[Ghost Rigger]

Have there ever been any rules vision and hearing damage, or even being permanently blinded or deafened, in Shadowrun? Yesterday I was discussing just how loud an Auto Assault 16 with Gas Vent 3 would be and that the rest of the crew needs to pick up hearing protection because that's what I'm putting on my Nissan Doberman, which prompted another player to half-jokingly ask if there were any charts for hearing damage. I thought about, and I realized I'd never seen any, nor any charts for being blinded by something very bright flash. But on the other hand, it definitely seemed like something that would be in Shadowrun.

[PiXeL01]

Glare/darkness is in the environmental modifier chart for ranged attacks.
As for sound I can only vaguely recall the various sonic weapons and a quickly banned drone, possibly from Horizon

[Michael Chandra]

Have there ever been any rules vision and hearing damage, or even being permanently blinded or deafened, in Shadowrun?

Sounds like the kind of thing some sadistic people brag about enjoying in Shadowrun 1e. (I literally had someone argue at SRU once that 1e was superior over 5e because you could lose essence from taking too heavy a hit...) The Noizquito also only supplied a penalty, not permanent damage. So no, no permanent damage things and honestly I prefer it that way. You could always as a GM rule that people pick up Reduced Sense negative quality as a result, but that's rather dicey if not executed well.

[Jack_Spade]

I always assumed that the advanced medical technology makes repairing damage to eyes and ears rather trivial. Just pop some pills and regenerate those holes in your ear drums over night.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

I always assumed that the advanced medical technology makes repairing damage to eyes and ears rather trivial. Just pop some pills and regenerate those holes in your ear drums over night.

I too miss the possibility for body part destruction in a game that so prominently features cybernetic and clonal replacements.  But that's a good way to rationalize people taking cyberlimbs only because you want to, rather than because you survived having your arm blown off and you want to be able to clap again.

[Cabral]

Have there ever been any rules vision and hearing damage, or even being permanently blinded or deafened, in Shadowrun?

Sounds like the kind of thing some sadistic people brag about enjoying in Shadowrun 1e. (I literally had someone argue at SRU once that 1e was superior over 5e because you could lose essence from taking too heavy a hit...) The Noizquito also only supplied a penalty, not permanent damage.

I recall 1e (and perhaps all the way up to 3e) triggering a magic loss check for taking a deadly wound, but I don't recall any triggering essence loss.

1e was superior because of the Bradstreet and Laubenstein art.

[Marcus]

Part of the trade off of no longer having Geas in 4 and 5, is there has to be another way to deal with minor essence loss issues, relating to magic. I guess you could consider the blood crystal stuff?

But yeah beyond bricking someone cybereyes/ears I don't see any meaningful justification for overly longer term sensory loss. Magic Character can see using Astral Sight even if they are blind, there are other cyber sense that can be installed. Which can certainly make for some interesting character choice if that's what you like, but it also has plenty of dangers involved as well.

[Tecumseh]

I'm with Cabral on the art.

As for rules regarding permanent damage, 4E's Augmentation had optional rules around severe wounds. (5E's Bullets & Bandages does too, but it's more like two sentences while Augmentation has 2 pages on it.)

Long story short, glitches on soak tests, or severe wounds that do 7P or more in a single attack, can trigger lingering effects. There's a menu for the GM to choose from, with options like broken bones, destruction of implants, irreparable organ damage, loss of limb, major disfiguration, etc. I like them a lot; I just used them a month ago on a PC who found himself on the wrong side of an HE grenade that did 10P damage.

[Kiirnodel]

Yeah, the rules don't have a defined penalty system for picking up most negative qualities in standard play of the game. Having effects that cause long-term damage to a character is the realm of GM intervention.

This applies to more than just being blinded or deafened. I had a GM once that assigned a Phobia to a character after they Crit Glitched a resistance test against a Beast spirit's Fear power. Because the Spirit was appearing as a Giant Raccoon, the character got a Mild Phobia of Raccoons. It isn't a huge thing, but it adds flavor. A similar thing could be used for potentially becoming Blinded or Deafened.

Perhaps if a GM wants to add in the possibility of being permanently blinded by a particularly intense light, they could force some sort of resistance test for the characters to see how long it takes to recover, with a Crit Glitch meaning that it becomes permanent. (Sort of like the repair test to restore a bricked device).

[Michael Chandra]

Asides: iirc, ironically night blindness and reduced sense: Sight combined give more karma than picking up full blindness as a magician. Because blindness compensates the karma for being a magician, and the others don't. (Been there, picked blindness anyway. Which was FUN to play out! =D)