Another thought: With Aura Masking, or around mundanes, Improved Attribute is *impossible* to detect. MAD scanners can detect Cyberware, and chemsniffers / blood tests can detect bioware and even genetech and nanoware, but Improved Attribute doesn't show up on anything but an aura scan.

Also, don't forget you can increase Body with Improved Attribute, whereas the amount of 'ware that increases Body is pretty slim. However, this is still not really a balancer for the extreme costs involved.

Assuming you don't use the 'tweaking the rules' options, and provided you have enough karma to increase your Physical Attributes to human unaugmented maximum and initiate 24 times and buy 24 additional Magic points you can then raise all of your Physical Attributes to 9.

At my calculations, assuming 4s across the board to begin with and Magic 6, that would require 33 karma per physical attribute to get to 6, a total of 694 karma to initate to grade 24 (even with group and ordeal discounts) and then a total of 1332 karma to increase Magic to 30 to get the extra 24 Power Points. This then allows you to spend 6 Power Points on Improved Attribute for each of the four Physical Attributes to reach the Augmented Maximum, at a total cost of 2158 karma. Even the 'tweaking the rules' option only drops that to 826 karma, and you lose metamagic completely.

If you consider the alternative things you could do as a grade 24 initiate, reaching the Augmented Maximum in your Physical Attributes is probably not high on the list...

Yes, theoretically game balance could be thrown if you also stacked 'ware such as Synaptic Accelerators and Bone Density Augmentation on top of this, but frankly that is a moot point considering the amount of karma required to get here. And also given that this amount of karma and initiation could be used to deal 30+P damage with bare hands, or have 30 Ballistic and Impact Armour that stacks with all other armour, or have 30 extra dice to all defense and surprise tests (or, of course, throw Force 30 spells around if you are a Mage, although the Drain would be interesting).

Frankly, there are many more efficient things to do with BP or karma than investing in Improved Attribute, to the point that the power is effectively redundant.

Especially compared to attribute boost.

To emphasize the confusion caused by the '2 PP if you're past your maximum' cost:

If you instead take all your Physical Attributes at 3, you only need a Magic rating of 12, not 24. You purchase Improved Physical Attribute 3 for each Attribute (raising them all to 6), and then raise them from 7 to 9 with Karma. Assuming 3s across the board to begin with and Magic 6, this will require a total of 115 to Initiate to grade 6 (with group + ordeal discounts), plus another 171 to increase Magic to 12 to get the extra 6 Power Points. Then, raising each Attribute from 7 to 9 costs 72 points, for a total of 115 + 171 + 288 = 574.

Of course, if you were *SMART*, you'd ignore Reaction altogether, and just buy Improved Reflexes 3 to up Reaction and get another 3 IP to boot, for a mere 2 Magic more. The cool thing about that is, you can do that after raising Reaction to 6 via BP or Karma, since it doesn't mysteriously double when you exceed your natural maximum. Doing it that way looks like this:

Take Body, Strength and Agility at 3, Reaction at 5, and Magic at 6. Spend 18 Karma to raise Reaction to 6. Initiate to grade 8 for 149 Karma, then increase Magic to 14 for 252 Karma, then buy Improved Reflexes 3 and Improved Body/Strength/Agility 3 with your 14 Power Points. Then buy Body, Strength and Agility all up to 9, for 72 Karma each, for a total of 18+149+252+216=635 Karma.

Quite a difference in the order you do things, ne?

Ah, but there you are assuming the ability to increase a stat above normal maximums using karma, which is not explicit in the rules. The attribute improving section on p.264 of the BBB actually says you cannot increase use karma to increase an attribute past the natural unaugmented maximum for your metatype unless you have Exceptional Attribute.

This would point towards you being able to get to 6, but not to 9, using karma, with the remaining 3 points per attribute having to come from Improved Attribute at 2 PP per point.

Above, when I talked about no ceiling to potential, I was thinking outside the box. Yes there is a limit to they amount they can put into boosting their attributes, however this is no limit to where their magic can go and how many times they intitiate. Ok this costs Karma and Karma is something less easy to come across than cash in most respects, but there is no ceiling on the amount of powers an adept can garner from such initiation. Add into the mix Metamagic and you have the potential to be far better than a cyber character in the long run. Therefore I reiterate, Cyber characters have a visible ceiling, adepts do not and thus it is no wonder that such a power would cost 1 power point and not less.

N dont forget its much cheaper to buy up your magic and spend said point on boosting an attribute then it is to put said attribute up with Karma so why are you complaining that you think it is shocking and expensive?

And as we keep pointing out, there is an invisible ceiling to the potential of an Adept. Adepts will not, despite what some people think, be able to advance indefinitely. And as for the karma/nuyen thing, that largely depends on your campaign; but I'll bet that 2000 karma isn't going to happen anytime soon in just about any game.

question: if you improve your attribute from level 3 to level 6 with the adept power, can you rise your attribute from 3 to 4 with karma and end up with a 7?
with cyber-muscle i'd say yes, with bio-muscle and magic muscle i ain't really sure about that o.O

Personally? I'd just make it cost .5/level up to the regular max, and 1 per level up to the Augmented Max. Of course, limited to Magic Attribute.

It's still not cheap-and when you think about it, the powers would still kind of end up the same-and it's STILL a bit nicer for an adept to pick up Ware if they want it.

+2 Agility/Strength: .8 Essence. Loss of 1 point.(or +1/+1 and a Synaptic Booster. or for 2 points, +2/+2, a Synaptic Booster and a Synthacardium.)

+2 Agility/Strength at .5 each: 2 points used. Now, of course, they at least get to keep their magic of 6 which is nice, but most adepts I know these days end up ditching a couple of points of magic for the bioware, anyway-since if they used these 2 points for their 2/2, they're missing out on the Synthacardium/Synaptic Booster(though the second adept undoubtedly has more BPs now for some extra skills, as well as a higher Magic rating. It's a trade.)

I might be trying this out and see which way people go with it. Even when it was .5/level(1 per level past the racial max) in SR3, it was very, very rarely taken I saw. I don't know if it would be any different now.

Here's a very germane question. How many BPs is Essence worth?

Essence is priceless.

Yes, which is why you only have it do so when you figure a fight is comming on, or if you have a spell which makes you invisisble on the astral plane as well.

I'm pretty sure the intent was to try and maintain the concept of 'natural' and 'augmented' attributes from SR3. The idea is that you can raise your 'natural' attribute with karma up to your unaugmented racial maximum, and then cyber and bio augmentation adds on top of that. Magical augmentation (i.e. Adept powers) is classed as a 'natural' increase, so it effectively increases the 'natural' attribute for the purposes of improving it with karma.

As there are no rules for increasing your 'natural' attribute above your unaugmented racial maximum, in the case of the example you give, I would say you couldn't increase the attribute from 6 to 7 with karma if you were a human. The only way to go above 6 would be through buying further levels of the appropriate Improved Attribute power, at the 2 PP per point cost.

true, but also:
0,1Essence is worth 19 build points . .
because you can regain 0,1 Essence in one month of REVITALIZATION Gen-Tech.
the base treatment costs 75k nuyen = 15 build points
one month treatment costs 20k = 4 build points
together 95k and 19 build points
going from 0,1Essence to a full 6 Essence costs 95k(19 Build-Points for the first) plus 1.160.000 Nuyen
together that is 1.255.000 or 251 build points for 5,9 Essence . . 0,1 Essence would come to an average of 42,54 Build points, rounded up to 43 build points . .
yes, i just got my augmentation <.<


ah, so they kept that one in?
ok, thanks ^^

that's what background count is for, silly

[edit] just on the off chance that someone is getting ready to call me a munchkin or something, i wasn't serious and would never use this. which i think stahlseele seems to have picked on, but i'm not sure if everyone else will =P

incidentally, if this kind of BS appeals to you, consider the implications of reduce attribute spells in SR3. [/edit]

hell that one would be munchy as hell . . and hard to explain, really *g*
hmm . . some other adept path might have backgrounded your favourite dojo o.O

Not hard to explain at all!

"I wandered the Mana Shallows for six moons to test my might, and learn to fight without my Powers."

I suspect that the costing is a hold over from SR3. It doesn't make a great deal of sense, and does mean that most folk won't take Increase Attribute.

The actual game benefits of Increase Attribute are very desirable, so the costing is quite a tricky thing to determine. It shouldn't be much cheaper, but the adept powers could do with some tweaking, although it's not something I want to do.

Magic does allow essentially unlimited growth, but it is dependent on karma, which isn't really unlimited. By taking magic at character creation you tie up a lot of BPs in magic, where non-magic characters can spend those points to have higher skills, and more gear. Later on, magic is effectively a black hole into which karma can be poured indefinitely for less net gain than non-magic characters.

In my opinion, the munchiest characters are bioware enhanced adepts. Sure, you drop 20 or 30 BPs on magic you'll burn anyway, but a moderate amount of 'ware brings the character up to a reasonable par with a less specialised street sam, and the future potential for growth is nigh unlimited.

The cost didn't make much sense in SR3 either, but at least then you could take it up to 9 without doubling the cost. 1 magic per level is just right. The 2 points for going over is ridiculous. The only logical reason I could see for the cost would be that they were afraid that you'd combine it with attribute boost to reach godlike heights (since improved attribute is the only thing compatible with attribute boost). Which isn't a decent argument since attribute boost is powerful enough that you don't need improved attribute.

A couple of thoughts/questions...

Can attribute boost bring you past the hard cap of 9? If I remember right it adds to the score itself and so would be limited by the cap.

Can Magic, which is an attribute, be raised past the hard cap of 9? I don't mean using a power focus, I mean the actual base attribute. Methinks not and I have seen no examples that do so. If not, then so ends the arguement of "Adepts can improve forever, all they need is karma."

Darn my fuzzy memory and laziness.

You are correct...

Well, yes and no...
If you maximum magic is 9 you cannot raise it above that, there is no augmented maximum for magic...
You can, however, initiate and raise your maximum to 10, and then increase your magic to 10...

Is that how it works? I thought initiating let you raise your magic, but it did not say anything about capping out. As such I assumed it fell under the same rule as all other attributes.

Not quite. A good rule of thumb is the addiction quality that at 30 points lower your essence by one and gives you an addiction that is advisable to get rid of.

Havign a negative quality to LOWER once essence as an already kicked habit, removed ware or similar should not be pricey.

Essence Hole
+10 BP (Awakened)
+5 BP (Mundanes) This would be in ADDITION to bought ware.

Lost Essence
+20BP
Characters max essence is reduced to 5
All costs for maxing out magic attribute is changed accordingly so a magic 5 character pays 25BP for rating 5 magic.

Superior Essence...
This is a different thing and should not be allowed, or at least cost the full quota of quality points at 35. The character gains +1 Essence to a maximum of 7 (And should be extremely monitored by the GM and have one hell of a backstory)

Essence hole and Lost essence should be possible to combine. Those liking the Superior one should be able to combine Essence hole and Superior Essence.

The essence loss from addiction can get bigger if you keep up the addiction, but it can also be fixed with <insert name of that thingy that fixes essence>, so even though you start with less essence, you can eventually gain it back with time and ...
A negative that reduces your essence permanently should give you 30 BP, because you are sacrificing 1/6th of yourself...
Or so I believe...

I would not allow increased essence at all though...

So if we're calling a point of Essence roughly equivalent to 20 BP, what does that do to the cost of whatever it was we were comparing?

The main question has been answered, but I just wanted to point out that, unlike in SR3, Power Foci do not actually add their rating to the Magic Attribute in SR4. They merely add their Force as a modifier to any test involving the Magic Attribute.

Not got books to hand, but I'd disagree with Stahlseele, an price essence using the comparative stats with near identical 'ware effects in isolation. You buy synaptics over wired because its more essense friendly (admittedly, there are fringe benefits, such as the increased detection difficulty but generally they are bought for the essence). If we plug these implants into a pair of otherwise identical mooks with no other implants, the BP value of the essense can be roughly value. Repeat with the rest of cyber/bio substitutes such as lacing/density mod and hopefully they'll be a pattern in place.

I disagree with Stahlseele on the grounds that essence has 2 prices, the cost of not reducing it and the cost of reversing your decision to spend it.

You can't use that, though, to get cyberware, recover the essence, and then get more. It's only useful when you remove cyberware, and want to fill in the essence hole.

bunch of nitpicking beancounters ._.

AMEN Borther

Well, this could be compared to beans.

Improved Attribute: You're starving and you eat 10 beans, after which you have no more beans to plant a magic stock.... but you've gained the ability to pick more beans faster (by one point) if you can find bean plants to pick from.

Muscle Augmentation: You eat 1 bean, and plant the other 9 beans, which all grow into stocks... and you have the ability to pick more beans faster, AND to catch pigs to have ham instead of beans some nights.

HAH!

*counts his beans*