[SamTwist]

Good day everyone!

Are there or should there be any negative effects for characters that abuse Cybeware?
I understand that at 0.01 essence, the character becomes a CyberZombie and his soul kinda ''dies'' and healing spells are a lot less effective but other than that, should there be other consequences such as a loss in Willpower?

Also, how does Cyberware mix with alcohol? Should a character be more resistant to alcohol if he has a lot of Cyberware?

Thanks!

[Namikaze]

It's substantially harder for a cybered up character to receive magical healing and most buffs.  Beyond that, the answer to all your questions is no.

[ZeConster]

0.01? I thought you died at 0 Essence, and that you only become a cyberzombie if a corp uses powerful magic to keep you 'alive' at negative Essence.

[Kincaid]

Abuse is a tricky word.  There are characters out there with lots of cyber who, for one reason or another, require lots of cyber.  That doesn't really qualify as abuse.  Mechanically, low Essence characters are harder to target with Health spells and have a lower Social Limit.  Previous editions assigned a negative dice penalty for low Essence characters to reflect their lack of empathy, which is generally something I still try to roleplay with my low Essence (N)PCs.

[Ishmell]

and don't forget that there that much easier to take down with essence drain.

[Medicineman]

0.01? I thought you died at 0 Essence, and that you only become a cyberzombie if a corp uses powerful magic to keep you 'alive' at negative Essence.

and with that you're totally right

at 0,001 Essence your char is still alive.
He might have a Cyberpsychosis (which is ok ,maybe even a must imO) but not necessarily.
 a Player is totally within his right (though not in my Eyes  ) to play his char quite normal
there is nothing in RAW that forces this 0.001 Essence Char to be emotionless or distanced

should there be other consequences such as a loss in Willpower?

not by RAW
Essence is in ...Essence a gamebalance Factor so that the Streetsam has only a limited Resource to integrate 'ware
Every Ingame consequence (apart from Fsocial / Freakfactor and Healing Malus which are RAW) should be discussed within Your Group

Also, how does Cyberware mix with alcohol? Should a character be more resistant to alcohol if he has a lot of Cyberware?

and less body (not Attribute,but mass) to compensate.
there are no Rules that I know of, maybe in Bullets & Bandages ??

with a drunk Dance
Medicineman

[SamTwist]

Thank you very much everyone for taking the time to share your thoughts on the matter!

[The_Hyphenator]

As others have said, there's nothing in RAW that imposes roleplaying consequences for having extremely low essence. That being said, I like that as a roleplaying concept, so I've told my players that if they go below 1 whole point of essence, they'll start feeling the dehumanizing aspects of augmentation and should roleplay accordingly. So, I think it's more a matter of GM discretion than anything else.

[LionofPerth]

I'm doing something a little interesting on the Essence front.

Firstly, in my mind, that street sam with a lot of augmentations is pretty heavy. Those floors will not like it, especially false floors. They'll have difficulties dealing with that much weight. I'm only talking in the order of 150KG or so total weight.

The other part is that in my mind, there'd be a lot of bad reactions to someone going to that level. I'd even award Notoriety for being that augmented. Some groups might simply not deal with them at all. Distinctive Style might also work as a way to show they're that augmented.

The other part, that people stop really noticing the character as they're walking. You know when you run towards an elevator and no-ones holds the door for you, someone bumps into you because they didn't see you, doors won't open first time every time. Things like that, it doesn't actively help the character, but those they talk to need to focus on the conversation, the person they're talking to. They need to focus on that person actually being there. They might need to repeat themselves a few times just to get the message across.

I was thinking of starting this in the order of 3.5, 3.0 Essence, where it only picks up to more events the lower it gets. When it gets to the cyberzombie stage, I'd say they have serious issues just being recognised as a person, seen as nothing other than a wall, electronic piece of security.

[Medicineman]

@LionofPert
with Your Houserules you're....clearing the Path to Magerun.Don't be astonished when lots of your Players will decide to play an awakened instead

 

When it gets to the cyberzombie stage,

they're dead (kept alive only by Magic) and became NPCs 

with a magical Dance
Medicineman

[LionofPerth]

@LionofPert
with Your Houserules you're....clearing the Path to Magerun.Don't be astonished when lots of your Players will decide to play an awakened instead

I don't plan on telling them that one to be honest. Everything in Shadowrun has a cost, while cyberwear costs a fair bit of money, even bioware, it's sacrificing part of yourself to be better, to do more. There should be more to it than just a bit of money. Essence is the very element that is your soul, so magic might not heal you as much, doesn't cut it in my mind.

None the less, it's meant to be a more subtle cost and more importantly it has no obvious mechanical, rules effect. That if you do really cyber up, say hello to false floors and other more interesting ways of revealing it without an adept or mage in sight, on site. I can screw you over, but I won't, as the world needs to work, have actions and reactions. This is just one of the reactions to it.

I want to try and discourage my players from cybernetics for the sake of cybernetics, bioware for the sake of bioware. That if they see someone with it and the bad reactions from, I would prefer them to actively choose it and not just 'I want to throw more die down' as their reason. Anyone can throw more die down, it's how you use what you have that I want to reward, why I don't hand out experience in any of my class level type of campaigns. It's going to be interesting to have to hand out karma.

[$/@mm-0!]

Eh I feel the social hit and harder to heal is enough on its own but to each their own. 

[LionofPerth]

Eh I feel the social hit and harder to heal is enough on its own but to each their own. 

Kicks in too low for me, if it works for you, as it stands, all the better for you. It's one of the RPG's that does what you want.

[Glyph]

Essence is mainly a metagame concept, put in place to give an upper limit to the augmentations that a street samurai can have.  It affects healing and social tests, so a low Essence is not consequence-free.  Street samurai suffer from the revised initiative rules, loss of the ability to shoot twice with two simple actions, loss of the halving of the lower of cyberware or bioware Essence costs, higher costs of the aforementioned 'ware, and be-nerfed-or-be-vulnerable so-called wireless bonuses.   They don't really need any additional crap piled onto them.

LionofPerth, I would say, if you desire a certain style of play, it is better to have open communication with your players.  They aren't going to automatically intuit the "appropriate" level of augmentation (or acceptable dice pools, or numbers of active magical foci, etc.).  Having bad things happen to their augmented characters won't necessarily clue them in, either.

[LionofPerth]

LionofPerth, I would say, if you desire a certain style of play, it is better to have open communication with your players.  They aren't going to automatically intuit the "appropriate" level of augmentation (or acceptable dice pools, or numbers of active magical foci, etc.).  Having bad things happen to their augmented characters won't necessarily clue them in, either.

I tend to run, maybe even simulate a whole world. There's part of the world I would think about that I don't think end up in most other games. This is one part of it for me. That while the Social, loss of healing effectiveness etc are quite notable effects, they do kick in too low for me to really like it, not as granular as I would prefer. I also prefer something of a sliding scale, that because you're selling parts of yourself to be augmented, there should be something less you, about you.

In my mind the answer is the same for both, there is less of you, your very soul. So I'm adding a little more detail to the scale that what the rule books say. Flavour, colour, that bit extra which hopefully turns an average campaign into a great one.