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Message no. 1
From: "Jason Carter, Nightstalker" <CARTER@***.EDU>
Subject: RE: Mages and Bioware
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 93 22:36:01 CET
Micheal,
You posted:
>>Sandman
>>If I was your GM I wouldn't allow mages bioware even without the Shadowtech
>>rule, IMHO mages have enough advantages without bioware. There is game
>>balance to think of, and mages come close enough to breaking the balance.

Now did you mean you wouldn't allow mages bioware even "with" the Shadowtech
rule? If so, why not? For Mages bioware acts just like cyberware. The only
real advantage they get is the lower essense cost of Synatic Accelerator.
As for non-magical characters, bioware greatly increases their power level as
compared to before. A friend of mine has a Decker with a Cranial Cyberdeck and
tons of bioware. He can run the matrix with the best and is as tough in a fight
as your average samurai. Now tell me who's upsetting game balance.

See Ya in Shadows,
Jason J Carter
The Nightstalker
Message no. 2
From: Michael Baker <mike@******.EGLIN.AF.MIL>
Subject: RE: Mages and Bioware
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 07:26:57 CST
Nightstalker,
I was refering to Chris's post where his GM was allowing the mages bioware using
body index only and no essence loss, that is what I disagree with, and meant I
wouldn`t allow mages bioware without the Shadowtech rule. The only problem with
your scenario is when you use prefab runs, the rules people and the adventure
writers never seem to be in sync, so the opposition is usually underpowered when
facing the team. BTW that decker will be a pain to heal magically and if you use
the rules for damaging cyberware on a Serious wound or up he may be spending a
lot of time replacing his losses.

Michael "Feral" Baker
Message no. 3
From: Joaquin Zoak Perez <jzoak@****.UBA.AR>
Subject: Mages and bioware
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 1995 12:12:12 -0300
Hi fellas!

> Bioware costs Essence for magical active characters, because it
> interferes with the magicians self. This Essence isn't lost
> permanently - the mage regains 0.1 Point of Essence for every month he
> got this piece, but the magic rating is lost permanently.

> So - enough babbling for today, what do you think about this one ? Any
> comments would be appreciated.

Gee, ain't that too hard for poor fellow magicians? I thought that
bioware was just the stuff for 'em...

That kind of lose (magic rating) would make a mage with bioware be
totally dependant on his/her foci. That's bad, IMHO.

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Message no. 4
From: Georg Greve <ggreve@*******.HANSE.DE>
Subject: Mages and bioware
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 11:34:50 +0200
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 1995 11:34:47 +0200 (MET DST)

> Gee, ain't that too hard for poor fellow magicians? I thought that
> bioware was just the stuff for 'em...
> That kind of lose (magic rating) would make a mage with bioware be
> totally dependant on his/her foci. That's bad, IMHO.

I'm sorry, but where have you been the last years ??? This rule is an
ADVANTAGE for mages. Usually Mages just LOSE the Essence for Bioware
and that's it - reread the Shadowtech-Sourcebook. I fear you already
burned your whole magic attribute with Bioware...

Bye...
Georg

--
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Georg Greve greve@*******.Hanse.DE |
| Tel.: +49-40-8223482 greve@*******.uni-hamburg.de |
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Message no. 5
From: Alfredo B Alves <dghost@****.COM>
Subject: Mages and Bioware
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 02:31:14 -0500
No this isn't the standard question ... This is actually a hard question.
:)

If a mage burns out due to magic loss (ie, deadly wounds, stim patches,
etc ...) but still has all his/her Essence intact decides to get bioware
... does s/he lose Essence?

Okay, maybe that one wasn't /that/ hard ... how about:

If a mage gets 1 Body Index worth of bioware (which means s/he loses 1
essence point) burns out, does s/he get that Essence point back?

Okay, so maybe they both weren't /that/ hard but they should be fairly
thought provoking ... especially if you try to rationalize it (without
resorting to game mechanics :) ...

D. Ghost
(aka Pixel, Tantrum, RuPixel)
o/` Trideo killed the Video Star ... o/`

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Message no. 6
From: Spike <u5a77@*****.CS.KEELE.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: Mages and Bioware
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 14:29:56 +0100
And verily, did Alfredo B Alves hastily scribble thusly...
|
|No this isn't the standard question ... This is actually a hard question.
|:)
|
|If a mage burns out due to magic loss (ie, deadly wounds, stim patches,
|etc ...) but still has all his/her Essence intact decides to get bioware
|... does s/he lose Essence?

That all depends. Burned out mages can still have a magic point.

|Okay, maybe that one wasn't /that/ hard ... how about:
|
|If a mage gets 1 Body Index worth of bioware (which means s/he loses 1
|essence point) burns out, does s/he get that Essence point back?

I'd say no, but once the magic point is totally gone, he won't lose any more
because he is now an incurable mundane.

--
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Message no. 7
From: Aristotle aristotle@********.net
Subject: Mages and Bioware
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 12:47:47 -0500
Ok,

I am *sure* this has come up here before, but seeing as I am new, and I want to know, I'm
gonna ask anyways. We all know that cyberware costs essence and essence loss equals Magic
loss, but what effects does bioware have? Is their any special way that this should be
handled?

I have seen "house rules" where mages could have bioware but had to pay twice
the body index.

I also recall seing somewhere in the books where a mage who looses an arm and has it
replaced still looses the Magic rating, unless the new arm was cloned specifically from
his own arm. (or at least I think I read that somewhere, cause dangit it sounds familiar.)

Thank you for your reply in advance,

-Aristotle
Message no. 8
From: Paul Gettle RunnerPaul@*****.com
Subject: Mages and Bioware
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 13:01:42 -0500
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At 12:47 PM 2/26/99 -0500, Aristotle wrote:
>I am *sure* this has come up here before, but seeing as I am new, and
I want
>to know, I'm gonna ask anyways. We all know that cyberware costs
essence and
>essence loss equals Magic loss, but what effects does bioware have?
Is their
>any special way that this should be handled?

Check Shadowtech, p.5, column 2, if you want to know the offical canon
rule, at least until FASA publishes Man & Machine.

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--
-- Paul Gettle, #970 of 1000 (RunnerPaul@*****.com)
PGP Fingerprint, Key ID:0x48F3AACD (RSA 1024, created 98/06/26)
C260 94B3 6722 6A25 63F8 0690 9EA2 3344
Message no. 9
From: David Buehrer dbuehrer@******.carl.org
Subject: Mages and Bioware
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 11:05:29 -0700 (MST)
Aristotle wrote:
/
/ Ok,
/
/ I am *sure* this has come up here before, but seeing as I am new, and
/ I want to know, I'm gonna ask anyways. We all know that cyberware costs
/ essence and essence loss equals Magic loss, but what effects does
/ bioware have? Is their any special way that thi/ s should be handled?

The general consensus (thought a few of us have different opinions :)
is that the body index of bioware is subtracted from a mage's body
index and Magic rating, but it should *not* affect their essence.

So, a mage with cyberware that has an essence cost of .5, and bioware
with a BI of.75, would have an effective Magic of 4 ((6 - (.5 + .75) 4.75).

-David B.
--
"Earn what you have been given."
--
ShadowRN GridSec
email: dbuehrer@******.carl.org
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
Message no. 10
From: Marc Renouf renouf@********.com
Subject: Mages and Bioware
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 13:40:16 -0500 (EST)
On Fri, 26 Feb 1999, Aristotle wrote:

> I am *sure* this has come up here before, but seeing as I am new, and I
> want to know, I'm gonna ask anyways. We all know that cyberware costs
> essence and essence loss equals Magic loss, but what effects does
> bioware have? Is their any special way that this should be handled?

The rule most often cited is from Shadowtech, where it is stated
that "Bioware causes Essence loss for mages" in addition to the direct
cost to the Magic attribute. This is pretty much a double whammy, and I
am fairly certain (having talked to the FASA folks about it) that it's
essentially a misprint. The way I run it is that bioware reduces a
magician's Magic Rating by subtracting the mage's Body Index as though it
were Essence loss, but does not reduce his actual Essence. Hence, a mage
with 0.75 BI of bioware and no cyberware has a Magic of 5 (as opposed to
the 4 he'd have with the rule as published). Most other folks I know run
it more or less the same way.
What you should *not* do is give mages a further break for
bioware. Bioware already has a lower associated magic cost than similar
cyberware. Take muscle replacement versus muscle augmentation, for
example. Muscle replacement costs a full point of Essence per point,
whereas muscle augmentation is cheaper (like 0.8 per point IIRC).
Cerebral Boosters are cheaper (magic-loss-wise) than Encephalons, and so
on.

> I also recall seing somewhere in the books where a mage who looses an
> arm and has it replaced still looses the Magic rating, unless the new
> arm was cloned specifically from his own arm. (or at least I think I
> read that somewhere, cause dangit it sounds familiar.)

That is correct. If you lose an arm, chances are that you
probably took a deadly wound. This has a *chance* (it's not automatic) of
incurring Magic loss. If it does not, however, the mage still has his
full Magic Rating (i.e. a one-armed mage doesn't suffer a penalty to his
magic attribute simply because he lost an arm).
If the mage gets the limb replaced, however, he's talking Essence
loss, as he's having cyberware implanted. Also, a cyberlimb costs a full
point of Essence, which by the old rules was Drastic invasive surgery (I
haven't checked this out in SR3, so it may have changed). As such, he
would incur *another* deadly wound from the surgery, and have to check for
magic loss *again*. If he got a clonal regrowth, the limb could be
reattached without incurring a loss of Essence. There is no hard
-and-fast rule about getting secondhand replacement limbs, but I noticed
that these were missing from SR3 all together. They may reduce the
magicians Magic Attribute like bioware (after all, you now have an arm of
an entirely different [and probably mundane] genetic structure hooked
onto your body), but certainly wouldn't cost any Essence.
Either way, YCMV.

Marc
Message no. 11
From: Paul Gettle RunnerPaul@*****.com
Subject: Mages and Bioware
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 14:19:02 -0500
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At 01:40 PM 2/26/99 -0500, Marc Renouf wrote:
> The rule most often cited is from Shadowtech, where it is stated
>that "Bioware causes Essence loss for mages" in addition to the
direct
>cost to the Magic attribute.

What direct cost to the Magic Attribute? There doesn't seem to be
anything in my copy of Shadowtech that says directly subtract Body
Index from Magic attribute. (I do have a first-printing Shadowtech
though, was p. 5 one of the ones changed in subsequent printings?) The
Body Index does get indirectly subtracted from Magic Attribute through
the associated essence loss, but that's all.

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--
-- Paul Gettle, #970 of 1000 (RunnerPaul@*****.com)
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Message no. 12
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Mages and Bioware
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 12:11:02 +0100
According to Aristotle, at 12:47 on 26 Feb 99, the word on
the street was...

First, a small request: could you set your mailer to word-wrap every 70
characters or so? Each of your paragraphs ended up on a single line, which
can make them hard to read in some mailers.

> I am *sure* this has come up here before, but seeing as I am new, and I
> want to know, I'm gonna ask anyways. We all know that cyberware costs
> essence and essence loss equals Magic loss, but what effects does
> bioware have? Is their any special way that this should be handled?

According to Shadowtech, page 5 or 6 or so, bioware costs Essence to
magicians, equal to its Body Cost. (Note that it _also_ still adds to Body
Index.) Thus, a magician with muscle augmentation level 1, and no other
implants of any kind, has a Body Index of 0.8 and an Essence of 5.2. The
character's Magic Attribute would be 5.

However, many groups use a house rule that says the magician's Magic
Ratign is reduced _as_if_ bioware costs Essence, but it doesn't actually
lower the character's Essence rating. The magician from the example above
would thus have an Essence of 6, but a Magic Rating of 5.

> I also recall seing somewhere in the books where a mage who looses an
> arm and has it replaced still looses the Magic rating, unless the new
> arm was cloned specifically from his own arm. (or at least I think I
> read that somewhere, cause dangit it sounds familiar.)

This is explained in SR3, page 129, under Magical Characters And Damage.
Basically, you've got it exactly right: replacing a lost limb with
anything other than a limb cloned from the magician's own tissue costs him
or her a Magic point.

--
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Further Reading

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