Hey there,

In 4th Edition it was quite popular to put together Adepts that had a mixture of both Cyber-Bio-ware and Adept powers. Now, 5th Edition has changed some parameters, but overall some powers got cheaper, others got more expensive, and we now have Qi Foci. Despite all that, it doesn't seem like putting 'ware in Adepts is going away anytime soon.

I was wondering about the best way to do it, in a Karma-friendly and Essence-friendly manner.

It used to be a good tactic to buy 2 magic, then lower it to 1 with 'ware and then increase it back to where it was using Karma (at a lower cost). It can be done in 5th, freeing a precious priority choice higher up, right? Is it still doable (AFAIK, yes).

What are the better 'ware options to pick up?

It seems like stuff like Reflex Recorders are pretty Essence friendly compared to equivalent Adept powers (even if Basic or Used).

Any good builds have crop up?

bioware, I NEVER used cyber in my adepts. unless it a more power build mental exercise. reflex recorders, muscle toner, (expensive now). platelet fact. sleep regulator, (3 hours of sleep at any time through a 72 hour period? yes please) much more, but it all depends on what type of adept you want to be.

Can you buy the power points only at chargen? If so, then you won't be able to raise them when you raise your Magic from 1 to 2. You'll only be able to do it by initiating.

for Adepts, you don't buy points at chargen, thats only the Mysad. An Adept gains PP equal to their magic rating at char gen, they also gain 1 PP when they raise their magic & either a PP or a Metamagic when they initiate. So an Adept that has a Magic of 8 & an initiation rank of 3 has 11 PP (unless they picked up a metamagic)

You can do this of course.

The problem with making an augmented adept is that the priority system restricts your freedom. I've made a couple characters like this as trials and can't really do what I want with them entirely due to the priority restrictions.

As for what ware to take, Muscle Toner/Augmentation, Reaction Enhancers, Reflex Recorders, Platelet Factory and Internal Air Tank are all great options for losing less than 1 magic. The problem you will quickly run into is that it is extremely difficult to get the nuyen to actually buy these things without gimping yourself elsewhere. I've had some success with Attributes A, Nuyen B, Race C (all special points to Edge), Magic D and Skills E but I haven't played these characters yet. Another issue is that I have a ton of money left over with nothing I want to spend it on thanks to the set Nuyen levels.

The next question is what you think you can really do with 1 magic. Without any IP boosters, a good setup in my opinion is Adrenaline Boost 1, Combat Sense 1, Improved Accuracy (Weapon Skill). With the right attribute setup you can start at 10-11 initiative before Reaction Enhancers, and pretty much always hit the 16 Initiative hump if you use Adrenaline Boost.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend going down this path until alternate build systems are available.

Priority D -> Magic 2
loose one point off Essence -> Magic 1
10 Karma -> Magic 2
(15 karma -> Magic 3)

potentially a lot of room to grow in any direction

That's not much more karma-efficient than just initiating for all your post-chargen power points. And coming out of chargen with only 1 Essence of cyber/bioware and only 1 power point of abilities seems fairly weak for an adept.

Though I suppose you could play a character who's focused in a different area (e.g. face or decker) who also has room to grow as an adept, and you only have to spend priority D for that.

Edited due to later posts.

Mea culpa.

Magic Max is always Essence, so it is perfectly legal

I'm pretty sure that's incorrect though.

Page 66 states "Note for most metatypes the maximum rating for Magic, Resonance and Edge is 6"

There's no indication that the points spent in Steps 1 and 3 on Magic or Resonance set a new "max" for Magic or Resonance (or atleast none that I can find).

Your assumptions on Magic are completely wrong. Maximum Magic is 6 in CharGen (7 with Exceptional Attribute). Initiation raises the Maximum Magic Rating by its Grade.

If you only put 2 points in Magic at the Start, your Stats are 2/6 for Magic. Lose a Point of Essence for Ware, and that becomes 1/5. In the Karma section of CharGen, you spend all 25 points into Magic, that makes it 3/5. Once Play Starts, Initiations raise that Limit by 1 (for Maximum Magic) per Initiation, until you hit 3 Initiations (Maximum Initiations equal Magic Rating, at which point you would have Stats 3/8), at which point you raise your Magic and Then initiate. Ad Infinitum.

The starting maximumfor Magic is 6, with the exeption of the "exeptional attribute (magic)" quality.

Edit: OK a little late (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

This is the benefit of the priority system in my eyes.

restrictions in mine

Why is the inability to realize a character concept a benefit? I am truly Curious. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

Because the trade-off between magic and tech should actually be something you need to think about and almost not worth doing. This seems to be delivered by priority stems stopping people start with high magic, and large amounts of tech.

I did a test orc with lvl 3 reflexes (Requires magic 4) and a cyber arm (orc) with Strength 8+3 and Agility 6+3, cyber spurs, a cyber gun and +1 armor

Cost is just 1 essence and you get a good arm that stabs people for 14P AP -2 with a nice dicepool of 9 + 6 +(2 spec) without breaking a sweat. Dunno if you can add critstrike and other goodies to it but your lethality of that is amazing. Agility 9 and effective strength 11 makes any one handed weapon dangerous!

In all, to get 4 magic for 3 levels of fat initiative has been very attractive since SR4

But, it works in reverse too, you can get lvl 2 synaptic booster for 1 power point (lost essence) (costs 2.5 pp to get the 'real' way, freeing up a full 5 PP for other nice powers while rocking good initiative. That too worked painfully well in SR4 and seem to work almost as good in SR5.

Cybered adepts seem to be just as good as before!

And yet that has absolutely nothing to do with the realization of a Concept. The system is not granular enough to cover many of the concept that I prefer, because the numbers do not cover the middle ground. I prefer mid range powerful characters, and those are very hard to do well, because the numbers just do not work out that way in Priority.

its the "everything has a price" mentality of 5th coming out right there, good in some ways, bad in others.

Here's my take on the cyber-adept:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3wwhykcwrbc3mnw/S...d%20Rulesv2.xls

I played him once, but his lack of non-combat skills was a bit of a drag.

I'd say its cheaper both in terms of essence hit, to not go with reflex booster type stuff, using your magic background instead. If a mystic add, thats the adept powah + a spell anchored. Maybe +agility bioware muscles? Eye stuff can potentially give you alot of bang for your buck.

Which, in my opinion, is a shame. Forcing the "everything has a price" mentality is the worst form of game design I can imagine. *shrug*

It is especially bad for the princes, sort of makes them.... common. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

But yeah the Cost is a tough one to balance.

If you have the luxury of a long term campaign capable GM you can pay the costs overtime, just look at what a potential maniac who keeps implanting cyber gradually over time while initiating can achieve, but it is a serious cost for that Concept.

But for shorter campaigns you will barely scratch your potential toward being able to build that Concept so they want something that comes pretty close coming out of the gate.

I claim sickness for the error... My only defense, actually. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)



That may be very true. I am very accustomed to very long term character growth, and so, I very rarely worry about short term gains over concept. However, My Ideas for Concept generally set a lower Bar than what some Dumpshockers claim are necessary for a viable character. In SR4A, I am very content to have Skills of 3-4 for my Primary Skill Ratings, with the remaining skills at 1's and 2's. After all, 3's/4's are Professional/Veteran level of capability. That changes to 4's-5's with most skills in SR5, of course, but since I really am not planning on investing much into SR5, I am pretty sure I will not have too much to worry about on that front.

Where in the rules does it say this?


Characters do not have a Magic Attribute
unless they select one of the priorities that specifically
provide one (see the Priority Table, p. 65). Magic
has a starting value from 1 to 6 (or 7 with the Exceptional
Attribute quality), but you don’t have to settle for
that limit forever. You can go through a process called
Initiation (p. 324) that can enhance your abilities.

Notice the part that says limit. If you start with Apapt 2 (Priority D) and don't add to the 2 with Special Attribute Points and or Exceptional Attribute you have a Magic Attribute of 2 and 1 or fraction of Essence loss brings you to MR 1 and an Essence loss of greater than 1 means you are burnt out. Your Magic Rating could go higher with initiation... but you can't just spend karma to raise your Magic Attribute... you spend Karma to raise your Magic Rating- two different things.

Long story short- you want biowar- you might want to make sure that the combination of priority magic pick plus special attribute points dedicated to Magic Attribute puts you higher than the meager 2 in your example.
And if you use the Exceptional Attribute fore Magic , not only do you have to pay 14 Karma for the quality, you have to pay for the increase of the attribute- this is the only time you can raise Magic Attribute by Karma.
So your Adapt 2 would have to pay to initiate and pay the cost of increasing Magic Rating from 2 to 3 to have MR 3.