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