OK people, I'm at work right now and I've been thinking? There is a device today that is used by eye doctors to help correct vision problems. Here is the links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intraocular_lens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intraocular_l..._contact_lenses

If you notice, the second link is for a contact lens that is implanted into the eye. You can get a "skinlinked" contact lens with vision enhancement at character gen (without Restricted gear) that has the following: Low-light vision, Flair Comp, and Image Link. With restricted gear you can add Vision Enhancement 3 and smartlink.

If you are a metahuman and don't need low-light or thermo, then you can replace low-light with Vision Magnification. There would be no change in price.

This contact lens cost? 1075 . 1075 to have a device that is implanted in the eye and I don't think it would have ANY Essence impact because it isn't hooked up to ANY nerves and because of the skinlink you would still have "DNI" capabilities. It's like having a RFID tag implanted in you, a RFID tag costs no Essence.

You could even take my idea and go a little further. Disguise a Olfactory Booster as a nose ring and skinlink it. Instant "cyberware" without any Essence loss and costs less too. Also VERY easy to upgrade to boot.

This is actually a point that has existed in Shadowrun for a while, and I think you highlight the fact that it's even easier to do so in 4th Ed. The "why get cyber when you can get gear" argument has been viable for some time. Indeed, that's what leads to the conclusion that soldiers, for example, can receive many enhancements through gear, which is reusable and cheaper and requires no surgery.

The Gear vs Cyber debate, at this point, as you illustrate, IMO basically just comes down to - do you want to take the risk of not having the gear with you? That's pretty much the only difference in many cases. Cyber is guaranteed to always be there. Gear can be lost or removed from you.

There is also the consideration that cyber can allow you to "hide" illegal mods, but that's not always an issue.

That reminds me. I need to start having characters' glasses and whatnot get knocked off sometimes in combat. You know, like when they get punched in the mouth.

One thing: Skinlink doesn't give you DNI, it allows the device to connect to other skinlinked devices, not your brain. I get what you're saying about making an inplantable contact lens, but by RAW you'd need trodes or an implanted commlink to get DNI out of the deal. Besides, RFID tags don't cost essence because they basically just sit under the surface and don't really interfere with any of your internal systems--implanting a lens into the eye sounds too invasive and too much like the retina replacement option for cybereyes to have zero essence cost.

On the other hand, a normal contact lens that connects to either an implanted commlink or a trode net gives pretty much the same result as cybereyes, with the added benefits of being both swappable and RAW, for 0 essence.

Reading about that was interesting for RL concerns. I have a daughter who will at some point need that surgery so she can have something approximating normal vision.

A Datajack (with a skinlink module as well) can be used for DNI access.

Actually, with what I was saying, you would have the lenses implanted into your eyes. Check out the second link in my original post.



OK, how would it be invasive? It's skinlinked, and NOT wired into your nervous system. That was the whole point to this. It replaces nothing, not even the regular lens in your eye.

Neither does Bone lacing.

Whatever metaphysics they espose in various editions, What causes essence loss is having something implanted or modified. Put it in a contact and wear it: zero essence loss. Implant that contact? Essence loss. A lot of it, actually, because I would rule as GM that this is the method by which eyeware is implanted when you don't get cybereyes. Remember that almost all eyeware is available as mods to your eyeball, and the metal orbs are actually more essence friendly because they have capacity.

Yup, what Pimp said.

Except bone lacing has to modify the human physiology to continue having the augmented bones produce blood cells. That's what I think causes the Essence loss.

My idea for the contact lenses is such that you don't have to modify the human body AT ALL. Literally, you don't have to remove even a single organelle. You have to have your commlink skinlinked (or implanted), but most runners would have that anyway.

Here's the thing, shoving a device into the functional part of the eye is much different than having an RFID tag (much smaller than a contact, by description) floating around underneath the skin or in the cavities between organs. Here you're actually disrupting a major organ and placing a device smack in the middle of it's inner workings--that to me reads Essence Loss.

Going back to the bone lacing, IIRC it's the bone lacing that's modified to be microscopically porous to allow new blood cells to continue being released from the marrow, because otherwise coating your bones with metal would seal the natural pores and prevent that.

Likewise, an implanted lens would have to be designed to account for the interference with normal blood flow and fluid transmission, and coated with immunosuppressants to prevent rejection. Hell, the immunosuppressants alone could account for the essence loss.

It's a neat idea--but beside all the in-game reasons the biggest problem I have with it is that it seems like a thinly veiled excuse to circumvent the rules and get cheap essence-free cybereyes. The problem with being a scientist or--god forbid--an engineer who roleplays is that it's easy for us to come up with completely reasonable ideas that would still unbalance the game. One has to keep in mind that if it could be done that easily in the game world, one of the corps R&D depts would already have discovered it.

Of course, maybe they're holding back the technology until regular cybereye profits dip.

What do you have against us engineers?

But seriously, you have a point. I can break anything if I set out to do so.

Nothing. I just recognize that our real world technical knowledge tends to eat game worlds for breakfast.

Actually, I talked with my optometrist and he said that there is no "interference with normal blood flow" as the IOL* doesn't require blood supply as it isn't organic and doesn't replace the regular lens of the eye. Also the body doesn't reject the lens because the lenses are inert. Let's face it, my idea would work... you just have to have a cybercommlink, trodes, or a datajack to control it.

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* = IntraOccular Lens

Except for the whole common sense thing that you aren't allowed to use with any edition of Shadowrun rules.

Bah, to me it still sounds like eye-mods, remember that Essence loss has never really been nailed down in Shadowrun, and now even plastic surgry costs Essence.

Huh? What do you mean?

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Actually cosmetic surgery is covered in Augmentation pg 61. What we consider plastic surgery is minor biosculpting. Moderate biosculpting costs Essence... here is what is considered moderate:



Notice ALL of those are MAJOR changes in a person. An anime idol "appearance"... that the big eyes weird, hair color look. Replacing hair with FEATHERS... Good God Ravor, that's COMPLETELY on a whole different level than plastic surgery!

Only that if you start applying common sense to any set of rules for any edition of SR (or any other RPG for that matter), the whole thing starts coming apart at the seams. The rules only exist (or make sense) inside the game world.

However, if it floats your boat, then have fun. I am NOT the fun police.

None of which should cost any Essence in my opinion...

Unless it's inserted in an area that has no blood vessels, your optometrist lied to you. Blood vessels would need to regrow around the lens in order to reconnect the tissue you now have a lens jammed in the middle of. Likewise, having a physical object where there didn't use to be one can interfere with nerves, osmosis, the clearing away of dead cells, ect. As for the body not rejecting it, SR clearly states that immunosuppressants are used when implanting cyberware, to reduce the chance of rejection. Again, it comes down to the difference between the way our world works and the way the game world works. If shadowrun obeyed the same rules as our universe, the books would double as that unified field theory physicists have been searching for.

In our world, if you had certain pieces of SR tech it could work, in the SR world, it's highly questionable--and unnessecary since you can just use regular skinlinked contacts without having to surgically implant them. There's no rules for contacts popping out in SR, so wearing them normally isn't an issue.



Especially sanding down the dermal deposits--that's like clipping toenails. Does that mean your characters lose essence if they get a pedicure?

Sorry to say it this way, but I believe my Optometrist a LOT more than I believe you. He knows how this crap works and besides even in the description in the Wiki site it says that the lens is between the iris and the regular lens. It doesn't need ANY blood vessels or blood supply or interfere with nerves.



So why not say that they can be "implanted as an IOL" and leave it at that?

I am not arguing that in RL that it can be done. But I think the major point that some of the others are trying to make is that you are circumventing all the rules laid down for Eye Cyberware for a greater reduction in both price and essence.

It is not an arguement that in real life or the game that it is impossible. But I think that if you could get the procedure done that can give you better than Delta-Grade Cybereyes for less than Alpha then it is unbalanced to the game. I personally would not allolw it in any of my games but if your the GM and want to then it is up to you. Just don't expect it to be allowed at every table.

iirc, you can get things like lowlight vision without going for a full cybereye.

so, what if that enhancement is basically a implanted lense as described on the wikipedia page?

bbb 332 for those interested...

I think the intent of the OP is to avoid the Mods all together by just planting the gear Contact lenses without paying the essense for any of the mods. Just the cost of getting the enhanced contact lenses and then a small fee to a doc for implanting them stright into the eye. Yes it may be done but I see it as a way of cheating the now existing rules on cyber enhancements to the eyes.

Of course, if I am mistaken please explain what I am missing KC. If you are trying for a different approach and I have misread then I'll admit my mistake.

Actually you should have read page 332 more closely because here is what it says about non-replacement augments to eyes:


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Actually that's exactly what I'm saying. The thing is you need some way to control the lenses... Hence the title of this thread: "Poor Man's Delta Grade cybereyes. This also doesn't include eye recording mod... you'll need a camera for that. If you don't have any DNI (trodes or Datajack) you can't control the lenses.

As for this cheating the system... not really. You have to GET the lenses and cybereyes are MUCH easier to get then a set of Availability 20 IOLs. Also if you want to upgrade your cybereyes, you go to the cyberdoc, you pop your eyes out, presto change-o, pop them back in and out the door you go. Also human mages would not be able to use the thermo or low-light to target spells. That's pretty big.

retinal modification or a new lens, i cant really say its that much of a difference functionality-wise...

one is still modifying the eye to get an ability thats not naturally there...

it seems to be a case of using fluff to get around a bit of crunch...

Ok then I will say the 20 Availability is something to consider. I would also say that any sort of vision enhancement done by the contacts would not work for a mage. I don't have the BBB on hand at the moment so I am going off memory but I think it says that the enhancements for eye cybermods only work because essence is paid.

For the contacts cosmetic changes that don't affect how the mage sees or stuff like AR would be just fine. But anything that would grant a vision modifier should prevent the mage to cast using it since no essence was paid. I think a lot of what we are getting into is somantics (sp?).

How would this come as an compromise?

1. The contacts would still be considered gear, not Cyberware.

2. They are attached to the eye in the way you described but it is more fluff than crunch so has no real in game value except that they do not fall out as easily as normal enhanced-contacts. (Which as was stated earlier that there are no real rules for that.)

In fact, the only time such an issue came into play in any game I played in was because a character critically glitched on a roll and the contacts falling out was the GM's decision to determine the results of the glitch. Thus for that character he all his vision enhancements.

3. Since they are gear all the rules for vision enhanced gear for magic use apply to these so no essence is spent.

I think that fits in with the rules and still lets you have your contacts.

(And btw KC I would like to say that I am actually enjoying the fact that this is staying a real debate and not just irrational arguements. You're rational is sound but there is just some differing opinions which is good.)

Not really. The lens is inserted into the eye and does not REPLACE the regular lens, but supplements it. There is also the control issue. If you don't have trodes or a datajack then you can't control them. Most of the time it's not a problem, but if you lose your 'Link... no control what so ever.

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Thank you. I also think it would be possible to TARGET the Lenses with a Wreck Technology as the person didn't spend any Essence on them. With regular lenses if they get Wrecked then you can take them out. With IOLs you would have to go to a surgeon to get them replaced.

Also I agree with you 100% on the idea that a Mage can NOT target people with the vision mods unless he can see them normally. You still need optical vision mag if you want to shoot them from afar, Natural low light or thermo if you are in the dark, etc. This would be for the mage who REALLY needs vision mods, but doesn't want to spend the Essence (and/or ) on it, or wants to spend it on something that's MUCH more important... like a Cerebral Booster or Synaptic Booster.

you have to be able to see something to target it with magic. which means that any damage done to the lens inside your eyes by magic is going to be done by indirect combat spells which will first have to destroy your eyes, which renders the destruction and necessary surgery for replacement of said lens rather a moot point when placed next to the destruction and necessary surgery for replacement of your eyes.

Where is Wreck Technology found? I looked thru the books I have and don't see it. I would like to know the phrasing RAW before I can comment on it.

If it is what I assume it is, (A spell that physically destroys technologically advanced gear.) Then I would say that That even having the contacts in your eyes may temporarily blind you since the fragments are in your eye. I have had safety glasses destroyed while I was wearing them. And the small pieces of plastic that ended up in my eye were defintely a major distraction. If you had KC's implants I would say it may take more than just a First Aid Check to "clean out the debri", most likely having a penalty until some minor surgery could be involved.

True... I just wasn't thinking. Thank you Jaid.

@ ravensoracle: Wreck [Object] is found in Street Magic on page 165.