It would normally work all the time. It is only useful when you are injured. The ability should be working all the time, but not doing anything useful when you are uninjured.

Nope. Attributes are stressed and have wound effects, they do not take damage. Damage is either Light, Moderate, Serious, or Deadly.

~J

regeneration is already limited in that it can't affect you if you're not injured. you can't take this limitation twice.

additionally, the "stress without injury" thing doesn't work. attribute stress is defined as damage to the body; any damage to the body is an injury.

My argument is that it does. Just that it has little to no practical effect! There is no limitation to Regeneration, that I can recall apart from it not being able to heal Drain. Just that it has little to no effect on someone with no injuries.

If you don't believe me, this is freely available for download on the official SR website.

Only damage is mentioned. Therefore the operative word is damage. Is there a situation where damage(of any kind) can be inflicted without injuries? What is injury then? There are 2 types of injuries (p 125 SR3): namely Stun and Physical.

Stress is therefore damage. Injury, however, still remains Stun and Physical damage. With the advent of M & M, Injury has become a subset of Damage. Thus you can have damage while uninjured. Which the Regeneration power should heal EVEN while you are uninjured.

BTW, Wounds and Damage is also closely related but not the same. Wounds have been generally used to describe physical damage, but not Stun. However, there has been instances of wounds being used to include Stun as well.

i submit that injury and damage are used interchangeably in SR3, and are therefore the same thing.

Neutral parties can't allow geasa, only GMs can, so your point there is meaningless.

Anyways, here's some things from the definition of Geasa that affect this argument:

"a geas is a restriction an awakened character chooses..." [MITS page 31]

Your proposed geas is not a restriction, so doesn't qualify as a geas.

"Such conditions should generally break the geas about half the time" [MIST page 32]

Your proposed geas does not have failing conditions about half the time. Note that it does not say "at least half the time". Most PCs spend much more than half their time undamaged. As such, this rule, which you've been trumpeting, doesn't help you.

Now, they list condition geas that don't match the half-the-time rule, but yours isn't one of them. The limitation "must be injured" might be fine for some things, given that, but the fact that it is not a restriction, which is part of the very definition of a geas means you can't use it.

That isn't actually true. Any time a geas is unfulfilled, it is broken. A talisman geas is broken anytime you lack the talisman, regardless of whether or not you try to use magic without it.

~J

And yet, it wouldn't count against you with your Initiate Group. Only when you actually use magic without fulfilling your Geas(a) is it considered to be a Geas infringement.

Which edition of MitS are you using? The Geas/a stricture state that you must take a geas if you lose a Magic point, but it doesn't say you can't break the geas or that if you break your geas, you are violating the stricture.

By the way, I'd also like to ask another question: If there was a power that cost 8 PPs, would you allow the perfectly legal Exclusive geas? After all, no clever munchkin wordplay here.

Yep, I'd have no problems with that.

So? Geasa affects only the character's use of Magical Skills.

The important question is: Does the use of Magical Skills affect Geas? Does using Magical Skills break the geas? Unless the condition or restriction forbids your using Magical Skills, the geas is not broken if you use Magical Skills.

Translation:
Stricture - Members must be celibate
Geas - Chastity

Break geas, break stricture.

Geas - Fasting
Stricture - Members must fast
Conclusion: either members all die after a few days, or members must fast for specific days/times/periods (all _days_ of Ramadan or Lent, every Friday).

In the latter case, breaking the stricture inevitably breaks the geas, but breaking the geas does not per se imply breaking the stricture. Unless you joined the bonehead Jim Jones magical society for suicidal anorexics o'doom.


Of course, YMMV

I think the balancer here would be that most groups that either exist for more than about four weeks or aren't composed solely of people with the Nutrition spell wouldn't take permanent fasting as a stricture.

~J

but "damage" is used interchangably with "injury". you haven't yet proved that you can be damaged without being injured--the difference between damage and injury is never spelled out in the book, or even strongly implied. therefore, damage and injury are the same thing; therefore, stress is an injury. prove that SR3 strongly differentiates between "injury" and "damage", and you'll have a case. as it doesn't, you don't.

Let me quote myself to point out the wording you are basing this whole argument on:

The limitation is not "conditions should generally break the geas at least half the time". It is that the "conditions should generally break the geas about half the time." You're trying to build your whole argument around rules-lawyering the specific language of that line, but you don't match the language of the line. Being broken more than half the time and being broken about half the time are different things. Nowhere in the geas rules does it mention that a tougher geas is better. Nowhere in the geas rules does it mention that a more strict geas is better. If you want to use your power as a GM to say that that is better, then fine, but then we're hitting the fact that the GM can make any ruling they want, so the argument is pointless.

By a strict, literal interpretation of the rules, which is what you're trying for, your proposed limitation does not match the criteria you're trying to use. It says "about half the time" and characters aren't injured about half the time.

The concept of a neutral party allowing something is meaningless. They can support a rules modification, but the only people who have the authority to allow rules modifications are: the developers of the game, when acting in an official context, and the GM. Other people can discuss it, approve of it, have an opinion about it, but they can't allow it.