[Mathias]

Originally Posted by d20Maverick

I'd like to request Essence Retention - lock the essence once the "Advancement" button has been clicked, as you currently do with karma. It can go down as more augmentations are installed, but it shouldn't go back up (as evidenced by the line, "When it’s gone, it doesn’t come back" on p. 52).

For example, let's say I have a military decker who began play with an implanted datajack and implanted Renraku Tsurugi cyberdeck, but after a series of very profitable runs he wants to upgrade to the Sony CIY-720. He doesn't want the new cyberdeck stuffed back inside him but want to keep it out where he can repair it without having to see a street doc to open him up so that he can get to it. So, he has the implanted cyberdeck removed, freeing up 0.4 essence. However, he doesn't get this essence back, so HeroLab should still see him as having 5.5 essence, even though only 0.1 essence is now being used. The other 0.4 essence can be reused later (if, say, my decker decides he really wants a standard-grade rating 2 Cerebral Booster to make him an even better decker), but he never goes "back" to 5.9 essence, he will (from the time he is locked for advancement) forever more be at 5.5 essence or less.

This was an optional rule in 4th, but wasn't actually printed in the core rulebook back then - it was in the Augmentation book. I suspect that this optional rule will be put back in as an official optional rule once 5th edition's version of Augmentation is released.