Just curious how some people feel about essence costs and how many have houseruled back in the reduced ess costs when mixing Bio & cyber or just apply different costs for Awakened.

I don't think the Essence cost of 'Ware should be altered, but what I think should be done is that there should be a max cap of number of Initiations. Just like any attribute, it should be 1.5 times your Essence. This makes it cost prohibitive for mages to get a lot of 'Ware.

The only thing I'd change back is the discount to the lower of the values of either bio or cyberware

As I've said, we've already ditched Essence for non-Awakened characters. 0 Essence = 0 Magic, not death. So our SR world is part Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, with fully cybernetic bodies being semi-common. They count as Highly-Processed Objects for purposes of magic resistance, not living beings (the only still-living part of their bodies is their brain).

We're playing mostly 4th ed (with the best bits from 5th ed as house rules) so we haven't had much issue with essence costs. The awakened usually (OK, always) limit themselves to a single essence point worth of cyber and bioware and then work on saving enough to get higher grade stuff (beta and delta) if they want to add more. The non awakened just pack the stuff in until they hit around 2.5 essence left and then start the upgrade path. No one has expressed any interest in playing cyborgs though we did have one player play an awesomely creepy AI.
What are others running into that they feel that essence costs need to be adjusted? Too many awakened/cyber adepts?

Bingo, same here.


We actually have a house rule that if your only piece of cyberware is a Deltaware commlink (or datajack), you can have it for free, Essence-wise. But you have to stick to just that.

I think I'm going to try this for my next SR5 campaign. The last one turned into MagicRun pretty fast and augs just can't keep up.

I would almost consider that one if it weren't for the fact we use Chummer. I've already modified the software enough to deal with the house rules we have without trying to figure out how to add that little exception.

I think the Essence issue takes care of itself if you lower (nuyen) prices for most augmentations in SR5. Encourage/enable players to be taking custom chrome with lower Essence costs, and you're de facto lowering the Essence rate, but also letting them feel badass with their beta-grade stuff, etc, etc.

Binary, how many Initiations did the players go through? Just curious.

I know for me, the most I have ever seen in a game was 8 Grades of Initiation, and that was for an Adept in a 2nd Edition Game.
Our Current 5th Edition game has an Adept at 6 Grades of Initiation.

Our group runs at a higher power level, so our starting points (and we use Karmagen exclusively), are double normal. Core Rules starting points are 400 BP, or 800 KP, so we're already at 1,600 KP from the start. If I'm playing, I make sure to start as an Initiate, so that I can have Flexible Signature and Masking, which are beyond critical for a mage.

Or, you know, you scrub your signatures religiously.

Not always time. Better to always know you've never any behind, anywhere.

Sure, eventually...

Depends on the player. The Mages were at 4-5 by the end of the campaign, and the Phys-ad at 3.

The interesting thing to note is that Initiation is the sole thing either caster spent Karma on advancing.

My Last Mage (4th Edition) had 4 Initiations at the end of the campaign. Most of his Karma went into expanding his spell selection. Spent 305 Karma (61 Spells) just on that.

Then my idea needs to be refined. I was trying to limit the amount of MagicRun, but if players don't spend Karma on raising Magic, then my idea doesn't work.

OK how about this everyone: A Mage may only initiate 6 times, but for every point of Essence lost he loses the ability to initiate twice. For Example, Compass the Combat Medic Mage has two Essence points lost due to cyber/bio. He can now only initiate twice due to the damage to his aura caused by 'Ware.

Personal Opinion here KCKitsune, but I really do not see a need for the limitation of Initiation or Submersion grades for Awakened/Emergent characters. I am trying to understand your position here... can you explain it a bit more in detail as to why you seek to implement such a change? Is it just because it allows some characters potential unlimited advancement (Awakened/Emergent) while others are capped out (Cyber/Bio/everything else)?

While on paper it looks horrible to have a character with a potentially unlimited advancement path, I have yet to actually see that particular path be the issue within the game itself (In fact those who pursue Delta Grade Implants tend to have more extreme characters in my experience). Theory crafting does not equal in-game experiences. Yes, it MAY be a problem with 1000+ Karma gained in play, but even at the higher level games, I have yet to see a character with Initiate/Submersion Grades much beyond 6-8. It is especially irrelevant in that there ARE controls already in the game world to hinder these types of characters from becoming all powerful (though I admit I do prefer the way Background Count worked in SR4 to that over SR5), controls that do not hinder the non-Awakened/Emergent at all.

+1 from Me
(except for the last sentence. I consider SR5 Background Rules as easier to learn than the on from 4A )

HougH!
Medicineman

I agree.
I've played an awakened character to 900+ karma and still didn't break 6 grades of initiation. His magic attribute got quite high (9) but not higher than any cybered character's agility or reaction. It just gets to a point where that next grade or next magic point costs too damn much to bother with. The return on investment isn't there anymore. That limits the awakened as much as lack of essence limits the non-awakened.

And yet we keep hearing about broken character that mainly mages. I was just trying to balance out the mundanes and the magicals in such a way so that Mundanes don't feel like second class citizens.

If you guys think that Karma rewards are the limiting factor, then I will acknowledge your superior experience.

Honestly, the biggest issue for broken Mages is that they are so flexible. The only job they can't replace with a few karma in learned spells is decking, and even then there's the Mind Rape Button to get a decker to do it for them.

Clever players can always be a challenge, especially when given the diverse toolset of a mate. But I think a lot of the cases of mates out dicing everyone are due to sustained spells, and those can be dealt with in part with regular use of mana barriers and periodic use of background count.

(Note than in fifth, teams of low magic attribute mages can work together at ward making (and other rituals) quite effectively. All those other of the awakened 1% can now get jobs making life difficult for the more powerful mages. There is no excuse for any target site not to have wards over the main entrances and sensitive locations. Put watcher spirits inside the wards as another layer and suddenly running around with sustained spells becomes a liability a lot of the time.

A clever mage player will still keep you on your toes, but it is less crazy.

The character I created for 4th and 5th edition was a combat medic mage with 2 Essence points of cyber/bio. One of this things I got for both characters was the Synaptic Booster.

Yeah, I know I could sustain a spell and get the same benefits without loosing Essence, but the Booster is ALWAYS there, is damn hard to detect, isn't bothered by Background Count, and finally doesn't trigger wards.