Do adepts suck right now?, Yes, they do. Options

[emo samurai]

For example, their Improved Skill power. For .5 power points, they can get +1 to a combat skill of their choice. For .2 (thanks for the correction, yoippari) essence, a samurai can get muscle toner to boost their Agility, making all their combat skills more effective. They both have hard caps no matter what they do, +3 bonus if skills and attributes are maxed. That is not fraggin fair at all.

In my game, the Improved Skill power will give you an auto-hit. One dice out of every roll using that skill will be a success. The power will be limited to skill level. I believe this to be fair.

As for Improved Attribute, it will cost .5 PP no matter what. This is stolen from Serbitar.

Increased Reflexes will cost 1 PP per level.

As for all the gimmick powers from Street Magic, I am making them cost half what they do. 1 PP for living focus? WTF?

How do I balance this out? I halve all essence costs. All of them.

[yoippari]

The extra .3pp (muscle toner is .2) from improve skill is free from nuyen and magical healing though. A adept can get muscle toner too and with toner 3 only cost .6 essence which allows them some more ware before they hit the 1 essence mark. Later they can initiate/buy magic like normal.

[emo samurai]

But that doesn't change the fact that a pure adept is not the least bit viable compared to a street sam. Even in the long term, a street sam can upgrade all his cyber and put in all the shit he wants. And it doesn't change the fact that the muscle toner does a LOT more than improved ability for less than half the magic point cost. And that -1 dice for healing matters jack shit.

Plus, the way I play it, nuyen's easier to come by than karma. Even in a normal, non stupidly-powerful game, you'll get maybe 2500 nuyen to one karma, and that 2500 nuyen is going to buy a LOT more than that one karma.

[Grinder]

An adept has nearly unlimited possibilites, as there is no "maximum magic rating", while a sammie can only use his 6 points of essence. And as soon as he gets into beta- or even deltaware he needs a lot of money.

That said, I don't like your idea of auto-hits.

[Serbitar]

I think the auto hit idea is very interesting, when implemented well. Will think about it.

[Thanee]

Well, Adepts get one thing that Street Sams do not... they are less obvious (cyberware scanners and all that).

Also, of course, they can raise their Agility and get the extra dice on top. It's just somewhat expensive to get there for them.

That said, I agree, that Adepts are not really that great... I always wondered why people thought they were overpowered.

I think your changes are over the top, though, but I guess that works for you. :)

Bye
Thanee

[Crusher Bob]

Currently the hacker adept and the social adept are pretty much unbeatable.

The combat adepts main power advantage seems to be combat sense; they can drive thier passive defenses up a bit easier. A sam maxes out at reaction 9. A sample adept with magic 5 could get the wired 2 adept power, 4 points of combat sense, and start with 11 dice of passive defense. An adept maxed for passive defense would have 15+ dice (combat sense 6, reaction 9) which is probably doable with 100 karma.

The combat adepts lose out on agility boosts. (combat sense is about the ssame as a reaction increase) and the adept IP increases are sorta suck, but not terribly bad.

Hmm, can you squeeze in synaptic 3, with at least magic 1 left over without gimping a starting adept?

[ShadowDragon]

With those changes, why would I play a street sam? Especially the autohits - that is beyond broken.

[Ophis]

*does the happy dance of not being alone*

Glad to see I'm not the only one.

The alterations I use.

Improved attribute is 0.5 per level as per Emo and Serbiter
Increased Reflexes is 1.5 per level (equals how I run wireds).
Astral sight costs 0.5 for Mystic adepts
I would probably drop Living Focus down to 0.5
I allow Armour piercing to work on any melee attack for the adept (as unarmed is not the only fruit).

*checks list(twice)* Yep thats the lot. Most adepts get a point of cyber BIO anyhue.

[Thanee]

[Xenith]

Sorry, but from what I've seen as GM, adepts rock straight out of the box when done correctly. At first adepts specialize. A throw adept = awesome (tossing about 6 - 9p projectiles TWICE in a round tends to do that). A sword adept = awesome (strength boost with improved ability and counterstrike... brings tears to my eyes).

Mystic adepts tend to be a little hard to play at first, but hey... having the Boosted Reflexes spell as well as a few other buffs and other utility spells makes up for it.

If your adepts suck, well, thats something you might want to think about. Its all about who plays them.

[Charon]

Meh.

So this week it's the physad's turn to suck when compared to the street sam?

I'm guessing that if we were to make lists of the "Physads are too weak!" crowd and the "Street Sam are underpowered!" mob you'd mostly end up with list of people who prefer playing Physads and Street Sam respectively but are disapointed that their PC of choice doesn't rock hard enough in their opinion when compared to the competition.

Either way, I'm not touching this one. There's a physads and a street sam in my campaign. They're both happy and that's that.

[NightmareX]

[Thanee]

[NightmareX]

[ixombie]

The pure adept is at a disadvantage to the Samurai when starting out. But this has always been the case. It's also always been the case, and still is, that Adepts have less limits on their potential advancement than sammies.

But when you make a cybered combat adept, the distinctions in starting power largely disappear. You can take muscle toner, bone density, and synaptic accelerator without losing much magic. Then sink your power points into combat sense and improved ability. This will leave you just a point or two lower than a samurai in most attributes, but with a totally sick dodge pool. Dodge rules combat in SR4, and so does surprise since it prevents people from dodging. Adepts can get an extra +6 vs surprise and on defense tests that sammies can never get, as well as a +3 to dodge from improved ability. Going that route, you have the adept's unlimited advancement combined with the samurai's high stats and reflexes. When built that way, adepts really start to outshine mundane combat characters by virtue of being so incredibly difficult to hit.

[ThreeGee]

If they suck right now, lord knows what they did in editions 1 2 and 3...

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Thanee]

[Serbitar]

I personally would like the following changes:

Improved Pysical Attribute: 0.5 per rating (still not that good)
Attribute Boost: up to 0.5, only rating 1
Improved Skill: OK (mostly)
All things that give +1 die for only one test get their effect doubled (give +2 dice plus other effects doubled), this includes: Great Leap, Falling, Wall Running, and much more (the stuff why you want to be an adept)
Kinesics: capped like Pheromones (because they effectively raise Charisma)
Traceless Walk: 0.5
Reflex Stuff: 1.5 per Rating
Living Focus: 0.5

And some others which I forgot. Look at my thread here for a detailed overview.

[James McMurray]

[Kyoto Kid]

...So far I've played two Adepts: KK4.3 and Hurricane Hannah.

I personally have few issues and actually think in some ways they've been improved.

For one, Killing Hands is a one time expenditure and not stepped (since the L-M-S-D damage codes are no more)

Second, Critical Strike is cheap. for 1 PP you can add +4 to your unarmed DV. With a 5 Str that gives you a starting DV of 7 - on par with a sporting rifle.

(With the combination of the above an adept is a weapon focus).

Third. Improved ability can be used on specific skills within a skill group (check the Gunbunny Adept Sample Character)

Fourth, with the elimination of damage codes SR4 did away with the magic loss for Deadly Wounds.

The two downsides I see are:

The higher cost of rasing your magic above 6.

I agree, some of the new powers in Street Magic (like Wall Running) are too expensive.

BTW, I would be very hesitant to use the Auto Hits option. This is similar to the old Auto Successes power from SR1 which was dropped from later versions.

[Lantzer]

This is a silly discussion.

I thought everyone knew that the way to go for the powergamer was an adept with 'ware?

You get just a couple of really expensive pieces of 'ware that the sammies can't afford to get in their packages (and will unlikely ever afford to upgrade to), then spend the rest of your career upgrading along the magic path.

A true powergamer doesn't choose one route over the other - he uses the best from _both_. Actually, He goes with a cybered mystic adept if he's looking really long term.

EDIT: Just so folks know, This was semi-tongue in cheek. It's true, but I don't reccomend ditching a fun character to make the next adept death machine. I'm playing a sammie right now.

[Moon-Hawk]

[Rotbart van Dain...]