I wanted to say that there are not enough options in the poll. The only possibilities are "Street Sams are useless" or "Street Sams are a must". They're neither of those. A Street Sam can be very useful, but you can make a Shadowrunning group without one if necessary.

It seems to me like new players go for adepts now, because they are so much simpler than a cybermonster.

How feasible are juicer sams?

I completely agree with this. The Sammy and the Weapon Specialist in our group are invaluable.

..I don't have to think about it. Actually has a PC who did that. Pretty much made the rest of the characters feel useless (& the players somewhat annoyed) as well as making the GM a candidate for Rogaine.

I got a question about possession mages: Why is it that everybody thinks that these cuts are all that and a bag of chips? Sure you can be possessed by a spirit and gain "boat loads of skills", but at what price? These spirits don't do anything for free! They have their own motivation and desires. If the GM allows the Possession Mage to get everything without paying a price, he's not playing those spirits correctly. They want things and by gum, they're going to get it... even if they have to break the character's cred stick (or rep, or friends, or...) to do it.

summoned spirits are not free spirits, also you can buy the spirit affinity for 10 bp thus making em pretty easy to handle. Additionnaly the rules state that players possessed by friendly spirits play those and once the char has learned channeling all bets on what exactly is going to happen are off.
Anyway you twist and turn it in the worst case you need to summon a new spirit from time to time (meaning after an engagement) which will net to approximately 4 DV drain which will end up with mebbe 1 box of stun damage.

Sorry yes I know the RAW allows it, but the Spirits of Voodoo do nothing for FREE. TAANSTAFL.

WMS

I just think it's kinda dumb that people keep singling out Possession in particular, especially for combat oriented situations. A high forced materialized Guardian or Man Spirit is more disposable, and generally speaking, I have more trouble handling a Spirit and a Magician making good use of all their passes than dealing with a single Possessed entity, even if it is fairly durable.

That Ahrnold spirit was pretty neat....

I play a possession magician, and I gotta say, it's pretty great. My character's relatively decent at combat even without adding his magic into the mix (he's got 3 points of cyber), but you put a force 6 Guardian spirit in him, and it can do some incredible things. Yes, it makes the street sam seem obsolete. However, when we need to scare the poop out of someone, the sam's a lot better than even a scary spirit, because he's crazy. When we need someone to talk with the Humanis crowd, we go with the sam. Also, my shaman is frequently "on drugs" and can't be depended on.

Plus, the street sam is ALWAYS a street sam. If I need to use a spirit for something else, my shaman can't be home to one (unless I've bound it, which I can't because my skills are spread too thin).

Recently, as a play of thought i've been contemplating a "vessel sam" build, that is, a samurai who is built specifically to gain maximum benefit from being posessed by a spirit.
Think about it, what is even scarier than some whimpy houngan boosting his crappy physical attributes by 6?
Right, a big, scary, cybered- and bioed-up troll boosting his already impressive physical attributes by 6 and being relieved of his mental dump stats, giving the troll's player the wonderful opportunity to play Shango, the Lord of Thunder, in trollsized form while the houngan takes care of mage's business instead of shooting people with heavy weapons.

The key question here is what kind of ware works while posessed and pack as much of it as possible into abovementioned big, scary trollsam.
Obviously, any bone and dermal stuff will work just fine.
Muscle toner and augmentation should function, too.

Reflex enhancements are tricky, but any reaction enhancement would stay in place, considering they are active before being posessed.

Anything else to consider?

things that require DNI/AR/VR don't work as far as i understood, so datajack and internal comlink and the such will not work for the possessed one . . but if you wanna do the combat monster, then basically most things will work just fine . . headware won't ultrasound and radar won't, that nifty stuff you put into your cyberlimbs? yeah, won't work either . . everything that makes you stronger, faster, tougher will work just fine . . and now imagine a Troll with maxed out strength getting some more from the spirit and having planned ahead having access to a big freaking bow . . even if you say the bow does minimum strength divided by 2 damage, the troll can get a strength of 20+ and the bow will still do enough damage . . coat the arrows in some chem-tech and every hit will do poison too *g*

As you can probably see, i did some thinking in that direction allready . . even if i am still playing SR3 (yeah, as if, not in the last months at least) i am the one doing the combat monster trolls with bio and cyber . . so i do a one trick pony more or less, if you wanna complain about that don't think i will place my character in that there door to stop the ork-gang from getting to your body and having their way with it . .

Actually, it gives the mage's player the wonderful opportunity to play Shango, the Lord of Thunder Puppets. Still scary, though.

Thunder Puppets are go....

lol

Thunder Puppets are on the move.
Thunder Puppets are loose.

*crude remark about loose furries*
ok, go say the sammie is obsolete . . let's say who will step up and between you(r character) and the incoming fire then *g*

Do what you like, buy my Sams have never once tried to take a bullet meant for someone else. First of all, incoming fire has the right of way; second of all, if its your turn to die, you die. Messing with fate like that is just bad business. Oh, and take the freakin' Dodge skill for once... it's ONE SKILL...

in SR3, it's a valid tactic, if you can cobble up a character with 8 or 9 Armor and double digit Body-Score *g*
i love my trolls, really, i do . . but if i can, in fact, take a Panther-Shot and get less than serious damage, i think i have broken something *g*

I also find the poll options lacking. I don't think they're obsolete at all, but neither do I think that one is required. You can get by without one. Heck, depending on the team/style, you can flourish without one. But they remain a valid concept in any group, because let's face it, when things go south the street sam is exactly the guy you want around.

I tend to prefer the mage shooting force 9 stunballs myself.

Actually that sounds like it might be a cool NPC. I can imagine some corp teaming up a mage and a lobotomized/brainwashed gorilla of a troll just to see if it's a potential avenue for further reasearch.

The way I see it, sammies are like the dark side of the force, quicker, easier, but ultimately less powerful...
Now I don't mean sammies can't be powerhouses, but adepts can do the same and more, adepts just require a lot more resources to be as good as a sammy out of the box...
Sammies are front loaded, adepts are back loaded...
I have actually never played a sammie, I like magic types too much, but I have made several sammies with/for other people and as theoretical exercises and they all start out better than any adept I ever made...
Also, ingame, most of my characters seem to take into account that it'll be hard to find a new mage or adept (since they are pretty rare), but sammies are probably the most common type of runners, they seem more replacable...
Are they obsolete? No... Can their roll be filled by other characters? Yes... So why play them? People like ware...

I still plan on making a Myst Ad who combines the Outdoors skills, Chemistry and Arcana/Enchanting while relying on a combination of Shapechange and Possession to survive combat. Terribly appropriate for a Nahuali variant, Hedge Witch or Norse Berserker, even if it resembles the druids from that other game a bit too much for comfort.

If your limiting Samies to not having upgraded ware for the case of this argument your Adept should not have initiation grades.

Cyberzombies...
Or better yet have your Mage buddy's Ally spirit with Inhabitation take over your Samie, best of both worlds, now that is broken....

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but what is your point?

if he did that with inhabitation you might just roll a new char

That that not only the light side of the force gets to kick an entire ass at the endgame.

Edit, we may need to call said inhabited street sam him Darth Troll

What your GM will let you get away with may very, but it works by the rules.

By the time any sammy in the team gets to becoming a cyberzombie, mages and adept will be far ahead in the power curve and the sammy will be trying to catch up in, apparently, one of the silliest ways available...
On a personal note, I'd rather have a 'regular' sammy who wants to live on my side, than a cyberzombie (who all have a deathwish it seems)...

I would too actually.

The big problem is games where Karma is more freely handed out then Newyen. If the Adept is and the Sam aren't tied, your GM is stingy with the cash and free with the Karma. Since Karma doesn't do much for Sams.

...but to each there own

actually, one of the funny things is that it is entirely possible that no matter how much karma you hand out to the adept/mage/awakened, they will never branch out whatsoever. as such, no matter how much karma you hand out, there will still always be a place for the street sam swiss army knife character, who can do almost everything well enough to beat 99% of the population

in point of fact, you could say that the entire reason high initiate grade adepts/magicians/etc are viable is purely because of street sam swiss army knife characters. after all, if the street sam wasn't around to have demolitions + underwater skills + infiltration + escape artist for those times when you really need several random skills at high levels (in this case, sneaking around underwater through tight quarters to plant an explosive) then the awakened would have to figure out how to cover those skills

You have a good point about adepts...
But I don't think it works for mages...
They 'branch out' by spell selection...
What is it called? Analyze device? If you have a high enough casting DP, you're suddenly decently skilled in operating all devices...

sure, and now we've got the magician who is doing exactly what i said (spending karma on branching out their abilities to cover for the fact that they don't have a sammy).

because he is seriously going to need a high force sustaining focus for the analyze device spell, or he's gonna be sucking up a -2 to all actions including the one he's trying to improve. not to mention he'll need enough dice to be able to consistently get 5+ hits (because most of the stuff you'll want to use is going to have an OR of 4). even then, many skills simply don't benefit from analyze device. many people would argue you don't get it with a gun (or rather, you don't get it when firing a gun. you would certainly get it when repairing or modifying the gun, of course). you would probably get it with a vehicle, but 1-2 dice more on a pilot test is really not gonna replace that sammy with reaction 9 and 4 dice in pilot ground vehicle (wheeled).

furthermore, analyze device isn't really going to help with skills like escape artist, which doesn't require a device to use.

because honestly, if you've gotten so much karma that the mage is both initiating *and* learning all these various spells *and* bonding what must apparently be half a dozen sustaining foci (he needs several health, a couple of detection) probably a power focus, some counterspelling foci, and so on... then it's probably time to retire that character. just a few grades of initiation + magic attribute increases really starts to add up fast in terms of karma cost.

I'm sorry, but a mage with all the things you are describing could seriously dominate most SR teams without breaking a sweat...
Learning new spells is what mages do, you know...
As a guy who likes magic, I've played a lot of them and sticking to your starting spell selection is just bad for business...

A sammie with a set of skillwires and bioware and a monowhip is a very useful asset offering something that no-one else can, completely undetectable and totally flexible. Noen of the other 'combat' archtetypes offer anything close to that.

Every team needs at least one sammy. It's just a character who people want to play. I know that whenever I play, I almost always do a sammie. There's so much potential with the character, especially in the role play department, and the amount of variations you can do on what weapons and styles they use... Is limitless. So no, they're not obsolete.

That's the crux of what he's saying though ArkonC. Mages who have so many resources available that they're willing to throw money and Karma at a Force 4+ Detection Spell Sustaining Focus and Analyze Device (which still won't let you default a skill like Hardware, btw) are rather beyond the scope of most campaigns, since we're talking about likely needing 15 dice to toss around, the Analyze Device spell and a 40,000-50,000 nuyen Focus plus the 8 or 10 karma needed to bind it before the trick is even useful. I mean, hell, you can get a Beta Rating 5 SkillWire system for the same cost in nuyen, or perhaps just a standard one and spend the spare change on new ActiveSofts to go with it. And the Karma is enough for 4 specializations, 2 new Active Skills or most of the way to buying off or purchasing a 5 bp quality or a new skill group. It's simply not a very cost effective way to attempt to branch out even by the most generous interpretations of Analyze Device. You'd actually be a lot better off using Analyze Device to make other characters like the Samurai better at their jobs and skipping the silly Focus business entirely-- and even then all we're really talking about is another way of tacking on what amounts to a fancy Teamwork test bonus, except this one requires a drain test.

Of course though... There is always Task Spirits to consider, although they are not without their shortcomings.

What you happily ignore here is that the detection focus will also be able to sustain other quite useful spells like detect enemy and stuff like this. Another option would be to just spend edge on the role and then have your 5 hit analyze device running on a force 1 or 2 focus which is quite reasonable as 99% of the time you'll only need a hand full of core skills.
Also skillsofts are a huge moneysink so i'd even argue that a sammie is one of the classes least able to make good use of it. I mean thanks to initiation a mage can easily spend the 1 essence to get those and as they're pretty cheap themselves get em at a high grade to allow for pain editor and other neat stuff.

To get back on topic: My understanding of a samurai is that of a generalist with a focus on combat. Of course, gaining proficiency at many different skills is a daunting task and that's why the samurai relies on chrome to archieve his goals quickly. The price is hitting the hard cap. There'll be the point when he'll be at 0,01 essence and needs several million ¥ alone to upgrade his 'ware's grade so he could fit another, better implant.
Yet, once he is at that point - aren't most ConSec forces no match for him anyway?

In game terms the samurai archetype is not essential to a runner team, but then you can replace almost everything. The only truly important thing to any team is someone with counterspelling.

That's the other problem. So limited essence, and yet so many shiny upgrades. I know in SR3 (and I am not very well versed in SR4 yet, haven't read my books) that I would always buy Alphaware cyberware so I'd have more essence to spend later on and the cyberware itself would be better. But the extra money you have to spend is a massive blow. But to be a true walking machine, you'd need umpteen millions of nuyen to get deltaware cyberware so you could really pack stuff home.

or get your GM to use more or less common sense to rule such things as cyber-limb-replacement . . there's boat-loads of fun to be had, if you can pack up to 800k Nuyen into one arm . . as long as you're aware that the arm getting damaged/lost means you losing most of your gear . . or try and adapt the SR4 rules(yes, the one part i still find best about SR4[no, i don't really like SR4]) to SR3 . . because in SR4 those Limbs are actually playable, as soon as you hit augmentation . .

In a setup like this, the mage's and sam's player should preferrably work out their characters' concepts and stats together* and agree on the sam's player taking over the spirit RP if his character is posessed, since it's kinda lame to let your character take a beating while you cannot even roll for him and are limited to play out some internal monologues reflecting on how your troll serviteur feels being trapped in his own, effectively mage-controlled, body.

If the rules suggest that the mage's player should also play his character when he is posessed, i think it is well within the spirit of the rules (no pun intended) to give the serviteur sam's player an opportunity for arcane badassery RP.


*After all, such a concept does not only benefit a lot from twinking your ware selection to include mostly stuff that works without direct electronic control, but also becomes much more plausible and entertaining when you write up a nice backstory about how your troll became involved with regular posession by high-force guardian spirits and put some thought into group dynamics between houngan, sam and spirits.

I think what we thought of in SR3 as a Sam has become obsolete, the idea that we had. The new Sam's are part warrior, part thinker. I made a strait shooting sam and soon discovered that for him to be viable he needed some hackign skills, he needed some negotiations, and soem demo. Did he specialise in these? No. His main specialty was dealing and taking damage. And he could do that like no bodies business. The name of the game is still Firearms and your friendly neighborhood street Sam is still going to be better than 90% of the guys out there.

that's basically what i was always thinking. if you give awakened chars the option to raise their magic then why not give mundanes the option to raise their essence for a similar cost? Thus they would have another possibility of advancement beyond just broadening their skills.



Actually the rules suggest that the possessed player plays the spirit. (if possessed by a friendly spirit that is)

Exactly. Otherwise, short of buying deltaware, you're permanently shafted with the giant essence cost.

Belt fed grenade launchers with airburst work on everyone. As do AV rockets, nerve gas and nano-disassemblers. Not to mention manaballs.

Except where would cyber zombies be? You can't go breaking the "Dark Twisted World of Shadowrun" by allowing people to have endless cyberware...

Honestly, Awakened characters should have to worry about essence and non awakened should just ignore it. I mean, come on, their allowing "brains in a jar" cyberware conversion... this should be nothing.

It is not so easy to run out of essence if you do not want to. There is always beta...

Cheers,

Max

Possession Mage's with channeling and skillwires can fill the JoaT slot (actually, it works better if you have a mystic adept with channeling and a mage for summoning and buff spells), but they need Karma to do it, where as the Sam just need Nuyen.