Killing a Great Dragon.

breaking the fourth wall

role playing.

These are not in-game problems. If they are, then the solutions are simple - more dice for the appropriate Knowledge skill dice pools.

No, I'm sorry ... (lack of) roleplaying IS an in-game problem, and it CANNOT be solved by throwing more dice at it. It's a far better answer than mine was.

There is always the critical decision on whether or not to actually use the dice pool at all. There are many situations where using the dice pool, successful or not, is extremely counterproductive. The size of the dice pool does nothing for you if you make a poor choice.

Two often overlooked advantages that adepts have over augmented characters are that adepts are easier to heal, because their Essence is higher. Second, adepts are much harder to detect. A street samurai's cyberware, not to mention his equipment, can be detected with commonly available sensors. An adept's powers can't.

And do not overlook the value of Killing Hands in a classic martial artist adept build. Use Killing Hands, Critical Strike, Elemental Strike, and/or the Martial Arts rules from ARS, and you've got a character who can walk straight through any mundane pat-down, radar sensor sweep, or metal detector, but still be laying down unarmed combat damage similar to a shotgun, and putting his fist straight through Immunity To Normal Weapons and Regeneration.

I've never understood the argument that adepts are inferior to street samurai.

The wide range of powers and metamagics available to adepts (not even including mystic adepts) allow them to be warriors, artists, scientists, detectives, scouts, 'faces', healers.... the list goes on. All this added on to the advantages Zen Shooter01 and others have pointed out.

One could make a credible argument that adepts are the most flexible of SR archetypes. Of course they are worth it!

I have to agree. I made a mystic adept for a campaign I joined and while he's not a powerhouse, he's rather flexible and useful in a variety of areas.

Every occasion can use an adept. They are that flexible of a base archtype.

I agree totally. I played a PhsAd in SR3 and he was the only one in the group that could get close to a target to kill them because he was the only one that could get past tech based scanners and still kill the target with his bare hands in one shot.
PhsAds are best as political killers because they look like normal unaugmented people and it requires a mage to assence them directly to see their magical side (not an easy task when there is a PhsAd hidden in a crowd).

Adepts with Spell Resitance and Killer Hands make decent mage killers: Able to take out Spirits better than a Street Sammie, and more capable (slightly) at resisting direct combat spells. Admittedly, an actual mage would probably be a better mage killer, but Adepts are no slouches at it.

If brute force doesn't work then you aren't using enough!

seriously though there is the cost of generating a given pool. Aiming and k10 aren't always good calls even if they can almost universally raise your DP. One center piece of SR is that it is a game of consequences; and not in frequently the consequences of generating disgusting DPs necessary to install after market speed holes... in faces... for money.

And this really is where adepts shine mechanically. They can just do what they do. They don't need to get binding materials or more drones or creates of grenades or anything. And all of there powers are prices to reflect that amazing accessibility. Paying for a whole PC that includes that mark up can be challenging, but you are buying something very really and mechanical for that cost even if it isn't BP


PS @Zurai: in-game != at-game

The caveat being that an adept like other Awakened characters need to avoid Background Count to shine.

True, but background count really isn't that common. Actually fallowing through with a Hyzmarka fantasy will only give you a 1 maybe 2 BC the size of a room, and even in 2070 /those/ aren't happening that often. Mana Static is an issue, but the PC face that spell at such wildly different frequencies depending on how the GM renders the game world it's hard to talk about it meaningfully.

I have no idea how SR4A will change things, but Astral Hazing is a flat 4 that is mobile too.

I know if an PhyAd enters a background count area that they start to lose powers. Is the reverse true if they enter a power site, do they gain powers temporarily? Do you just boost the effects of their current powers?

If the power site is aspected towards the tradition of the adept (SM, p. 118), then the adept doesn't lose Magic rating, but the advantage is merely in the form of a dice pool modifier for Magical Skill Tests and Drain Resistance Tests, so no added powers would come to an adept.