@ Xenith

PLease post your character. I suspect he can only do this throwing knives trick and thats it (which is not very impressive. Cyberadepts throwing 25 dice with pistols are impressive). So he is good for that one occasion which a mage can do with 5 karma.

If the argument is just that anything an adept can do, a sam can do too, then you have to look at the reverse. Anything a sam can do by purchasing ware, an adept can do better, by purchasing the same ware and supplementing it with magic. Want a bareknuckle bruiser? The sam gets bone mods. The adept gets bone mods, and critical strike. A quickdrawing pistolero? The sam gets reflex boosters and a smartlink. The adept does the same and purchases improved ability pistols. A sleuth? The sam decks his eyes and ears out with all the mods he can get. The adept then does the same but with four or more extra dice from enhanced perception to boost all his perception rolls.
You may argue that this makes adepts sams, and you're right. It does. But you're not really talking about street samurai in your argument anyway, you're talking about mundane characters. And mundane characters are cheaper to make for a reason; they are not as powerful as magically awakened characters. A sam in my book can be a mundane with ware, a straight up adept, or a character who gasp blends magic and technology to create a being more powerful than one who utilizes only magic or tech. I always thought of that as being the point of Shadowrun anyway.


Wow, I'm extra special ranty today. With a dollop of self-righteousness sauce on top.

mmm...self-righteousness sauce...

Hey! you got your self-righteous sauce in my bemused onlookery!

To fuel the fire, here is my thought on An Adept Adjustment.

Some Suggestions:

attribute boost: 0.5 (only one rating) drain equal to hits
great leap: +2 dice per rating, +2 agility for distance
improved physical attribute: 0.5 per level
improved reflexes:1.5 per level
improved sense: 0.1 per sense
kinesics: capped at 9 charisma +kinesics dice (plus race and exceptional boni like normal)
natural immunity: +2 dice per rating
pain resistance: 0.25 per level
rapid healing: +2 dice per rating
spell resistance: 0.25 per rating
analytics: +2 dice per rating
animal empathy: +2 dice per rating
berserk: add immunity to stun damage modifiers
blind fighting: 0.25
cloak: +2 dice per rating
counterstrike: 0.25 per rating
distance strike: 1
facial sculpt: +2 dice per rating
freefall: 4 meter per rating
gliding: 0.5
iron gut: +2 dice per rating
iron lungs: +2 dice per rating
ironw ill: +2 dice per rating
living focus: 0.5
magic sense: 0.25
melanin control 0.25
metabolic controll: 0.25
motion sense: 0.25
multi tasking: 0.25
nimble fingers: +2 dice per rating
piercing senses: +2 dice per rating
rooting: +2 dice per rating
temperature tolerance: +2 dice per rating
traceless walk: 0.5
wallrunning: 2 meters per hit


reasons: most of the 0.25 per rating = +1 dice for a test that will occour 1 or 2 times in a runners lifetime are never taken. a better idea would to not give +2 dice per rating but to reduce costs to 0.125 points

effectively 50%-80% of the used adept powers are senses, improved reflexes, improved skills and traceles walk. most of the other stuff is never used.
Have you ever seen an adept with Iron Will, or Iron Guts?

Most of the dice apply only to a very specific test. And I really dont mind an adept that can jump down 20 meters and jump 10 meters wide when about every mage out there can fly.

Concerning Counterstrike: It has to be cheaper than the improved skill in that field because it is more specialized, concerning the Improved Reflexes, just look at synaptic accelerator. And why is multitaksing a balancing problem?

@ Kesslan and Ophis, thanks i didn't know they had changed imp ablity. on the up side you don't need it past lvl 3 anymore so you can spend the 1.5 power points on something else

First, I have no issue with the falling and jumping. 20 and 10 though, he'd better be paying. Anyway, Counterstrike I really don't see as having to be cheaper than Improved Ability (melee skill); it doesn't share the same structure as that power. IA is limited to three, CS is only limited to magic. I see it as a power a character takes after maxing out IA in the melee skill of his choice. Hell, it even applies to all melee tests, not just those in one skill. Thus I find it to be more powerful than IA. Especially so at half price. For Improved Reflexes, I am looking at synaptic accelerator when I say that. Wired is the gold standard here, the synaptic accelerator is way out on the pointy end. For the BPs, it's actually pricier than improved reflexes (as shown by someone at some point in I believe this thread), and dropping IR below wired in cost is just a little...cheap is the word I'd have to use. Wired has been the gold standard for every edition of SR, it's balance for all levels of play is kind of hardwired into the Essence balancing system. Playing with that is dangerous.

Multitasking...well, for .25 you're going to allow 2 free actions a phase outside of combat, which I don't understand at all. When do you use combat phases outside of combat? Anyway, more importantly it makes Observe in Detail a free action. A free action granting +3 dice to perception tests. 3 dice for .25 is too cheap. 3 dice for .5 is already borderline twinky.

True, but Daredevil can't dodge your manabolt and make you freak out.

That's Bullseye.

He can't fly, or control minds, or blow up a tank if he tries hard enough. Nor can he read minds, create illusions, shape all forms of matter, create walls in midair...

Yeah, adepts need a leg up.

And it's not like .5 PP per stat point is game-breaking; I mean, muscle toner is .3 essence, and suprathyroid glands, which increase all physical stats, is .7 essence.

And .5 PP per improved ability point is WAY too much unless you make it a threshold modifier.

@ Serbitar, Xenith

If I knew that my adept was going to cause so many problems, I wouldn't have said anything. But I know that my character is lacking in so many ways. I'm using 150 karma less than you allow starting characters, Serbitar. I used some karma in Artisan, so that our character setup would make a little more sense (we weren't origionally ShadowRunners, we were a band). My character was designed to be weak, yet strong. We were all starting off as 17 year olds who knew little to nothing about the Shadows. For christ's sake, I could make a better adept than I did make; and I could make a better sam than the character I made.

What we're all forgetting is that it all comes down to is how the dice roll, and how much FUN we have.

AWESOME == FUN.

Here's my current ideas on fixing the balance between adepts, sams, and cyber-adepts. Right now, the cyber adept wins outright because there are some great 'cherries' to pick on either side of the divide. Just looking at combat abilities, the current cherries are synaptic boosters, muscle toner, reaction enhancers, superthyriod gland and on the adept side combat sense, improved ability?, critical strike?, mystic armor?

My impressions is that there are the following: The utility of low essence ware and high magic rating are both low. The utility of high magic and low essence should both be raised to reduce the magic middle.

Objective:
Manipulate the numbers so that the cyber-adept, straight adept, and straight sam are roughly equal at least to the 200 karma, 600K Y range. Given unlimited karma and money, the cyber adept will be the most powerful character, but this should be delayed beyond the range of most campaigns.

Low utility of high magic rating
There is currently not much point to a high magic rating, all the broken adept powers are readily available around magic rating 4.

Proposed solution: Limit most leveled adept powers to 1/2 magic rating. Most 'character' adept power like great leap have effects doubled to reflect lower available ratings.

Increased IPs
Synaptic boosters are probably the worst of the lot, there is basically no character that would not benefit from synaptic -2. First impression solution here: remove them from the game. Change wired reflexes to:

Wired Reflexes rating 1-3
Essence: rating x 1.5
Availability: Rating x 4 F
Cost: rating X 40,000

Reduce adept costs of improved reflexes to 1.5 magic per level.

So, the advantage of the SAM is that he can get his IP increases at lower cost , but has to put up with detection issues. The cyber adept dosen't really gain anything from getting wires. In addition, having additional IP is such a significant advantage that it requires a large share of your 'class points' (essence or magic)

Combat Sense
This is probably the second worst offender.

Add the following ware:

Tactical Computer rating 1-4 (gives combat sense ability)
Essence: rating x .5
Availability: Rating x 5 F
Cost: rating x 25,000

Gives non adepts the ability to get bonus passive defenses.

As the combat sense adept power would be limited to 1/2 magic, this gives a bit more parity between the two. A cyber-adept @ magic 8 could get a lvl 4 tactical computer (lowering magic to 6) and 3 levels of combat sense for +7 passive defense. However, this is only 3 dice over a straight sam or a straight adept, not the 6 dice over the straight sam it was before.

Super Thyroid
Increase essence cost to at least 1. (requires some number crunching/testing, but a sam is probably getting his bioware at half essence b/c of wired reflexes, a cyber-adept might not be)

Muscle Toner
Remover muscle toner, muscle augmentation changed to:

Muscle Augmentation rating 1-4 (adds +STR + 1 AGL per level)
Essence: rating x .5
Availability: Rating x 5 F
Cost: rating x 15,000

Make cyber adepts pay more for increased AGL via cyberware. Hopefully sams will not suffer too much from teh increased essence costs. (requres some number crunching)

Sample characters: (assuming the ~200 karma, 600K Y range)

Assuming Base stats of BOD 3, AGL 3, REA 3, STR 3

Straight Adept

Ending Stats:
BOD 4, AGL 9, REA 9, STR 7
passive defense 14 dice

straight Sam


Ending Stats:
BOD 4, AGL 8, REA 9, STR 8
passive defense 12 dice

Sigh, still not quite right. Straight adepts are still comming out too weak and cyber-adepts too strong (seems divide is a bit smaller now, though sams now have less options as well).. how to power them up without also powering up cyber-adepts?

Name: Karl

Lifestyle: Low

Body: 7
Agility: 4
Reaction: 3 (5)
Strength: 7

Charisma: 2
Intuition: 3
Logic: 2
Willpower: 3

Edge: 3
Magic: 5

Initiative: 6( (IP 3)

Skills:

Close Combat: 2
-Unarmed Combat: 4
-Blades: 3

Throwing Weapons: 5 (7) Spec. Knifes
Artisan: 3 (5) Spec. Guitar
Intimidate: 2
Perception: 3
Dodge: 2
Infiltration: 2 (4) Spec. Urban

Knowledge Skills:

Gang I.D.: 5(7) Spec. Wichita
Wichita Area: 3
Read/Write (Academic): 3
History (Academic): 3
Literature: 2
Orzet: 3
German: 3


Qualities:

Pos:
Adept
Guts
Human Looking
Resistance to Pathogens

Neg:
Sensitive System
Sensitive Neural Structure


Adept Powers:
Power Throw: 2
Improved Reflexes: 2
Missile Mastery: 1
Strength Boost: 2

Contacts
Agent 4/2


Gear:
Armor Jacket
-Nonconductivity 6
-Insulation 6
-Fire Resistance 6
-Chemical Protection 6

Throwing Knifes (x45)
Frag Grenade (x5)
High Explosive Grenade (x1)
Wood Throwing Knifes (x20) (we house ruled these, they do 1P less damage, but don't show up)

Meta Link/Iris Orb
Sub-Vocal Mic
Earbuds
-Audio Enhancement 3
Contacts
-Thermo Vision
-Vision Enhancement 3
-Flare Comp

-----------------
This is after they had been playing for a while. The story behind the Jacket (I assume) is because his mom is a retired 'runner. He also decided to raise his Magic just last session. And yes, the character is 17 and in a band (the lead singer and guitarist).

@Xenith
You should take a look at page 213 in the core book.
Your System Rating (Software) is limited by the Response (Hardware) so you need at least a Novatech Airware (Response 3) to run the Iris Orb (System 3) properly.

The Firewall is also affected by the lowered System rating, so if your GM knows that, you had all the time a Firewall 1 running!

There's a reason why the Meta Link is as cheap as it is. But maybe your Character does not know that, but you do ? Then forget it, and back to topic

Damn Xenith this character is really a one trick pony, and not even a good one. After throwing knive he rolls only 8 dice in his seond best test (Infiltration).

A perfect example of what I wanted to say with "adept have to buy style by sacrificing all effectiveness".

Does he ahve anyporpourse besides getting knives somewhere and throwing them?

A SAM with high agility and skillwires surpases this character in every aspect.

If you want to nerf teh Cyber-Adept and bring things under one roof, you can always use Wakshaani's Magic Cap.

Wakshaani's Magic Cap works like this:

Magic is an attribute, just like Charisma or Agility, with a natural limit of 6 (5 for Trolls, 2/7 for Elves) and a hard limit of 9 (7 for Trolls, 10 for Elves) and has a "Magical Prodigy" Quality for 20 BP that raises the natural limit by 1 (And the hard limit re-adjusts from there.)

When you take cyberware, it doesn't effect your *current* Magic, it effects your natural limit... thus, if you had 2 essence of Cyberware, your natural limit would be reduced to 4, with a hard cap of 6. You sacrifice long-term growth for short-term gain. Magicians with some cyberware aren't that bad off ... most will never reach their hard cap or Initiate all that deeply, but, as the 'ware piles up, the Magician finds himself stunted, his potential squandered, and the other mages look at him with pity.

This lil' tweak fixes a LOT of stuff.

First, it brings magic in line with everything else, capping it around 9, like everything else.

Second, it allows magicians to take some cyberware at chargen without having 10+ BP kicked in the head.

Third, it stunts the halfway house that is a Cyber-Adept, letting pure cybertypes and pure Adepts both pass them in their selected areas.

Heck, it even explains why you might learn a new Metamagic without gettnig another level of Initiation ... you might have hit your Initiation limit and just can't go further.

Give it a whirl, you might be surprised.

-- Wak

So now we can get 6 magic points AND 2 essence of cyberware? All that does is make the out-of-the-box cyberadept own even more...anything else is only better after the karma starts building up.

Now that we are discussing Houserules. On page 21 Street Magic, is an optional Rule "Adepts and Geasa". (I will use this one, because of our little thread here )
This Rule allows taking Geasa for Adepts to lower the cost of Adept Powers.

Now i made another Adept Char, but without a Houserule for exchange of Nuyen - Karma (giving the Money to poor Orphans or something) a character like this one will have not many ways to spend his money.

Race: Ork –20 BP

Body 6 (-20 BP)
Agility 5 (-40 BP)
Reaction 6 (9) (-40 BP) [-18 Karma]
Strenght 8 (-65 BP)
Charisma 1
Intuition 4 (-10 BP) [-21 Karma]
Logic 2 (-10 BP)
Willpower 3 (-10 BP) [-9 Karma]

Edge: 3 (-20 BP)
Essence: 6,0
Magic: 9 (-65 BP) [-72 Karma]
Initiative: 13 +4D6

Initation Grade: 3 [-30 Karma]

Positive Qualities:
Adept (-5 BP)
Aptitude: Close Combat (-10 BP)

Negative Qualities :
Sensitive System (+15 BP)
Criminal SIN (+10 BP)

Skills:
Unarmed Combat 7 (10) (-32 BP)
(Martial Arts) (-2 BP)
Infiltration 4 (-16 BP)
(Urban) (-2 BP)
Athletics Skill Group 3 (-30 BP)
Dodge 3 (-12 BP)
(Ranged Combat) (-2 BP)
Etiquette 1 (-4 BP)
(Street) (-2 BP)
Perception 1 (-4 BP)
(Visual) –2 BP

Magic: (On everything Location Geas: City for 0,75 Multiplicator)
Improved Reflexes III (5x0,75) = 3,75 MP
Attribute Boost Strenght I (0,25x0,75) = 0,1875 MP
Attribute Boost Agility I (0,25x0,75) = 0,1875 MP
Attribute Boost Body I (0,25x0,75) = 0,1875 MP
Improved Ability: Unarmed Combat III (1,5x0,75) = 1,125
Critical Strike IX (2,25x0,75) =1,6875 MP
Killing Hands (0,5x0,75) =0,375 MP
Distance Strike (2,0x0,75) = 1,5 MP


----

He can punch from a Distance of 9 meters (should normally be a surprise attack ...). This counts as a ranged attack. He can boost his Agility and Strenght, has 12 Unarmed Combat Dice + 5-9 Agility Dice. Unarmed Combat damage is increased by 9. Not that bad at all.
Advantage: He does not need any weapon, not even a playing card.
Disadvantage: he sucks out of City.

@Moon-Hawk

You are right. Yes but this thread is about sucking Adepts.

And so i created a deadly Assassine Adept who walks trough any scanner and any control. As Initate he can mask his Aura and so on. No Sam can do that.

But if i would play this Char, he would just not leave the city so easily. Just by force. Not really bad roleplay, the Char knows too where he sucks ...
(Ah, and I do not play such a char, and I do not intend to do so ...)

And dont forget, that there are other Geasa as well, for example being drunk, or "had sex not less than 24h ago" .

...now if Adepts could learn Absorption metamagic, then I agree, they really would suck.

Where is everyone getting this 1.5 pp per level idea for increased reflexes?
It won't really change the cost for most adepts. You may save 0.5 pp.

Now, cost is 2 / 3 / 5
1.5 way is 1.5 / 3 / 4.5

There is very little difference, and I believe that most adepts take level 2, so the cost is the same.

There still isn't much incentive for adepts (or mystic adepts) to get increased reflexes vs synaptic booster. For a magic point, you can get synaptic booster 2, saving 2 pp for other powers.

I think that if I was going to tinker with the cost of increased reflexes, I would go with 1 / 2 / 4.
This, I think, would entice the adepts to keep it all in magic, rather than branch out into bioware.

RP purposes. I'm sure a lot of adepts would really, really like to have all their power come from themselves and themselves alone, and there shouldn't be that much of a power gap between cyber-adepts and adepts.

I guess I've never had a character with that level of obsession before. I'd think that once human enhancement technology has been around fifty or sixty years it wouldn't be something people would think of as cheating anymore. I'm also a fan of the whole melding of magic and sci-fi.

I also find it strange that people want adepts (with magic or A) to be as good or better than magic plus tech (B) so that A+B isn't greater than A or B alone.

I can see the occassional purist holdout, but not enough of them to warrant changing the system.

I want pure adepts to be usefull and stylish and not completely outclassed by mages and SAMs.

SAMs on the other hand are done quite perfect in SR4.

Does he have much purpose beyond that? Not really. And considering the character concept he didn't need to have it.

Considering the amount of karma they had to start, OF COURSE they're not going to have much. Its a low power campaign, thus its either specialize as a one trick pony, or not be especially good in any one are. However, I could give you a full build if you'd like.

Anyway, it was a concept we built around. All of us pride ourselves on having interesting concepts and building the stats around that concept. We don't always go for uber powerful shit. It just doesn't need to be. Just because you can munchkin up a mage or a street sami, doesn't mean you should. Take a look at the example characters in the book. Are any of those really all that scary? Not particularly.

Considering how powerful thrown weapons are (or lack thereof), this adept is scary. Consider the scale rather than comparing it to things that are meant for mass destruction. Give this adept a bunch of grenades instead and he's absolutely deadly. Not only can he toss orbs of death, he can use the pins afterward too. Come on, that at least gets points for coolness.

Seriously, stop yer bitching. Adepts are cool. Admit it. So are Sami. Mages are scary, yeah, but thats why you geek the mage first. Its also why they cost a bit more and are more of a karma sink than adepts. Mystic Adepts get the best of both worlds.

And stop this whole grade school "you suck" crap. Its annoying and just pisses me off. Get over it. Some things in Shadowrun aren't fair. Guns are more powerful than knives or swords. Duh. Magic can only do so much. If you can equal the power of a gun with a thrown knife, then its scary. Get out of this metagaming box and think about it.

Anyway, enough of this. I'm going to go make me a scary extendable baton adept with some heavy athletics skills. 'Cause thats just how I roll.

Xenith, if you don't want people telling you that your adept is not very powerful, then don't post him in a thread about how powerful adepts are (or aren't). we're not in here discussing whether or not adepts are cool, we're in here discussing how they stack up to sams in terms of power.

*shrugs* I don't know about you, but I'm a little afraid of having four grenades tossed at me at once. Maybe its just me. And 9P is never anything to scoff at, unless you're a dragon. Maybe I should just build a scary adept for you to stare at, as this one was made with few resources than normal.

The "suckage" of adepts is really just in your head as any of the toys Sams get the adepts can get too.

But I guess its my fault for tossing in a character who doesn't go with the most powerful option available.

no, it's your fault for getting mad at people for wanting to discuss power comparisons in a thread about power comparisons.

How much does that delta synaptic booster 3 cost?