I'm getting into SR4 and I'm converting my old character to the new game but there appears to be something missing from the PhysAd section. I tried searching this board, but couldn't find anything.

In previous editions (specifically 3rd) you could buy a power point for your Adept without Initiating (20 Karma). That is missing from the new game and I would like to know if this was an oversight or it was intentional. If it's intentional, I was hoping someone could comment on why.

Powers are to Adepts as spells are to mages. You can only increase your Magic attribute so far and initiation becomes too expensive the farther you go. Mages can have low magic and as many spells as they like, but Adepts no longer can.

Is there a specific reason that they changed it to tie adept abilities so closely to the Magic attribute?

Caveats : I'm happy with Shadowrun overall and I realize I can try to convince my GM to make a house rule but I was looking for some commentary.

I'm mostly annoyed because it cuts the legs out from under the character that I was playing. He is deeply distrustful of magic and just works to increase his "natural" abilities without all the mumbo-jumbo. I can't do that now without initiating and given his attitudes, it's not something he would consider. I can't really make a new character because we have a tight-knit crew of runners and it would be weird to have someone up and vanish. This in addition to the reduced power points to begin with (due to lower Magic)

Anyone else notice this?

Chris

Let me get this straight...he's an adept, but he is 'deeply mistrustful of magic'? Do tell.

And for a PhysAd, initiation might mean some hardcore training and deep meditation, possibly with the help of a martial arts sensei (who might also be Awakened). Whether or not this is done as a montage with 80s rock in the background is up to you.

But seriously. I played a Physical Adept Samurai-Wannabe martial artist type who likewise would not have wanted any hocus-pocus, and he still initiated. In SR3, initiation was better than the "20 karma for a Power Point" rule in every way, because you got a Power Point, increased Magic Rating, and a metamagic power. (And a combat adept with centering for his combat skills will certainly find it advantageous.)

Anyway, in SR4, your Magic starts at 0, not at 6. It's not until you've bought it up to 6 that you need to start initiating at all to raise the cap.

I must admit that I liked Phys ads being able to buy power points alongside initiation. I think they should be pricey and the number you get limited but as it stands after a while even with initation they lag horribly behind sammies in power scale. Okay later on they kick ass but that requires huge magic.

Maybe when your character realize that what he does is real magic, he accept it, along with some psichich/mental negatives qualities caused by the "shock"...

I suppose I should have been clearer about the problem. It basically boils down to the view that Adept powers are the same as Mage spells. An adept learns Killing Blow, a mage learns Powerball. An adept learns Traceless Walk, a mage learns Invisibility, etc.

A mage with low magic can learn as many spells as he wants - the entire grimoire even. An adept has built-in limits on what he can do because he can't have low magic and lots of little powers. Is there a reason why there shouldn't be an adept equivalent to the low magic, many spells mage?

The fact that you can only invest as many points into a power as you have points in Magic is the limiter. It's even more restrictive than the mage's limit. Mages can cast spells above their magic attribute for physical drain if they choose. Adepts cannot have a power greater than their magic attribute at all. So a Magic 3 adept could have Increased Reflexes at 1 or 2 (costing 2 or 3 Power Points) but could not have it at 3 since it costs 5.

He can't reach the heights of power because he doesn't have the magic to back it up, but there shouldn't be any reason for him not to have several enhanced senses and couple of minor skill improvements and minor increased reflexes (etc.) for a total number of power points greater than their magic attribute. It's the same as the 3 Magic mage with many spells - lots of flexibility, not much power.

It bugs me that Adept powers are inconsistent like this. I realize that you can increase your magic attribute to learn more powers, but what would you think if your mage had to increase his Magic attribute to learn more spells? If you were unable to learn any more spells until you initiated?

Does anyone know a good way to contact the developers to ask them about this?

Chris

"Does anyone know a good way to contact the developers to ask them about this?"

I really don't know; but I understand tour point. And it is really sad...

... The kind of saddnes that make you furious...

Aren't a lot of Adept powers "Always On", which makes them a bit different then spells? Plus, they don't get disrupted like spells do.

I'm a fairly staunch supporter of the PPs = Magic rule. I personally believe allowing the old SR3 BBB rules (20 karma per PP) and the initiation rules together is MADNESS. In fact, I hate buying PPs straight up for karma. I'd much rather pay for the initiations.

After a while your adept is akin to a demi-god. At Grade 6 and assuming full Magic, you have 12 PPs of simultaneously activated abilities that cannot be dispelled. How you use those 12 PPs is up to your imagination. But suffice it to say, the adept can be quite the monster.

Adepts grow slowly, but when they do, they do so in spurts, with large steps. By Grade 3 you're at 9 Magic and 3 Metamagics, and that's just scary.

^^^ Excellent point...

If I understand you correctly, Abschalten, you feel that the ability to buy Power Points directly makes adepts too powerful, correct? I'm not trying to make a straw-man argument, so if I've misunderstood you, please correct me. In the meantime I will address the mechanical costs to power and hope that it answers your concern.

For the sake of this example, I will assume that a Power Point will cost 20 Karma as it did in SR3. IIRC the cost to increase attributes is 4*New Level but I have a nagging feeling that it might be 3. I'll have to look that up later. I will change the cost to 3 for the purposes of my point and see if that changes the result.

To take a Magic 1 adept and increase him to Magic 6, Initiation 6 will cost you:

Magic Attribute: (2+3+4+5+6) x 4 = 80 Karma

Initiation 13+16+19+22+25+28 = 123 Karma

So the total cost to increase your Magic attribute from 1 to 12 (for 11 more power points) is 203. If it costs 3 per attribute, this costs drops to 183.

To buy 11 additional power points at 20 Karma each would cost 220 Karma. That is to say that it costs *more* to increase your power by buying power points directly. This isn't counting the other benefits of having a higher Magic attribute as well as the metamagic techniques you learn along the way.

If you have 200 Karma to spend, you will make your character more powerful by initiating and buying up the Magic attribute than you would buying the points directly.

If buying the points directly is inferior to the Magic+Initiation route, why should it be prohibited? What mechanical benefit does buying them directly provide that needs to be avoided?

Chris

FYI, the rule only sort of existed in SR3, anyway. From the FAQ:

If you are already at 6, the cost of that additional power point skyrockets.

Initiation grade: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Karma 13 16 19 22 25 28

(In SR3 Karma applied to initiation included +1 to MA for each grade without additional cost)

Magic Attribute: 7 8 9 10 11 12
Karma: 21 24 27 30 33 36

Total Cost in SR4 34 40 46 52 58 64
(per power point)

So in SR4 it is far more expensive to get that additional Power Point than the 20 karma rule in SR3

[edit] Sorry. formatting seems to go south after the post is saved

Adept powers advancement is somewhat curbed in SR4 to keep them somewhat in line with implanted mundanes, although they have no theoretical limit. They are still behind Magicians, even though the Magicians pay the same cost to advance Magic. Partially because without Street Magic or creating your own metamagic there isn't as much value in Initiation for Adepts.

But I don't think making advancement easier for Adepts is the best way to go about evening that out, because you would then leave the mundanes in the dust very quickly. Unless you want to make you game more magic centered.

EDIT

Nevermind. I didn't realise that was his own house rule. Still I don't exactly understand what he is doing with the math. Maybe I don't want to know, because I think the extra cost for power points beyond 6 is a good thing.

Hmm... Ok a couple of things.

First - it wasn't a house rule as far as SR3 was concerned. It was in the main book and nothing took it out later. Besides, it made sense.

Second - I didn't realize that you needed to increase your magic in addition to Initiation. Yowza will that be expensive!

Magic increase chart:

I think the primary difference between the adept powers = mage spells is that basically, you're treating your purchased magic rating for an adept like an essence cost for street sams, if you want to get an improvement out of your adept, maybe look at getting something like alpha beta or delta grade powers, multiply the cost of a power by .8 for some amount of karma and that would add room in for an extra power. maybe a karma cost of 8 or 4 times the power point cost to upgrade it a level (std->alpha) and then the same amount to upgrade all the way to "delta grade" powers.

Mage spells != adept power points in scalability. Adepts get the use of every single power point at all times that they apply much like street sams and their ware.

One thing that I've seen work fairly well in the past is allowing the purchase of karma for cash (1k per karma worked okay in SR3 and would probably work better with SR4).

Mages are balanced by drain (which looks like it'll be hitting a lot more in SR4 than 3) and the fact that they are relatively limited in how many dice they get to resist it.

Or better yet, geasa could also allow a coexistence of cyber and adept powers. If geasa come back in Street Magic, you won't need to worry about an adepts power level.

Not having Geasa around makes me happy. Especially voluntary geasa. I've witnessed some feats of power gaming that make my skin crawl...

The whole "20 points of karma for a power point" rule in SR3 existed only because the rules for initiation weren't in the main book, and the official Q&A stuff does, in fact, say that initiation is meant to supercede this rule. When SR4 came out, they put initiation in the main book, and therefore had no need to also include the dumbed-down version of initiating the 20-karma rule represented (namely, turning in some karma to gain more powers).

I don't see what the conflict between your old concept and the current ruleset is. For an adept, his Magic attribute isn't a measure of his ability to control and channel mana (that mumbo-jumbo stuff) in the same way as a mage... the slang equivalent is much closer to "his kung fu is stronger." Your understanding of your body grows through hard training and discipline, and your powers grow with it (as, OOC, you initiate and then buy another point of magic, gaining a power point in the process). The metamagic you pick up along the way is easy to roll into this concept... learning "centering" doesn't mean you have to suddenly develop this crazy magic ability along with your martial skills... you could just run through the first few moves of Crane form to calm yourself and prepare for what is about to come.

The only real problem I think you would encounter jumping from pre-Magic-In-The-Shadows SR3 to the current version of SR4 (and trying to duplicate the character) is that your Karma costs are going to be totally different, and you'll probably be at a different power level. Since this hit pretty much every type of character in odd ways (little things like some 'ware getting cheaper, lots of gear no longer having rules or being outdated, and the like) this is a pretty minor issue.