A shaman in my game ran afoul of a nosferatu's compulsion power and long-story short, is now missing a right eye and has a seriously damaged left one. The player is interested in attaining a replacement eye(s) but is wary of using anything that leads to essence loss. According to augmentation, cultured and Type-O organs do not require anti-rejection measures and can be implanted without a cost to essence.

When I look on p.127 of Augmentation, it lists the prices for Type O and Cultured eyes. My question is, given that Type O is cheaper and more quickly available than culturing bioware from your own genetic profile, what is the advantage to getting cultured bioware at all? Not trying to say its an error; just trying to see if there's anything we've missed.

Isn't cultured grown from your own tissue and such? It could be a comfort thing, rather than having someone else's eye, you have your own, ya know?

Yes, it's a minor difference (though note that Type O is only for normal metahumans). Also, your cultured organs are useless organleggers, hehe.

It's not an error, it's fluff. Not everything is a crunch advantage.

This, pretty much. "Cultured" basically means "cloned/grown from your own cells" when referring to organs; when referring to bioware, "cultured" means "grown using your own genetic material".

The only real advantage is just the fact that it's going to have less of an impact on your holistic health when you replace an organ with one cultured from your genetic profile rather than accepting one that's been grown from the universal donor profile (Type O blood) and not quite as suited to your body.

Also, logically speaking, Type O replacements should be readily off-the-shelf-able. Cultured stuff will take a while to grow (unless you're rich enough to keep a series of brain-dead clones in the vats 24/7).

The time-honoured tradition of nitpicking requires me to remind you of retina scanners. Just continue please!

Oooh that's a good point, I didn't even think of retina scanners, though having Type-O vs cultured could be useful for different applications, especially in the shadows. You'd have to scrutinize the Type-O eyes to make sure they're not linked to a crime spree or something...

we went through something like this recently.

Regardless of your mages preferences, I believe that genetherapy holds a catch-all solution to not losing essence, and therefore magic.

Augmented healing with Cellular Repair (Augmentation pg 88) addresses this sort of healing, and Revitalization also redresses "restoring" of lost essence left by cyberware (same page). Augmented healing specifically mentions "restoring attribute loss due to severe physical trauma," but I believe this refers to physical or mental attributes.

However, something to keep in mind if you docked him essence for the maiming: unless you are willing to SEVERELY bend rules with the above mentioned Cellular Repair and restore his Magic, the regeneration of essence lost does not restore magic. Assuming you have deducted essence for his loss of eyeballs, he would still have to repurchase his magical attribute with karma. In this case, he may want to consider cyber-eyes. Per augmentation rules, cyberware paid for with essence DOES add its bonuses for magical effects. This would give him a bonus of vision enhancement and allow the use of vision magnification with spellcasting, because its paid for with essence. He could then buy back his magic through initiation, costing only 13 karma more if he hasn't initiated yet.

If you did not reduce his essence, then any implant, bioware or cyberware, will reduce his essence count, and his best bet sticking to cannon rules is still genetherapy.

but identical twins don't have identical retinas, so there's no guarantee that a cultured replacement will be the same just because it's generated from your genetic stock

Yes if "cultured" is just "made rom your own genes".

Genetech is much more interesting if you can do "from your own genes, grown up just like you". Where "just like you" is "we calculated the necessary inputs to physically go from your genes to you specifically."

From what I understand, normal (meta)human clonal body parts do not reduce essence. Only enhanced or modified organs do. If an African shaman gets a Caucasian replacement arm, they still maintain their essence, even if the arm looks off for them, because they are still fundamentally human with all human parts. Many people are willing to pay extra to have cultured clonal replacement parts just to keep everything uniform.

AFAIK, Ryu, there are no rules for transplanting other people's retinas in SR4. *shrug* If you want to beat a biometric, you have to use the options given.

Yes, we're talking about replacement body parts, which all cost 0 Essence; no effect of Type O vs. Cultured.

Interesting though there aren't really rules for that. I would disagree, because a replacement organ from another person requires immune-suppressants to prevent graft-vs-host disease in life. The incompatibility inherent in a transplant is what causes rejection. That sounds like invasive to me, which is the quoted reason for essence loss in bioware. Type O implants and cultured implants don't have that problem, but at that point what you have done is grow a replacement. Cultured identical replacements are the exact same process as Augmented Healing: regrowing what you lost. Potato, potato...

In this case, Type O replacements should work just fine. However, I believe essence loss would normally have already occurred anyway during the maiming. Malbur hasn't mentioned that specifically, but the book does suggest essence loss with body-part loss, which is a constant fear of mages and adepts. If this has happened as normal, then genetherapy is the only way to restore the essence, or they can just roll with cyber replacements for the above listed benefits.

If essence loss did not occur because the GM is nice, then it doesn't matter if they replace with Type O, or get Augmented Healing (which amounts to the same thing as cultured replacements, the only difference is where they grow).

Not under the basic SR4 rules. You'd have to use an optional variant of the optional Severe Wounds rules for this to happen.

You're right; we use that rule often enough I forget it's optional.

That being the case, as stated, replacements that are Type O or cultured shouldn't matter then.

I would agree that if you had your own retinal pattern on file they would be able to replicate it, but my instinct would be that the pattern would be at least somewhat environmentally-dependent and somewhat stochastic, so absent knowing what to shoot for, you'd be stuck with whatever came out of the petri dish

Doesn't matter, new eyes will have a different pattern in either case.

It's an important consideration to be sure regarding whether or not the replacement eye will match up to whatever might be on file. This conversation answers most of my questions, thanks.

I can imagine this character being forced to close one eye whenever he's taking a ret scan. A lot of them are probably single-eye scanners anyway.

From what I understand, the fluff on essence loss is that it comes from losing your (meta)humanity. The most common way to lose essence is obviously 'ware, as it makes you something other than what you were, you are changing yourself to something more/less than metahuman. Heavy abuse to your body, be it through drugs or disfiguring injuries can also lower essence as it is likewise destroying your humanity. Drugs destroy your mind and body, and the shock of a major disfiguring injury can lower your sense of self and your humanity.

Getting a normal clonal replacement limb is changing you really. In fact it actually is, to a point, restoring you back to your image of metahumanity. Even if your human is Scottish with an Asain type 0 left arm, and a Latino type 0 right leg, their parts are still all human, which makes them a human. Those cybereyes are not human eyes however, which lower your essence.

And, as it seems, old eyes too, although they get there slowly: Nature on changing irises

Wouldn´t a combination of GeneTech and NanoTech permit me to have someone elses eyes? A true, as good as the real thing replica?

Are you asking in SR4 or 'in theory'? Retinal Adjusters say they directly 'rework' the retinal pattern, but they only give an opposed test. Retinal Duplication is 'almost perfect', same test.

I was asking if theory said "no" so clearly that SR should not allow it either (without using magic). Rule of cool says it works, and I assume it can be made to work in praxis. "How hard can it be?"

*shrug* Rule of Rule says it doesn't, and pretty clearly implies that it's beyond the available technology (nanotech). As others mentioned, cloning and genetech shouldn't really have any effect, so nanotech is the only game in town.

Well there is a product in the SR3 book under cyberware:

In SR4A...

Well, one tastes like "I Can't Believe It's Not Spam", and the other tastes like the real thing.

...

What?

Been a rough week CanRay?

Lot longer than a week.