The behavior you are describing is called Cyberpsychosis in SR4.

It only occurs at Essence levels lower than 1. The mechanical effect in SR4 was to suffer -2 dice to all Social Tests, and to suffer GM determined negative effects on Social Test glitches and critical glitches. Now in SR5, merely by dipping down to a still respectable Essence of 3, you automatically drop your Social Limit by one point? That's insane. That's pretty much equal to -3 dice to all social tests now, for an utterly average amount of Essence and without even the justification or extra 10 BP reward of taking a Negative Quality!

As for the topic of reduced prices on Alpha/Beta/Delta 'ware, others have already brought up the fact that Delta clinics have long been essentially impossible to gain access to, but what no one seems to have touched upon is that reduced prices for higher grades of 'ware, when combined with the loss of the old mixed cyber/bio half-of-the-lesser discount, means that not only are purely augmented characters able to fit less 'ware into their bodies overall, but also that they're going to hit their max and be unable to advance as characters much sooner.

Previously, buying a whole suite of deltaware was a longterm goal that you were able to work toward over the course of a lengthy campaign. It gave you a way to keep progressing your character, since you can't just Initiate over and over and over and over and over like your mage buddy can. But these new changes make Deltaware more available, and yet less powerful. You're going to NEED Deltaware to even begin to compensate for the loss of potential power that the mixed cyber/bio half-of-the-lesser discount afforded you.

And now being able and expected to waltz into just any Delta-grade clinic in the world? That completely fails to mesh with all prior world lore. Delta-grade is bleeding edge. It's controlled by the AAA's, and only available from their private executive clinics, of which only about a dozen or so exist woldwide. You're a fragging SINless criminal - unless you're deeply in bed with someone like Damien Knight (something that would only happen late in a long campaign anyways), you're never seeing the inside of one of those clinics unless you get captured and unwillingly experimented on.

~Umi

@Umidori

That depends on the base essence costs of ware is. If it remained unchanged... Yeah, that would be nasty...


That sounds not good, I agree. Espacially if mages have still this "slap on the wrist" punishment for getting ware. So an 2.99 points of ware adept (if build correctly) gets punished less for taking ware than a 3.99 points of ware SAM. Yeah, that would really sound like magicrun. But I hope they changed the essence loss rules according to magic, too.

I'm actually not sure if Essence gets rounded up or down for purposes of Social Limits.

~Umi

Money first, people! Then ask questions later.
Honestly, this part I have no problem with. I had always kinda wished Shadowrun would explore the social and psychological implications of turning yourself into a cyborg. It would have been a really cool nuance. I mean, having a datajack might be cool. Having Molly Millions style mirrored cybereyes might get you a few weird looks and shaken heads just like stretched piercings do these days. But knives coming out of the back of your robot arm? Armor plates integrated between the layers of skin on your torso? Could freak out that cute little corporate secretary you picked up at the club when you get her home.

The problem is, at this point, it's just another thing that's reducing the appeal of playing such characters. The capabilities of magic have continued to improve (even if some people think it's been scaled back, that's only from the ridiculous heights magic got to late in 3rd Edition onward). The capabilities of cyberware have declined. Conceptually, Shadowrun got off the rails at some point. The Adepts were probably the biggest offenders in this realm. When Shadowrun mages were the equivalent of D&D wizards back in the early days, there was some balance to it. They had a lot of power, and could do a lot of neat things, but there were limits. Once you could do just about everything a cybered character could do, and without having to glow in the dark during security screenings, the cybered character began to lose his place in the universe.

Shadowrun: Where Man Meets Magic and Machine. The problem is, Magic beat up Machine and rendered him obsolete. That might be fine in another universe where the cybernetic people were the story's antagonists and the players were heroes with magical powers which gave them an edge, it might make sense. The +10 nature of magic using characters, without many, if any, true disadvantages means all the little -1s on cybered characters is making them increasingly irrelevant in their own universe.

Though, Stick N Shock getting nerfed is a good thing. That had to be one of the most fundamentally stupid ideas ever, lol. Supersonic mini-capacitors that could withstand near-instantaneous deceleration and then use prongs (apparently) made of that Unobtanium shit from Avatar which would not only not deform, but also then be able to deliver a sustained electric charge.

I'm in the camp that states if 'ware is going to impose social modifiers, so should magic. After all, "Fear The Night", right? Mages are just as bad as Infected - just as dangerous, just as exotic (same percentage of the population), and they're both the products of magic. That guy is wearing a Talisman! Is he one of those crazy magic-users I heard about on the news? Or maybe he's a vampire! I'd better call Knight Errant just to be safe. Oh, and I should also mention that vaguely Native American guy over there, because who doesn't remember the Great Ghost Dance, amirite? Magic! It's everywhere, hiding in the shadows, waiting to strike! Help! Help!

I say just give us situational dice pool modifiers instead. A street sam in a razor bar should be right at home, while the shaman decked out in talismans and robes should be given the cold shoulder. Likewise, the same shaman should feel right at home in an awakened bar, while the chromehead should be getting ugly looks and muttered curses.

~Umi

Hear hear

In fairness, SnS still exists and still has the same in-game explanation, it's just no longer so ridiculously good.

Yeah, but it's easier to ignore when it isn't flying out of every gun that ever rolled off the shelf. The most offensive part about SnS was that not only was it brain-numbingly impossible and impractical, but it was also pretty much standard equipment.

SR4 was too heavily geared toward Stunning your enemies out of commission rather than using lethal force on them.

Since physical damage was unpredictable (could be Phys, could be Stun due to armor), it was much easier to just gear everyone to deal Stun damage -- Stunbolt mages, SnS gunners, concussion grenades, etc.

"StunnerRun"

Um. Stick and shock exists in real life, y'know.

Yes it's only in shotgun rounds right now, but miniturization over 50 years?

That said, S&S as statted out was really TOO good. The idea is sound, the numbers were too large.




-k

Stunning instead of killing has always been a good idea for in-character reasons.

And in-character reasons are why it should be an option. Not because it is so massively efficient that there's no reason to use real lead.

It should still be mostly ineffective against armored targets. Anything powerful enough to breach the armor should carry a whopping amount of energy to the squishy part behind it.

Yeah, sure, it exists in real life, if by that you mean there's a sorta-of equivalent that functions not at all like Stick N Shock, but instead by converting a shotgun into a taser by fitting a small capacitor to a low velocity round with a range of around 30m which travels slow enough that you can watch it in flight (~260 f/s). XREP works like the Yamaha Pulsar. You know, like a Taser with self contained capacitors and a ridiculously short range.


It's not the miniaturization that's the problem. It's literally miniaturizing it, and then making it structurally sound enough to withstand the impact without fragmenting. People weren't loading SnS into shotguns. They were loading it into assault rifles, lol. In order to have around 500m of effective range, the round from an M16 leaves the barrel at 3,110 f/s.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/421287..._6774d9c7cc.jpg

Now, that's from hitting something goopy and soft like a person and going through it. Instead, SnS functions by complete deceleration to 0 f/s and applying itself to the exterior of a target without doing this: http://firstdefense.com/html/imageDBN.JPG

Don't hurt your brain trying to figure out how that works. Retro-rockets? Magic? Some shit like that, lol.

Modifiers for looking threatening or just not fitting in are a different beast from modifiers because your soul is diminishing...

Up. And then, after doing the Limit division, you also round that up. A dude with a 6 Charisma, 6 Willpower, and 0.01 Essence has a Social Limit one lower than someone with the same stats and a 6 Essence.

I can't tell if you're simply being obtuse, or defensively disingenious with those numbers. How about someone with reasonable Charisma and Willpower? Say... more like 3 and 4?

(3 + 3 + 4 + 6) / 3 = 5.3, round to 6
(3 + 3 + 4 + 1) / 3 = 3.6, rounds to 4

And let's calculate a few middle-essence values as well.

(3 + 3 + 4 + 3) / 3 = 4.3, rounds to 5
(3 + 3 + 4 + 4) / 3 = 4.6, rounds to 5
(3 + 3 + 4 + 5) / 3 = 5

Remember, the actual point that I made was comparing this against a magic user with the same stats.

You're arguing that it's not so bad, because comparing two characters with maxed out Charisma and Willpower only results in a limit drop of 1 with full cyber. Yet when we use more realistic numbers for those attributes, we see that even just being moderately cybered will lose you that same 1 point of social limit, and at maximum cyberization you lose 2 points of social limit.

And my point still stands that losing a point of limit is far worse than losing 3 dice in a relevant skill pool, and that you're inflicting penalties in excess of Cyberpsychosis on characters which historically have not suffered any ill effects because of their cyberization (both in terms of game systems and rules, and in terms of in-world lore), for absolutely no reason, and they don't even get the benefit of free BP from taking a Negative Quality.

~Umi

And if we go with 4 charisma and 4 Wil you instead see

(4+4+4+6)/3 = 6
(4+4+4+1)/3 = 4.3 (5)

We can see the same thing at 2/2 if you prefer:

(2+2+2+6)/3 = 4
(2+2+2+1)/3 = 2.3 (3)


It's just a quirk with rounding error. Someone who cares about their social limit will arrange their attributes such that they get the least drop from their intended essence value, while someone who doesn't care about their social limit by definition is indifferent to it being 2 points lower.

So the math is merely inelegant because of the chosen method of calculating? I can accept that. Wouldn't be the first time in the history of this system.

However, I don't accept the reasoning behind using Essence in that calculation. It's an argument I find lacking in merit, that contradicts all prior game lore and mechanics, and that comes across as yet another needless punishment for cyberized characters on top of all the other illogical minuses they appear to be facing in the new system.

You want to punish cyberized folks with social stigmas? Fine, use situational modifiers, and be sure to give them positive modifiers where appropriate, and to also apply negative modifiers to awakened as appropriate, et cetera. That at least makes sense, and is also reasonable in the level of its severity. Losing dice in certain circumstances is understandable. Losing limit in every circumstance is just stupid.

~Umi

You can get quite a bit bigger numbers now then you could in SR4, sure now it's not that attractive for small arms as taser is a lot better, but big guns get a lot more out of S&S then they used to.

Umidori, I want you to do me a small favor, here. I want you to go back and see what post I responded to. I want you to go read my post, and see what I quoted, and see what I actually said.

I wasn't arguing anything. I wasn't saying a damned thing about your argument. I wasn't addressing your "point" at all, I was addressing a single, easy-to-answer, question that I saw.

While skimming this last page or so, I saw a fan say "I'm actually not sure if Essence gets rounded up or down for purposes of Social Limits," and I made the apparently terrible mistake of thinking "Hey, a question I can answer! I will answer this fan's question and be helpful." I'll be honest, I didn't even pay attention to who was asking it (which was clearly a mistake). In an attempt to then post more than just the word "up," I thought I'd expand upon my answer a bit and address what I remembered as a lingering concern from several weeks ago, when people were worried about cyber-Faces no longer being viable characters, so I thought I'd point out that if you've built a character for Face work (with otherwise strong social stats), they'll be fine, and basically "hey isn't that quirky how the rounding can work out in ways that isn't that bad?" Also, in another thread I'd just used the same example when folks were talking about cyber-faces as viable characters, so the numbers were fresh in my head.

So do me a favor. Look at what I said, look at what I said it directly in response to, and then look at your multi-paragraph screed full of implied insults and snark that I got in response, and ask yourself if maybe you were a little bit out of line, there. Ask yourself what you'd do if you overheard someone in real life go "I'm actually not sure what time it is," and you piped up and tried to helpfully tell them the time, and then you got something like that in response. I'm sorry I apparently wandered into the middle of your internet knife-fight, but just take a second and look at what you said, in response to what I said.

I was genuinely startled at the vehemence and vitriol of your post, since literally all I was trying to do at the time was share a little knowledge from the book and remind folks that Limits rounded up (making them easier on characters).

I had assumed you were actually involving yourself in the larger context of the conversation, not just skimming and commenting on snippets.

You did, in fact, make an argument, despite your claims otherwise. If you had merely stated that, yes, you round up, and that you also round up after dividing, then you would have been "addressing a single, easy-to-answer, question" that you saw.

However, you then went on to offer up specific attribute numbers and how they affected social limits, seemingly attempting to demonstrate that it wasn't as bad as everyone was making it out to be. Apparantly, you didn't intend to make that argument, but you gave the appearance of doing so, especially as it appeared to tie in directly with the larger prior discussion, which you apparantly weren't aware of.

That said, you're correct, I was quite snarky.

I'm frustrated and annoyed. Many other forum members appear to be as well. We have some reasonable grievances and concerns, and we'd like to see them addressed. You, personally, aren't in a position to do that. The mods aren't in a position to that. The writers and freelancers aren't in a position to do that. Who is? I really don't know. So forgive me for projecting my frustrations with Catalyst or marketing or whoever is behind all this frustration and lumping it on you.

I'm a game enthusiast. If you give me incomplete information, I will attempt to extrapolate from it. If I come to incorrect conclusions, but you cannot correct them, I will find your input to be confusing and unhelpful. The same is true of most of us on the forums. It probably would have been best if there had been no Previews at all. You and I wouldn't be having this oddly stilted discussion now, if that was the case, and neither of us would be anywhere near as frustrated and annoyed about the current situation.

~Umi

That is Not Nice.

Be Nice.

A reminder that Personal Attacks are against the Terms of Service.

Personal Attacks are using Bad Words to describe someone.

That was quite big of you to recognize this Umi. to put it perspective I have found myself quite frustrated from the opposite direction. I have been very positively optimistic about what I have seen so far. this constant dissatisfaction with what I perceive as a good system has frustrated me as well. I think there are quite a few bright intelligent people on both sides here. We may be getting blinded by our frustrations and all being a bit closed minded.

As for a recourse for your frustrations I can relate. Unfortunately for the people on your side of the assessment of the product it has likely gone to print so I'm not sure there is anything that can be done at this point. Also many of the proposed change would require days of play testing to assess.

While I come into this system optimistic I do not do so blindly. Our group supported and gave DnD4e a fully supported chance before we dropped it and we will be doing the same thing here. So far Shadowrun, regardless of its publishers has taken more steps forward than back with each edition. I am optimistic that this edition will be no different, but ultimately only time will tell.

Umidori. It fits Totally with the lore. Ever since SR1 and the things that inspired it, selling your Spirit for Chrome has had negative social impacts. They are an Internal impact. It's not about how people perceive you it's about Empathy loss, disconnect with the Living World because you're more Machine than Man. Essence on Limit for Social makes a good elegant way of address that fact of the setting without applying a new system to the social systems.

Seerow... even with 3/3/4/1 for a value of 4 I hardly think that's a bad limit given that this is meant to be an average stat line for someone who's gone for low essence as you say. So even with a skill of 6 that's 9 dice base, so on average you're not hitting that Limit except on an above average roll and when you really need it you have Edge. Pushing to a pool of 12 then you'll run into the Limit more often, but a social specced character will probabley be wary of dropping too low on the Inhuman Factor (low essence) and have say Ess1.1 and Attributes of 4. So 4/4/4/2 for a limit of 5. With a skill of 6 out the gate you've got 10 dice to try and reach that Limit. If Smartlink raising Limit of similar numbers for Guns is a waste (which i think it is as a basic function) because hitting that limit is an issue, I fail to see how the numbers provided are an issue for social situations as you'll only JUST be hitting them Some of the time.

I will attack this from the other side, for a change.

If limits are so rare as to be the exception rather than the rule, then they have failed in their design intent. It is a very, very fine line. If they are too high, they are useless... If they are too low, then they are hit consistently and are frustrating. It really is a no-win scenario. I know that for me, I am highly enthusiastic when I hit an amazing roll, and to be forced to spend Edge just to get the benefit of that roll is more than frustrating. It may not happen all the time, but I do manage to get some amazing rolls in pretty much every session, and to be punished for it is just not fun.

Your apology is appreciated and accepted. I know we're all frustrated and annoyed. Trust me.

I am against just holding a mirror to stuff. But I think if low essence impairs your social life, it should impair magic too.
I always kind of disliked the rules about essence loss from the start. Every point below your max should just reduce your effectiv magic raiting and maybe even your drain attribute by one. If you want to be nice to mages you may even round down. (Or split it every started one reduces magic every full one reduces drain resistance)
Like that the mage could not just get nearly every benefit the Sam gets at the cost of some Karma, because everybody knows that one point of used essence is worth much more than mayb 10 to 25 Karma. Espacially the first one.

Not sure if I like them or not yet Tymeaus and I hear you totally. Was neither promoting or defending the mechanic but pointing out that the difference in what essence does is noticeable, but not crippling, according to what we've been shown and told thus far.

That's what it does do Irion (at least in SR3 and from what I've seen SR5). Every Point or part there of of essence lost to Cyberware/Bioware etc reduces your Magic by 1 (okay initiation can help get that back but initiation used to be expensive and get more expensive as time goes on. Not sure what the costs are in 5.) Initiation used to take some effort too (again not sure about newer editions).

Initions+raising magic back up cost is peanuts(unless it went up significantly in SR5) compared to benefits you can get from 1 or 2 points of essence worth of ware(also not high grade ware is now significantly cheaper too)

Based on SR5 prices, assuming SR4 base item Essence costs...

Wired Reflexes R2: 80k, 1.5 essence
Move-by-Wire System R2: 212k, 1.5 essence
Synaptic Booster R2: 400k and 0.5 essence

Using delta-grade Wired Reflexes a mage can get +2 Initiative Passes, +2 Reaction, and 0.5 Essence worth of other 'ware in exchange for 2 Magic which they can replace relatively easily. Getting delta-grade Move-by-Wire instead doubles the reaction bonus to +4, gives you a further +2 to Dodge, and gives you Rating 4 Skillwires. Both at very reasonable nuyen prices.

If you decide to splurge with your nuyen, you can instead get the delta-grade Synaptic Booster for +2 Initiative Passes, +2 Reaction, Hacking Immunity, and 0.5 Essence worth of other 'ware in exchange for only 1 Magic, which is even easier to replace.

That is a TON of value.

~Umi

Thats worth shit as a limitation.

It does sound like it was cheaper and easier in SR4 Max, true. Until we see the costs (or someone shares) we wont really know how it compares (or how hard it is to do). It also depends on reward arc i suppose too, is the guideline going to be Karma per session or per Run? What will (does) that number look like? If it's a couple of points per session and the costs echo some of the older progression style then Initiation will cost you the average total of 6 sessions (or 3-4 runs from some of the old alternate options) without spending anything else or bonding Foci etc. Plus is Magic auto increasing with initiation in this edition? because the preview material only says that Max Magic increases not that your stat does... and then there was the time this used to take (days and weeks as I recall from SR3).

It's all conjecture of course until the material is available for me to see. But there are ways that make that 'ware less attractive, weather or not they're in SR5 remains to be seen.

Okay... running the Old(ish) numbers. Average Karma (by Run/Adventure as was called) was 6, exceptional (hard or awesome) Run's could push that to 10.

We shall assume a Character from Start point as our baseline for improving.

Initiation cost (Desired Grade+5)x3 for self Initiation or x2.5 for self initiation plus an Ordeal (most of which were fairly Long or harsh unless you were REALLY good in a whole bunch of fields, which cost Karma or an investment right out the gate, which is what we are assuming).

So that's 18 Karma and a time period chosen by the GM as thematically appropriate to the Character/Story for Grade 1 Initiation or 15 Karma and time chosen by GM + Time (anything from a few hours to a month or so) OR Sacrifices to other resources (or stats) from Ordeal.

The Cheaper option is to go for joining a Magical group (Taking 60days divided by Etiquette(magic) successes at TN12-Current Magic to locate first time to Join). That drops the costs to x2 (no ordeal) or x1.5 (ordeal) so 12 or 9 for Grade 1 respectively. However Groups have Strictures and Taboos etc that have to be followed else you lose the benefits of the Group (both in a mystical and, if they find out, actual way). Groups also often cost to be a part of and charge 1,000:nuyen: per grade minimum for the initiation. The time is also often longer as you perform group services during initiation instead of just self discovery but that's upto the GM.

So with the exception of a Hard run well completed and being part of a Group with an ordeal, getting to initiation 1 was a challenge. Most require 2-3 average+ runs to get the Karma. No bound spirits, no foci, no new spells, no skill increases.

Then you have the metamagic training times (and finding tutors) to add in (usually easier in the group, but that is adding usually a couple of K to your Lifestyle costs already if you're a member, so worth it) and tasks. Which you could fail at learning.

In BOTH cases you then have to wait a GM called time period between getting enough Karma to get your next Initiation grade and actually being allowed to go through spending the Karma and Initiating again.

There's a reason this takes up a chapter in the middle of Magic in the Shadows.

Now I have no idea how much that was reflected in SR4 at all and equally not a clue on how they did it for SR5.

The above, if implemented as it is in the book and not hand waved away at a table for sake of ease, was a pretty good limiter on doing silly things with Cyberware and Mages after Chargen.

So that's 18 + 21 = 39 Karma for two Initiations. Assuming maximized Magic of 6 before buying the 'ware, recouping the lost points costs you 25 karma to go from 4 to 5, then a further 30 karma to go from 5 to 6. Grand total, 94 karma for two points of Magic burned out, or a much more reasonable 43 karma for one point.

That's a fair bit of running to get all that karma, but entirely reasonable in a decent length campaign. And in the meantime, you're benefiting from some amazing boosts from 'ware straight out of character creation. With magical boosts to Initiative Passes being so much less efficient, pointwise, compared to their technological cousins, it's quite the bargain. It was that way in SR4 as well - light cyberization was pretty much standard for the Awakened, because it's just so much more efficient.

~Umi

It's more or less a notation in SR4 core and SR4A. The cost is 10+( 3 x Grade) for initiation (parentheses for those who don't MDAS order of op). P 198 in SR4A, and it doesn't list a time required to initiate. Ordeals and group initiation are covered in Street Magic in its own section (starts p 48). Ordeal and Group Initiation both each reduce the cost of initiation's base karma by 20%, round up, and they do stack for a total of 40% discount (as opposed to the mathematically expected 36% discount: 20% of 100 is 20. 20% of 80 is 16, so a 20%; math provided).

Some of the ordeals available list a minimum time required or maximum time allowed, some are permanent effects upon your character, but some are poorly worded and could, essentially, be a matter of "oh, I take an afternoon to do this and I'm up a grade," hinging on how strict or lenient the GM feels about it. Some are best avoided outright.

Also, unless your characters have pressing issues to attend to, it's ridiculously easy to have the team say "We don't do anything for the next two months while we take time for the mage to do his magical-whatsits, the rigger goes shopping for new toys, and the face goes and makes contacts."

What's the GM gonna do? Force them to go on a run? If they have the money to pay their lifestyle costs, they have all the time in the world. You get up for a slice of pizza or two while the individual players make their rolls, check their results when you get back to the table, then continue the campaign two months later.

~Umi

I would like to take it one step further. As you loose more of your soul (or however your creator defines essence), you not only become less connected to people and less able to connect with magic, but you also become less effected by magic. Basically, you gain a limited form of object resistance with essence loss.

Maybe a rank of magic resistance for every two ranks of essence lost (round up). It's a house rule I always forget to introduce at the beginning and by the time I remember people have already built their characters and we've played a few sessions. Makes the sam more resistance and is a nice boon to mundanes. Makes it harder for adepts and mages to take ware and then buff themselves, so a little ware is a bit more of a consideration.

Don't forget Umi. In SR3 Wired Reflexes R2 was 3 Essence and cost 165,000 Alpha was 330,000. Priority B Resources was worth 400K and Full Mage was priority A. That puts finding a group up to TN9 so it's going to take a while or you're only self initiating.

Magic could get silly in SR3, but you typically had a long way to go to get there (67Karma) just to get back to Magic 6 so you;re not taking Physical Drain by throwing spells that are hard to resist. Magic was appealing but mixing magic and Cyber (and Bio) was something you had to do carefully and you played for the long game. If SR5 has any of that in it (since there is more flexibility in the priority system) then HackNERPS!Cyber aside (easily house ruled anyway and maybe not as big an issue as people are worried on, waiting to see book for that) thats a fairly nice limiter for the mix.

Sorry Umi, you're way off on this. The longest REQUIRED time is 28 days, or (4 x grade) days maximum for one of them. While I agree with your time table as appropriate for ordeals, you're a harsher mistress than the RAW... tell me you have the thigh-high boots to go with it

That's up to the way the individual table plays. A Time factor is a limit a is why it exists in many RPGs. Sure the team may very well pull a quiet month or two especially early on. But as time progresses and runs rack up and their shadow-rep grows, you don't always have that luxury, people come looking for YOU and favours get called in etc. Unless you invest some effort and time in making sure you CAN get away to do those things. Of course some of it comes down to shifts in game-at-table theme. Splitting the group up in their own Roleplayed parts of the session was common enough when I started in gaming ('91-92) so every had their own mini melodrama game within the greater context which led to "side runs" for the group and a reactive world. All too often now I see many games keeping the group together in everything and anything that everyone in the group isn't immediately involved in gets faded into unassailable Downtime, wether that is a flaw in game design or Gm guides or just a shift in attitude I'm not sure.

In our case it has become a case of real life interference. the time requirements for building these intricate storylines has become larger that our leisure time. As a result the runs have become more canned. In fact our entire campaign last time I judged was the Denver arc with some side runs poached from online sources.

Something i totally understand and it's hard to squeeze that kind of thing into a 2-3hr game time block. I also obviously have no idea as to how it's all being handled in SR5 (since looking at what people have just posted about 4, I can totally see how cyber and essence loss is less the issue for a Magician or Adept). On the flip side BGC was something mentioned in MitS that seeemed to be used not as often as much as in 4th either and certainly sounded like it was meant to be rarer per rating.

But if it's there and if you use it to effect the game then usually those parts of the system (namely advancement) typically balance out along the desires. So bringing things Back On Topic. Speed and reliability (yes I know HackNERPS!) are the real advantages of a Cybered character. You can get it quicker (depending on time-cost of Initiation, Meta magic, Stat raising rules etc, but surgery for implants always used to be pretty quick compared to the magic stuff) and it's always on (depending on HackNERPS! which most of us are probably dodging anyway). Foci can do the same thing with magic but there are inherent downsides to that too that have been around longer and with the rarity of magicians in the populace stand out more.

Also that lowered Magic Stat out the gate hits your Magical dice pools making your key abilities less potent overall. 2pts of 'ware is nice and good but that drops your Max out the gate magical pools to 10 +Foci, Reagents etc. Those two dice drop that Hit average by 1 and it means anything over Force 4 will be Physical. The Street Samurai with Chrome will be typically more efficient when it comes to the fire/knife fight and benefits more from stat boost 'ware than the mage typically because Physical stats are what a Sam normally goes for over the others and uses more too.

Add to that the idea that everything should be reversable (thinking about essence loss through injuries or infected).

So if you get your essence back you should get your magic, social dice pools etc. back..

Getting over 4 hits makes the drain physical for magic for mage, force is irrelevant.

Incorrect - if the Force is only 4, hits over 4 don't count, and thus the damage does not convert. It's only when overcasting that the hits>Magic thing comes up.

If you use edge to ignore the limit, they do count and the drain damage converts.
I didn't think i would have the spell out the fact that hits over the limit obviously don't count for this either, just like they don't count for anything else.

If I read the quoted text right, it refers to "after applying the limit" - with edge, the limit is not applied. There's an argument, therefore, that using edge gets around the damage conversion.

Also, you said force it irrelevant, which is only half true.

In SR4, losing essence may have lowered your max magic, but restoring that essence did NOT raise the magic cap back up. So if you dipped in cyber/bio down to 4 Essence, it capped your Magic at 4 + Initiation. If you had the ware removed, and underwent the treatment to restore your essence back to 6, then it meant your Magic was STILL capped at 4 + Initiation. However, if you wished to reinvest in ware, you could go back down to 4 Essence again without dropping your Magic cap.

Infected were a special case; they only lost Magic rating if their essence + Initiation dipped below it (similarly for Initiation levels), and would have to buy the magic back the hard way, but their rating cap would slide freely with their essence (highest cap 6 + Initiation).

Hope that helped