I was looking over the negative qualities and sensitive system jumped out at me. I was happy to see the impact for magicians and technomancers of the extra drain/fade. But what about adepts? As long as they don't take any powers like improved attribute that could potentially cause drain; there is no negative side effects.

Am I missing something or is it still the go to negative quality for min/max adepts?

Well personally as a gm if someone takes a flaw for free points that flaw will come into play in the story say making them need to get a cyber replacement or something. Sorry Hyperninja there are no replacement eyes of the appropriate type let me give you a pair of cybereyes.

hmm, forcing someone to be put into a situation where they will be forced to lose 1. Essence, 2. a point or more of Magic, 3. Lose powers equal to the magic lost strikes me as a bit vindictive & somewhat of a "F You" to the player, I would rather just outlaw it as an NQ for certain players if they have no plan to ever take cyber.

My players know a flaw needs to affect a character, and I warn someone when taking something that doesn't affect them it probably will in the future. It's not vindictive it's tough love.

Wouldn't it be simpler to just review their character & tell them to change the NQ? Personally if a GM forced me into a situation where I had no other option but to take an attack that would force me to take cyber as an Adept & cause those problems, despite having a good back story for why I have the NQ in the first place, & it makes sense to the history of the character. I would leave the table, that sounds like railroading. how would you handle someone who took an Allergy & ended up in a place where they would rarely come upon the allergy? in some cases those can be free points as well.

It's a negative quality. It's supposed to be a negative, at least at some point. If it isn't, then it's pointless. People have done this a lot with things like "Incompetence: Pilot Anthroform" when they're a mage. It happens. That said, if the GM can work it into the story where they need to use it, bonus. If not, it sucks. If it's unrealistic, then a GM is free to go "Pick something relevant."

So basically yeah, it's free points if your GM doesn't catch it and/or doesn't find a way to make it relevant in the game.

Well If a player takes an addiction, the addiction will come into play, if a player takes hunted it will come into play. If someone takes a flaw it comes into play it is not railroading. iin shadowrun these injuries do happen and can be resolved quickly. I don't see banning a flaw but when a gamemaster says are you sure you want to take that and you say yes you should expect it to come up.

It also would be rather simple, to talk to the player and have him either pick a power with drain, or change the quality. Personaly, I would abstain from forcing essence loss on a character.

What edition was it where getting injured actually had mechanics for loss of limb?

They should bring that back

If a player doesn't listen to the standard gamemaster "Are you sure" and "Are you REALLY sure?" They deserve what they get. Honestly if they take it as points it will probably come into play.

I never understood the complaint against this flaw. It is a penalty whether you have cyber or not. For mages packing as much awesome as possible into 1 essence is important and this limits that maybe limiting that to the point thyey don't choose to take any ware. That is a limit and a fairly good one. If you force people to take ware its not a 12 point flaw anymore its more like a 30 point flaw. In 5e the flaw is something no one will take outside adepts and quick pure mundane no ware detective types. Honestly its almost the waste of ink level IMO as I doubt enough people will consider it a viable option.

Personally? I don't much like outlawing elements if I can avoid it - but I don't mind letting people make informed decisions. Generally didn't see too much issue with this one in SR4, though - in SR5, might be a different story.

Once taken, the Quality already affects the character. If he does have implants, and he does not want to deal with the effects of the quality, then he would not take certain powers. If he does not want to deal with the effects but yet want to have those powers, he should not take any implants. As a GM, if a character has this quality, I know I am not likely to have to deal with any combos that may arise from cyber-magic interactions and if he does, then the effect of the quality will kick in.

Therefore IMO, taking the quality already limits the character and therefore it is not "free", even if he is an adept and does not take any cyber.

I gave my recent rebuild a minor Allergy to salt water, however he will be based in an area that is primarily in the desert, however its built into his background that he chose to live in the area he's in because of his Allergy (I had to modify a ton on him since the old ones he had are non-existant for now). However if a GM suddenly started pummeling me with things causing me to be in salt water, I would immediately ask for an increase in Karma to reflect the increase in frequency of meeting the Allergy.

Well if salt water is nowhere to be found then it wouldn't be a flaw worth points however uncommon occourance means it doesn't happen often so perhaps once in a while it will occour but thegm shpuldn't move you to the beach and say it's still uncommon there has to be a balance. So perhaps you end up at the lair of the big bad who happens to have a salt water aquarium, it's not going to happen often but for it to be worth the points it might happen.

Or shoot-outs in a hospital or clinic... Saline Solution is... salt water after all.

Isn't that kind of the point? It was easy to go through 4th edition with every character having vendettas against their level 4/5 enemy and the worst case scenario would be that the enemy that you dreamed up never comes into play.................

I like the fact that I can read a negative quality and that it isn't a no-brainer. I would have to read the adept powers but in general this seems like a no-brainer (raising attributes was never worth doing in 4th ed anyway). That makes it fairly banable for adepts IMO.

@Allergies
I totally dislike the idea of making common or uncommen dependend on how often the char might see it. Because you can't tell.
Saltwater is very common on the planet so it would be a common allergy.
Yeah, there might be circumstances in which the character never sees any salt water in his days of running. Lucky for him.

I can't say I agree with that - aspects of commonality should be specific to the campaign. An uncommon allergen could just as easily be common in one campaign.

So what, it would be just a few points you would gain. The point is, you can't prevent it.
What is to do if the conditions change? It means in the end by buying the allergy you get to decide where to play. Thats nearly a positiv feature.

Adepts, btw, can suffer Drain for certain abilities, and one of them is actually a rather strong and popular one: Attribute Boost. Adrenaline Boost isn't taken as often, but it's still decent. I'm also sure down the line, Adepts will get an option for more abilities that happen to have Drain attached. Attribute Boost is a cheap alternative to the attribute increase. For 1 PP, someone can, say, raise their Agility from 6 to 7. Or for 1 PP, they can grab Attribute Boost: Agility at 4, and when they roll Magic+Attribute Boost rating, and they increase their attribute up to a limit of how many hits they get, and it lasts for hits x 2 combat turns(so it can last awhile when it comes down to it.) You take Drain equal to the level of the power after it runs out; so an Adept with Sensitive System will indeed take extra Drain.

With edges and flaws, yeah, it can be a convenient way to free up some points you have things like deckers (pre-4e, when the assumption was you wouldn't go on-site much) taking pacifist or Allergy: Sunlight and then never leaving their batcave. Or people taking a bunch of minor allergies (which net no actual side effects roll wise). Specifically for awakened characters, the cyberware allergy flaw had a smaller increase in points, because you already had a great incentive not to take any cyberware.

In my book, if players are taking a minor flaw or two to squeeze in that last whatever, I would poke them with the flaw from time to time, but not really make a deal out of it. IF they are taking flaws that are basically gimmies (according to a normal shadowrunning environment) or massive flaws like criminal SIN, or severe allergy: pollution, or amnesia, then we are going to need to talk about them, and structure the game in a way that they will come into play. If the player isn't interested in that, well, they shouldn't be taking that flaw, then.

If a character forsakes an entire route of advancement, how exactly is this disadvantage not already in play?

Considering how powerful you can make hybrid (cybered adepts) I'd say the Negative quality IS Valid.

Yes.. it is free points, but you get those in return for being pidgeon holed to never take cyber while other adepts might benefit quite heavily on loosing a little magic once in return for much greater powers.

With initiation you can get magic back to 6+ anyway, you make a one time loss of 35 karma but GAIN a way to use those otherwise useless money that your Sam friends always ask about when you normally only care about max karma.

It is a flaw, it is always in play for any rich adept starved of karma. It hurts all the time to sit on 500k nuyen but no useful way to spend them.

It exists as an Optional Mechanic in SR4A (See Augmentation, Severe Wounds).
It also existed in SR3, IIRC...

This right here. It imposes a Limit that will have an impact, irregardless of whether the character ever gets any Cyberware. *shrug*

You know, his blood is essentially salt water...

I'd just laugh at the allergy in this case and tell him to try again. Has he perhaps considered:

Peanuts
Bee/wasp stings
Dogs
Cats
Pollen
Mold
Wheat
Hairspray
Deoderant?

People pick the strangest allergies in this game.

even more painful, not only does it ding you for taking cyber, it means you can never ever take bioware, period. that's pretty painful.

and as has been mentioned, some of the adept powers that have drain costs are really quite good too.

Only if he would normally take cyberware. The cybermage is a rarity in my experience. Gear is good enough that cyber isn't a high priority, as it hurts a mage's Magic.

So, Freebie in most cases.

I'm of the Champions ™ persuasion: If it's not a disadvantage, you don't get points for it. No-one is forcing you to take a disad. If you take it, expect it to come up.

mages get screwed by the quality just fine. a risk of increased drain any time they use magic is non-trivial.

it's only adepts that might get away lightly, and even then only if they don't want cyberware, bioware, or any of the adept powers that offer significant benefits at low cost in power points but have drain costs.

Flaws that aren't really flaws, such as "Code of Honor vs Killing Awakened Hamsters" are generally disallowed. Or things like "Allergy to Alcohol" + "Code vs Drinking Alcohol" etc

Actually I would give a few points for the Code vs Drinking Alcohol, unless they were of a faith already forbidding it.

As one who has drank in the past but does not now (never cared for the taste, can always taste the alcohol element itself and high metabolism burns off any buzz fairly fast so rarely got to enjoy it), it is interesting to see how people react when you do not drink. It actually makes many people uncomfortable and defensive to be around said person as well as making them ask loads of questions that they wouldn't ask if say I said I do not eat Mayonnaise.

Why don't you drink?

Is it a religious thing?

Did you have a drinking problem?

And such. Never would it cross their minds that one might voluntarily choose not to drink or actually dislike drinking. Now substitute the word Mayo for drink and think of how silly those questions sound.

Now you might say, but that is not a limitation, but I could argue that it can add a social limitation in some circumstances.

I have been in some RL situations where NOT having a social drink sets you as an outsider (and in one case being accused of being a cop, though as far as I was aware there was nothing going on illegally at the time to warrant their concern.), especially with the rougher elements like your gangs, bikers and other macho driven roles.

There's this old idea that someone who doesn't drink doesn't trust themselves when they're drunk, and that if they don't trust themselves hwy should you? Goes back at least to the 50's. Probably a mostly subconscious thing, but that may be where it's coming from.

There is a difference in a disadvantage being a disadvantage and to a disadvantage being so that pretty much no one takes it.

Some things might be a no brainier for a character but still be a disadvantage. In 4e sensitive system was a disadvantage for mages, sure less of one than for street sams but no street sam owuld take it unless they wanted to be virtually a pure bio-sam. It is sort of like is prejudice a disadvantage if you were going to role play a racist anyways? Isn't that free points you are just getting points for being the douche you were going to be anyway, Mages can get a lot out of cyber/bioware even if it does cost them a point of magic, they are less optimized than if they did take it hence it was always a disadvantage. It is no less of a disadvantage than for someone who wanted to play an unaugmented mundane detective etc. the 4e version was fine, the 5e version removes the people who would entertain the idea of taking it in 4e but were disadvantaged and shortens the list to pretty much adepts and people who never want augmentations and aren't magically active.

I have a similar alcohol issue and as such I very rarely partake. That said, I always managed to avoid awkwardness by telling them that they needed to drink to catch up to my sober mentality,