I did not have issues with this in SR3, is it too much in SR4? Ancient History, Frank, and Synner, was it removed for balance issues or because of Edge?

EDIT - While we are on the issue, what are the problems with the other powers that were left out:

Delay Damage, 1 (Obvious)/ 2 (Silent), The assassin's power
Empathic Sense, .5, Emotional Assensing
Aid Spell, .5/level, Adept Power Focus
Deep Rooting, .5, Adept Firing platform
Empathic Reading, .25/level, -1 TN/level to determine if someone is lying
Enhanced Balance, .5, 1, -1 TN/level for tests that involve balance/knockdown
Resilience, .25/level, Helps stabilize wounds, and -TN to effects test (Redundant with Metabolic Control)
Side Step, .5/level, +1 Combat pool for Dodge or Full Dodge (Redundant with Combat Sense)
Sprint, .25/level, +1 Quickness to determine running distance (Does not translate well with new movement rules, would have to act as Running test DP mod, but that is redundant with Improved Ability: Running)

Thanks to: Ryu and Larme for pointing out that Perception is not the same as judge intentions.

It would be a pretty pathetic power to have in a system where anyone can spend Edge to go first. And going first is no longer insta-death for the enemy, since they can interrupt full defense and likely dodge any attack by an equally skilled opponent. In SR3 it was ultra kill-all, but in SR4 it would have been surplusage IMO.

Quick Strike seems to be redundant with the Edge rules. One could give the same benefit as if edge was spend, on the condition that the initiative test reached a threshold of say 4. There might be balance issues, I don´t know.

Two more:
Empathic Reading, .25/level, Redundant with Improved Perception
Enhanced Balance, .5, 1, Enhanced Sense (Balance Augmentor)

Rooting is in Street Magic.

Bioware is not a replacement for adept powers, though there are many that are so close as to be almost interchangeable. I am looking for reasons why the adept power was cut since there is no adept power that makes it redundant, and if there is some inherent balance issue, or was there just not enough space.


Rooting and Deep Rooting presented in SOTA: 2064 are different, Deep Rooting turned an adept into a firing platform and halved recoil.

I think on the balance thing, he is saying that with improved sense you could get a balance augmentor type bonus....

Indeed, any of the sensory enhancements (except those dealing with radio, radar, or the like) can be duplicated with the Enhanced Sense power. As the sense of balance is a sense (it's right there in the name), it can be picked up for a mere 0.25 Power points.

My new Social Adept is going to have a sense of irony and a certain sense of je ne sais quoi.

Most of my Adepts have a greatly enhanced sense of self.

Well, since I had the time I decided to make my own versions of the above not-converted powers. I did not write up the fluff, just the rules, and even then sometimes just conversion of the original.

Delay Damage, 1pp (Obvious), 2pp (Silent)
For both levels, take a Free Action before attack to declare use of power and duration before the attack takes effect (to a maximum of 24 hours). For the obvious version, perform a standard melee attack (defender gets to defend and net hits are added to attack’s DV). The target will take no damage from the hit (but may if they are knocked down).

The silent version does not require a melee attack, but instead requires you touch the person. The standard DV for this attack is (Strength/2) Stun. This may only be modified by the adept powers Killing Hands, Critical Strike, and augmentations to strength other than Improved Attribute adept power do not affect this DV. If you touch them over their armor, they get to resist the attack with Body + Impact Armor, if you touch them on their bare skin, they only get to resist with Body. Penetrating Strike is the only valid AP for this test.

Once the magical charge has been put into the target’s aura, the adept must sustain it until their designated time of release. This causes them a -2DP to all other actions. If they drop the sustaining for any reason, the charge dissipates and no damage is done. Anyone assensing the target’s aura need only get 2 hits to notice the magical charge. This can be dispelled like a sustained spell of Force equal to the DV of the attack. Drain DV to dispel is (F/2).

Empathic Sense, .5pp
A standard Perception test (without technological modifiers) allows you to gain Emotional information as if you had achieved as many hits on an assensing test.

Aid Spell, Spell Channel, .25pp/level
Adept must take a Complex Action to act as mana conduit for one magician casting a spell in the same IP. Add the adept’s level in Spell Channel as a dice pool modifier for the casting test. The adept must make a drain test (Body + Willpower) against a DV (Force/2)S.

Enhanced Balance, .25pp/level
+1DP/level on tests involving balance.

I have actually had so much time on this spring break that I went through all the adept powers and edited them to make more sense and be more balanced in terms of cost. Ended up with 8pages typed. Haven't even started on Metamagic. (sigh)

EDIT - The reason I didn't redo Deep Rooting is because I incorporated it into Rooting.

Rooting, .25/level
Simple action to declare, no action required to drop. +1 to Body per level to resist Knockdown, being thrown, levitated, or moved against adept's will. +1 to Recoil Comp per level. -1DP/level to block, dodge or parry attacks.

Most of the powers cut were cut merely for space reasons, a few were combined, some like Quick Strike were redundant, and others like Delay Damage were dropped because we believed they crossed the line of "internalizing" magic that defines the Adept type. For the record old classics like Distance Strike were the subject of hot debate. That said I still have a list of some twenty odd adept powers that might surface in the future...

Thanks Synner. I guess I disagree with Delay Damage, but hey, isn't that what house rules are for? I can't wait to see more adept powers in the future.

The Delay Damage thing i thought was interesting. In once sense, it sort of resembles some of those old classic movie kung-fu 'Delayed Palm'' strikes or whatnot that they pull out. (I'm sure you've seen some of them.) If you look at it that way, then it's pretty accurate as Adept.

But you could also look at it as ''Death-Touchy with a Delay'', in which case it's a little more flat out 'magical'. Im guessing they may have been looking at it the second way and decided to axe it. Honestly, i always saw it the first way, to me it reminds me of those old badly dubbed ninja movies where they pulled out the ''Cherry Blossom Palm of Death in 3 Days'' or whatnot.

If anything, Distance Strike is more blatant..oh, i love it, and i'm glad it stayed, but it's a little more magic-y? than Delayed Strike, IMO. However, if you look at it ''fighting-game style'', Distance Strike makes perfect sense.

The "quivering palm" is one method of the "dim mak death touch" of romanticized Eastern lore.

Yes I was. I first typed Enhanced Sense (Balance), but that would not have been helpful. Per RAW you can duplicate some kinds of cyber, and this should apply, as the unaugmented body already possesses inertia sensors.

So who would permit an Enhanced Sense(Field of Vision), based on the Eyeband? I would for the pure coolness factor, but it is stretching the spirit of the power.

Ah! I didn't quite see what you meant I guess. I thought you were saying that you should just get the ware. Eyeband is kind of pushing it, btw.

...general perception tests do not reveal emotional state (unless the target has visibly wet himself or something like that). Therefore some form of emotion or empathic sense is a valid power. It could be modelled off of Aura Reading and allow an unaugmented (by implant or external aids) perception test to judge a subject's emotive state. The Adept power Improved Perception would apply in this.

Why can´t one use Perception skill to notice the emotional state of other people? Sense motive would fall to Negotiations, but anger/hate would be noticeable with Perception IMO.

Perception deals with noticing things. Not deciphering them. You use Perception to notice that there is ancient Chinese writing carved into the wall; you don't use Perception to read ancient Chinese. By the same token, you would use Perception to notice a person standing in front of you. But you would not use Perception to read the subtle emotional cues on their face. Perception would let you notice the subtle cues, but not understand them.

That said, the proposed power is magical, so it doesn't exactly have to make sense. And Perception is the physical analogue to Assessing. I think if you have a power that gives you a limited version of Assensing, it should work like Assensing does, and that is with a basic perception test. If you have the ability to read peoples' auras, you're not trying to decipher subtle cues on their faces. Peoples' emotions are written all over their auras in plain english. So if you have the ability to read those auras, even in the limited way that the proposed power allows, Perception would fit.

Are we arguing about how Empathic Sense power would work in SR4? I did write that up earlier in the thread, just forgot to include that the DP can be augmented by the adept power.


As for what test to make: for Perception style tests you have Assensing on Astral and Perception on Physical, since this is not on the astral it would use Perception. As for why the power should exist, I think it is because the information gained is either more accurate, and/or more detailed. Whether everyone else thinks it is worth .5pp is completely up for debate.

Perception would allow me to see the person in front of me is angry, too. The popping vein, the red-coloured face... Which skill should take over in your opinion?

I think it wouldn't matter, because you wouldn't have to make a test of any kind to tell that this person was angry.

Empathic Sense is for when they are covering it up.

Exactly, I'm just arguing with Ryu about whether Perception would ordinarily be used to notice peoples' emotions. It wouldn't be. Not that I think that creates a problem for Emphatic Sense, because it is a magical power, it is allowed to change the rules.

So which skill should take over in your opinion Larme? And what does exclude Perception from noting Emotions (that are not obvious)? It is after all explicitly used to see through Disguise.

OH, now that I understand what we are arguing about here, I must say I side with Ryu. A normal perception test would reveal information about someone's emotional state. It would merely be a higher threshold without the power. I'd make an opposed Composure test vs Perception to glean general emotional state. Actually, maybe this power is redundant. Hmmmmmmm...

I guess what needs to be defined now is the information gained/net hit on the opposed test and whether that is more/less than the power. I guess the power bypasses their Composure altogether, and so you would almost definitely get more emotional information via the power. I will look up the rules and post them.

It isn't my opinion, it's straight from the BBB. I was just too lazy to go find it until now. Page 130, Judge Intentions: "A character who wants to use her natural empathy to
gauge another character’s emotional state, intentions, or honesty can make an Opposed Intuition + Charisma Test against the target’s Willpower + Charisma." That's how you judge how someone else is feeling.

Now, I don't have any text that says Perception definitely can't notice someone's emotions. But my overall sense of the skill is that it is about noticing things, not deciphering things. I suppose Perception would apply to visual things, like if someone's eye twitches as they talk. But you wouldn't use Perception and learn "he is lying," you would just get "his eye is twitching." What does that mean? Who knows. You can use Perception on their face because you can see that, but not on their feelings, because they involve much more of an empathic gut feeling kind of thing. You could use Perception to listen to someone's voice and you could get "his voice sounds strained." But you would not get "he is nervous," or "he is hiding something." It's up to your character to decide what perceptual clues mean. If they want help from the GM, if they want to have a more accurate reading of what those perceptual clues mean, they'll have to Judge Intentions.

If Perception could tell you exactly how a person feels, then Judge Intentions would pretty much be shite wouldn't it? I think that's a solid basis for saying that perception doesn't do that. Or at least, the devs did not intend it to.

You got it, Larme. I think also that the Gut Check specialization of one of the Social Skills should work. And of course, generally the Social Skills are used to see through another's use of that skill (can't kid a kidder, etc).

Well, now that we know gauging emotion and intention is not Perception, we can bring back Empathic Reading:

Empathic Reading, .25/level
+1DP/level on tests to Judge Intentions

I think that version of the power is more in line with SR4 rules. The problem, however, is that it duplicates kinesics. Kinesics already applies +1 die per level to Judge Intentions. Not that it's totally bad to duplicate that effect of Kinesics, it's just unnecessary. As I see it, there's an upside and a downside to this power. The downside is that it adds to pornomancer DP inflation, which is probably the highest DP inflation in the game already. But the upside is that Judge Intentions is not exactly a powerful thing, and probably nobody would take very many levels of this power anyway...

*Sigh*, Well I tried. Anyways, so now that we know how to determine someone's intentions/emotions, does the adept power Empathic Sense still have a point?