Magic & Cyberware

[lazarus]

If there were a cyberfantasy section, I'd put this there, but here's as good a place as any.

 

I was thinking, the other day, how to emulate Shadowrun's "Essence" stat, which limits your magic and cyberware, in that you buy cyberware, Essence decreases, and your Magic is the Essence stat, rounded down.

 

Anyway, I came up with this:

 

50 point Essence Pool. Anything with SFX Cyberware uses up its Real Points in the Essence Pool, and anything with SFX Magic has an Active Point cap of what the Essence Pool.

 

Laz

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Magic & Cyberware

 

Don't know enough about Shadowrun to give input myself, but in case you weren't aware of it you might find something useful in this very complete conversion of Shadowrun to HERO System.

[lazarus]

Re: Magic & Cyberware

 

yeah, I know about the ShadowHERO, but I didn't like how it did the Essence conversion.

 

Laz

[Warp9]

Re: Magic & Cyberware

 

If there were a cyberfantasy section, I'd put this there, but here's as good a place as any.

 

I was thinking, the other day, how to emulate Shadowrun's "Essence" stat, which limits your magic and cyberware, in that you buy cyberware, Essence decreases, and your Magic is the Essence stat, rounded down.

 

Anyway, I came up with this:

 

50 point Essence Pool. Anything with SFX Cyberware uses up its Real Points in the Essence Pool, and anything with SFX Magic has an Active Point cap of what the Essence Pool.

 

Laz

How would you deal with SR Initiation? the magic attribute goes up, but (as I remember it) essence stays the same.

[paigeoliver]

Re: Magic & Cyberware

 

I see no reason to convert a game mechanic from one game to another. Trying to emulate game mechanics from other games is the number one mistake of conversions.

 

All you really need is a brief description of the concept, and then the GM can make sure that the characters stay true to the concept. Hero has a wonderful list of character disadvantages, and has tons of ways to use any power. Trying to convert the rule is a needless complication, especially since the rule probably wouldn't even apply to 90 percent of the characters out there. Shadowrun NEEDS this to stay balanced, because of the way their system works, hero doesn't need this to stay balanced, as it is already balanced.

[OddHat]

Re: Magic & Cyberware

 

Charge character points for all Cyberware. You now have a workable Essence system. At lower point totals, no one will have enough Character Points to buy high levels of both Magic and Cyberware. If you split your points between them, the game world reason that you're not as good a Mage as a specialist is that your Essence was reduced by the Cyberware. Does the cyber-mage want to put experience points into magic? Have him save them up, maybe play a game session allowing him to buy a perk (Level X Initiate, 10 points per level), then spend them all at once. From a game POV he's undergoing Initiation to permit him to spend those points. You can give him some minor advatages from the Perk as well.

 

The Essence rules are mostly a game balance tool; Hero has those built in.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Magic & Cyberware

 

Yeah, as long as characters have to pay points for both cyberware and magic, no balance issue occurs.

[lazarus]

Re: Magic & Cyberware

 

Actually, I kinda like the flavour of the Essence stat in SR - the fact that your spell capability is limited by how much cyberwear you have.

 

Here we go:

1) Initiation would raise the AP cap by 10 points.

2) I like cyberwear bought with cash, not points. However, completely with cash means that the character is getting "points" of powers for free ... so something needs to be done to counteract that. Hence, pool of points that the character can use, but it also costs cash.

3) Part of the flavour of the Shadowrun world is how the magic is limited. Combined with 2 above, some form of magic/cyberwear relation is needed.

4) It may be a balance issue in SR, but it's not here - it's really an example of taking the core rules, applying an extension to them, and getting something which beautifully emulates one of the key "flavour rules" from another system. Remember, folks, the HERO system is a toolkit...

 

Laz

[ghost-angel]

Re: Magic & Cyberware

 

Realizing that Hero is a toolkit, one also has to realize that every system puts in its own balancing options to prevent one thing or another from being over/under powered compared to the rest of the game.

 

In SR the Essence Stat prevents the cyber/magic issue from becoming an overpowering aspect, you can only get so much of both.

 

In Hero the point system is the balancer, especially when combining different types of genre aspects such as magic and cyber. By making both Cyber and Magic cost points you limit how much any one character can take of each - without needing to add another stat or set of rules to the game.

 

 

Of course, no one here will stop you from doing whatever it is you wish to do in your own game, or even tell you you're wrong. Mostly we'll point out a different way to do it, often trying to help simplify the process for you and your players.