From:	Mongoose m0ng005e@*********.com
Subject:	Bio-ware, cyber-ware and mages
Date:	Thu, 1 Jul 1999 00:39:40 -0500

:Anyway, to make a long story short, I originally counted both cyber and bio
:added together to determine magic loss.. then R:AS came out. the "latest
:and greatest" module.. and I saw some combat mages with cyber _and_ bio..
:Guess what? When I reverse engineered them, the only way it worked was to
:go back to what my players originally thought... Count the HIGHER of the
:two (body index or essence loss) to determine Magic Loss.

The actual "engineering" was done under basic SR3 / Shadowtech /
Grimoire rules. Under those rules, the bioware directly reduces thier
essence of mages (by its BI rating), which in turn impacts magic rating.
Its amazing what you can cram into 1.38 points worth of essence / BI with
deltaware (and maybe good surgery). Trust me, the guy who did those NPC
characters is AT LEAST as anal about the numbers as most of us...

:Thus, a combat mage with 2.95 points of Cyberware and 3.8 body index would
:have an effective adjusted magic rating of 2 (barring geasa and such).

No, he'd have a mgaic rating of zero, barring intiation.

:Given the greater use of the Magic attribute itself in SR3, this doesn't
:seem too awful broken.. What do the rest of y'all think and/or use?

The common house rule is to reduce magic rating as if B.I. DID reduce
tha mages essence, but to NOT have it actually reduce the essence. That may
even be similar to whats going in MaM, since so many people play by that
rule. But don't count on it, unless your willing to risk a rude
"awakening". I certainly DON'T recomend using the "whichever is
higher"
rule- any character with 4+ points of bio and cyber (each) is nasty, let
alone a MAGE with that much implant wares.

Mongoose