While lurking and reading the metatype thread, I started thinking...

Elves pay a steep price, but get the only AGI and CHA bonuses around.

So how badly can those be abused?

Well, an hour later, I had sketched out 3 elf adepts.

Adept 1
AGI 8, R/W 4 each, 3s on most of the rest. 5E/6M.
Killing Hands, 6xCrit Strike, 6xImproved Ability (Unarmed), Astral Perception
7 Unarmed skill (Martial Arts spec), a whopping (heh) 34 points left over for all other active skills. $20K for initial gear.

Rather one-dimensional, but gets 23 dice for melee, 6-7 base DV (depending on STR--the crit strike is going to be most of it, however). It costs less to raise the low or missing skills than it would to raise the primary skill, though.

Have the mage drop Imp Reflex on you and shunt it to Sustaining, maybe even do the same thing with Armor or Invis, and go forth to shatter bones.

Adept 2
Same stats.
6xImproved Ability (Automatics), 4xImproved Ability(Hvy Weaps), and for grins I blew the last PP on Improved Senses (Thermo, vismag, etc.).
7 Automatics skill (I picked SMGs as spec for the dual wield option), 4 Hvy Weaps skill (Grenade Launcher spec), 24(!) points left for other skills. $20K for initial gear, enough to buy a pair of HK 227Xs or Ingrams, add/upgrade to gv3, a MGL-12 (smartlink/airburst), about 20 clips of EX-EX and Gel (the latter being R not F, not much worse in AP because it goes after Impact, and hits the usually smaller stun track first), and a couple dozen frag minis, plus necessities like commlink and smart/image-link glasses.

Again, very one-dimensional, but it's a nice dimension. Firing one SMG, you get 8+7+2+6+2=25 dice straight out of chargen, with 9 base DV (SMG+EX-EX/Gel+narrow burst), and do the same thing again with no recoil mod. Or do the same thing with the GL for even greater area damage at even longer ranges.

Or, to be just plain sick, you pull out the second SMG. You split 23 dice (no smartlink), so 12/11, should still be enough to hit. You now get to spread 4 volleys of at least 10DV each around (you might miss a shot here and there due to modifiers and bad luck) each IP.

Now have a friendly neighborhood mage drop maxxed Imp Reflex on you, and shunt it to a Sustaining focus. 16 shots at ~10DV per shot, per turn?

Adept 3
Now for something different--a face adept
9 CHA. Great opportunity for shaman/adept with an emphasis in manipulation, but it would probably require a 500-point build.
6xKinesics, Voice Control, Astral Perception, up to 3 points of the social Improved Ability of your choice.
Skills are a little squirrelly; there's not enough to go around and still buy contacts, and buying the Influence group limits your use of Improved Ability. Still, we're talking about upwards of 20 dice... on most social checks.

Big D.
(No relation. Fraggin' name-stealing dragons.)

Of course, the new eratta dosen't cover the social monster. A quick nerf is to simply make Kinesics a 'no level' ability for 1 PP, and give a 1 die bonus on social skills.

to make it worse

start with agi 8
then put in muscle aug 2
then go for firearms group 4
and cc group 4
14-16 dice in all major combat skills
with another 4 dice addable aftger char gen

That'll teach me to post in the middle of the night.

O.K., Contestant number 1 loses 3 dice, UC drops from 23 dice to 20.

Contestant number 2 loses 3 automatics and 2 hvy weaps dice, SMG drops from 25 dice to 22 dice, 10/10 (with no ambidexterity, adept/att/skill eat up your 35BP), so you're going to miss more often... depending on who you're up against, you may not bother with the second gun that much, and may even be better off going with AR than SMG. Still... 22 dice on chargen, just add Imp Reflex.

Contestant number 3 was a little rushed and needs to be cleaned up a bit, but otherwise was pretty much correct. I do wonder why they didn't do the same thing to Kinesics in the last pass that they did to Imp Ability.

Kremlin, I was just playing with adepts and hadn't tried the chrome route yet; looks nasty, though, and very customizable after play begins.

Can you buy individual skills on top of groups in chargen? Start with 4 in a group+2 and a spec for one of them (or+1 and a spec for two skills). That seems a little cheesy to me, but I don't see anything in the rules against it.

what about flaws? you can easily grab a few good flaws, and use the points for ambidex, or other fun stuff.

15 bp for sensitive systems is the easy out.

Oh, I did that.

For all of the above, since I was going the adept route, I gave them Sensitive Neural Structure, Sensitive System, SINner, and Spirit Bane.

But regardless, you cannot have more than -35BP in flaws or 35BP in total qualities.

all the metatypes can be maxed out this way think about the troll with a body of 10 and str 8or one of my faves, the dwarf with the 7 will and 4 in another mental stat for your mage or a will 6 body 8 and atribute boost of 2, magic 6 and he never takes drain for the boost and susualoly goes up by 2-4
That's why the meta types cost more because they can be really maxed out.

I have a few questions.
1. What is the BBB?
2.The whole only +35 or - 35 on qualities does that mean in the end or total? (ie. i an getting +40 build points in bad qualities and -10 build points on positive qualities would that work? because of the +40 would go over the +35 rule but overall +40 + (-10) = 30 and (-35)<30<35 correct so it should work if you think that way.)
Sorry if i posted this in the wrong place.
thanks for the answers

1. Big Black Book (the main rulebook)

2. It means total. No matter how many positive qualities you have, you can only get +35 points from the negative ones.

I don't remember if the positive ones are limited, but I do know they aren't tied together. You can have one without the other.

The Agility munch only really gains the elf one extra dice compared to a human, who will have an extra point of Edge and 30 more points to spread around. But slinging a lot of dice around is only half of the picture - you also want to get improved reflexes, so you can throw all of those dice around more than once a round. And if you have an adept with 6 Magic, it is worth losing one point of Magic to get muscle toner: 2, for 2 extra dice on all Agility-based skills.

Kinesics is the most broken of the adept powers, since it is only capped by your Magic rating. But it is only a problem if your GM makes social skills too powerful ("You tell him to shoot himself? Well, you got a lot of successes, so I guess he does!"). In most campaigns, super-high thresholds will stop the most egregious abuses of a social adept's ability.

Yeah, I did a little back-of-pad work today and figured that by dropping Magic to 5 (for BP), and investing 2 more Magic (~1.5 ess, I think), I could pump SMGs (or ARs) to 26 dice, and a MGL-12 to 22 dice. I haven't taken the time to write it all down or verify the math, YMMV.

That's just... wrong. Who needs a combat mage? Just make sure your mage can cast Imp Reflex (and shunt to sustaining) and some detection/healing/manipulation spells, and you're fine. If the mage gripes about not ever getting to kill people, give him a MGL-12 and tell him it's a focus that casts a no-drain Force-12 spell twice each cast called "fragball", using "material components" the cost of one EX-EX burst.

okay using social skills as written
fully maxed out starting social adept elf has 23-25 dice on all social tests

meaning he can walk through many runs without firing a shot

Dang, I need to sit down and build that just so I can see it and bask in the glow of the Lollipop Guild.

How about Team Munchkin?

Elf Magic Adept--Shaman, natch, fire-bringer, moon maiden, or *possibly* raven. Kinesics, tailored pheremones, whatever else fits in chargen.

Elf/Human (A/E, pick one) gun adept--as above, ~26 (or 12/10 dual) dice for SMG, ~22 dice for MGL-12, ~10-12 dice for anything else that goes bang. PP into Imp Ability (3 auto, 2 hvy weaps), several bio pieces to boost AGI/skills, maybe cybereyes if ess permits.

Elf/Human (A/E, pick one) physad--similar to the gun adept, killing blow, crit strikes, Imp Ability, maybe bio/cyber to pick up extra AGI/skill bonuses.

Human decker/rigger--Twinked out with bio/cyber to boost stats/skills, may run short on BP buying programs and drones, but there should be a munchy solution.

Elf/Human(/or heck, troll) mage/shaman (C/E, pick one)--6M/7spell/4summon, power focus 2, 5xsustaining focus 1 (healing), Imp Reflex, Heal, and a dozen detection/illusion/manipulation spells. MGL-12 ("fragball" spell) and a couple points+spec in hvy weaps.

Those characters could be perfectly viable - min-maxed rather than munchkin. Munchkin is only when you pare the rest of the character to the bare bones to get that last dice. Min-maxed is when you are very good at your specialty, but stop at the point of diminishing returns. A lot of people have noted that SR4 is set up so that a character can be very good at one thing, without being too crippled in other areas.

The decker/rigger might not be that min-maxed, really. Trying to get Attribute-boosting 'ware and cover two skill-intensive specialties sounds more like spreading yourself too thin. Better to start out as a hot decker with one good ranged weapons skill, then add the rest as you gain money and Karma. One offensive shortcut, though, if you have the Nuyen, is to get a cyberarm with +3 Agility (for a total of 6), and skillwires: 3 with a few combat skills. Now you have someone who can roll a respectable 9 dice for things like an Ingram Smartgun (a cyberarm gyromount is also a good investment), or a monofilament whip (the latter of which is a brutally effective weapon for low-Strength characters).

On the last one - if it is going to be a character relying on heavy weapons for offense, then why not make him a defensive specialist, spell-wise? Get the Mountain mentor spirit, a maxed-out counterspelling (Combat) focus, and take counterspelling: 6, specializing in Combat Spells. Now the rest of the team will laugh at enemy spellcasters.

For a magical offensive munch, summoning is actually very effective. High Force spirits can be dominating in combat.

I'll try to get some time to run the math in the morning, but my thinking was for the mage to focus on guaranteed max IPs for the team, then also pull various and sundry nastiness with manipulation spells, both in combat and outside of combat (often working with the face for that).

I'm thinking 7 spellcasting/4 summoning should be doable, though.

The GL is for that extra offensive punch, and really doesn't cost that much... maybe 10BP for something that hits harder per IP than any attack spell.