 Do adepts suck right now?, Yes, they do. |
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 Jan 22 2007, 05:41 PM
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#26
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 399 Joined: 27-May 04 Member No.: 6,361  |
*shakes head* Seriously, I have a player with an adept orc throwing specialist who's a bloody death machine with a magic of -4-
Adepts are defiantly not underpowered. I even made an adept who could talk his way out of any situation, had multitasking, and facial sculpt to the point he could literally look like anyone. He was also rather frightening with pistols (dice pool of 10). He had a magic of 5. Underpowered. Bah. |
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Jan 22 2007, 05:53 PM
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#27
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
with the fixed TN used in SR4, that actually is fair. |
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Jan 22 2007, 06:19 PM
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#28
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,333 Joined: 19-August 06 From: Austin Member No.: 9,168 |
Seriously? 10 dice in their top area? I'm not in the adepts are underpowered category, or the sams are underpowered category, but 10 dice? Agility [5 (7)] + Automatics (Assault Rifle) [6(8)] That should be the baseline for your adept or your sammie. So 15 dice to start. Then either a reflex recorder or improved ability, and a smartlink. That's 18 dice easy. My gunslinger adept rolls 20 dice with Automatics. My Sam rolls 18, but has a better reaction and is tougher. The only true issue I accept is that there are some places where it's possible that the adept powers are always overshadowed by the equivalent Bio. That's improved reflexes, and improved ability. IR is balanced by the 32 bp (out of your 50) nuyen cost. It still may not be enough. Improved Ability is the only adept power I buy as legitamately underpowered (esp. given Boost Ability). |
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Jan 22 2007, 06:29 PM
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#29
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019 |
The thing with autohit is, whatever dice hit can not be rolled. So if you have Agility 6 + Blades 4 and you have 4 autohits, you can only roll 6 dice. You don't get 10 dice plus 4 hits. And you can't autohit attribute dice, only skill dice. And any negative dice pool modifiers remove autohits. That's before any positive modifiers are granted.
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Jan 22 2007, 06:41 PM
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#30
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,838 Joined: 1-September 05 Member No.: 7,669 |
What you consider 'baseline' appears to be very nearly the maximum for a starting character. I'm not's sure everyone will agree that 90% peak is a 'baseline' value. |
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Jan 22 2007, 06:53 PM
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#31
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,498 Joined: 4-August 05 From: ADL Member No.: 7,534 |
Baseline for SAMs:
Attribute 4-5, Attributeware 3, Skill 4-5, Specialisation 2, Skillware 1, Smart 2 = 16-18 dice. 15 dice is the least I expect from a SAM using his primary weapon. |
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Jan 22 2007, 07:16 PM
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#32
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,333 Joined: 19-August 06 From: Austin Member No.: 9,168 |
Only in their primary skill. It is about the cap, yes. To be fair, it's not in line with what the book suggests as a normal level. But for a serious survivor, I think it's pretty well required. SR really requires competency to survive, I feel. With the ease of death, an average runner will be dead in a week. But that's a matter of preference, I know. I guess more to the point, there's not that much difference between an adept and a sammie in those regards. Both primarily rely on their skills and attributes. They then have the option to boost their skills by a couple points with ware/adept powers, and then to boost their attributes by the same. In my defense, I'm on at least 3 different OTC meds for allergies today. I'm...uh...not sure how that plays in, but I think it does. Somewhere. |
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Jan 22 2007, 07:18 PM
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#33
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,284 Joined: 31-December 06 Member No.: 10,502 |
Why hasn't anyone mentioned the healing bit. I'm away from my book but I'm pretty sure they didn't take that out of magic and I know it's in regular first aid.
While the hit limites and starting threshhold of two on healing means you won't get the SR3 effect where when a Sammie goes down he stays down and when an adept goes down he's back at full health in a few combat turns (first aid, then magical healing). But it's still a difference that favors an adept along with their concealability. Which means that they SHOULD be worse at straight up combat. (Though I do think some things are now overpriced.) Also part of what made an adept go from good to great before were some of their super stealth abilities. But I don't have the new books. Can they still walk without noise on top of leaves or balance on the tiniest of branches? |
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Jan 22 2007, 07:24 PM
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#34
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Genuine Artificial Intelligence Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715 |
Yes, adepts still have Traceless Walk.
And I think the adepts' healing advantage is lessened in this edition since by many people's interpretation of the healing rules 10 boxes of damage takes all of a day or two to heal. (note that there are more than one interpretation, several of which make a good deal more sense to me, but there is still some ambiguity and confusion) |
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Jan 22 2007, 07:28 PM
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#35
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 749 Joined: 28-July 05 Member No.: 7,526 |
lol . . . adepts underpowered. I guess you also forgot with how much ease they can dispatch spirits.
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 Jan 22 2007, 09:49 PM
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#36
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jacked in Group: Admin Posts: 9,424 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 463 |
Not Force 20 spirits...
Bye Thanee |
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 Jan 22 2007, 09:51 PM
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#37
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jacked in Group: Admin Posts: 9,424 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 463 |
You mean apart from the very first reply (and the re-reply)? ;) Bye Thanee |
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Jan 22 2007, 10:24 PM
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#38
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 433 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Somewhere in Iraq Member No.: 1,789 |
How are Adepts more concealable when every important place that they would be sneaking into would have someone with astral sight assense them for talent? In order for you to tell if someone has wired reflexes and other cyber that is inside the body you have to use tech or you can't tell anyway. Besides, if I was a security guard in 2070 I would be wary of anyone who was 40 years or younger who didn't have either cybereyes or a datajack or both. I would then call up the mage and have them assense the person. Wireless just came out about 5 years ago so datajacks aren't completely useless yet and cybereyes are still considered "cool" and "fashionable".
Oh yeah, not to nitpick but with the sample uber-adept his addictions aren't legal. Nicotine and Caffeine aren't considered "harmful" enough to warrant BP. I think without a Magic hardcap Adepts are always going to outpace Street Sammies anyday. They always have and always will as long as that hardcap isn't there. |
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Jan 22 2007, 10:31 PM
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#39
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 777 Joined: 22-November 06 Member No.: 9,934 |
wireless came out 5 years ago? yeah but everything is wireless. cool/fashionable is dependant upon your social circle so anyone who could have afforded a datajack can also afford to have it removed. what about induction pads? I have never seen an adept outpace any streetsam. and all we see in this thread is people "talking" adepts are fine, adepts are uber powered, adepts are underpowered... Sammies are better, sammies are worse... why not show the examples of why adepts are better or sammies are better. |
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Jan 22 2007, 10:54 PM
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#40
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,498 Joined: 4-August 05 From: ADL Member No.: 7,534 |
Not in SR4. I give you 150 Karma and 450k (thats a ratio of 1 to 3k) on top of the 400 BP Try to make an adept without cyberware (note face adept though, kinesics are broken) that is better than its cybered version. Adepts start to outpace SAMs only at incredibly unrealistic karma amounts of 300 or so. |
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Jan 22 2007, 11:12 PM
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#41
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 325 Joined: 9-December 06 From: the Maaatlock-Expressway! Member No.: 10,326 |
With only 1 or 2 in 100 people magically active, I wonder where you are going to get all those astrally percieving watchdogs?
In sensitive areas, yes. But definitely not as commonplace as ware-scanners. My personal playing experience with adepts is limited to SR2 (yes, I am quite old, me), and I always felt even were chickenshit compared to even the standard out-of-the-box BBB-sams. With SR4, I feel the playing-field has been a bit evened, at least on paper. Unless you're min-maxing. Then, a well-cybered char can wipe the floor with a pure adept. Attribute-powers are, and have always been, too damn expensive. Seriously though, my approach would probably be to gimp bio a bit. Make toner and aug a wittle more expesive, essence-wise. But then, I tend to like my SR low- to mid-powered, where a rating 5 is actually good and a 6 something you can aspire to... |
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Jan 22 2007, 11:23 PM
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#42
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Hoppelhäschen 5000 Group: Members Posts: 5,807 Joined: 3-January 04 Member No.: 5,951 |
You forgot a zero there. |
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Jan 23 2007, 01:03 AM
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#43
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,598 Joined: 24-May 03 Member No.: 4,629 |
I look at your stats, tho, and go, "That's just crazy huge out there. Seriously? *Crazy!*" Here, it's 4 (6) Agility with Firearms 4 and a Smartlink giving the Sammy 12 dice, making him a *monster*, while everyone else is in the 8-12 range. The mage, for example, is Conjuring Group 4 and Magic 5, the Face is Charisma 5 and Influence Group 4, the Hacker is Skill Groups of 4 and rating 4 programs, etc. 8-10 is standard issue, with 12 being just crazy good. |
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Jan 23 2007, 01:16 AM
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#44
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Target Group: Members Posts: 17 Joined: 22-January 07 From: Wellington, KS Member No.: 10,734 |
There you go, talking about my character again. Don't forget my bouncyball ownage on the last run though. [edit] Don't forget to mention that we only started out with 450 karma for our characters, using a slightly modified version of SeCKsy. |
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Jan 23 2007, 01:17 AM
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#45
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
I think that the idea of charging Adepts extra for Increased Combat abilities is dumb. Adepts are supposed to punch people in the nuts, that's their iconic fucking job. Increase Attributes also shouldn't cost extra when the attribute is very large, since the only god damned point is that it is an attribute augmentation that exceeds your normal attribute limits.
And if you want to have Distance Shot and Elemental Strike at the same time to throw fireballs like Ryu, why the hell not? And people certainly shouldn't be paying more than a single Magic Point for either power when both are objectively inferior to just being a Mage and knowing a single spell. So I'm willing to say that Adepts are overcharged for a lot of things. But autohits are bullshit. That was tried in SR1, and it was broken as fuck. With real broken and real broken sauce. -Frank |
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Jan 23 2007, 01:28 AM
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#46
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Target Group: Members Posts: 17 Joined: 22-January 07 From: Wellington, KS Member No.: 10,734 |
I don't like the idea of auto-hits...That just means that phys adepts automatically own everybody else. I don't see that Adepts are gimped anyway. Maybe some people out there just can't really get the numbers to work right for them.
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Jan 23 2007, 01:34 AM
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#47
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
no, it doesn't. that's the neat thing. because the TN is fixed and everything is threshold-based, auto-successes don't mean auto-winning--they just mean that the effective threshold for their tests are lowered.
auto-successes would be horribly unbalanced in a variable-TN system, because they would allow you to succeed against any difficulty level. TN 100? no problem! however, when every TN is 5, auto-successes don't unbalance anything (unless they're handed out too liberally, which is true of any mechanic). of course, SR4 doesn't actually use auto-successes... |
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Jan 23 2007, 01:35 AM
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#48
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Dragon Group: Members Posts: 4,589 Joined: 28-November 05 Member No.: 8,019 |
Well, there are threshold modifiers for jumping in VR into a drone; -1 to each threshold.
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Jan 23 2007, 01:37 AM
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#49
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
exactly. -1 threshold is, basically, an auto-success. you just can't use that success unless you roll at least one success on the dice.
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Jan 23 2007, 01:41 AM
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#50
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Canon Companion Group: Members Posts: 8,021 Joined: 2-March 03 From: The Morgue, Singapore LTG Member No.: 4,187 |
There is always an evolution from edition to edition. There are somethings that mundanes were good at that adepts are better (for) now, like hacking. There are somethings that adepts are going to be flat better at, like Social and "Brain" skills. The adept niche has changed. I do not presume to know what role the developers wanted the adepts to fill, but if I wanted to hazard a guess, I would think that they wanted people to move more towards a non-Combat skill oriented adept. Adepts are weakened in Combat Skills, but they are better now in other things.
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