[Reaver]

if you want to go true old school for limitations on social tests for the augmented...

SR 1e

for every point of essence below 5, you lost a whole 1 die. except for intimidation where you gained a 1 die.

which doesn't sound like much until you realise the drastic changes to the rules that have happened from then to now.


Floating target numbers,

odd ways to count successes (6L3, 9M2, 10S4, 20d1, starting to ring some bells??),

heck, even the all the base mechanics were different.

(skills, attribute points, magic/matrix/combat dice pools, GOOD karma, BAD karma, Karma total)


if you don't remember the old, old, old, old, old, system.... be happy.

[Reaver]

Just kinda strange that there is not more negative effects of losing essence than a [slightly] lower social limit.

Lost 3 essence = -1 social limit
Lost 5.99 essence = -2 social limit
Lost 6 essence = certain death

I think they could have added some more drawbacks along the way.
There is no sense of "danger" when installing more augmentations.

Lost 3 essence = -3 dice pool mod on health spells cast on you
Lost 5 essence = -5 dice pool mod on health spells cast on you

MHO, they already have a increased sense of danger/drawbacks as your ESS drops via the P.287-288 "low-essence" health spell thing. Harder to heal, cure disease, and buff with "increase" spells.

EDIT: Mirikon beat me to it.

yea, there reaches a point where the Sammy shouts "Heal me now please" and the mage takes one look at the Sammy.... and either falls on the floor  laughing, or just stun bolts him to pre-empt the whining when he refuses.

[hex]

just to necro this, and it is from SR3, not SR5 but on page 41 (bottom right corner in the Attributes section) it says:

Under basic Shadowrun rules, characters can never have an Essence of 0 or less. If they do, they die.

Which is pretty cut-and-dried.  Like your corpse in the morgue after you flat-line on the surgery table.

[Michael Chandra]

Yeah, they forgot to explicitly state it in some editions, but it still counts, as Essence Drain makes clear.