Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: MercilessMing on <03-05-21/1807:39>
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Alright, a Facebook discussion on Essence Holes made me realize I don't know what editions have supported Essence Holes as official rules, but 6e isn't one of them (yet). It's a mechanic I'm not sure has ever been in a CRB.
Anyway, IMO Essence holes are, in a game whose goal is streamlining, a needless bit of bookkeeping that should go away. Just let characters recover the Essence they lost. Really, what harm would it do? With as hard as street sams have been nerfed this edition, they could use a silver lining.
Since 6e doesn't feature Essence holes yet, and has very little to say about Essence in general, this is a change they could still make for the cybertech book I assume will come at some point. A small quality of life bump for a nerfed archetype that reduces bookkeeping at the same time.
Consider it, authors!
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I wouldn't mind seeing it a step further: don't even give mundane an essence stat. Other than serving as a mechanic to impose penalties to magic and to cap cyberware, essence doesn't do or represent much of anything anymore in 6e. I could see letting mundanes (and only mundanes) have potentially limitless cyberware, in such a way that magic and resonance are technically unlimited given karma expenditures.
That's a bridge too far for 6e, but I dream :D
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I wouldn't mind seeing it a step further: don't even give mundane an essence stat. Other than serving as a mechanic to impose penalties to magic and to cap cyberware, essence doesn't do or represent much of anything anymore in 6e. I could see letting mundanes (and only mundanes) have potentially limitless cyberware, in such a way that magic and resonance are technically unlimited given karma expenditures.
That's a bridge too far for 6e, but I dream :D
I was about to say the same thing or at least give mundanes a method to increase their essence so their growth has a similar unlimited potential as adepts. So like in cyber book "this time cyber looks like there has been advancements over the last 30+ years" they add a therapy that costs nominal nuyen but karma equivalent to stat growth for adepts.
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I imagine a straight up copy of the initiation/submersion mechanic but for mundanes. Instead of magic or resonance max going up 1 (and then paying karma to go up 1), it just raises an mundane's essence back up by one.
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That would be the easiest method, but if they were not just removing essence as a stat for mundanes I'd like nuyen to step in for the initiation part making this a bit more karma friendly for them.
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Other than serving as a mechanic to impose penalties to magic and to cap cyberware, essence doesn't do or represent much of anything anymore in 6e.
In SR6, Essence also play a Big part when it comes to healing.
Essence have gone from Man (+Metahumanity) vs Machine to Magic (+Healing) vs Machine.
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What's so odd about the change is initially having magic made it harder to heal, and pretty significantly if I recall correctly. It was a +2 TN modifier I think. The desire to punish mundanes more is baffling to me. Though in most games street sam vs adept, the adept is looking worse in 6e. It will take a lot of karma to get anywhere near base street sam. But once they pass them there is no looking back. And the bio adept rules all.
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Though in most games street sam vs adept, the adept is looking worse in 6e.
But the adept will be much easier to heal ;-)
And the bio adept rules all.
But the pure adept will be much easier to heal ;-)
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True, but I'd rather contribute and avoid getting hurt as much as possible in the first place than not contribute and get healed afterwards. I still think the healing rule in 6e was a bad one on top of that though.
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Though in most games street sam vs adept, the adept is looking worse in 6e. It will take a lot of karma to get anywhere near base street sam. But once they pass them there is no looking back. And the bio adept rules all.
Build a 6 Magic Adept that goes E skills and C or B Resources and loads up on unbonded Foci. The Bio Adept has a couple more dice here or there to start but shortly the Foci Adept can match then exceed. Foci are cheaper to bond than initiate and the 6 Magic Adept can bond with more without having to stop and initiate / raise magic.
And 6th Edition is similar to 5th. Adepts build tall, Samurai build broad. Sami will have 6 or 10 more Skill points compared to the Adept, because Sami goes E Magic instead of the Adept E Skills. The Adepts combat pools will pull ahead of the Mundane Sami. But the Sami will be able to swim, drive, pick a lock, ect, ect. And the Sami will be fine with 19ish dice and 7 or more DV attacks.
Letting a Mundane continue to add Essence / more 'ware would expand into more utility or secondary abilities. But adding more dice to combat pool and more damage is the Adept's bit.
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Adepts will always have an easier time getting their augments through security though :D
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..and it's not like you can remove Qi Foci ; )
Well you can, but I'm pretty sure if standard security checkpoints start including Flaying stations to remove skin the PCs will just roll for initiative right there.
But between Delta grade 'ware being available out of the gate and licenses Samurai should rarely have serious issues if they make the effort.
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Well, wards are cheap. Won't stop adept powers, but carrying around Qi Foci can end up triggering more alarms than cyberware does.
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Depending on your reading the intention of Qi Foci might be that they count as innate of the adept, similar to adept powers....
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Depending on your reading the intention of Qi Foci might be that they count as innate of the adept, similar to adept powers....
I don't see how? The adept power they grant, sure, probably wouldn't react with a barrier. But a force x focus is a force x focus.
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Mana Barriers / Wards only stop Active Foci, so turn them off, turn them on. Certainly a hassle but not difficult, unless you don't know it's there. And a 'runner team without Astral Perception is going to have a tough time with any Astral defenses. Don't be that 'runner team.
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Yes, But the whole point is a counterpoint to "cyberware can set off sensors, and adepts would bypass those automatically".
Sure! And mundanes and their cyberware won't set off wards/magic detectors, so it's a wash.
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Bit late to the party, but what gives? Time for some good old overthinking ::)
First, just to make sure that everyone here is on the same page on what "essence holes" means, a very simplified explanation:
- Big ware makes a Big hole in your Essence.
- You take the Ware out, the big hole stays.
- If you put other, smaller Ware in the hole, the hole doesnīt get bigger...
- ... but if you put more, bigger Ware in it, it does.
IMO, itīs really not that complicated, but o boi, will you find find threads over threads about this concept! ::)
If I understand MMīs original suggestion correctly, this would be changed to:
- Big ware makes a Big hole in your Essence.
- You take the Ware out, hole closes (straight away?)
- If you put other ware in, it makes a new hole.
TBH: Not a big fan, at least not as a straight, no-investment-needed process. First, Flavour: Removing the concept of essence holes turns augmentations into just another piece of gear. Your Essence would be nothing more than a storage limit for your stuff. Second: Itīs really not that much of an issue for augmented mundanes anyways. Besides healing, the main reason for removing Augmentations is to make room for other, more efficient augmentations.
There are much more pressing issues that keep the chrome from shinging: The plight of Cyberlimbs, the penalty to healing tests (whatīs the point of the Kybernetic Specialization?), the fact that Ware only hampers positive Magic (seriously, whatīs the logic here? Also, if magic and tech doesnīt mix well, wouldnīt that also imply the existence of ware that is specifically designed to disturb magic?), not to mention the fact that many of the more "extreme" options like FBCs and Cyberzombies are missing since 5th Edition. Augmentations lacks behind in crunch and flavour because the writers were either not willing or not able to apply the same love to them as to anything magic. Spells make you fly, Adept powers makes you run up Walls, Hydraulic Jacks make you jump just a few centimeters higher. Woohoo. Augmentations are framed as something mundanes need to do to "keep up" with Magic users, but without ever coming close to catch up. Filing away the "Edginess" of Augmentations having a permanent imprint on your Essence doesnīt help with that.
However: I do think there should be some options for Mundanes (and Technomancers!) to mitigate essence loss and maybe even unlock other perks that are not available to Burnout Adepts and Magicians. In 5th Edition, Essence holes could be closed with expensive genetic therapy. Apart from this, I think it also could also make sense if essence holes can be closed up by some form of mental training or therapy.
To explain this, weīd need a more refined and less "argle bargle foofaraw" (never forgive, never forget ;D) vision on what essence represents: If itīs not just about how many limbs you have left, but about the integrity of your body and soul, then a noticable portion about your essence might be about how much your "soul" and self-image harmonizes with your physical body. This then could mean, that if someone chops up your arm, you would initially use a portion of your essence not because of the "lost flesh", but because your mind and soul doesnīt align with your body anymore. Through mental training or shere habituation, you could overcome this discrepancy, and of course, you may also get a cloned biological arm to make yourself "whole" again. IMO, all of these are reasonable paths to integreate essence recovery. And it also would make sense if mundanes are somewhat better at this, because they donīt have to align the whole body-mind-soul-complex with the astral space.
In contrast, an actual cyberarm will always be a somewhat foreign element, since itīs not made out of - well, you. Itīs mechanical and itīs controlled by a foreign onboard computer system thatīs interfacing with your nervous system. In a way, itīs more like a symbiotic relationship than an "extension" of yourself (Which is a theme that really deserves more exploration, especially when it comes to Cyberware. If highly recommend this gritty little masterpiece (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36PDeN9NRZ0)on this ;)). Note that this also serves as another explanation on why bioware is less invasive than Cyberware.
But what if you decide to "train" your soul and mind to help accept and integrate the "foreign" element? That would imply that people can also learn to (partially) offset the essence loss of augmentations, by, for the lack of better words, befriending and embracing them. One way to intergrate such a concept might be a return of the "Samurai Ways" last seen late in 4th Edition: By embracing that you are an unstoppable "Tank" or a wired "Speed Demon", the fitting Augmentations become a integral part of your identity, thus lowering the essence costs and maybe even unlock more of their potential.
Also, remember that there is a whole Archetype thatīs supposedly better at communicating with computers than anyone else: Late in 5th Edition, Technomancers got some perks to unlock more power in cyberware augmentations. These should definitley make a return. Itīs all fine and dandy that Adepts got their Path of the Burnout, but thatīs not the first archetype one should think about when it comes to "making more out of your ware"!
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I think ops plan was it could go away, though not necessarily immediately. Like maybe therapy etc. Personally I'd let that happen for anyone mundane or magical. But that might just because I was on reddit where I guy kept talking about loading up mages who are captured/imprisoned with 6 essence of junk ware to destroy their magic. Which 1 reminds me of the players who really want to role play out the interrogation scenes, and two incredibly un-fun. But I would not mind a way to heal it back, to get back on track.
Now a lot of us just think essence should be removed entirely for mundanes, and on top of that make the ware cooler, god I hope the ware books makes it look like tech advanced at least a little bit in the last 30+ years of setting. or if not removed a option to permanently bump their essence like how mages increase their magic.
As a nit pic general I wont argue the lack of woo factor from cyber compared to magic in a lot of the things there, but I think Hydraulic jacks unless they changed them were the much better jumping option compared to adepts jump power, though yes adepts could run up walls. At least previously it didn't add centimeter it added many meters as I thought it acted as a multiplier of base distance jumped, been many years where I even looked at them though as being able to jump almost never came up for us.
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I'm fine with Essence being a measure of how much man/machine interface you've got going on *right now* as opposed to ever in your life. Characters don't lose essence for having a limb blown off, so why couldn't they recover essence after removing a cyberlimb? Again, it just makes your Essence score more straightforward and intuitive, there's one less thing of which to keep track, and gives a tiny QOL boost for augmented mundanes.