@Mäx

All rules apply untill reaching essence 0. (Because untill this point the cybermancy could be stopped and the patient would "survive")

Please do to not assume I did not read the rules, for it would be foolish.

So it starts with implanting cyberware untill you reach 0, at this point your spirit is bound. Still, you need to loose the essence first.

The only question here is, what happens the second you reach 0. Do the game rules still apply and you loose your last point of magic or not. This would be up to GM Fiat or more so your general approach on using the rules.
Due to the fact, that spirits may also suffer from essence loss, there is actually no reason why the magic-loss should not continue...

Hmm, other Question . .
Max Magic is Essence+Initiation Grade . .
So Initiation Grade of 1 would make 0+1=1 Magic?

Again, this only matters if you're trying to cheat anyway, but I guess it's an interesting discussion question. It still seems pretty clear that you go to Ess 0 Mag 0; the rule blurb about 'reduced to 1' is an oversimplification, nothing more. They assumed no one would try to abuse their word-count reduction, I guess.

A brain-in-a-jar that has a "body" that happens to be a drone ends up like any other character:

A physical track and a stun track.

The cyborg doesn't end up being immune to stun.

The brainjar has a Stun track. Its body is not the cyborg-drone. That's its vehicle, which it is jump-in rigging.

Yes. If you take the brain out, the stun goes with it. That's not my point.

I said that the entire entity is not immune to stun. If vehicles have hardened armor the entire entity would be immune to stun.

You see the difference yet?

I never claimed that. What I said is that it doesn't matter: the jar in the vehicle can't be directly attacked. It will never take Stun physically from an attack on the vehicle. It is as a remote rigger. There is no 'entire entity'.

If you treated the brainjar as a passenger, you might get something like that, but I say that's unworkable. You'd just get everyone 'headshotting' the CCU constantly, so we'll assume it's designed to remove that option.

The brain is immune to stun damage done to its vehicle - it takes (stun) biofeedback damage if its vehicle takes physical damage.

Right, and the vehicle only takes such damage if the attack beats its armor, correct? So it is 'effectively immune to stun', in the same way a vehicle is, and for the same reason. I know Draco18s gets tetchy over precise use of 'hardened' and 'immune', but I'm just saying it's all a wash.

I'm at the point at which I need to sit down with Augmentation.

That doesn't change the fact that Augmentation clearly states that the cybermantic ritual prevents Magic loss from implantation, and clearly states that Resonance abilities are lost but does not mention a word about magical ability being lost, just that magic is reduced to 1. Not to zero and back up. Not to negative and back up. From whatever it is, down to 1.

Also, the ritual must be started before the subject reaches 0 Essence, and performed alongside of implantation.

I rather assumed you havent read them, then simply that you didn't understand them at all, how foolish of me.

Your attribute is set to one at the end. NOWHERE is stated that any rules do not apply anymore.
If his essence would not drop, he would never go below 0, meaning he would NEVER become a cybercombie...

Well, you know reading the summary is always a bit different from reading the book.

You know what would be great if you were correct: Use cybermancy to not suffer magic loss but do not become a cybercombie. Just stop it at essence 2.01.
Now you have NO magic loss and quite a bit of implants..

*calls aztech-science-mages* get on that stat!

I didn't read 'the summary', I read the section uner 'side effects of unlife' that is the only place that talks about resonance loss and magic loss, and what magic attribute a cyberzombie ends up with.

Read it again:

"If the character already possessed a Magic attribute, it is permanently reduced to 1. If the character possessed a Resonance attribute, it is permanently reduced to 0 and all technomantic abilities are lost. Due to the cybermantic ritual, the cyberzombie does not suffer Magic loss from implantation, but if the Magic attribute is ever permanently reduced to 0 by other means, the cyberzombie dies."

There is nothing in the SR4 cybermantic rules that state that all magical ability is lost, nor that Magic is first reduced to 0 and then back up to 1 for Awakened individuals. I don't understand how you can interpret 'permanently reduced to 1' to mean 'reduced to 0 and then gained at 1', nor how you can interpret 'the cyberzombie does not suffer Magic loss from implantation' to mean anything but what it it says.

You could probably perform cybermancy on a magician while implanting him or her with cyberware to prevent the magic loss and stop at an Essence of higher than 1. However, since the rituals result in your Magic being permanently reduced to 1 you are kind of screwed anyway - not to mention all the other effects of being a cyberzombie.

Hmm . . technically . . if i throw one cyber zombie at another, they both die right? O.o

"permanently reduced"

So their astral hazing would have no effect (or merely put them in comas).

ah, right, overread that . .

@snowRaven

Well, you probably should start reading at the START of the chapter.
Under Procedure you will find a detailed description of what happens when.
It is like chemical reaction. If you burn hydrogen you "free" energy. This does not mean that there is no activation energy required.

The effects only compare before and after and do not care about in between. Thats what procedure is about.
So if you want to determin if you got to keep your mage quality, you need to read it. Because, well, they missed to say anything under the "effect" section.

Anyway, I actually do not care. It is silly to begin with and it is useless.

Congretulations he is still a magic 1 mage with at most one initiation, with all the drawbacks mentioned. So he will be still a sitting duck to any kind of mage.
So my actual point stands anyhow
Yeah, you might use foci, in a BC 4. Give me a break. Thats just stupid...

A uncybered ten year old kid with a pair of scissors is more of a thread for a mage than a cybercombie...
Well, I stick with the cyborg. OR 5++ (with some stuff out of WAR very much ++). Only a shadow on the astral plane so he will probably get the drop on the mage.

@Stahlseele
You have to throw them for more than 7P...

1 initiation raises max magic to 2. ;D
</cheese>

Yeah, I've read the entire chapter, several times. The fact remains that it clearly states that if you have magic attribute it is reduced to 1. If mages became mundane during the process (as I agree, one would expect, and which was the case in SR3) there wouldn't need to be any mention about it, and the mundane would then get Magic 1 upon awakening - just like anyone else. Nowhere under the procedure does it say anything about magic loss. It doesn't even say that you gain the magic point and become dual natured, so when during the ritual does that happen? The only thing the rules say is that 'upon awakening to her new dual existence' you gain a magic attribute of 1, or get your existing Magic reduced to 1. So, up until that point (which would likely happen at the binding of the soul when Essence reaches 0) Magic apparently stays the same - otherwise, there couldn't be a preexisting Magic attribute to reduce...

I agree that a magician with Magic 1 is seriously gimped; nearly useless. An Adept could be better, though. But it doesn't state anywhere that you lose your magician/adept/mystic adept qualities when your magic is reduced to 1.

Except that it says specifically that the Magic rating of a cyberzombie cannot be raised by karma, spirit pact, or in any other way. So, 1 it is an 1 it stays unless you lose it.

@snowRaven
It happens after the awakening. So it is no longer scope of this section.

So what happens if I do not go that far? Lets say stop at Essence 2? No magicloss but ware?
If your essence is reduced your magic is reduced. That one of very solid founded rules in Shadowrun.

Well, but hell it does not matter. There is no ruling about it and it is up to the GM. And it is stupid/useless any way.

Just that this rule does not work with a cybermantic ritual, whick locks your magic score permanently at 1. Special rule trumps general rule.

@NiL_FisK_Urd
So what happens if I rescue some guy who is about to become a cybercombie and they only brought him down to 3 Essenz?
If he had Ressonance did he loose it all?
If he had magic, did loose anything? Or everything but the last point?
Is he now dual natured.

Well, I do prefere rules which work for that part.
The only way I would ever bring up a cybermancy ritual is probably something the antagonists do. So if the players manage to stop it, I would prefere it, if the universe would not implode...

he just died because you interrupted the ritual.

Yep, Thought that one was pretty obvious, Myself.

If he's still at 3 essence, they probably haven't started the ritual yet. The ritual is usually done when the subject is receiving the implant that would reduce their essence below 0.

@Draco18s

Actually they did. There is a lot of mojo before you even start the operation. So the guy is not just dead if he reaches essence 0.

Point. But if they're that early in the casting, you interrupt, the guy's not going to suddenly kick the bucket.

Also, why would they start casting there anyway?
You only need cybermancy when going from 0,01 to -0,01 Essence . .
So you cyber him up/down to 0,01 Essence and then go from there . .

@Stahlseele
It doesn't really matter if you go down from 3 or only down from 0.01. Still you have to go through all the preparation.
And my guess is, that in game you do not have the knowledge to land exactly on 0.01. I am even guessing they can't even hit 0.1.
More in the range of he has anything between 3 and 4 essence.

It is quite annoying if you overstep on the way down to 0,01.
Still the magic has to be up before you hit the 0. (It is just a bit more complicated than casting a spell, I guess.)

But yes, from the rule perspective everything before 0 should work as normal, if you ask me. (Just some mojo in place to capture the soul if you hit the cap)

NiL_FisK_Urd and Mäx seem to think differently about that...

Well, the Astral Perception/Aura Reading skill or what that was had a description saying you can actually find out the essence of someone, given a good enough roll . .
And even if they can't get it this close, if they take a look and see:"yep, he's still about half or more complete" there is no NEED to start the cybermantic procedure . .
Well, if you ain't putting something in that will take up 3 or more points of essence at once at least. And seeing how in cyberzombies usually delta is used, there just is
not much that will actually fit this bill at all . . Because we are talking Cyber-Limbs here, nobody is going to do a complete cyber-body-swap ALL AT ONCE either . .

At delta grade, it's actually almost impossible to FIND 6 essence worth of cyber....

Yeah, but 3 points is easy enough . .
And i was going from about 3 essence left when they start ^^

@Irion
Why would it need to work differenty in any essence value over 0.000000000001?
It has to work differently in 0 or lower essence for sure,to revent dead.

i think they would do a complete body swap, i would design the cyber-body as a full suite, incl. MBW3, reaction enhancer 3 and other stuff.

First, if the ritual is completed, the soul is bound to the body - this means Magic 1, no Resonance, and all other effects of being a cyberzombie, regardless of if your Essence is positive or negative.

As for 'the awakening'...it's not that simple. They are talking about two different things: In 'The Procedure' they speak of when the patient 'awakens as a cyberzombie' - that is, wake up after stasis. In 'Dual Nature' they talk about 'upon awakening to her new dual existance' - that is, when they become dual natured. If you for some reason believe that the point of magic doesn't appear until when the person wakes up after stasis, then I can see your problem. Looking at the ritual and the condition of the cyberzombie, I'd say the Magic point must appear when the soul is bound - before you put the patient into stasis. After all, without the magic to fuel the link between soul and body, the cyberzombie can't be dual natured and would die. The zombie is dual natured because her soul and body aren't fully rejoined, and this should logically happen at the point of 'death' when the spirit is bound to the body. That's the point where the Magic point most likely appears, or is reduced to 1. I seriously doubt that the point of magic just 'magically' appears when the patient regains consciousness. Just because the same word was used doesn't mean they are speaking of the same thing.

Now, for interrupting the ritual:

First you do the quest. Interrupting this has no effect on the patient.
After the quest, surgery and cybermantic ritual begin simultaneously. If you interrupt the ritual and surgery before Essence hits zero, the person does not become a cyberzombie. Since the ritual wasn't completed, the rule 'due to the cybermantic rituals, the cyberzombie does not suffer magic loss from implantation' cannot be considered a side-effect of the ritual. If the subject survives - remember that they are open on the table during a magical ritual involving surgery - I'd say they still have to make the Int+Will test to not develop Negative qualities, and I'd say they will lose Essence and Magic from the implantations that had been done. However, if the subject isn't ut into stasis he or she may die anyway for all we know.
If the patient's Essence went belowzero, but implantation wasn't completed, I'd say the person is now a cyberzombie. If you interrupt before the ritual is finished, odds are they die. If you end the stasis early, odds are the die or at least suffer worse in the form of glitches.
If the ritual is finished, but implantation didn't take the subject to zero Essence, they'd still be a cyberzombie with all the drawbacks and benefits it entails, except anything dependent on the negative Essence score (like Immunity to Normal Weapons).

@Stahlseele
Fortunatly it is onlly mostly delta.
Just to give a perspective:
I would not prevent a streetsam from going 0.01 or something like that. He is pushing the limit and lucky to live. But thats somehow the benefit of beeing a PC.
NPCs would however not do something like that. They would probably keep one or even two essence to be on the save side, you know.
(I always see the rules as simplifications. Of course their might be conditions, which kill you even having still essence left and so on. Those are just outside the scope of the rules and do not matter for PCs, because well, those who had those condition are dead and not PCs.)

The streetsam goes 0.01 because he is a bit crazy and thinks he can make it. And for every PC who made it, there are probably a hundred wanne bes, who died on the table.
(Makes everything a bit darker)

So I actually do not know, if we really disagree here. I also do think, they will start with somebody who has at least 2 or 3 Points of ware allready. (Yes, there might be exeptions.)

In general I would say, that the heavy cybered guy has around 1.XX Essence left to be on the safe side. Runners life on the edge..

@Mäx
You said so, not me. I said, you will loose essence/magic normally. You said NO and that I would be to stupid to understand the rules.

I disagree. Essence is a measurable quality. Even to the fraction of a point, if the assensing roll is good enough. As such I'm of the opinion that there are indeed essence tables telling the surgeons which implant causes which loss. To account for qualities like biocompatibility or sensitive system, you will have to check once and calculate from there. A backalley hack probably won't do that but an advanced corporate clinic will most definitely. So actually it is at least as probably to have 0.01 Essence people in the corporate world.

How widespread are essence loss modifying qualities? I'm pretty sure, even street docs have access to the list I mentioned above. More likely there will be anecdotes from a friend of a friend about people who died on the operating table even though everything went well.

@Dakka Dakka

How?
The only way I know of is magic, and this means mearly looking at it.

Yeah, due to some . . unfortunate eventes . . i usually try to keep at least 2,1 points of essence in any of my characters . .
And because they usually are scary, i am banned from creating characters that start with less than 3 points of essence . . .

You are right, this only works by Magic. But then you can measure essence loss exactly (provided the rolls are good enough). Most likely the Megacorps will have done exactly that during the trial phase of implants, if only to make sure you can sell one more implant to the customer. Another point is how would you justify the extra cost of better ware grades unless you knew that the essence loss will be less.

@Dakka Dakka

Better quality? Status symbol?
And yes, you would not that they do have less impact on your body.


Here the question is, what is exact... For magic thats 1 Point, for essence?
It is more of a fluff thing anyway. I just dislike the idea of assensing giving you a counter...

I'd say that it depends a lot on the facility.

IMO, a street doc may very well not have any way to gauge the client's essence at all, except from the list of implants the client gives him. This means it's quite risky if you're also a heavy drug user, have had run-ins with vampires, etc.

A delta-grade cybermancy clinic would probably be able to determine exactly how much Essence that subject has to 'play with', using state-of-the-art medical examinations, magical assensing, and any information available on the client.

Cybernetics has been implanted into people for 50 years or so, and the awakening was over 60 years ago, so if nothing else trial and error and animal testing should have given the medical experts a fair grasp on how much you can cram into a person before they start dying.

Of course, critical glitches and glitches during examination and/or surgery will likely still cause some patients to die on the table for no apparent reason other than the cell-decay associated with 0 essence. Then again, I like my game universe dark and dystopian...

Dislike it all you want, but exact is exact not rounded to the next integer.
If this weren't the case you would not have a selling point for higher grades of any piece of 'ware that has less than 1 point of essence cost in standard grade.

@Dakka Dakka

Why would that be?

Like I said I dislike that magic gets information so freely. It sucks.

An initiate grade 1 mage can have 1 magic even with 0 essence, going below that absolutely can not follow normal rules, as it's impossible by the normal rules and just results on a dead.
So no i didn't say any think works differently.

Sales Rep: "Well here we have the state of the art cybereye for 1500¥ in a wide variaty of shapes and looks or we could handcraft it for ten times the price." Customer: "Can you do more exotic shapes with the handcrafting?"
Sales Rep: "No."
Customer: "Is there a lower rejection risk for the handcrafted one?"
Sales Rep: "No."
Customer: "the standard eye you have in stock, right?. How long will it take to handcraft one?
Sales Rep: "2-4 weeks."
Customer: "Can I get the handcrafted one implanted here"
Salöes Rep: "No you will have to go to a special clinic where you will have to stay for a couple of days."
Customer: "Will taking the handcrafted one allow me to implant more other stuff?
Sales Rep: "We are convinced that the handcrafted will have less impact on your holistic wellbeing."
Customer: "Do you have proof?"
Sales Rep: "Sadly, no."
Customer: "Then plug the cheap one in."

Additionally I doubt the corps would have developed higher grades unless they had found a measurable benefit from doing the extra work. Standard and possibly Alpha grade can be mass produced Beta and Delta cannot.

Is there any reason cyberlimb armor wouldn't count towards encumbrance? The sentence describing cyberlimb armor doesn't mention it, and the rule about armor and encumbrance just says "If either of a character’s armor ratings exceeds his Body x 2, apply a –1 modifier to Agility and Reaction for every 2 points (or fraction thereof ) that his Body x 2 is exceeded."

It seems a little weird to me that you can stack up so much cyberlimb armor, but I don't see it as a balance issue at all. With Form-Fitting Body Armor and PPP (and Delta-Amyloid, etc. if you want to go there), it's easy for almost any character to armor themselves up to 2x Body without any cyberlimb armor, and raising your armor past your encumbrance limit is of dubious value. Sure, a lot of worn armor could get obvious, but so are heavily-armored cyberlimbs.