Main Question: Is it worth 1 magic to have Improved reflexes 2 rather than 1?
definitely !!
get Synaptic Booster 1 and Muscle Augmentation 2 Alpha (+0,36 Ess. of Cyberware ,maybe Cybereyes ? or Muscle Enhancer 1 Alpha for STR 10 and Recoil 2?)

with an augmented Dance
Medicineman

High Pain Tolerance has some nice flavor to it but is otherwise a pretty mediocre quality, particularly since stuff like the equivalent Adept power and Pain Editors are both better than the quality and incompatible with it. If you want something on your sheet that shows some character while still being fairly useful you may want to consider spending that 5 points and some creativity on another contact.

A comment on the character's background : the character's triad affiliation is likely to get in him trouble sooner or later - these guys expect loyalty and aren't exactly fond of quitters. Especially if they went through the troubles of digging said quitter and training his adept abilities. He's an asset they poured serious time and effort into, and like any good money-makers, they expect some return on their investment... Risking his skin in side jobs who don't bring anything to the Triad his going to leave them a wee bit miffed. Unless he does it on his spare time, with the triad's permission.

A possible option would be to have his former triad wiped out (or a close enough approximation of it) to leave him free - though at that point things like a revenge vow or a low-grade ennemy group representing the fact that even if the wiping party is no longer actively looking for surivors, he's still a loose end that deserves to be tied if it appears on their radar.

Also an advice on knowledge skills ; some point in chinese are in my opinion mandatory - especially if he's been instructed in martial arts and adept powers. And in my opinion his martial art choices should have a chinese flavor : he got some basic alley brawling skills, then refined it under the Triad's teaching

I do not agree here... The average Unarmed Combatant in the UFL is not likely going to be throwing 20+ Dice (even 14 -16 Dice is a Stretch)... The game world does not support that logic in the least.

A note about specializations - they may be more costly at char-gen, but they are still a relatively cheap +2 bonus. While the rest of them could be picked up after play begins, I would not get rid of his martial arts specialization - that's his main skill, and frankly, he needs the boost to his dice pool.

I would raise Agility to 4, then drop penetrating strike to get improved Attribute/Agility to raise it to 5, and I would also drop Toughness to get two more levels of martial arts - or at least one more, to get the full +3 DV that you are allowed. And drop the Set Up maneuver, which is useless - why waste a successful attack, just to get a bonus to the next one?

Things you can change or pare down: replace tracking with shadowing - a mugger doesn't follow people's footprints, he stalks them. You don't need a vehicle skill for normal operation of a vehicle, so unless you are planning on outrunning cops or doing bootlegger turns on your bike, you can settle for defaulting. For first aid, I would lower it - a rating: 6 medkit will be doing most of the heavy lifting, anyways. Infiltration, I don't consider quite the must-have that others do, not for someone who won't be the primary sneak. A ranged skill, such as pistols or automatics, is essential, though.

...while specialisations may cost more at chargen, remember Karma is more valuable than money for an awakened character especially as it will cost you 31 Karma to get your next point of MA (Initiation grade cost + Magic attribute increase). At the rate of say 3 - 4 Karma per run that could be two or more months meeting weekly (depending on whether a "run" takes more than one session to complete) before you have banked up enough Karma (without spending it on anything else) to get that MA of 7 for an additional power point.

When I ran a 4th ed version of KK it took over 5 months before she was able to save up enough Karma to initiate and get that next PP as she also spent Karma on improving existing skills and adding specilaisations to keep pace with the level of threats we were facing.

While normally I am of the "pure adept" school, I begrudgingly agree that in 4th ed, burning one point of MA for bioware at chargen can be a good thing. For 1 Power Point the Kid was able to get a rating 2 Muscle Toner, rating 1 Synaptic Boosting, and a Reflex recorder on her Pistols skill (at the time I was playing her, the cost for Improved Reflexes was 2, 3, and 5 PPs for ratings 1, 2, & 3). Didn't go for the rating 2 boost as that would have cost another 16 BPs for resources which was effectively a rating of 4 in an active skill.

If you are going pure magic, max it at start and max improved reflexes, I know it is cheap and you are spending a lot of bp to do so but iit is the single most effective thing you can do at char gen. If you need to justify it with the mighty glaciar thing this character has you should recall that improved reflexes isn't about how fast you move but, in part, how efficiently you make your move and get back in to your set.

Really? I've never found it useful or significantly compelling to have anything beyond Reflexes 2 (be it magical or mundane in nature), especially not when compared with its cost and everything you give up to get it.

Agreed... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Anything over 2 is nice for those builds that like to tank it out in Full Defense before making a shot or two, but seems fairly superfluous mostly. 2 is definitely worth it though.

Yeah, the full investment costs an arm and a leg, which is a problem given that specialized melee characters really benefit from attaining a very large dice pool. That's because hand-to-hand combat doesn't really have anything that quite measures up to a point-blank Full Wide Burst when it comes to making sure that an attack will at least connect. That's problematic given that a competent armed melee defender can do things like maintain Full Defense while attacking or threaten damaging disarms. In fact, the general effectiveness of melee defense trumps melee offense well enough that I don't really consider close quarters combat to be a full-fledged and necessary role on a runner team. In my experience the best thing about most big ol' troll builds is usually their Body score, with the melee stuff being impressive but rarely any better than just taking Automatics for far less expense.

Eh, maybe it is just the tables I've played at then but the advantage of having another pass of actions has always proven to be a rather telling one, it allows you to atleast react to what the enemy has done, tactics they have employed and that sort of thing. The extra reaction is always nice as well.

Of course, but what else can you get for that cost?

Yeah, my big problem with getting more passes as an adept is the fact that it leaves you less room to load up on Improved (non-combat) Ability, which is one of the more cost effective Adept powers out there given that you can score 4 more dice for 10 bp. That's a pretty decent deal given that you can shunt those points into skills you really want to be good in as opposed to getting a more generalized benefit like with adding Logic or Charisma.

3 Dice actually... Due to Augmented Skill Maximums.

Yeah, that's why you split the points among a few skills. It's still .25 of a Power Point per rating no matter how you slice it.

Indeed, it is a great adept ability... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Hacker and/or B&E Adept for the Win (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

with an unseen Dance
Medicineman