Show me where in the core rulebook I can find the rules for Background Count, and you might have a point. Otherwise, it's just another house rule.

Our GM uses Background Counts all the time in SR4A. I do not expect that to change in SR5. Apparently, in SR5, those BGC's are not all that much a concern, though. Sad, really, since they are a control on Magic.

They will be there when the Magic Book comes out, and you know it. And I believe that the rules on BGC have been spoiled, at least a bit anyways.

I'm going to pull a toturi here, and point out that if it's not in the core rulebook, it's not a core rule. At best it's an advanced/optional rule, a house rule until it's published, and a rule which will also likely be forgotten by many. If adepts were deliberately overpowered in SR5 with background count being the restrictive factor, it was a poor-ass design decision.

It has been argued that the Awakened are ALWAYS overpowered. Background Count has always provided a controlling factor, whether you actually like that rule or not. If it is not used, then people have no leg to stand on when claiming that the Awakened are Overpowered. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Thank you, but as an Awakened I Levitate thank you so keep your silly leg. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)


And this is what has me scratching my head the most about the 'core' book, it comes across more as part 1 of X rather than the Baseline with future books being options.

Is it playable as is? Yes, but with bits of fiddling along the way or unanswered basic questions that should not necessarily require splats to fill in the gaps.

Oh, Well, You're welcome then... Of course, as a levitating entity, well, I would still use BGC against you. Grounds you and weakens you at the same time. Makes you more susceptible to the Grenades. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

But not until the splat comes out... mwahahahaha

Indeed, though we are working on that as well. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Cleansing & Filtering Metamagics are a wonderful for helping to mitigate the effect of BGC. Will be interesting to see if these survive into the new splats.

first off, street sams can get level 3 initiative boosts. not at chargen (yet), but they can get them. most likely, they will at some point become available at chargen through the use of positive qualities, but that's just speculation at this point. regardless, the fact remains, that it isn't beyond their reach, merely beyond their reach at chargen (how easy it is to reach after chargen obviously depends on run payouts... if you use the official guide, then granted, it may as well be "never")

secondly, cyberware and bioware is *vastly* more effective in building someone that you can literally hide behind because bullets just bounce right off with no effect. armour is expensive and has only one type available for adepts... for street samurai, there are many sources of armour.

thirdly, attribute boosts in general are much more readily available through augmentation.

there's a few other niche areas (skillwires would be something i'd list if they weren't so bloody expensive, for example, and i'm fairly certain adepts don't have any powers equivalent to the cyberarm gyromount, but most of those areas are currently fairly limited).

truth be told, it's better in the extreme long run to be a combination of adept and street sam, but practically speaking the cost of reaching that eventual theoretical maximum is not particularly reachable for most.

in short, adepts are good at some things, street sams are good at some things, and they both work very well, just differently. street sams actually have a niche now... they'll typically be maybe 2-3 dice behind an adept in the adept's area of specialty at chargen, and will also have their own strengths to bring to the table.

Jaid,

Let me first say that I like samurai. I like playing them better than playing adepts because I find the flavor more enjoyable than that of an adept.

I can't really agree that samurai (in this edition) are anything other than worse adepts.

The problem is in char gen the availability of the equipment limits you (while the adept has no such limit) and out of char gen while you are saving up money for the big ticket items, the adept can be buying some of the cheaper high value to cost ratio items while saving their karma to initiate and get more PP. (Not to mention picking up Qi Foci as well as cheap boosts to their PP)

Improved Ability is a huge problem, in that it gives the Adept the ability to be 1.5 times as many dice better (i.e. if you have a skill of 6, the adept can have 9 dice (and I've seen it argued, although I don't agree that this is RAI, that they can actually have 15 dice) using Improved Ability.

This by the way, can be used for ANY skill, which means the Adept can be a better decker than the decker, a better face than the face, and a better gunslinger than the samurai.

Adepts have a variety of powers that make them more effective in melee than samurai.

I guess my question is, make a samurai character, and then make an adept character designed to do the same thing. How many times can you make a samurai that is straight up better than the adept? This is complicated by the fact that if there is a piece of cyberware that is better than the magic equivalent, the adept can buy it instead of using magic. And if their is a magical ability that is better than the ware equivalent, then the adept can take that. The samurai has no such ability to choose.

And in the long run, the adept starts to pull away and will leave the samurai in the dust.

You illustrate my point nicely. Adepts can start off faster, and sams may never have the ability to match that. It does depend on payouts, but it simply might never happen under the recommendations given in the core book.


Um, no. Sams might be able to boost their armor more effectively, but adepts can boost Body directly. And Body is better than armor, as it's not subject to armor piercing. Adepts also are potentially harder to hit, as they have access to Combat Sense. Generally speaking, it's better in SR combat to avoid getting hit than soaking the damage.


No. The Attribute Boost power is dirt cheap, and is just about as effective at Rating 1 as it needs to ever be. Attribute boosting is clearly dominated by adepts.


Adepts can directly boost their Strength for cheap, which covers most of what a gyromount offers. Skillwires are a joke.

I'll concede that there may be a few niches that sams can eke out a small advantage in, stat-wise; but them we have to deal with the other hits they take, such as Essence loss, social penalties, and wireless trouble. On the balance of things, Adepts have the advantage just about everywhere; and even when they don't, the differences are miniscule and tempered by the other disadvantages of being cybered.

Don't forget that an Adept can increase the accuracy of any weapon group they choose for a negligible price. For something like a combat axe that's a 25% increase, and when the weapon's primary balancing factor for its power is a low accuracy that can be a big deal, a fact that is exacerbate by the high dice pools available to the adept via improved ability and weapon foci.

If you're willing to risk foci addiction then Qi foci outstrip augmentations for cost effectiveness in most instances, with the primary limiting factor being their availability. Even then, having multiple low-force foci is entirely viable as a solution to this problem if you can work within the limit on foci numbers.

Finally: Adepts get access to a bunch of unique senses that can't be replicated with technology, though granted they're all meh at best and I can't see many people taking them, while their only real penalty is that they have to get a couple of abilities externally, which of course limits you to +1 dice from smartlink rather than +2. This annoys me because most of them would be fairly easy to replicate with 'ware, but are Adept only. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Wait what?

Where does it say that an adept can't buy and wear a flak jacket?

I believe that he means that samurai have the option of bone lacing or dermal plating or orthoskin or cyber limbs while adepts only have mystic armor.

Hey Lobo0705, something completely off topic due to your handle: What are your thoughts on DC comics old Lobo vs new 52 Lobo... assuming that's what you are referencing.

@FuelDrop,

Not what I was referencing, and either way, I haven't read the new 52 Lobo, so I can't really compare the two (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Unless they just buy cyber anyway, and make up the magic out of karma later.

You know, the easy way, given the base book payouts. You'll get the karma a lot faster than you'll ever get the nuyen.

That still doesn't matter. If I build a troll tank as a sam, then again as an adept, the adept is going to be better at soaking damage *and* have a few advantages in other areas.

I've been avoiding commenting for a little while til I had some playtime under my belt...

Seeing the comments about BGC not being canon from certain posters strikes me as ignorant. They are published in the hotpatch errata for Missions and are used heavily in the chicago campaign. (a negative dice pool seems to be working nicely in that setting). So by that measure they are in an official release already.


Direct combat spells are lacking in SR5. I like some of the aspects of how they fixed things. The problem is they only do one thing damage. And they don't do it well enough in most cases. Tossing a lightning bolt was vastly prefered in most cases. Because the bolt would do more damage when it hit, it would -1 penalize the target, and drop their initiative by 5. In contrast, again, the direct combat spell does damage and damage only.


With 6 Mag and 6 spellcasting this normally worked out to 10 dice casting any spells. (-2 bgc in the areas of chitown of the official campaign we were in). This typically meant that casting a manabolt got me about 4 successes rolling well. Then the target would resist half that on their willpower.


1 damage per net hit just isn't enough... and well 2 is too much is my feel. 3dam/2net hits would probably have been just about perfect. Remember that net hits are limited by force... and resistance dice comes out of those capped successes. I think the spells should be about on par with a heavy pistol given their heavy drain codes. That also fits well within the envelope of one skill to rule them all that 'spellcasting' has with multi-use magic.

Direct Combat spells are for people who can dodge indirect spells or simply shrug off the hits of normal weapons.

Indirect Combat spells are for the majority of people who cannot do either.

If you are rolling 10 dice to cast Lightning Bolt, it isn't that inconceivable that between Intuition + Reaction that the opponent rolls more hits than you and your spell has no effect whatsoever (not to mention Combat Sense or adding in a Full Defense or Dodge interrupt action).

On the other hand, them rolling 4 or 5 dice for their Willpower, your spell is actually doing damage - although not much, I'll grant you.

Increasing damage per hit sounds good, but remember reagents can easily cause you to raise the amount of net hits you get, without increasing drain. Not only that, the drain on Manabolt is F-3, so casting it at Force 6 is only 3DV drain, which should be easily resisted. If you are saying you only average 3 or 4 hits, then that won't hinder you at all (not to mention you could cast it at Force 5 and only take 2DV drain).

The way the spells are set up now, if you are fighting John Smith the security guard, then Lightning Bolt him. If you are fighting Conan the tank or Speedy the dodging wonder, then Manabolt him.

What I like about it is that there isn't a magical "no matter who I'm attacking, use this spell" - although clearly Lightning Bolt will be used more commonly.

Not everyone has access (or knows enough to care about) to the latest errata and rules. They just want to run a game based on the book they own. I've seen a couple of home campaigns of SR5 that haven't seen the background count rules; in fact, the only campaign I've seen that uses them is a Missions game that has yet to start.

The question isn't rather or not the rules exist. The question is rather or not the rule will ever get used. If it was meant to be the big balancing factor between adepts and sammies, the fact that the rule isn't widely known knocks the base right out from under the game balance.

- samurai have easy access to increased body. take a look at the new bone density.

- samurai can have almost as many dice as an adept in the adepts area of specialty, and because they didn't have to put magic as a high priority will tend to be a bit more impressive in some other area... skills, base attributes (which determines augmented maximum now), edge/race, or whatever.

- samurai can build for crazy amounts of armour, which works even when surprised and even against AOE attacks which cannot be dodged. considering just how deadly frag grenades are, the ability to reliably soak large amounts of damage is not a trivial ability. it also works better against full auto attacks that tend to drastically reduce dodge dice pools, and against suppressing fire, which isn't actually dodging (so far as i am aware, reaction + edge is all you get to roll). they can also still have quite good dodge pools, albeit not quite as good as a dedicated adept. of course, at this point we're talking about an adept who's blown all their points on initiative and dodging, so uhhh... how do you figure you're *also* fitting in 3 different attribute boosts - which, i might add, are a simple action EACH to activate - plus increasing your dice pool limit on all your weapons plus raising body plus getting all these extra senses that adepts are supposed to get plus being better deckers and better riggers. adepts can be good at their one thing, and i'll agree, they have a higher cap than street samurai... by a little. but they have a limited amount of points. you can have *some* of these things, but fitting them *all* in? good luck. the street samurai can be more than good enough, which is all that really matters. who cares if you put that security guard into 5 overflow boxes or 3 (not that 6 more dice is terribly likely at chargen)? they're out of the fight either way.

- augmented adepts do indeed get the best of both worlds, potentially. they'll tend to start off a bit slow, but they do indeed have great potential, and their starting point can be quite adequate. however, they are very clearly a demonstration of the very fact i've been saying; adepts have advantages, but so do street samurai. after all, if there was no advantage to be gained by being a street samurai, there would be nothing to get excited about when discussing the potential of combining the two. the very fact that anyone has ever thought "hey, i could make an even better character by taking an adept and getting augmentations, too" clearly indicates that there are some valuable augmentations that add a lot.

- your opinion on specific 'ware does not make it suck. skillwires are amazing in the right situation, because it means that you can instantly adapt to unexpected situations. being stuck relying on a set of skillwires to get you out of a bad situation may not be ideal, but it sure beats relying on defaulting on that skill, especially in certain situations (parachuting is a skill that you seldom need, but which you will most likely regret not having when you do need it). if they weren't so expensive, i would expect to see them in a lot of character concepts.

adepts have a place. street samurai have a place. those places are different, and that is perfectly fine. they don't need to be identical. in fact, i would be inclined to say that i consider it *preferable* that they are not just a direct carbon copy of each other, because that gives more room for each to be effective without stepping on the other's toes (plus, it means that the augmented adept is always going to be a bit tempting, which it otherwise would not be; it adds an entire new build that would likely not be considered if both had identical abilities with identical costs).

And adepts can Attribute Boost their body just as high for a lower opportunity cost.


Um, that lower priority for Magic will be sucked into a higher priority for Resources, so you can afford the cyber. If cyber and magic were balanced, this would be a wash. However, they aren't.

Also, no, adepts can always get significantly more dice and a higher Limit to boot.


You do realize that a good number of them are incompatible? For example, bone density (your suggestion) and bone lacing don't work together?


If skillsofts were cheap and easy to get a hold of, you might be right. However, the disgusting expense of SR5 skillwires means that you'll almost never have the right soft for the right situation. You can't instantly adapt unless you have a way to instantly get the right skillsoft when you need it.

Back in SR3, I designed a sam and rigger pair who were designed to work together. The sam had skillwires, and the rigger had a skillsoft jukebox. Whatever skill the sam needed, the rigger could download to him... and given a little time on the matrix, he could download or pirate a soft if he didn't have it. The sam never saw the light of day, but the rigger saw action as Tank. Yes, as in "Tank, I need the pilot program for a B-212 Huey." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) That, my friend, is how skillwires ca n be super cool. The SR5 method? Not so much.


The problem is that the adept has stepped on the toes of the sammie, a little too far this time IMO. There's few things a sam can do that an adept isn't better at, and even then, there's a lot of disadvantages to the cyber route that magic never has to worry about. It's not just sams, either: I can't recall ever seeing a mundane Face in SR5. The social adept route is just too good.

Not to mention that an Adept Decker with the potential of adding Improved Ability to all of his skills, with no penalty whatsoever. Take Magic D, get a datajack and off you go. Use karma to raise your relevant skills until it just becomes cheaper to raise your Magic and get a PP, in which case you can buy another 2 points of Improved Ability, and when that gets more expensive, start initiating and grabbing free PP for more levels of Improved Ability.

Coming from 3e to 5e, the Improved Ability is one of the things I find more objectionable. In 3e, it cost .25 Magic to add dice to Athletics, Diving, and Stealth, and .5 Magic to add a die to any Combat skill, but you couldn't get extra dice to any other skill.

The way they have designed 5e, it seems like the place that the samurai holds is "The vast majority of people in the world are not magically active. This is the best we can do to cope with that fact. We can't make our security guards/strike teams magical, but we can give them ware."

So for NPCs they make perfect sense. For PCs, where ALL of them can be magically active, they blurred the line too much.

Again, no real experience with 4e, but in 3e, if you were a samurai, you started out AWESOME, and the Adept was so-so, but as time went on, the samurai hit a plateau, while the Adept kept getting better and better. If you played that out over a long enough period of time, the Adept equaled the samurai and then surpassed them, but it took them a long time to do it. Here, the adept starts out better than the samurai, and the disparity just keeps on going.

And again, I'm not advocating that this is a good thing. I LIKE to play samurai, and wish they had gotten a little more love.

In play the Street Sam is better at char gen in our games and the sam and adept are built with similar levels of optimization. Maybe some super optimized adept build trumps the street sam but I kind of doubt it pans out as super awesome as people expect in play. I'm sure some optimized bio adept builds will be fearsome as well, but I think outside some bent obscure builds the street sam will still look better at char gen. I've easily built mystake adetps with the 5 karma rule that curb stomp normal adepts though the normal adept was more fleshed out with a wider range of skills.