Awakened character karma loss Options

[PirateChef]

Heh, most of the time in our games we have problems with Adepts (and Mages) being ridiculously overpowered compared to everyone else. Street Sams are usually tougher to kill, but adepts usually hit much harder, no matter what weapon you want to hand them. Which makes sense, seeing as some martial artists might be able to break a brick with their hand, but drop if you hit them in the head with the same brick.

Adepts are not meant to be "Street sams for people who don't want cyberware". They fill a much different niche.

Back on topic...


Karma and nuyen are both a function of time. The more runs you do, the more of both you have. Thus spending nuyen and karma are, to some degree, the same thing. Ask any street samurai who just got his custom made firearm that took his fixer 3 months to get and cost him 2 - 4 times the normal nuyen cost if he would be okay with losing it. Street sams also suffer the upgrade woes, often having to pay multiple times for the same 'ware to get a better grade, only so they have more essence to spend on other random upgrades.

Most GMs will let you do a few extra runs / whatever to get extra nuyen if you ask, and most will let you do the same type of activities for more karma, if you ask. I've never thought of it before b/c it never came up, but I could see throwing together a run for charity / saving a local orphanage / whatever that doesn't pay nuyen but has a high karma payout to help out the mage if he loses a foci.

[rathmun]

There's still the problem with the fact that that custom gun could potentially be replaced out of a team slush fund, while the karma for the focus can't. (well, barring free-spirit-binding-cheese)

[Muspellsheimr]

Actually, my gun bunny adept is buying that power, at the 1.5PP cost...
I could buy improved skill for pistols, rifles and unarmed combat, or I could get improved attribute agility for the same price ant get a boost to all agility linked tests...

Or you could, at the cost of 1PP & 32,000:nuyen: get a +4 Agility, with room left over for additional augmentation.

The cost for Improved Attribute is absurd. Even at my revised 0.5, it is not an optimal choice, but at least it can be used without destroying your character compared to other options.

Heh, most of the time in our games we have problems with Adepts (and Mages) being ridiculously overpowered compared to everyone else.

The only overpowering Adept I have ever seen is the Pornomancer & varients, & that is due only partially to the character being an Adept.

Adepts, as written, have 2 or 3 potentially overpowering options (none of which are significant, while a good 50% of options are absolute crap, & the rest are okay. Put simply, Adepts, as written, suck, & Improved Attribute is by far the worst of their shitty options.

[PirateChef]

The only overpowering Adept I have ever seen is the Pornomancer & varients, & that is due only partially to the character being an Adept.

Actually, I barely consider the pornomancer overpowering.

I was thinking, specifically, of the throwing adept. A man who can, after an initiation grade, pass as a perfectly normal man, with no cyberware or magical abilities (I love masking), get through any form of security scan b/c he honestly isn't carrying a weapon, and then kill his target with a pen from the mans desk. With enough dice to make sure it happens.

Or, if he is in a situation where subtlety isn't called for, can use the same abilities to throw grenades with pinpoint accuracy. (Can you still upgrade grenade damage with successes? If you can, combine that with close quarters and you can take out small mobs every action.)

In short, Adepts are very good at one specific focus, which is the point. The only way you develop those abilities, is with focus. You have to dedicate to one thing and strive to be the best at that to get access to the adept powers in the first place.

[paws2sky]

If your entire character concept is built around a single toy, be it a focus, or a katana, or that really-bad-ass implant, then getting it taken away from you is a legitimate concern for your character [snip]
That being said, unless your focus is really, exceptionally powerful ("Never bind anything bigger than your head.") and your other skills and attributes are woefully underdeveloped in comparison, the loss should not take you out of the game completely. [snip]

Think about all the karma I lose when my characters head gets cut off! It's just awful. And my head is far more important then a focus.

Vecna's Head, anyone? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

-paws