Adept Powers, ...but /why/ was everybody Kung Fu Fighting? Options

[MikeKozar]

I've been playing SR4 for a little over six months now, and almost all of the rules are starting to make sense to me. One archtype I just can't figure out is the Physical (or Mystic) Adept.

Don't get me wrong - I like the idea of the Adept just fine. A guy who is superhuman, who can drop into a room full of guards and KO them all in seconds, with the style and grace of a dancer. Badass. "What upgrades does /he/ have?" "That's all him." "Whoah." Being that guy is a happy thought. It seems like Adepts should also be able to build a Legendary Master Swordsman...the kind of guy who can move so fast he seems to disappear, maybe even dodge or deflect bullets.

Looking through the rules, though, Adepts don't actually get many real advantages. Almost all of their combat powers could be duplicated with cyberware, better and cheaper. I don't see any way to make an Adept a more dangerous combatant then somebody with a normal amount of starting cash and a willingness to lose Essence.

I gotta assume I'm missing something. Does anyone have an effective combat Adept powerset they could explain to me?

[KCKitsune]

Adepts can get powers that Street Sammies can not replicate with 'Ware. Things like Multi-tasking, Missile Mastery and Power Throw. Imagine this, The Adept (w/ Str 4) walks into a bar without a single weapon, but must defend himself. Take Missile Mastery and Powerthrow 3 (total Power point cost of 1.75) and he can now take a beer can and turn it into a 5P weapon... equal to a heavy pistol shot. How about this: Piercing Strike 3, Critical Strike 6 and Killing Hands gives you a Weapon that can hurt creatures with Immune to Normal Weapons, has an AP of -3 and Does 5P damage.

Finally, in the very beginning, yes Sammies and Adepts are nearly equal, but the more Karma you add on, the more the Adept pulls away. The Sammy can only go so far, but the Adept can keep going forever.

[Umidori]

Additionally, lots of high security places will scan for cyber and bioware. You try explaining to the TSA why you should be allowed on a plane with wired reflexes and a cybershotgun in your arm. Maybe if you're lucky you can fly bound and sedated in a special cargo container.

When you look at an adept, you can't tell what abilities they have at all. There is no physical evidence of them aside from their healthy physiques, which are ubiquitous these days due to modern bioware. Yes, you can astrally tell an adept from a mundane, but more than that and you're guessing.

Factor in the fact that less than 1% of the global population is magically active and you really do suddenly have a superhero. Peter Parker doesn't seem like anything more than a scrawny kid to look at him, you could pat him down for weapons and trickery and find nothing, you'd deem him completely safe and let him into your security sector and then BAM! he's suddenly leaping everywhere, punching with a strength that looks impossible for his physique, sensing attacks before they are made, dodging bullets, and suddenly you're wrecked.

~Umidori

[DireRadiant]

I've been playing SR4 for a little over six months now, and almost all of the rules are starting to make sense to me. One archtype I just can't figure out is the Physical (or Mystic) Adept.

You've got the rules just fine. Your understanding of the direct combat effectiveness/cost of a physad versus a street sam is correct.

But the game world, the shadowruniverse abhors street sams. Since they are cheap and easy to create security threats, the security systems are slanted towards preventing that street sam from entering areas they shouldn't. Those same security measures that prevent a street sam from getting to their target are utterly useless for stopping a physad.

Security measures that prevent a physad from getting to the target also prevent mages from getting to it, so there's no effective difference there either.

Physads can just get it done where others don't even get to act because they are not even there. Nothing to do with the rules and dice pools.

[kzt]

Not to mention that mystic adepts also get counterspelling, which is often very useful indeed.

[Faraday]

Unlike most street samurai, an adept can start out with 4 IPs (Improved reflexes 3) and have room left over for other goodies. On top of this, an adept can always go bioadept, which allows for a lot of crazy shenanigans on top of being able to use karma AND money to improve their game.

[Umidori]

Interesting that you mention both IP improvement and Bioadepts, because the Adept IP power costs a ridiculous amount of power.

For those willing to spend the extra nuyen and to burn a point of magic (which effectively happens when you buy a power anyway), it's much more efficient to burn 1 magic on a rating 2 Synaptic Booster than it is to spend 3 power points on the equivalent power. Sure, all your powers which have effects derived from your magic value will drop by one from the burned point of magic, but you have two extra points worth of powers, which is a fabulous trade depending on what you want to accomplish.

~Umidori

[LurkerOutThere]

Wow, we really run the gamut here, people complaining that adepts are overpowered, which they arn't (mundanes are just nerfed) to people complaining that their too equal with the sammies. Wow!

[Stahlseele]

If you wait for one month and this thread has dropped from the front page, it will start again.
And again. And again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Seriously, as soon as you introduce background count into the game, adepts are going to cry.

[pbangarth]

Seriously, as soon as you introduce background count into the game, adepts are going to cry.

No kidding. Been there. Cried the tears.

[Stahlseele]

Seriously, as soon as you introduce background count into the game, adepts are going to cry.

Now how many times have you seen this happen?
That's basically like suddenly without warning and reason taking a samurais weapons and/or cyber away . .

[pbangarth]

Now how many times have you seen this happen?
That's basically like suddenly without warning and reason taking a samurais weapons and/or cyber away . .

First place my newly minted mystic adept ran was in Lagos. (Dawn of the Artifacts)

[Stahlseele]

I'm sorry, i bought it but i never read it. What is this supposed to tell me? O.o
Technically, Seattle itself would have a rating 1 at least, maybe even rating 2 or 3 background count EVERYWHERE.

[pbangarth]

Unlike the Seattle setting, which does not apply a background count universally, Lagos does, with a minimum of 1 background count, up to 3 in places. Moving around the city, my poor bugger doesn't know from one minute to the next what powers happen to be working at the moment. (I know, but he doesn't.)

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Now how many times have you seen this happen?

Quite some times – and that didn't include Haven Lilies.

[MikeKozar]

Wow, we really run the gamut here, people complaining that adepts are overpowered, which they arn't...

Could you provide an example? The only edge I see an Adept having in combat over a samurai is being able to punch ghosts and stack up bonus armor. Everything else is either infiltration or social skills. Even a fully tooled up Death Punch is less effective then a semiauto gun with AP rounds...

[DireRadiant]

Wow, we really run the gamut here, people complaining that adepts are overpowered, which they arn't (mundanes are just nerfed) to people complaining that their too equal with the sammies. Wow!

It's the comparisons where things break down.

Instead of
Archetype A versus Archetype B versus Archetype C (Where people compare dice pools and numbers and mechanics for a single action)
It should be
Archetype A versus Situation A (Where A is best in this situation)
Archetype B versus Situation A
Archetype C versus Situation A
Archetype A versus Situation B
Archetype B versus Situation B (Where B is best in this situation)
Archetype C versus Situation B
Archetype A versus Situation C
Archetype B versus Situation C
Archetype C versus Situation C (Where C is best in this situation)

Which is a much more complicated analysis since Situations A B and C are very subjective, as well as the definition of "best".

[Whipstitch]

Now how many times have you seen this happen?
That's basically like suddenly without warning and reason taking a samurais weapons and/or cyber away . .

Except that there is warning and reasons.

If you're investigating the scene of a recent brutal murder, there very well could be a background count. Notorious prison or insane asylum? Background count. Famous battlefield, monument or cathedral? Background count. A stadium right after the World Cup finals? Background count. A Yak bigwig's house or a corporate magical research lab? Aspected domains. They're honestly pretty damn predictable if you pay attention to the rules and my players have learned to live with them just fine.

As to whether Adepts are weak or not, that depends on how you build them and what you're trying to do. Adepts make incredible faces, technicians, detectives, infiltrators and athletes. A carefully cybered adept can typically outclass even a samurai in a specific form of combat, but they pay a premium to do so and can lose that advantage in areas with background counts while still bearing the trials and tribulations that come with having what is commonly perceived as combat 'ware. As Direradiant said, it's tough to make direct comparisons.

[LurkerOutThere]

Could you provide an example? The only edge I see an Adept having in combat over a samurai is being able to punch ghosts and stack up bonus armor. Everything else is either infiltration or social skills. Even a fully tooled up Death Punch is less effective then a semiauto gun with AP rounds...

Combat is actually the place where adepts shine the least but they can certainly be competitve, there is nothing that forbids an adept from picking up the same semiauto. Any given weapon generally beats out fists if you have one, that's not an adept problem that's the way the universe works. Additionally adepts have signifigant pluses in that their power ceiling is effectively uncapped.

[Draco18s]

Combat is actually the place where adepts shine the least

How about that!? My [Elf Drake] Mystic Adept isn't a combat monkey (even if I'd had the points). My goal was to shine in other areas (I spent most all of our last combat on the other side of the room behind cover--that's where I was when combat started! I didn't have a chance to take cover: I was already behind it (but that didn't stop me from trowing up a buff and attempting to get into fighting range).

[Stahlseele]

Well, silly Question here:
How fast does Background-Count happen?
If it's so fast that it builds up through combat, then there's something interesting to talk about.
Combat is glorious violence in all it's forms, most often also horrible and messy death all around.
That should, usually, be enough to spring for one or two points of background count. It's basically murder.

[Dumori]

Wow if BC builts up that fast it would be a real bonus to mundains in soem place but such a huge nerff to the awakened.
Really I can see teriditons of combat magic existing and actally getting a bonus off the BC form combat (op as fuck) the more the kill the better they get and the weaker their oppersition gets.

[JoelHalpern]

I tend to look a combat oriented adepts as an opportunity to take advantage of syber/bioware and magic. (Some folks argue this is wrong by role-playing, but it depends in my view on the character.)
So I tend to use ware to get improved stats and IPs.
And then use adepts powers for things that can not be duplicated. Power Throw and Combat Sense are examples. Also, the ability to actually raise skills past 6 (okay, past the 7 available with cultured bioware.)
And that is before we get into the hand-to-hand bonuses, as I tend to be less interested in that.

And then there are the adept metamagic abilities. Infusion, and the ability to offset a penalty can both be very powerful. Although for most games those are not starting character advantages.

In teh long run, the adept (or mystic adept) simply overwhelms as they can get any advantage the sammy can get, and get all sorts of other bonusses on top.

Yours,
Joel

[Valashar]

Well, silly Question here:
How fast does Background-Count happen?
If it's so fast that it builds up through combat, then there's something interesting to talk about.
Combat is glorious violence in all it's forms, most often also horrible and messy death all around.
That should, usually, be enough to spring for one or two points of background count. It's basically murder.

Just about the only way to get a rapid (if temporary) background count through death is for it to be sudden, shocking, and bloody. Things such as a terrorist bombing could cause such a thing, but I don't see normal combat causing the kind of focus emotional shock needed to produce background count. In our Shadow Kingdom campaign, we also treat a force-based radius around certain malevolent spirits to be a force/3 background count aspected to the bad in question.