The idea popped into my head last night, would there be enough points at 400BP to make a viable hacker physical adept?

Certainly you could do a hacking adept. Mostly through improved skills. the BPs you would normally spend on cyber go into your magical things instead.

Sure it's doable. It just won't satisfy some players because you're dividing your BP towards two concepts rather than focusing on one area of strength.

Personally, I like having more of a jack-of-all-trades character, so a concept like this would appeal to me.

It's actually pretty easy. The two skill groups you need will come to 80BP, the hard and software will come to about 20BP I think, and maybe get the codeslinger quality for Hacking in or something. That leaves room for full stats, passable edge, softmaxed magic and then maybe 75 BP to spend on other skills and stuff presuming you're taking flaws.

imo, you'll probably want to sacrifice some of your magic for some 'ware.

but yes, imo it is quite doable to make an adept hacker... provided you mean an adept who's got improved ability(hacking) and not an adept who is both a hacker and a gunslinger adept. that might be a little bit more tricky...

I was basically sitting there last night thinking about my shadowrun group and how we're sort of combat light. High cyber has never really appealed to me. As I am pretty much the only one really interested in being in the Matrix I was pretty much settled on making a Technomancer. Then last night it hit me, "A physad hacker could be cool," it'd give me hacking which the team needs and some fighting ability too.

in that case, i would go with a rigger. make it a gnome, and you can probably fit inside just about anything

A little bit of Improved Reflexes for the meat-world, some Improved Ability on two or three core skills, maybe a couple of the mental powers too. Something like...

Improved Reflexes 1
Improved Ability (Hacking) 2
Improved Ability (Computer) 2
Improved Ability (something non-combat) 2
Sustenance (I'm incredibly biased in favor of this power.)

And that's only 3.75 power points. Lots of fun little .25 cost powers to choose from... It might be worth buying the Cracking group skill individually so you could buy your Hacking up to 6(9).

That last point could go toward some Killing Hands and Combat Sense 1 or... Improved Ability (a combat skill) 2 or... I dunno... Heck, you could even sacrifice your 5th magic point for a few choice implants if you wanted.

-paws

Being a phys adept hacker is probably less about combat and more about being better in the matrix than a regular hacker. Plus with magic you have a lot more growth potential!

Hmmmm. Any reason why the enhanced perception power wouldn't add to matrix perception?

I could see spending MP thusly.

get 5 MP (softmax)

1 power point -> lost to cyber. A datajack(alpha/beta) and synaptic accelerator 1. That'll leave a little room for something later, or maybe some cybereyes if you go human.
1 power point -> 4 levels of improved ability Hacking
1 power point -> 4 levels of enhanced perception
1 power point -> Astral perception (couples very well with enhanced perception to make a useful character! Assensing can find a lot. )
hmmmm what else. Improved senses are fun. Especially scent since it's hard for others to duplicate.
Attribute boost can be useful for getting a little extra agility or something right when you need it. Mystic armor is good.

With this layout be sure to get good perception and assensing skills to take advantage of enhanced perception.

That's a good question.


Doesn't work, unfortunately. You'd need a base skill of 8.
From the Errata v1.5:

So with a base Hacking of 5 the most I could get is an 8?

Actually with a base Hacking of 5 you could only get +2 with Improved Ability.

Skill of 0 or 1 = +0 with Improved Ability
Skill of 2 or 3 = +1 with Improved Ability
Skill of 4 or 5 = +2 with Improved Ability
Skill of 6 or 7 = +3 with Improved Ability

It's 1.5 Skill Rating, rounded down.

- Umbra

Why would a magical Power help with something that a piece of software and your commlink translate to you?

So: No it can't help.

However the Enhanced Ability: Computer Power would help Matrix Perception Tests.

It's a Computer + Analyze Program roll after all.

- Umbra

Depends on what you mean by "hacker". My current character Rei is more of a Pysad script kiddie, with a bit of face thrown in, and he does all right in each category. (Haven't done any hacking more strenuous that cleaning out the till at a matrix cafe yet though.)

If you drop the face angle, you could probably get a pretty viable Physad/Hacker out of that build. Offhand I'd suggest the following changes:

-Skills-

Swap the Influence skill group for Cracking, and either keep Intimidate or swap it with Etiquette, then Shift a point or two over to Unarmed Combat, and maybe change the specialization to "Martial Arts".

-Qualities-

Trade in First Impression and Human Looking for 10bp worth of the Martial Arts quality. Might want to revise adept powers since some MA maneuvers overlap in function.

-Attributes-

Lower Charisma, and use the points for either magic or combat-related attributes, or maybe edge since it can help you with both.

-Gear-

Switch things around a bit, drop some ammo clips & misc gear for a better link and programs. Honestly I haven't had to shoot very much with this build at all. He dodges like a mofo with the 15 dice pool for full defense, and with his relatively high initiative score, he can get up close and personal pretty quick. Just remember to use the full parry->counterstrike tactic for any serious melee opposition, and you should be fine.

i can see why. i can think of more then one kind of net user that would love something like that

Net user with a very active kid, full time job, etc. Man, there just aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done.