That's what I was thinking. I never really could get a mundane street sammy to work right for me, but maybe I'm just an awakened kind of guy...

Personally, I think some 'ware should be better, able to do things that adept abilities can't. And it should be a temptation for an adept. And if he gives in, so what? He's just being smart!

For a hit of one Magic point, you can get Muscle Toner: 2, Synthcardium: 3, an alphaware Ultrasound Sensor, alphaware Cyberears with audio enhancement: 3 and sound dampening, and an alphaware Internal Air Tank. You have 2 points to all Agility tests and related skill tests, 3 additional points to all skills in the Athletics group, you can detect invisible enemies and active ultrasound sensors, you have superior hearing, and you can hold your breath long enough to negate any purely-inhaled gasses. And that's only one example.

But the poor sammie can't save a point of his Essense to buy adept powers with, so he is at a disadvantage compared to the adept, who can get the best of both worlds.

Street samurai start out potentially more well-rounded, as adepts start out as potentially better specialists, but adepts have the higher growth potential.

Well, here's my contribution teh broken cyber-adept build:

Ork (bow before the master race) 20 BP

B 4
A 5 (7)
S 3
R 4 (

I 5
L 3
C 2
W 3

Edge 3
Magic 5 (3)

Init 13 (3 IP)

Essence 4.0

skills:
Athletics Skill Group 4

Pistols (revolvers) 6 (9)
Unarmed Combat 4
Etiquette 4
Perception 3


Ambidexterity 5
Adept 5
whatever flaws float your boat (-25)

Adept Powers
Imp Pistols +3
Combat Sense 3

Contacts 15 pts
Resources 50 pts (30K Y left over for gear)

Ware:
Synaptic booster-2
Muscle Toner -2
Reaction Booster -2
Skill wires -3
2 active skillsofts @ rating 3 (maybe pilot ground vehicle & first aid?)

The skillwires allow the adept to compensate for its main weakness, lack of points left over for skills. On the other hand, you roll 13 dice of initiative, have 3 IP, shoot your warhawks with 20 dice, have a passive defense of 11 dice, can wear an armored jacket, can initiate...

this is my 'pure' adept

Metatype : Troll
Adept

Attributes
Body: 8
Agility: 5
Reaction: 6 (9)
Strength: 8
Charisma: 2
Intuition: 2
Logic: 2
Willpower: 2

Edge: 2
Magic: 6 (12)
Initiative: 11
Essence: 6

Knowledge Skills
: N

Active Skills
Throwing Weapons : 5
Dodge : 6
Pistols : 4
Pilot Ground Craft : 4
Blades : 4


Positive Qualities

Negative Qualities
Sensitive System

Weapons
Katana
Survival Knife
Ares Viper Slivergun
10x Flechette Rounds (10 shots)

Armors
Chameleon Suit
Lined Coat
Clothing (Regular)
Clothing (Regular)
Actioneer Businnes Clothes

Vehicles
Suzuki Mirage (Racing Bike)

Commlinks
Commlink : Novatech Airware
OS : Iris Orb

Equipments
3x Fake Sin (Rating 6)
Weapon Focus (Rating 6)

Powers
Combat Sense (Level 6)
Improved Ability : Dodge (Level 6)
Improved Reflexes (level 3)
Mystic Armor (level 2)

Contacts
jo (L:3 C:2)
bob (L:2 C:3)

the combat sense and Improved Reflexes allow him to roll 15 dice to avoid getting shot and with Improved Ability : Dodge as well he rolls 27 dice to dodge attacks in close combat his mystic armor gives him 8/6 armor with a lined coat. this is just off the top of my head too

?!

Weapon foci do not add to magic. Imp ability is limited to 1/2 skill rating (so, basically 3). The dodge skill takes an action to do, so is almost never worth it. In addition, the gymnastics skill will do the exact same thing (for ranged combat, anyway), but is useful for other stuff as well. For close combat active defenses (as a close combat monkey), you should be relying on your close combat skill anyway.

That'd be the rating 6 weapon foci...

But the troll adept is breaking the rules in so many ways....

For one thing, you can only get up to a rating: 2 weapon focus at char-gen due to availability. And a weapon focus adds to your dice pool for attacks with it - it does NOT raise your Magic Attribute. Improved Ability: Dodge, as someone mentioned, can only be 3 (1/2 the skill rating).

There's also 3 maxed stats (REA, AGL, MAG) at chargen (don't the only let you max 1)? A skill of 6 and as skill of 5 (only allowed one skill at 6 or two skills at five). It's possible the points don't add up correctly either. Really he might as well have written POWER LEVEL 9000+ on there somewhere.

The difference between the adept and the Samurai is simple. At 500 karma, the Samurai will be throwing at least 12 dice in everything he does and at least 18 in what he does best. He even has a skill of 6 is sorcery and counter-spelling because he has nothing left to do with his karma but make Power Pacts with spirits who have Magical Guard and Innate Spell.
At the same level, the Adept is throwing upwards of 0 dice in what he does best but is probably still in the single digits with everything else.

Samurai are great generalists and poor specialists. Adepts are great specialists and poor generalists. It has always been so.

In my opinion adepts have always been kind of broken. Of couse I don't have as much experience with street sam, but it seems to me that some of the things adepts can do are kindof crazy. However it is true that street sams are more combat oriented, as far as the abilities provided by cyberwear go. I think this is what several of you are refering to when you say adepts cant compare to street sams with equivalent resources. But it is important to remember that adepts aren't always combat monsters. Adepts can be stealthy or charismatic or atheletic and many other things. Really it is this versitility that makes adepts of equal 'power' as street sams. Adepts can do some things that street sam just cant (improved skill, astral perception, combat sense, elemental strike, to name a few). And of course there are those combat niches where adepts are superior to cybered characters. For example throwing adepts can serously own, as far as I know there is no 'ware that enhances throwing abilities. So can meele troll adepts (weapon focus + improved skill > cyber spur + cybered attribute, IMO) and they have fun little abilities like counterstrike (combo that with combat sense). Furthermore some of the adept builds do have the 'concealability' factor. Cyber-replacements incur negative social modifiers (ok so bio avoids almost all of these, but its expensive!) where as no-one is likely to know that you have killing hands untill after you've hit them, Missile mastery is another example of an adept power that improves combat abilities with no-one being the wiser. The throwing adept is also a good example of the combat potential of adepts. with missle mastery and 5 levels of power throw an adept could throw hypodermic seringes for STR/2 + 5 P that also function as injection vectors for toxin attacks. (so with a trolls strenght of 9, and narcoject that is 10P now and 10S at the end of the combat turn. )

It is a myth that in SR4 SAMs have no potential and Adepts have all potential.

In SR4 a SAM has much more potential, because there is Bioware and Alpha and Beta Grades.

Making everything Apha/Beta, for about 1 Million Nuyen, a SAM can have almost all Cyber/Bioware that is available. Using a Karma to Nuyen ratio of 1:3k, this would be 333 Karma. A SAM with 333 karma and 1 Mio Nuyen is God, having about 8/0.8 = 10 Essence Points worth of Cyber/Bio (everything Alpha/Beta, with the Synaptic Alpha of course, that gives +3REA +3 IPS for 1.8 Essence) and all Attributes and Skills he needs maxed, while the Adept might have a Magic of 10 (costing him about 150 karma), but has to pay far more in power points than the SAM does in Essence and he wont have his attributes and skills maxed. He will have pretty good gear, though.

Shouldn't synaptic-3 alphas be 1.2 essence (1.5*.8=1.2), not 1.8? For an adept, magic 10 might no be worth it, compared to magic 6 and 4 points of high grade 'ware. 6 points of magic will get you combat sense 6, imp ability in your gun skill of chioce 3, with 1.5 points left over for wonky adept only powers. The 4 points of ware is probably enoguh to max your REA and AGL which are the important stats easily effected by ware.

Im on the boat that says Adepts in other areas wipe the floor with mundanes(Social, Brain), but can get a little outclassed in combat....but at the same time, should they specialize, its dangerous.

Case in point, a gunslinger adept. They can indeed get scary. However, as you can see in the BBB, the gunslinger adept isnt doing much else except shooting really good; a mundane sammy can shoot really good and also be a fair backup something or other.(with that extra 40-65 BP they save from Magic, thats a couple of high skills there.)

I am one that can agree with someone mentioning them seemingly changing the focal point for adepts. While you can make an excellent highly specialized combat adept, they are at their most impressive when used for the Social or Brain departments.

I WOULD like to see lowered attribute powers(or at least houserule them), they are too expensive. For the cost of upping one attribute with a power(1 point, or 10 BP for 1 point of magic), the sam could have gone and upped his Agility and Strength numerous times.
This could help out the combat adept. I think .5 for increasing combat skills is reasonable. (if anything i hear people discussing how the social skills are too cheap).

You can still make an impressive unarmed adept(crit strike is cheap, killing hands is cheap and a one shot buy), but again, what keeps them a little under the sam is the price of the attribute increasing powers. (My combat adept threw 11 dice unarmed, but he wasnt TOTALLY combat specialized, it was big, but i wanted him to be good at a few things. More than held his own though.) If i changed anything about him, i would consider dropping a couple powers and increasing his unarmed, and if the adept power was houseruled, his agility.

Again though, i took the focus away from specialist(i made a bouncer, so i wanted a high Perception and Intimidation, which i did get. To be fair, he rolled a total of 13 dice with visual and audio perception with enhancements, and 10 with anything else, so he was rarely taken by surprise..and he threw a pretty impressive 13 dice for physical intimidation...which were both subsequently more than his combat skill, if only by a little.)

I like adepts, i think they are good(great in some areas) but i do think they need a little bit of tweaking.

Of course, the fact is that a cybered character pays far more in Build Points to get their gear than an Adept.

Consider Improved Reflexes (Power), Wired Reflexes (Cyberware), and Synaptic Booster (Bioware). I pick these three, simply because all things being equal, the `runner who goes first is the one who wins the fight, imho.



Now, tell me how Adepts "suck right now"?

They spend faaar less BP then a Bioware user, and have no Availability limitations. They spend more BP than a Cyberware user, I admit, but all but 5 of those BP are increasing their Magic attribute, which has all sorts of additional benefits.

BP spent on cyber- or bioware has no added effect, apart from the `ware itself. Thus, the true "cost" (ie, BP that can not be used towards other results) of a Adepts power is, in fact, 5 BP... that one spent to take the Adept Quality.

(Of course, if you take more than one Adept Power, you need to divide those 5 BP among all of them; Oh, and an Adept only needs to purchase one Fake License for his entire suite of Powers, a Razorbor (cyber- or bio-) will need to purchase one for each peice of illicit `ware, and cannot get one for any 'F'-class items.)

Adepts are alot more cost efficent than anyone seems to give them credit for.

The thing is, the bioware costs them 2 magic points, while the other two options cost them 5. Bioware is WAY more efficient than adept powers.

I'd say that improved ability dice cost .25 power points, are limited to skill, and that autohits cost .75 power points and are limited to improved ability dice. Those autohits are, in reality, threshold modifiers, and thresholds can not be moved below 0.

How does that sound for balance?

No. No it isn't.

Bioware Synaptic Booster III costs 48 build points, and 2 magic rating points (1.5 essence lost).

Improved Reflexes III costs 45 build ponts, and their is no loss of magic rating.

Further, the 45 build points (5pt Adept, 40pt for Magic 5) can be used on all manner of other things. Assuming the adept buys only one other power (say, Astral Perception), the actual cost of the Improved Reflexes is 22.5 BP.

The 48 build points spent on the ¥240,000 you need to get Synaptic Booster III has no use after you get the `ware. Magic is an attribute with multiple uses, spent Nuyen is gone.

I made a Character based on serbitars suggestion [“I give you 150 Karma and 450k (thats a ratio of 1 to 3k) on top of the 400 BP”] I know that this Character would be stronger with a little bit of cyberware and bioware installed (~1,0 Essence worth).
But it looks for me as if this guy is strong enough anyways ...

Race: Troll -40 BP

Body 9 –40 BP
Agility 5 –30 BP [-15 KP]
Reaction 6 (9) –40 BP [-18 KP]
strenght 9 –40 BP
Charisma 1
Intuition 4 –30 BP
Logic 2 –10 BP
Willpower 2 –10 BP

Magic 6 (8) –65 BP [21+24= -45 KP ]
Edge 3 –20 BP
Essence 6,0
Initiative : 13+4w6

Initiation Grade : 2 [(13x0,6=-8 KP )+(16x0,6=-10 KP]
metamagics: Masking, Flexible Signature

Positive Qualities:
Adept –5 BP
Mentor Spirit Bear –5 BP (+2 Dice to resist Physical Damage)
Toughness –10 BP

Negative Qualities:
Uneducated +20 BP
Sensitive System +15 BP

Natural Abilities:
Thermal Vision
+1 Reach
+1 Natural Armor

Skills:
Blades 6 (8) –24 BP
(Axes) –2 BP
Dodge 5 –16 BP [-10 KP]
(Ranged Combat) –2 BP
Athletics Skill Group 3 –30 BP

Adept Powers:
Improved Reflexes III 5,0 MP
Berserk 1,0 MP
Attribute Boost Agility 0,25 MP
Attribute Boost Strenght 0,25 MP
Inertia Strike 0,5 MP
Improved Ability (Blades) II 1,0 MP

Gear:
Combat Axe (Weapon Focus Force 8, +2 Reach) [(3+2)x8=-40 KP] -80000 nY
Fake SIN VI -6000 nY
Fake License for being a big bearadept VI -600 nY
Fake License for Combat Axe Weapon Focus VI -600 nY
Fake License for Full Body Armor VI -600 nY
Full Body Armor (10/8) -7150 nY
+Helmet (+2/+2)
+Flare Compensation
+Low-Light Vision
Armor Jacket -900 nY
Contact Lenses 200 nY
+Flare Compensation
+Low-Light Vision

----

Rules used (should be) "RAW". Not every BP, KP and nuyen was spent.

[edit: Fixed a mistake. Changed a little bit.]

A street sam with adept powers is an adept. An adept with 'ware is an adept. Assuming there are any benefits at all to being an adept, no matter how small, an adept is more powerful.

The essense loss tries to keep you from having and eating your cake at the same time, but all it actually does is let a min/maxer play the strengths of each system like music.


Now, if you're trying to make a street sam using adept powers and no 'ware, you're setting yourself up for failure (assuming standard rules). That doesn't make adepts weak, it just means that you aren't playing to their strengths. Note that an adept's extra IP are the only ones which aren't legally restricted.

My friend, a adept with 333 Karma in SR3, wrecked everybody(including the shaman and the mage).

333 Karma, that's totally worth it.

...I look at it this way.

Using another game system for the analogy (uh oh, I sense a loose rail in the track ahead).

Basically a Physical Adept is much like the Monk in D&D while the Street Sam is the Fighter.

A monk is not intended to be a party's first line of offense. She still is a capable fighter, but one who needs to rely on wits and more subtle means to defeat a foe. She is also able to fight creatures normal weapons cannot touch (much like the Adept with Killing Hands).

On the other hand, the fighter is generally is good at one thing, dishing out damage by the boatloads usually in one attack. He is physically tougher and has a wider array of weapons at his disposal. His answer to defeating any foe is basically total brute force which can even at times overcome certain creatures' natural damage resistance (like the Troll Sammie with the Ranger X Bow).

The place where this comparison breaks down is that in D&D, mundanes can wield magical weapons while in SR you need to be awakened.

Both the fighter and Monk have their specific roles in an adventuring party. Both also have their own important contributions.

In SR the same holds true for Adepts and Street Sams. Both character types have their strong and their weak points and both have their place on a runner team. Yes, A street Sammie can kick serious booty right out of the box and yes an Adept can advance themselves farther in some areas than a mundane (I feel I've been in a discussion like this before, concerning Hackers & Technomancers).

It's not whether an Adept "sucks" or is inferior to a Street Sam, for the two character types are not intended to be parallels of one other. Just as the monk is not some "mystical powered" combatant version of the fighter.

...Think I'll go home and figure out what to do with KK4.3's karma that she hasn't applied yet.

bob, your right, i did make a bunch of mistakes on the char i posted but not 'caus it was a starting char. i stuffed up 'caus i fergot that Initiation dose not automaticly increase magic. so the adept i posted used an addetional 171 karma. however i DO know that a weapon focus dose not increase magic. the char was made using the 400 BP 150 Karma 450 Nuyen. also becaus i got to play with Karma i figured it was not a starting char and so i did not impose the limmetations. oh and by the imp ability power entry in the core book says this 'You cannot have more additional dice than your base skill rating.' so it DOSE give me +6 dice for dodge

Check the Errata on srrpg.com as the whole imp ability has been jumped on greatly.

Indeed what this means is the most you can buy a skil up is 3 points. (5 if you round up the .5 on a 7 point skill)

This means you can no longer whip out 12 dice as an adept on a raiting 6 skill test before other modifiers.

I made a StreetSam to compare my Adept from above with him. Same Rules used, hopefully no mistakes made.

Race: Ork –20 BP

Body 9 (10) (-40 BP) [-27 KP]
Agility 6 (9) (-40 BP) [-18 KP]
Reaction 6 (9) (-40 BP) [-18 KP]
Strenght 5 (6 ) (-20 BP)
Charisma 1
Intuition 5 (-40 BP)
Logic 2 (-10 BP)
Willpower 3 (-10 BP) [-9 KP]

Edge: 3 (-20 BP)
Essence: 1,685
Initiative: 14 + 4W6

Positive Qualities:
Aptitude: Firearms (–10 BP)
Quick Healer (–10 BP)

Negative Qualities:
Uncouth (+20 BP)

Skills:
Longarms 7 (–20 BP) [-40 KP]
(Sniper Rifles) (–2 BP)
Automatics 6 (–20 BP) [-12 KP]
(Machine Pistols) (-2 BP)
Dodge 4 (–16 BP)
(Ranged Combat) (–2 BP)
Perception 3 (-12 BP)
(Visual) (-2 BP)
Blades 3 [-14 KP]
(Cyber Implant Blades) [-2 KP]
Etiquette (2)
Climbing (2)
Running (3)
Gymnastics (3)

Start Gear ~ (-45 BP)

Bioware:
Muscle Toner II (Alphaware) 32000 Nuyen -0,32 Essence
Platelet Factories (Alphaware) 50000 Nuyen -0,16 Essence
Bone Density Augmentation I (Alphaware) –0,24 Essence 40000 Nuyen
Bioware bought “in play”:
Synaptic Booster III –1,5 Essence 240000 Nuyen
Pain Editor –0,3 Essence 40000 Nuyen
Reflex Recorder: Firearms –0,2 Essence 25000 Nuyen
Suprathyroid Gland –0,7 Essence 45000 Nuyen

Cyberware :
Datajack (Alphaware) –0,04 Essence 1000 Nuyen
Cybereyes III (Alphaware) –0,16 Essence 2000 Nuyen
+Low-Light Vision 2000 Nuyen
+Thermographic Vision 2000 Nuyen
+Vision Enhancement II 6000 Nuyen
+Vision Magnification 2000 Nuyen
+Flare Compensation 1500 Nuyen
+Smartlink 2000 Nuyen
Cyberware bought “in Play”:
Spur (Betaware) (0,3x0,7/2) = -0,105 Essence 7200 Nuyen
Skillwires V (Betaware) (0,7x1,0/2) = -0,35 Essence 40000 Nuyen
+Activesoft Running III 9000 Nuyen
+Activesoft Gymnastics III 9000 Nuyen
+Activesoft Climbing II 6000 Nuyen
+Activesoft Etiquette II 6000 Nuyen

---

Again there are still KP, BP and Nuyen left. For flare things and stuff.
Magic healing suffers -3 Dice, First Aid -1 Dice (Thanks to Quick Healer Perk).


[edit: fixed a mistake, and another one thx@Thain]

333 Karma, and ¥1,000,000? You are all kidding me, right?

Thats over 100 `runs, assuming you net ~3-5 karma and ¥3,000 (before expenses) per.

How do you propose to survive that long, if you aren't getting any wiz-bang tech untilyou've saved up your million?

All I am saying that even THEN an adept is inferior to a SAM. This "potential" always talked about kicks in only after even more points of karma and can thus be neglected in normal play.

@kil2k

thanks for the nice example. Shows how good a SAM can get (especially compared to the troll). What are the numbers in parenthesis behind the skills?

An Adept is not inferior to a Samurai (Please, stop using all capital letters, 'sam' is shorthand, not an acronym. ) the Adept is merely "different."

One could claim the Face, the Rigger, or the Hacker are "inferior" to the Samurai, because they do not have 10+ combat skill dice, an initiative of 42, and 100 boxes on their damage track... (Yes, I am making up numbers here ) But, by that same measure, the Samurai is horrible at cracking, can't control twenty Doberman drones, and has 0 dice for social skills! Samurai are inferior!

Physical Adept =/= Samurai

(Oh, and Kil2k... Skillwire Activesofts do not 'stack' with 'real' skills, so your Automatics IV skillsoft does not add to your skill.)

I know what SAM stands for and I like it to write them that way.

Furthermore I know that Adepts are not SAMs. Riggers and hackers have their place, they excel in different tasks. Adepts dont. They have to compete in their area of profession directly with SAMs and lose to them in almost every aspect (social being an exception, but we all know that the social adept is overpowered due to the broken kinesics, that is like a non capped tailored pheromones).

This is because the powers that are comparable to cyber/bioware are extremely underpowered and because the powers that set them apart from SAMs (for example the wall running, jumping, falling stuff) are extremely weak.

Lets face it: Things like wall running are mostly style. And if I chose to pick this power up, I want something for it. At the moment you get nothing for it (Even a running 6 magic 6 adept can wall run an average of 4 meters, wohoo).

Magicians can fly! by only learning one spell. Why does an adept have to pay so much for wall running, falling, leaping that does not even get close to flying?

At least let them do some impressive tricks!

We do not "all know that the social adept is overpowered" as a result of powers such as "broken kinesics." The social-focus Adept is a very good example of the Adept's strength.

Adepts can become very skilled, very cheaply. Improved Skills, Boosted Attributes, situational bonuses...

The problem you have, in my opinion, is that you are trying to make the Physical Adept play the same role, by the same tactics, with the same tools, as the Samurai.
They are not the same, this is a "feature" not a "bug."

Improved ABILITY (thrown weapons). 4.0 Magic.

He's currently in the process of getting Quick Draw though.

It gets even more scary when he starts dual wielding the throwing knives....

Ummm...why? Why and how does it get more "scary" when he starts dual-wielding throwing knives? How is it any more scary than a punk tossing out a wide burst with Ex ammo from an Ares Alpha? Or a minimal bio face adept with some skill unloading his Cherry Blossom Fire Storm in your face?

<edit> I totally and completely fail to see the fascination with throwing knives. The only explantation I can come up with is the knife dude from Desperado, but guns generally trump knives in the 21st and a half century. Melee's only so effective because of the special mechanics and advantages built in to make melee cool. Which it may deserve. </edit>

Heres the math. Lets assume he does an average of 9P (7 base, +1 for missile mastery, +1 for the bonus from throwing knives). If thats not enough to convince, then his dice pool with throwing knives is about 11. While 5 dice pool doesn't need to sound like much, it just has to hit with just one success. EACH time he throws it, he reduces your ability to dodge, leaving you open to other attacks. After the end of it, if you aren't dead, you have at least a -4 to reaction for resisting attacks for that round. He gets another pass with 11 dice twice. Do you survive that? Likely not.