Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: Robert on <01-07-21/1537:57>
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What happens if a character with a low magic attribute (e.g. picking priority D, thus magic 1) gets some bodyware and looses e.g. 3 points of essence, thus magic drops to -2.
Can he still do spells (e.g. sorcery 5 + magic -1 = pool of 4 dice)?
Can he not do any magic any more? Just track it as mundane and delete all skills that require magic from the skill list (sorcery, conjuring, alchemie, astral)?
Can he spend karma to raise magic? If yes, how much e.g. 10 to go from -2 to -1 then 5 to get to 0 then additional 5 to get to +1?
And to go really extreme... every time an adept increases magic, he gains a power point. Also when raising from -3 to -2?
Thanks for the clarification.
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If you have magic 1 (and max magic of 6) and get 3 essence worth of augmentations then you will have magic 0 (and max magic of 3).
If your magic rating is zero then you will be unable to cast spells or summon spirits.
If you later spend 5 karma to raise your magic from zero to 1 (still max magic of 3) then you can once again cast spells etc.
At least this is how it worked in 5 th. I'll double check when I get to my books, but I think this also applies to SR6.
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My understanding is that:
1) It is no longer true that you permanently cease to be a magician if your Magic attribute hits 0. This is not said in this edition, ergo it stands to reason you can recover it.
2) I'm not sure there even is any statement that says you cannot perform any magic if your attribute hits 0. You just add Magic=0 dice, when relevant...
3) The rules regarding Magic loss when you lose Essence (pg. 38, SR6) do not mention that there is a basement value of 0 to your Magic attribute.
Ergo:
If you have Magic 1, and then lose 3 points of Magic, technically your Magic is -2. You will have to raise your Magic back up to 0 before you can then raise it to 1.
However. The upside is that's somewhat of a corner case. In chargen, you're gonna have to spend your SAPs before you spend any nuyen on essence-damaging augmentations. So you don't have the question of "what happens if I implant THEN spend SAPs". That's not the correct order of operations.
The can of worms is what if someone leaves their Magic at a low value and then after implants they want to re-build the attribute with Karma. What's the karma cost to go from -2 to -1? Frankly, I'd suggest just using the absolute values. Going from -2 to -1 would cost the same as going from 1 to 2, and so on. However that is certainly not explicitly correct.
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When something is not specifically addressed by the current edition, I look to previous editions for direction. In SR5 (p.278), when your current Magic attribute falls to zero, you cannot use any skill requiring the Magic attribute unless/until you raise it back up with Karma. If your maximum Magic attribute falls to zero, you lose all magical abilities and are mundane forever.
If SR6 doesn't say differently, I think the SR5 rules apply.
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When something is not specifically addressed by the current edition, I look to previous editions for direction. In SR5 (p.278), when your current Magic attribute falls to zero, you cannot use any skill requiring the Magic attribute unless/until you raise it back up with Karma. If your maximum Magic attribute falls to zero, you lose all magical abilities and are mundane forever.
If SR6 doesn't say differently, I think the SR5 rules apply.
Well, the point the OP is probably most concerned about is what happens if, when at 1 magic, you lose 3 magic. Do you feel that one bottoms out at 0, or go to -2? For the sake of the example, the maximum magic is still >0, so you haven't triggered the potential issue of permanent mundanehood.
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The intention here is likely that magic will simply floor to zero and you can raise it from zero with 5 karma (which I believe was also the general consensus for how to resolve it in SR5).
And if you are seriously afraid of hybrid magicians exploiting this as some sort of karma loop-hole then i would say a more elegant solution (than inventing some strange mechanic about negative attributes and absolut karma costs and whatnot) would probably be to instead rule that a magician with 0 magic actually burn out, become mundane and can't ever cast spells again (which how I belive it used to work in earlier editions).
The only important explicit rule change to note between SR5 and SR6 when it comes to essence loss that I could find was that Your maximum Magic rank is 6 + Initiate Grade (reduced by one for every full point of Essence lost). (SR6 feb errata p. 4).
If you have magic rating 6 (and max magic rating 6) and get 0.99 points worth of augmentations then it seem as if you would end up with magic rating 5 (but still max magic rating 6 - in previous edition your maximum magic rating would also been reduced by 1).
Edit ....and since you can't get 6.0 points of essence worth of augmentations it seem as if you will always have at least maximum magic of 1 (even before you initiate). Which mean that you in this edition can't ever really burn out. Which is probably why they also didn't add any rules for burning out.
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I don't think there's a fear of hybrids... there's an honest question of whether Magic bottoms out at 0, or if it can go below that. An official answer would be nice, because maybe you're working on the software for a character generation and management program :) Alas, we cannot give a truly official answer but we can potentially come to a "best" answer consensus.
And just because it's trivially easy to hit 6 MAG before implanting cyberware doesn't mean it always will be done. As the OP pointed out, you can pick Priority D and just leave MAG at 1 rather than increasing it, because you know you're about to put in a bunch of cyberware anyway. Load up with X.99 essence worth of cyberware, and then it kind of is a big deal whether you're at Magic 0 or Magic -X when it comes to spending some karma to raise your Magic again. And it's a very fair question. The "C'mon, man" factor is not going to be relevant in a computer's calculations :)
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Personally for me I've never subscribed to the "modern" takes on this ... simply put if your Magic ever hits a value of zero in my games you permanently lose your ability to access to magic ... thus you burnout. Of course I also continue to use the rule that anytime to take a deadly wound (i.e. get knocked out via physical damage in newer editions) you also have to make a magic test or lose a point of magic.
Needless to say this keeps mages in check regarding overcasting, over summoning, and getting 'ware.
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Personally for me I've never subscribed to the "modern" takes on this ... simply put if your Magic ever hits a value of zero in my games you permanently lose your ability to access to magic ... thus you burnout. Of course I also continue to use the rule that anytime to take a deadly wound (i.e. get knocked out via physical damage in newer editions) you also have to make a magic test or lose a point of magic.
Needless to say this keeps mages in check regarding overcasting, over summoning, and getting 'ware.
That was one of the great restriants on magic back in 3e... (that, and Spell level learning).... And removing it ib 4e+ is one of the reasons (IMHO) for why magic has gotten overpowered in later editions
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First: I think we have to differentiate the "soft" burnout where you just reduce your magic rating to 0 from the "hard" burnout, where you lose more than 5.0 Essence points and thus reduce your max. magic to 0. Even in 6th Editions RAW, you canīt get your magic back in this case, so itīs practically permanent. Well, one caveat here - it is possible to initiate first and thus raise your max. magic to 7. This basically means that an Initiate canīt really suffer a "hard" burnout.
But IMO, the real problem here is not so much that you can still "rediscover" your Magic after a burnout of either kind.
Itīs how cheap it is: Just 5 Karma to go back from 0 to 1. At least thatīs what people assume (is there some official statement? Probably. The worse the rule, the easier it is to get an confirmation by CGL :P). And apparently, it doesnīt even matter what your "starting magic" was before the Essence loss occurs: You can start with Magic 1, load up with 5 points of Cyberware for an almost complete burnout and you still just need 5 Karma to bring back your magic abilities. Sure, you are stuck with a max. magic of 1, but a few Initiations and some Foki go a long way here; and if you go for an Adept build, you can just stick to powers that donīt care about your magic Attribute. In the end, you lost almost nothing besides 5 Karma and the nuyen for the Augmentations.
It doesnīt have to be that way.
When I started playing SR back in 4th Edition (where you would suffer a "hard" burnout whenever your magic dropped to zero, BTW), we always assumed that the Essence loss doesnīt just reduce the Magic Attribute, but also imposes a kind of permanent debuff on it. To reflect this, we noted the effective Magic Rating in Parantheses on the Character sheet, like you would with augmented values as well. So, when you are at Magic 3 and lose 2 points of Essence, your Magic isnīt noted as 1, but 3[1]. Subsequently, buying back those 2 lost points doesnīt cost you the 10+15 Karma to go from Magic 1 to 3, but 20+25 to go from Magic 3[1] to Magic 3[5]. Thatīs arguably a much more significant investment. And the aformentioned "burn out & buy back" cheese would be immensely costly: Instead of buying back your lost Magic 1 for 5 Karma, you had to raise your Magic from 1[-4] (treated as Magic 0 for all purposes, the notation is just a reminder) all the way up to 6[1] for a whooping 10+15+20+25+30=100 Karma.
Iīm not sure if this interpretation was correct back then, but it kept being our preferred houserule all the way down to 6th Edition. I really found this the best way to handle things from both a balancing and the "burning out is pretty bad, Mkay" lore perspective: Itīs not entirely impossible to regain your magic after a massive burnout due to augmentations, but it takes a lot of dedication. So much that it makes sense if most burnout Mages just give up on the way.
Hell, compared to paying 5 Karma to get your Magic back, that could even make for a great narrative arc ;)
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Seeing as how there are no rules for raising a stat with a negative value (how much karma does it take to raise -4 mag to -3 mag? -3 x 5 = -15), and negative attributes other than Essence have never been a thing in Shadowrun, I think it's safe to conclude a floor of 0 is the intent.
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Personally for me I've never subscribed to the "modern" takes on this ... simply put if your Magic ever hits a value of zero in my games you permanently lose your ability to access to magic ... thus you burnout. Of course I also continue to use the rule that anytime to take a deadly wound (i.e. get knocked out via physical damage in newer editions) you also have to make a magic test or lose a point of magic.
Needless to say this keeps mages in check regarding overcasting, over summoning, and getting 'ware.
That was one of the great restriants on magic back in 3e... (that, and Spell level learning).... And removing it ib 4e+ is one of the reasons (IMHO) for why magic has gotten overpowered in later editions
Absolutely.. that's why I still use it
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Of course I also continue to use the rule that anytime to take a deadly wound (i.e. get knocked out via physical damage in newer editions) you also have to make a magic test or lose a point of magic.
What test do you do, out of curiosity? (and shouldn't this be an Essence test, as it's a trial of your connection, not your power?)
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Seeing as how there are no rules for raising a stat with a negative value (how much karma does it take to raise -4 mag to -3 mag? -3 x 5 = -15), and negative attributes other than Essence have never been a thing in Shadowrun, I think it's safe to conclude a floor of 0 is the intent.
Yup, and thatīs what creates the big balanging problem in the first place. RAW, you can start as complete noob mage/adept with Magic 1, get ware for 5.0 Points of Essence and then you still just need spare 5 Karma to get back to your pre-"burnout" situation.
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Of course I also continue to use the rule that anytime to take a deadly wound (i.e. get knocked out via physical damage in newer editions) you also have to make a magic test or lose a point of magic.
What test do you do, out of curiosity? (and shouldn't this be an Essence test, as it's a trial of your connection, not your power?)
In 1e-3e, taking a deadly wound (the concept of a deadly wound no longer exists in 4e-6e) triggered a test. As did applying a slap-patch, or even applying first aid without taking a -2 dice penalty to account for a magician's sensitivity to modern medicine.. The exact mechanic of the test escapes my memory, but IIRC it was a Magic test.
Seeing as how there are no rules for raising a stat with a negative value (how much karma does it take to raise -4 mag to -3 mag? -3 x 5 = -15), and negative attributes other than Essence have never been a thing in Shadowrun, I think it's safe to conclude a floor of 0 is the intent.
Yup, and thatīs what creates the big balanging problem in the first place. RAW, you can start as complete noob mage/adept with Magic 1, get ware for 5.0 Points of Essence and then you still just need spare 5 Karma to get back to your pre-"burnout" situation.
The bolded part isn't RAW. There IS no RAW on whether you bottom out at 0, or can hit negative values for Magic. And if so, what the karma costs are to increase said negative value.
It might be intent to bottom out at 0, but it certainly isn't the rule that you bottom out at 0. Playing it so that you do bottom out at 0 does indeed have the problem you just mentioned: it can be abused if someone picks D, leaves magic at 1, and then goes full street sammie on cyberware, then expects to re-build Magic.
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Seeing as how there are no rules for raising a stat with a negative value (how much karma does it take to raise -4 mag to -3 mag? -3 x 5 = -15), and negative attributes other than Essence have never been a thing in Shadowrun, I think it's safe to conclude a floor of 0 is the intent.
Yup, and thatīs what creates the big balanging problem in the first place. RAW, you can start as complete noob mage/adept with Magic 1, get ware for 5.0 Points of Essence and then you still just need spare 5 Karma to get back to your pre-"burnout" situation.
The bolded part isn't RAW. There IS no RAW on whether you bottom out at 0, or can hit negative values for Magic. And if so, what the karma costs are to increase said negative value.
True. The problem is that this is assumed to be RAW by many. So this time, CGL wouldnīt even even need to choose the worst possible solution over the one employed by most players, because they are the same ::)
Either way: IMO, it would be better if a total burnout is either permanent or much more costly to overcome (see my first answer on this thread for reference).
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I learned something in this thread, I hadn't picked up in 6th RAW that a mage couldn't burn out. Again another hold over from my assumptions from previous editions.
As for the rest of the topics. I agree with Finstersang below, but again could be a carry over from previous additions. However, I think this way seems more fair and would stop any attempts (because you know someone is going to try) to break the augmentation/magic thing.
In my mind buying back the point of Karma should be
It doesnīt have to be that way.
When I started playing SR back in 4th Edition (where you would suffer a "hard" burnout whenever your magic dropped to zero, BTW), we always assumed that the Essence loss doesnīt just reduce the Magic Attribute, but also imposes a kind of permanent debuff on it. To reflect this, we noted the effective Magic Rating in Parantheses on the Character sheet, like you would with augmented values as well. So, when you are at Magic 3 and lose 2 points of Essence, your Magic isnīt noted as 1, but 3[1]. Subsequently, buying back those 2 lost points doesnīt cost you the 10+15 Karma to go from Magic 1 to 3, but 20+25 to go from Magic 3[1] to Magic 3[5]. Thatīs arguably a much more significant investment. And the aformentioned "burn out & buy back" cheese would be immensely costly: Instead of buying back your lost Magic 1 for 5 Karma, you had to raise your Magic from 1[-4] (treated as Magic 0 for all purposes, the notation is just a reminder) all the way up to 6[1] for a whooping 10+15+20+25+30=100 Karma.
Regards,
SL
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I learned something in this thread, I hadn't picked up in 6th RAW that a mage couldn't burn out. Again another hold over from my assumptions from previous editions.
To be honest, i was pretty hard to burn out in SR5 as well. In that edition need to get more than 5 essence worth of augmentations and you need to install all of it before your very first initiation. Once you initiate even just once there was really no way to burn out in SR5 as well...
Seeing as how there are no rules for raising a stat with a negative value (how much karma does it take to raise -4 mag to -3 mag? -3 x 5 = -15), and negative attributes other than Essence have never been a thing in Shadowrun, I think it's safe to conclude a floor of 0 is the intent.
Yup, and thatīs what creates the big balanging problem in the first place. RAW, you can start as complete noob mage/adept with Magic 1, get ware for 5.0 Points of Essence and then you still just need spare 5 Karma to get back to your pre-"burnout" situation.
Playing it so that you do bottom out at 0 does indeed have the problem you just mentioned: it can be abused if someone picks D, leaves magic at 1, and then goes full street sammie on cyberware, then expects to re-build Magic.
Again - if you believe this will be an issue at your table then the most elegant solution is simply to rule that you burn out forever if your current magic ever reach zero. Done. No more exploit. This is also similar to how it used to work in earlier editions.
Answer to OP is still, however, that current magic will go down to zero and it will cost new rating x 5 karma if he later wish to raise it back up to a positive value.
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SSDR is right, we are trying to code this into a character generator. And we see that users are doing it.
A ) Core Rule Book page 38:
"anytime your Essence goes below any whole integer, you lose a corresponding point of Magic or Resonance".
This means you can go into negative. If you start at 1 and reduce by 3 that is -2. There is no word on a border of zero. Thus RAW clearly is Magic -2.
It is open to interpretation if that means "hard" or "soft" burn out or just a reduction in dice. I would leave that to the game master.
B ) German rule book has one additional sentence at that position of the test, clarifying that maximum magic drops exactly the same as magic, thus you can burn out, because 0,99 of essence means 6 drops, thus from max magic 6 to max magic of zero.
C ) Any discussion on the last question of the original thread?
"Every time an adept increases magic, he gains a power point. Also when raising from -3 to -2?"
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Thus RAW clearly is Magic -2.
If you are really going to play that game then by RAW clearly you also earn 5 bonus karma when you later raise your magic rating from -2 to -1 (and by RAW it will cost zero karma to raise it from -1 to 0).
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C ) Any discussion on the last question of the original thread?
"Every time an adept increases magic, he gains a power point. Also when raising from -3 to -2?"
NO. This doesnīt make any sense whatsoev...
...oh wait. This is 6th Edition by Catastrophic Game Labs, so it might actually be true ::)
But seriously: "RAW clearly is Magic -2." is a very questionable statement, even considering the overall quality of CGLīs latest decision making. Donīt you think that something as unintuitive as negative attribute values would at least warrant one little additional sentence or ingame example? That interpretation is already a huge stretch, but if you add that interaction with Adept Power Points, the whole concept of "burning out" becomes practically nonexistant for adepts. Why is this even question?
*Shakes fists at the powers that be* You did this to us! You broke our our spirits! Your broke our minds!
Thus RAW clearly is Magic -2.
If you are really going to play that game then by RAW clearly you also earn 5 bonus karma when you later raise your magic rating from -2 to -1 (and by RAW it will cost zero karma to raise it from -1 to 0).
Oh Jeez, donīt give them ideas ... :-X
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Thus RAW clearly is Magic -2.
If you are really going to play that game then by RAW clearly you also earn 5 bonus karma when you later raise your magic rating from -2 to -1 (and by RAW it will cost zero karma to raise it from -1 to 0).
Yeah. Magic hit 0 and stops. Costs 5 Karma to raise it back up to 1. Carry on. Creating additional chargen shenanigans around Magic Loss and Power Points really doesn't gain anyone anything. You're only adding a Karma sink to odd, niche, already inefficient characters. Let the kids play.
Additional Mechanical barriers and complexity only trip up new players. Players with enough mechanical mastery will get to the desired result, either by Foci, or spending Chargen SP, or post chargen Initiation, or whatever. And adding layers of complexity just 'cause isn't something that should be encouraged.
Attribute loss stops at 0. The game doesn't have any rules for negative attributes.
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Yeah. Magic hit 0 and stops. Costs 5 Karma to raise it back up to 1.
Surely better than negative values, but still shit balancing. 5 Karma is nothing. You can still start at Magic 1, cram 5.0 Essence in, and pay just 5 Karma to go right back to where you started. Some may call it "system mastery", I call it blatant cheese. Grated Granted, in a system that is apparently build to pamper and accomodate cheeselords at every opportunity, but still.
The alternative interpretation of "when you burned down to 0, you canīt just buy back your Magic" is arguably even more clear-cut. AFAIK, we donīt even have confirmation that itīs possible to get back from Magic 0 to 1 by the RAI. Itīs just a loosely shared assumption that hasnīt been denied yet.
The "accidental" houserule I described in my first answer to this thread isnīt so complicated either: Basically, Essence Loss subtracts from Magic and max. Magic as usual, but when you want to raise Magic again, you still treat it as if it has the full value.
Also, keep in mind that misbalancing and cheesiness can be a source of confusion as well, because players will run into more and more situations where the RAW just donīt "feel right".
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Priority D Magic, spend 0 SP on Magic, cram in 5 Essence worth of 'ware, buy up Magic post Char gen isn't optimal. Just isn't. You stay so far behind on PP for a long time because of Foci.
Priority D Magic. Spend 5 SP on Magic, Cram in 2 or 3 Essence worth of 'ware. Spend a bunch on Foci to bond with post char gen gets you a superior result. Highly recommended.
Heck, Priority D Magic, Spend 5 SP on Magic, skip the 'ware, load up on Foci, gets you a better character.
Announcer voice: "Foci! Much better than whatever you're doing!"
Fastlawyervoice "ExceptforusedMuscleToner"
I will grant you that starting at 0 Magic and buying up is long term most efficient, but by the time you've surpassed the bioware adept that started with 3 or 4 Magic, the Conjurers and Spellcasters have long since broken the game. When you're talking about 10 to 15 Karma worth of efficiency gain at around 200 Karma, this just simply isn't a real balance issue. Or it's about 99th on the list of balance issues.
Eventually every magic character hits a wall where you have to Initiate to raise Max Magic, then raise Magic, and repeat. This is slow and steady progress. Starting with Magic 0, you're basically at the wall already. If you've got a Magic attribute you can bond Foci. That is the lowest Karma cost for increasing Magical abilities, whatever they are. Next up is initiation, and if you don't have to raise magic to Initiate you can Initiate faster. Once you've maxed out Initiation grades and Foci, you're at the wall. This is normally about 200 Karma in, depending on build specifics.
I would suggest the 3rd most optimal power curve isn't cheesey. It's probably some goofy concept character that wants to "Grow into their Potential" or some such.
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Yeah. Magic hit 0 and stops. Costs 5 Karma to raise it back up to 1.
Surely better than negative values, but still shit balancing. 5 Karma is nothing. You can still start at Magic 1, cram 5.0 Essence in, and pay just 5 Karma to go right back to where you started. Some may call it "system mastery", I call it blatant cheese. Grated Granted, in a system that is apparently build to pamper and accomodate cheeselords at every opportunity, but still.
The alternative interpretation of "when you burned down to 0, you canīt just buy back your Magic" is arguably even more clear-cut. AFAIK, we donīt even have confirmation that itīs possible to get back from Magic 0 to 1 by the RAI. Itīs just a loosely shared assumption that hasnīt been denied yet.
The "accidental" houserule I described in my first answer to this thread isnīt so complicated either: Basically, Essence Loss subtracts from Magic and max. Magic as usual, but when you want to raise Magic again, you still treat it as if it has the full value.
Also, keep in mind that misbalancing and cheesiness can be a source of confusion as well, because players will run into more and more situations where the RAW just donīt "feel right".
At the very least it should be 1(0) like a augmented attribute, if you had 4 essence worth 1(-3) to get it to a actual value of 1, you should need to spend the karma to bump it to the stat that would make it a actual 1. So if you had 1 essence of ware and were 1(0) you'd need to get the attribute to 2, to get a 1 and cost 10 karma. If it was 1(-3) you'd need to get the stat to 4, so 10+15+20 karma. Personally I'd add in to avoid losing your magic you need to dump enough special attribute points to get to 0 and if your max attribute ever hits 0 your magic is gone. I'm okay with stating at 0 sort of like a latent magic hack.
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Yeah. Magic hit 0 and stops. Costs 5 Karma to raise it back up to 1.
Surely better than negative values, but still shit balancing. 5 Karma is nothing. You can still start at Magic 1, cram 5.0 Essence in, and pay just 5 Karma to go right back to where you started. Some may call it "system mastery", I call it blatant cheese. Grated Granted, in a system that is apparently build to pamper and accomodate cheeselords at every opportunity, but still.
The alternative interpretation of "when you burned down to 0, you canīt just buy back your Magic" is arguably even more clear-cut. AFAIK, we donīt even have confirmation that itīs possible to get back from Magic 0 to 1 by the RAI. Itīs just a loosely shared assumption that hasnīt been denied yet.
The "accidental" houserule I described in my first answer to this thread isnīt so complicated either: Basically, Essence Loss subtracts from Magic and max. Magic as usual, but when you want to raise Magic again, you still treat it as if it has the full value.
Also, keep in mind that misbalancing and cheesiness can be a source of confusion as well, because players will run into more and more situations where the RAW just donīt "feel right".
At the very least it should be 1(0) like a augmented attribute, if you had 4 essence worth 1(-3) to get it to a actual value of 1, you should need to spend the karma to bump it to the stat that would make it a actual 1. So if you had 1 essence of ware and were 1(0) you'd need to get the attribute to 2, to get a 1 and cost 10 karma. If it was 1(-3) you'd need to get the stat to 4, so 10+15+20 karma. Personally I'd add in to avoid losing your magic you need to dump enough special attribute points to get to 0 and if your max attribute ever hits 0 your magic is gone. I'm okay with stating at 0 sort of like a latent magic hack.
Yup, thatīs pretty much what I meant with "accidental houserule":
When I started playing SR back in 4th Edition (where you would suffer a "hard" burnout whenever your magic dropped to zero, BTW), we always assumed that the Essence loss doesnīt just reduce the Magic Attribute, but also imposes a kind of permanent debuff on it. To reflect this, we noted the effective Magic Rating in Parantheses on the Character sheet, like you would with augmented values as well. So, when you are at Magic 3 and lose 2 points of Essence, your Magic isnīt noted as 1, but 3[1]. Subsequently, buying back those 2 lost points doesnīt cost you the 10+15 Karma to go from Magic 1 to 3, but 20+25 to go from Magic 3[1] to Magic 3[5]. Thatīs arguably a much more significant investment. And the aformentioned "burn out & buy back" cheese would be immensely costly: Instead of buying back your lost Magic 1 for 5 Karma, you had to raise your Magic from 1[-4] (treated as Magic 0 for all purposes, the notation is just a reminder) all the way up to 6[1] for a whooping 10+15+20+25+30=100 Karma.
Iīm not sure if this interpretation was correct back then, but it kept being our preferred houserule all the way down to 6th Edition. I really found this the best way to handle things from both a balancing and the "burning out is pretty bad, Mkay" lore perspective: Itīs not entirely impossible to regain your magic after a massive burnout due to augmentations, but it takes a lot of dedication. So much that it makes sense if most burnout Mages just give up on the way.
Hell, compared to paying 5 Karma to get your Magic back, that could even make for a great narrative arc ;)
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Yeah. Magic hit 0 and stops. Costs 5 Karma to raise it back up to 1.
Surely better than negative values, but still shit balancing. 5 Karma is nothing. You can still start at Magic 1, cram 5.0 Essence in, and pay just 5 Karma to go right back to where you started. Some may call it "system mastery", I call it blatant cheese. Grated Granted, in a system that is apparently build to pamper and accomodate cheeselords at every opportunity, but still.
The alternative interpretation of "when you burned down to 0, you canīt just buy back your Magic" is arguably even more clear-cut. AFAIK, we donīt even have confirmation that itīs possible to get back from Magic 0 to 1 by the RAI. Itīs just a loosely shared assumption that hasnīt been denied yet.
The "accidental" houserule I described in my first answer to this thread isnīt so complicated either: Basically, Essence Loss subtracts from Magic and max. Magic as usual, but when you want to raise Magic again, you still treat it as if it has the full value.
Also, keep in mind that misbalancing and cheesiness can be a source of confusion as well, because players will run into more and more situations where the RAW just donīt "feel right".
At the very least it should be 1(0) like a augmented attribute, if you had 4 essence worth 1(-3) to get it to a actual value of 1, you should need to spend the karma to bump it to the stat that would make it a actual 1. So if you had 1 essence of ware and were 1(0) you'd need to get the attribute to 2, to get a 1 and cost 10 karma. If it was 1(-3) you'd need to get the stat to 4, so 10+15+20 karma. Personally I'd add in to avoid losing your magic you need to dump enough special attribute points to get to 0 and if your max attribute ever hits 0 your magic is gone. I'm okay with stating at 0 sort of like a latent magic hack.
Yup, thatīs pretty much what I meant with "accidental houserule":
When I started playing SR back in 4th Edition (where you would suffer a "hard" burnout whenever your magic dropped to zero, BTW), we always assumed that the Essence loss doesnīt just reduce the Magic Attribute, but also imposes a kind of permanent debuff on it. To reflect this, we noted the effective Magic Rating in Parantheses on the Character sheet, like you would with augmented values as well. So, when you are at Magic 3 and lose 2 points of Essence, your Magic isnīt noted as 1, but 3[1]. Subsequently, buying back those 2 lost points doesnīt cost you the 10+15 Karma to go from Magic 1 to 3, but 20+25 to go from Magic 3[1] to Magic 3[5]. Thatīs arguably a much more significant investment. And the aformentioned "burn out & buy back" cheese would be immensely costly: Instead of buying back your lost Magic 1 for 5 Karma, you had to raise your Magic from 1[-4] (treated as Magic 0 for all purposes, the notation is just a reminder) all the way up to 6[1] for a whooping 10+15+20+25+30=100 Karma.
Iīm not sure if this interpretation was correct back then, but it kept being our preferred houserule all the way down to 6th Edition. I really found this the best way to handle things from both a balancing and the "burning out is pretty bad, Mkay" lore perspective: Itīs not entirely impossible to regain your magic after a massive burnout due to augmentations, but it takes a lot of dedication. So much that it makes sense if most burnout Mages just give up on the way.
Hell, compared to paying 5 Karma to get your Magic back, that could even make for a great narrative arc ;)
Lol I missed that, eyes skimmed right past your post.
This all started with 4e due to magic not just starting at 6, once you could buy it at 1, while having a essence of 6 it created a different dynamic. One which they ever really answered well.
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This all started with 4e due to magic not just starting at 6, once you could buy it at 1, while having a essence of 6 it created a different dynamic. One which they ever really answered well.
Yep, this is a long standing issue that (to my knowledge) has never been addressed officially.
For the OP: I believe that the "best" approach (or at least the least-bad approach) is to adopt the unofficial convention of instituting a basement value of 0. It opens an exploit, sure, but the exploit really only goes so far*. But best of all, it avoids the unanswerable question of how to assign a karma cost for raising an attribute with a sub-zero value.
*Even if you do leave magic at 1 and then load up on cyberware, your MAG bottoming out at 0 still doesn't prevent your maximum MAG from dropping down. MAG 1 and 5.99 essence worth of augmentations still leaves you at a maximum MAG value of 1...
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All,
Went back and reread all the Magic and other sections. For the software purpose, I am in agreement that you should use the bottom value of 0. Thus, all the normal buy up rules would align at this time.
Regards,
SL