After that, guess what: He still has a ton of things to spend his Karma and cash on. It's not holding him back in the slightest.

As an aside, I always find it interesting how adepts only seem to be "omg, overpowered" when people want to make arguments like this. But in any thread discussing adepts in general, they get dismissed as being "omg, underpowered." Funny how that works.

Regardless, if you really want to limit this kind of behavior for whatever silly, imagined reasons you do have, you need to do it in a direct fashion, not by creating random arbitrary limits that may never even come up. I gave some suggestions in my first reply. Another is to simply increase the cost of initiation/submersion and Magic/whateverTechnomancersuse a great deal if they go beyond your arbritrary limit. Say, x3 the normal costs for both. Not that even that really matters since if you're handing out Karma like candy (which is about the only way these limits will be met), it'll just slow them down a little.

I guess I'm really of the opinion that the problem is more on the GM's end than the game's end. If players are doing things that you disapprove of, say "no." If they're advancing to ridiculous levels of power, stop giving them so much karma and/or increase their opposition so that they actually need those levels of power. It really is that simple. Not to mention more sensible.

@Ol' Scratch
Thats not the point.
If I only have 2 points of essence left I would be restricted to a maximum magic of 4 or 6 (with Initiation are Essence*2).


Magic is one of the attributes wich does not grow stronger linear. (The others are Force and Edge)

An adept with magic 6 is not getting double the power from his magic compared to an adept with magic 3, he is getting more.
(At some point the cost for raising magic do outweight the benefits, but thats an other discussion)


Anyway: Yes there are better ways to balance those things.
The best I heard of was to just consider the essence loss if raising magic. So getting magic from 3 to 4 with 3.4 points of essence loss costs (4+4)*5=40Karma.


This approach is only cutting around the edges of the problem, true.
But this might be enough for most groups. (You need a serious amount of powergaming to pull off similar tricks with just 2 points of essence loss)

Given that part of this discussion is on the possibility or initiats with high figures 6 - 8 seem the level I wonder what kind of Karma your lot are getting.

The idea of getting even to level 3 initiation in any of my games is a very long process (Given it requires 48 Karma without reductions)

Additionaly as initiations are capped by magic already if you need to raise it further your adding in the cost of a new point of magic (granted not a real problem at lower levels but very costly in the long run).

I'm sorry I just dont see it as a issue, any mage or adept who puts all their karma into upping there magic and initiation are going to lose out in the long run in any game which is not focused just on magic or combat. After spending all your Karma on magical stuff your core skills are still just the same where as the Street Sam could have bought new gear for their core skills and even spread out their skill set making them more versitile.

@Lansdren
Well, lets make it easy.
You get yourself an adept and a Sam generated in Karmagen.
Lets make them orcs, because they are a good race for beeing the "hitter".

Attributes:
S4B6A5R5L3I3C3W4
Or something like that.
The adept is getting magic 3 and dropping it down to magic 1 with ware.
The sam is getting also 2 points of ware. (And has still 10+10+15=35 Karma to go)
Maybe he is getting 4 points of ware.

So he starts ahead, true.
In game the adept might be able to get two additional points of ware while the sam gets one two and has still 20 Karma more to spend.
Now you have 4 points of ware against 5 points and the sam has around 55 Karma more. (Well it depends on how you optimzed the gear etc.)
Now the adept just starts buying magic to 3 for max. 10+15+13=38 Karma.
Lets just look at 8 times increased skill.
8 times from 2 to 3: 48 Karma (net profit)
8 times from 3 to 4: 64 Karma (more profit)
4 times from 4 to 6: 88 Karma (very much profit)
Actually with the last option the sam and the adpet are now ~"karma equal".
The sam has one point more ware the adept has one point of magic.
With an additional point of initiation and magic the adpet will be in front.
And every following point will increase this divide. (Please notice, that I did not take into account the power gained due to initiation, because at a level of one or two this is not much)

The point is, with around 100 Karma (thats what you need to get 4-5 skills to 4 or three attributes from 6 to 7) the adept will up front. Yes, this takes a while true. Maybe not every group reaches this limit. But if you play there, I can understand you want to close that door.

I kind of agree that the hardcap wouldn't do that much to limit players, except in high-powered games, but I still like it because one, I like internal consistency in the rules (if there is only so good a sniper can get, then mages and technomancers should have some kind of limit), and two, it limits the hypothetical cheesiness of immortal elves and great dragons - who would still be able to get pretty damn powerful under, say, the Essence x 2 cap, but would be plausibly powerful, rather than Superman-level powerful.

This was actually a big part of my motivation. I like a consistent model of the game world. Most groups will never encounter a submarine, much less own one, still its nice to have stats for that, too. For me, this really just started out as a crunch exercise. Most games I actually run are oneshots these days, for lack of time and a tendency of my players to change characters (usually to try to munchkin in more BP from the start).

EDIT:

@Scratch
I assume the ppl complaining about overpowered adepts are not the same complaining about underpowered ones (unless talking about specific powers and powerpoint costs).