How do you rectify that with the initiation that requires you to impose a deformity on yourself, which results in essence loss?

For a variety of reasons, most importantly you're sacrificing part of yourself for your magic.

You know, I was going to reply with quotes and such, but when I read the actual initiation ordeal dealing with the self-removal of genitalia, my mind ran and hid in a corner, and I think I shall follow it.

PC or not, it's simply not true. In SR4, you lose essence from implanting 'ware, not from losing/being born without limbs.
This is not true, either, even under the Optional-Optional rule. Default, there *is* no essence loss from damage, and the Optional-Optional rule includes no provision for repairing Severe Wound essence loss by healing/reattaching anything.

And again, it's not at all related to the original point: essence-paid implants are supposed to count as 'part of you' for the purposes of magic (cybereyes, limbs, etc.), so it's very weird that Goo works the way it says.

126 of Augmentation says you're wrong. Again.

Becasue imposing that deformity DOES NOT CAUSE ESSENCE LOSS...

Please point out what you are arguing with a Quote. I just read the referenced page, and it does not say what you are saying it says, as far as I can tell. The discussion would go a lot better if you provided Quotes to back up your statements.

The key quote that backs Yerameyahu and the others is:



and...



Neither of these state that Wounds cause Essence Loss by themselves. There is an OPTIONAL Rule that allows that. But it is OPTIONAL.

And it's an Optional variant *of* the Severe Wounds Optional Rule, to boot (Aug p23 or 24, I forget).

not to mention the first bit of the advanced medtech section where this rule is found is... wait for it... OPTIONAL!

Page 23... Here is the entire Quote, so everyone can be on the same page...



As has been stated, these are both OPTIONAL RUles.

Let's examine the books and see, shall we? We begin our search back in the dawn of Shadowrun...

SR1:
So, nothing back in SR1 regarding limb loss causing essence loss.

SR2:
Hmm - nothing in SR2 about essence loss from limb loss. Ah well. Let's move on:

SR3:
So, nothing in SR3 either - on the contrary, actually - maybe we can find proof for your theory in...

SR4A:
So there you have it. Nothing at all supporting your position.


Now, it seems to me that there is no evidence whatsoever that you lose essence from damage, while there is a fair amount of evidence to the contrary - including a direct statement to the fact in SR3.
Well then, almost normal could you please take your own advice and find a single contradictory rule from any book, in any edition -- a rule that mentions essence loss from damage (beside the twice quoted optional addition to the optional rule in Augmentation), essence loss from limb loss, or cloned replacement limbs restoring essence lost from cyberlimbs?

Essence loss of any kind cannot be repaired, except for with the genetic treatment that restores essence (or with Essence Drain, though that's not quite the same)

If you lost a point of essence from a cyberlimb (or from the optional-optional rule when getting a severe damage), replacing that with a grown replacement part won't give you any essence back. If the loss was from cyber, you can fill it with other cyber. If the loss was from something else (drug use, essence drain, optional damage rules) you can't fill it with anything whatsoever.

So, besides the rules you choose to ignore, find rules which you won't? You're funny.

The only rule I told you to 'ignore' is an optional tweak to an optional rule. I'm not sure if you understand what optional means, but it's basically an extra rule that you can use if you wish to have a particularily deadly and gritty game. Even using the optional rule, it is entirely up to the gamemaster how much essence is lost, which doesn't mesh at all with your statement of essence loss from limbs.

But alright, give me any rule, optional or not, from any book, in any edition that states that you lose Essence from limb loss, and that such Essence can be replaced by cloned parts.

Better yet - answer these questions:

My character has Essence 6.
- If I lose a limb in combat and doesn't get a replacement, what Essence am I left with?
- If I lose a limb in combat and replace it with a standard cyberarm (Essence cost 1), what Essence am I left with?

The whole game is optional to play, as it is optional to listen to you. You're treatment of the word optional like it means false is laughable.

Okay, I'll bite.

By the rules, what's the base damage code of a cyberarm?

By the rules, is Medicine a skill or a skill group?

By the rules, what's the Essence cost of a Symbiont?

And yet you still continue to NOT provide any proof of your claims, while others have provided ample proof that you are completely wrong. What should we take away from that?

ill give you 4/10 for this troll post.

That as a child many folks here stuffed their ears and shouted "la-la-la-la". I provide proof. You whine. You claim you've shown proof I'm wrong, while not providing any. It's laughable. I laugh! HA! HAHAHA!

Fish or Cut Bait...
I have yet to see any proof of your claims (the page you referred to did not even talk about what youare talking about). And when pressed to provide said proof, you dismiss the request in taunts and rudeness.

So I say Again... prove it. Others have done well enough to prove you wrong, how about you stand up and attempt to prove your points, rather than laughing at people. Or is that too much to ask of you?

Man, it is so weird being on the outside of one of these arguments. Do all long-running threads end like this?

They failed to provide proof when they showed you, in 4 editions, that no mention of what you claim exists? You showed proof by what? Making an unsubstantiated claim that you have yet to back up? Seriously, AN, provide proof or at least reference the post you claim has the proof you provided.

Dude, SnowRaven posted an edition by edition breakdown detailing how the Shadowrun rules sets all indicate that Essence loss happens only on implantation of 'ware, and not on the loss of body parts, with multiple page references and quotes.

You, on the other hand, just posted a page number, which didn't even have anything on it supporting your position.

Please quote the relevant passage in the standard rules where you lose Essence by getting a limb lopped off. In any edition. Not just a page number, the actual rule.

The idea that you lose essence only when you implant foreign materials or otherwise screw with your aura, and NOT merely when you lose body parts, has been a core staple of the Shadowrun setting since the beginning.

"Optional Rules" has a specific meaning in the Shadowrun game. It's extra rules which are not considered even by the game developers to be part of the standard game, that you can use to change things up a bit. They are clearly labeled as such in the text.

In general rules discussions, the default assumption is and must be the standard rules as written, with no optional, variant, or house rules. This is to establish a common ground for all participants to start from. If an individual wants to include into the discussion such an optional, variant, or house rule, it is beholden on them to clearly specify that they are doing so.

Given your displayed attitude, this is the final post I will make on the subject. You're wrong, have been shown to be wrong with multiple specific rules quotes and citations, and have started the tactic of selectively pretending those quotes were not posted. Good day sir.



-k

These are all your related quotes and claims in this thread:
SR4A pg. 311 'Essence Cost' says that ctýber has an Essence Cost representing the reduction of Essence that occurs when the 'ware is implanted. A 'Cost' strongly implies that you pay for it, and it clearly states it occurs at implantation. So you are wrong there.
Even using the optional rules, it is entirely up to the GM how much Essence you lose for a limb, and installing a cyberlimb would cause an additional essence loss (so if the GM says that you lose 1 point of Essence from losing the limb, you lose one more point of Essence for a standard cyberlimb, making the total loss 2 points. So you are wrong here as well.
What is the page reference of losing Essence from losing a limb? You haven't provided it yet.

SR4A pg. 68 you quote magic loss. Nothing on that page even hints at Essence loss from damage of any kind.
SR4A pg. 207 doesn't say that you lose Essence from damage. It says that Low-Essence characters are more difficult to heal because implants or other damage disrupt the body's holistic integrity. Could it be it's talking about essence loss from drug use, maybe? Remember, the Augmentation optional rule of essence loss from damage wasn't invented yet when this was written, and no other edition had essence loss from anything but implantation or drug-use.

There's not a single mention in any edition of essence loss from damage being repaired by reattachment of a limb. Essence holes from removed implants may be filled with other implants. Cloned replacement limbs doesn't have an essence cost, so you are left with the same size essence hole you had before. If the essence loss was from damage, the only way to 'fill' it is by genetic rejuvenating treatment.
So, you are wrong in this statement as well.


I'll agree with your uncle. Drug use can cause Essence loss by the rules. Nothing even suggests that someone born with only one arm has less Essence though. Nothing in either the Paraplegic or Quadriplegic quality suggests that their nerve damage should come with Essence loss either, nor do you lose Essence from taking the Blind, Stubby Arms, Deformity, Uncontrlled Metastasis or Progeria qualities. Infected have a specific mention of lower Essence as starting characters - limb loss does not.


It doesn't result in Essence loss. It results in Physical Attribute loss (1 point).


The only things on that page in regards to Essence loss are:
- an optional rule of increasing the Essence cost of implants if the surgeon glitches.
and
- a mention that generic and cultured transplants does not cost Essence to implant.
Neither of which refutes TJs statement, or proves yours.

In fact, the only thing that even remotely supports your view-point was mentioned by others: the optional version of the optional Severe Wounds rule in Augmentation - and even that relies entirely upon the gamemaster's judgement. (And even then you tried to refute the existance of the term 'optional optional' rules...)

So where's your 'proof'?

Deep Breath SnowRaven. Just say No to feeding the Troll...

Seriously. I figured



would have given it away, if not, the testicle-removing entry earlier. I was just having a bit of fun, I apologize if anyone's feelings got hurt.

Glad you can have a sense of humor about that. It speaks volumes to your character sir


...

Can we vote someone off the island? 'Cause I know where my vote would go right now...

I dunno if you figured it out, but trolling isn't particularly regarded as respectful or mature around here.

And it tends to get you banned.




-k

But it's fun...

Jesus, yes the rules are silly.
Yes, it is freaking stupid, that you do permanent damage to a person by attaching cyberarms and legs to the stomps where their "normal" arms and legs used to be. (So they do not need to lie around untill the cloned parts are ready)

Yes, it is even worse, that you actually did more severe damage to them, than the guy who cut off their arms and legs. (Because they can be replaced faster and for much lower costs)

Yes it is totally silly, that you loose essence from implanting ware to begin with.
It is stupid to handle it this way.


But there are pleanty housrules fixing this problem...

*shrug* I'm pretty okay with 'Cyber Eats Your Soul'. It's totally separate from the idea of 'damage', which is why losing limbs/anything else doesn't cost essence—why would it? No, it's not the only possible theme, but it's the one SR uses.

@Yerameyahu
The point is, it just does not work.
I get myself a lower-cyberarm. ->loss of essence.
Now my Arm gets blown off->No cyberarm.
I am in the same position as somebody who never had the lower cyberarm.
How could it have eaten my "soul"?

But it gets even better.
Now we both get our arm regrown and replace the other arm with a lower-cyberarm.
Now we both have the same amount of "soul"?
Silly.

It works fine, you just don't personally like it. That's fine, but don't pretend they're the same thing.

It is not damage that's the factor at all. It is the integration of the 'ware. That's just how it works. Magic is arbitrary.

@Yerameyahu
Integreation in what?
The arm it was integrated in is now gone.

That's true, it isn't there anymore. But it was there, and integration (with your whole body, not the arm) is a one-time process (that's why you don't get essence back for… anything; also why a hook arm doesn't cost essence). On the plus side, you get that essence hole for your new arm, which you derided. *shrug*

I didn't write the rules, and I certainly don't think it's the only possible way to do things. It is how SR4 does it, though, and it's not 'broken'.

Pretty much how it's worked in all the editions, it seems.

Essence is one mechanic that I really like, but it seems the tie-in between Essence and a character's "humanity" has been weakened in SR4. I wish it hadn't been. I'd like Essence to mean more than a limit on cyberware, something like a bonus / penalty for social rolls from those with a higher / lower Essence than your character, to reflect different levels of "humanity" having trouble communicating.

Also Resonance shouldn't be affected by Essence loss

See, I don't figure 16 page rants on whether a strap-on cup is allowed on Iron Man's suit to be respectful or mature either, especially when all sides of the argument pick and choose which parts of the rulebook to read, ignore the other side's manifestation of the same, all while claiming everyone else ignores their text. Remember the scene in Braveheart, where all the politicians are holding up papers claiming them to be the true king, but everyone else is full of crap? It's kind of like that. It becomes more amusing when agreements become less about mutual understanding, and more political, where if I accept A, and you accept B, then togehter we can go attack C and make those guys look like idiots because we have a "consensus". If that institution of thinking is so fragile that it can't have fun poked at it without devolving into jumping scared horses, then please forgive me if I scream Blucher on occasion to clear out the stuffiness. Apologies for the aside.

I'd agree phlapjack, if all cyberware was at least as fast as the TM. Considering how fast an initiated mancer can move, (I think the max is 5 passes, with two complex actions per turn?) SR has a ways to go before it's at that point.

Except that is not what you were doing. You were purposefully stating things that were demonstrably false, and making statements crafted solely to induce angry responses. Aka "Trolling". You weren't pointing out flaws in the system, or anything so noble. You were enjoying poking the bear, solely to make the bear angry.

There was no "group think" involved. There was you making wild claims with no support, and others pointing out your fallacies.

I don't really understand why trolling is enjoyable (perhaps it's part schadefrude, part confrontational competition?), but I do not think it is in any way constructive, as you seem to be implying.

It really sounds like you were the one that got their feelings hurt and then tried to cover it with, "Nah guys, really I was trolling. I wasn't angry and hurt. I'm waaayyy too cool to get ragey over an internet discussion and be all irrational. But you're all suckers for buying my act. So really you're all stupid and I'm just that good at manipulating people."

You might have pulled it off too, if you hadn't immediately tried to justify your behavior as being some sort of forum Sun Tzu manuever.

It's early, I'm drinking my coffee as I start the morning's day of work. I wax poetical in the mornings, especially in the spring. Maybe it's life finally coming back to the earth that makes my speech more colorful then it needs to be. To break it down, Thorya, I don't think of myself as being some mastermind, or even a guy with an above average attention span. I see myself as someone who saw some folks taking themselves entirely too seriously, and decided to have a bit of fun at their ego's expense. If at the end of the day, a few butthurt folks think I'm a jerk, so be it. My hope is in the future, someone might think twice about giant theatrics and grandstanding before posting. Instead of insisting the way someone else plays is wrong, and that there is only one way to interpret things, that perhaps just saying "Maybe. I hadn't thought of that. Here's how I do things and this is why:" will work, if only out of fear that they're being trolled. If none of that happens at all, if at the end of the day, pedantic viewpoints and political goofballery still abound? Then I've already had my fun, and I'll move on to greener pastures where folks can discuss things like humans. Now however, It's my wish that the discussion continue on topic. I'm really not worth the attention.

Except that long winded pedantic discussions still indicate a level of respect for the other people involved, as you are at least taking what they say seriously and are giving specific responses to their posts.

Trolling is just a total lack of respect. Getting your jollies of others distress is just reprehensible.

If that's how you're going to be, well, this place doesn't need that sort of attitude, in my opinion. As I'm not a moderator, all I can do is put folks like that on ignore. I hope it doesn't come to that.

If you don't like how a thread is going, just don't read it.



-k

These are not very fleshed out and some might not be 100% with RAW. I tried to get it as close as I could without a book/pdf in front of me.

For the more secure areas:
Camera with low-light/thermal and ultrasound/ultrawideband radar and a program/agent/sprite/rigger watching it. Anything that does not show up in both trips an alarm and perhaps triggers a long burst in that square. "No invisibility beyond this point"

Pressure plates with the ability to determine weight and cyberware scanners and regular cameras that runs with a program that can do a decent job estimating weight. It might not catch a human sneaking in a submachine gun disguised as a pen with trid phantasm but it should pick of the discrepancy between a guy in a business suit and a guy with full military body armor with 2 panther assault cannons and a doberman strapped to his back.

Glomoss sensors.

A force 9 ward that you enter while riding an elevator (time enough to switch out of astrally perceiving to not go unconscious but maybe not enough time to use tricks to squeeze those edge boosted foci through active).

Any of those should be fairly vincible with good legwork and/or team mates (like a hacker).

If the mage stays invisible 24/7/365 thanks to some foci with edge thrown in once a month have him make a dodge test when he crosses the street as a car swerves to a seemingly empty lane to pass someone.

As for control thoughts, treat it like intimidate. Yes you can get someone to do what you want but at some point they're not under your control anymore and they're angry that you tricked them. Maybe angry enough to hire a guy to blow up your apartment while you were out 3 weeks from when you screwed with them. Of course that person may have skipped the country by now and the search power threshold increases with distance (and ideally you have roll limitations on it) so.... good luck!

I would think Control Thoughts would cause any response to escalate, much like it would if a team attempting to infiltrate a corp site murdered everyone inside, including the janitorial staff. It takes a crime, and escalates the severity and necessity of a response.

You Mind Control an NPC. Eventually, as rlor stated, they're going to be free of mind control. As has been stated previously, it doesn't last forever. And they're gonna know that they were mind controlled. They're not going to be happy.

They'll tell security, or Knight Errant, or Lonestar, or the mob don, etc., and a manhunt for the mind-rapist will ensue.

You can't kill everyone that you MC. Even if you MC while invisible, you've still got voice. Everything's recording, and with voice analysis what it is, there's a lead that could pay off.

I'm AFB. Does the spell(s) prevent the person from acting out? I.e. can they say a warning, like, "Help, I'm being controlled!"? Or sending a text message via their (implanted) commlink? IIRC, it only forces the target to obey commands, it doesn't prevent them from acting in the absence of commands, or does it?

But, again, mind controlling people is V. Bad. People don't like being mind controlled, and will quickly generate a man-hunt for any mage using/abusing said tactic willy nilly.

It's not the integration into the arm that f*cks you up, it's the integration into your nervous system and your brain. Even if you chop it off later, the weirdness has already left it's mark on you.

In your example above, you'd both have the same amount of 'soul' because you've suffered the same intrusion into your system. Your system is just more 'used to it' than his, and so it can deal with the same amount of connections it had before the arm got blown off without deteriorating further. His system requires brand new intrusion, and so he loses Essence.

Don't think of it has 'eating your soul' though - think of it as losing part of what makes you (meta)human.

On a larger scale, losing Essence when you implant cyber, and not merely from large trauma, is quintessentially Cyberpunk. One of he major themes in the genre is the dehumanizing effects of technology. How much can you trade away before you become the monster?

If you lose an arm, you're still more or less Human.

If you go ahead and get machine installed to replace it, you've deliberately moved away from Human. You are trading in your essential humanity to get a boost of power. This is especially true in a world where you could have gotten a vat-grown organic replacement instead. The street sam is perhaps the epitome of this. The human that has traded away his humanity bit by bit to get an edge. The more he gets enhanced, the more he needs more enhancements to keep up, and the closer he skirts to death.

Most cyberpunk themed game have some variation on this, you have to give up something of your soul to get enhancements. It's dystopian and dark future.

Contrast this with Transhumanist games, where most don't give penalties for getting enhanced - the focus is different. Instead of exploring the corrosive influence of development, they ask the question, "What is human, to begin with"?



-k

They've done psychological studies, actually, they're quite amusing. The results were not very flattering to the trolls, either. They found they overwhelmingly to fit into one of two piles: the pathetic who intentionally troll becuase it's one of the only ways they can feel they have any effect on the world (verbal equivalent of random vandalism); and the clueless who consider being incorrect a personal failure/insult and are thus uninterested in merit only finding any way to claim they won however obvious it is that they were wrong (including keeping on shouting until everyone else gets bored and leaves)

"Don't feed the trolls" works on the first type but not the second type. I'd have to dig up the studies to remind myself what works on the second type.

Fire.

Loosing limbs will usually be catastrophic enough to loose some essence. Taking deadly wounds are scary.

Only if you're using the Optional-Optional rule. Otherwise, no.

That's just how it is, and essence loss is totally arbitrary. It has nothing to do with *damage*, fluff-wise, unless you use those rules. Anyone is certainly free to alter the setting and rules at their table.

@Yerameyahu
The question is, what is "broken"?

That it is possible to "build" the same adept for 750+200 Karma or for 750+350 Karma I would consider broken. (Yes, it is an extrem example)