I am usually pretty good with rules, but am having trouble understanding physical adepts who install bioware. What is the bio or essence cost? Is it 2 points of bioware reduces magic rating by 1? Is an adept able to geas this loss and still use the lost ability when able to comply with the geas?

The confusion is page 78 Man and Machine it says that, "Geasa cannot be used to counteract a Magic Rating modified by bioware"

So what level of adept abilities could a PC use if he had a Synaptic Accelerator level 2 and a level 2 Orthoskin implanted, as an example? Both have bio indexes of 1. And can he geas the 1 point of magic loss?

That has been superseded. Bio index is now halved and subtracted from Essence when calculating magic loss.

~J

Which is an optional rule subject to GM approval. Personally I'd allow it for a little bioware but once you start putting serious amounts in you go back to the Man & Machine rules.

Thanks, can you direct me to what book that is in, Kagetenshi? Or is it errata somewhere?

Just to be sure I have it correct, the above example would cause an actual essence loss now of 1 point. Since it is an essence loss, a magic loss must be rolled for upon installation surgery? And it can be geased as for installing cyberware?

And further if you are unlucky the surgery could make the bio index go over what is listed in the book?

OK, thanks.

So, the geas counteracts the magic loss. If you had both those biowares installed your bio index would be 1, which reduces your magic rating. But with a geas on the magic loss you would still be able to have a level 6 adept power, right? Assuming you were not an initiate. Or would your highest adept power be dropped to a 5?

While for filling the geas you can have a power at 6, but if you break it, it caps at five. Thus if you can you want to geas the 6th lvl of any powers.

Let's try this. You start off with Essence 6.00 and Bio Index 0.00, giving you an initial Magic Attribute of 6.

You now go and install a Trauma Damper (0.4 BI) and Enhanced Articulation (0.6 BI). This gives you a Bio Index of 1.00. With the errataed rules, you cut your Bio Index in half, giving us 0.50, and subtract that from your Magic Attribute, giving us a Magic Attribute of 5.50. This is then rounded down to 5. As an adept, you lose one Power Point worth of powers as normal.

Now you want to counteract that magic loss so that you can hold on to that adept power. You select your geas and apply it to the 1.0 points worth of power(s) you would have lost. Your Magic Attribute is now 5(6) and you still have all six power points worth of powers -- albeit one that requires you to fulfill the obligations of whatever geas you selected.

Does that help at all?

Makes sense, thanks for the help...everyone.

I did not know that the patient could choose surgery positives and negatives? Of course I never paid much attention to it.

I hope this question helps someone else and I am glad there is a forum to get an almost instant rules clarification. You guys are cool.

I'm currently in Minneapolis whilst my books linger at home, so I can't quote you the section, but I believe technically the chirurgeon chooses the positive/negative option. However, that typically ends up with the player picking the options.

And we're glad to be of service.

~J

It's in the very back of the Surgery chapter in M&M. Basically, you can buy surgical options as edges and flaws. See the section for the exact mechanics behind them.

Optional in that it's errata. That doesn't really make it anymore optional than any other rule found in the sourcebooks... but some people choose not to use the errata (let alone the FAQs), so that makes it "optional" in that respect.

Adding half bio index to essence loss to calculate total magic loss was an optional rule given by the FAQ until the errata posted earlier.

~J