OK, I'm trying to stat myself in SR4 (see my previous thread HERE) and for the life of me, I can't seem to find the rules on generating how much Edge I can have, my Initiative Passes AND my Astral Initiative. I may be just glossing over it somehow, but if anyone can give me a book & page number, I'd appreciate it.

humans have between 2(minimum) and 8(absolute maximum) points of edge with the lucky quality
metahumans have between 1 and 7 with the lucky quality
only technomancers can get a 5th ini pass and only in full VR if i remember correctly, everything else is capped at 4 ini passes.
at least, that's how i remember it. if there isn't some FAQ or Errata out there, it should be about correct i think . .

Page 134 of the BBB "No character can in act in more then 4 Initiative Passes in a Combat Turn(Even if they spend Edge)."

Which means, unless there is an ability somewhere that specifically says you can act in more then four passes, you can only act in four passes. Sometimes there are more the 4 initiative passes in a combat turn(like when a grenade is thrown during the 4th pass) but you can only ever act in 4 of them.

Edge is just like any other attribute. It starts at 1, can has a maximum of 6. Humans get a +1 racial bonus, and the lucky positive quality can increase your maximum by 1 as well. The only difference between edge and a normal attribute is that it doesn't count twords your max half-BP spent on attributes at character creation(and exceptional attribute doesn't work on it).

As noted, edge is a stat: you have to buy it with starting BP.

Not mentioned, unless you take a piece of 'ware, cast a specific spell or take the adept power to increase your number of initiative passes- you only have one.

Not 100% on the astral stuff though (I want to say, if you astral project you have 3 IP's, and you initiative is you intuition x2... but I don't have the book on me and have never dealt with either first had, so that may not be accurate).

Thanks everyone. That clears that mess up on Edge.

Now, my Initiative is 8. If you can point out the ruling (page #?) or give me the general gist, I still need to know what my Passes are & my Astral Initiative is.

if you don't have any augmentations, be the biological, chemical, magical or technological, your character has ONE ini pass . . but you can get another through a form of use of edge

OK, since my Magic is at 6, does this affect my Passes? What about the Astral Combat skill?

No astral initiative dp is two times your intuition, the IP are always 3 and no way to change that (unless you consider increase reflexes working in astral). And reguarding the fifth IP in VR it's an exception to the max4IP rule and is obteinable by TMs with two echoes (overclock and improved overclock) or by mundane meanings in the form of simsense booster implant and simsense accellerator comlink modification.
Seriously IP are a bit of a screwed thing in 4th ed.

everything that affects inipasses is clearly labeled as such and it is written out which things are compatible with what . . as far as i know, only drugs stack with everything . . i don't know, if drugs help with inipasses on the astral though . .

Keep in mind, your initiative and initiative passes are completely separate. Your IPs is the number of times you act in a combat turn, your initiative helps determine what order you act in.

Unless you have something that grants you extra initiative passes, you have 1 physical IP, 3 astral IPs(while projecting), 2 matrix IPs(while going cold-sim full VR, 3 IPs if you are hot-simming it).

Once again, you guys & gals make subscribing to this site worth it. I have all the answers I needed.

Except one: AllTheNothing, you said "astral initiative dp is two times your intuition". What the heck does "dp" mean?

dp, there's one explanation you don't wanna know(porn)
and one regarding SR4: Dicepool ^^
meaning in the real world you usually roll your normal initiative dice to determine when you act(or something like that, i don't play SR4)
and on the purely astral you roll a dicepool of a number that is equal to twice your intuition attribute

I think we might need to cover the basics ...

The Initiative stat is calculated by adding Intuition and Reaction.

The Astral Initiative stat is calculated by adding Intuition and Intuition.

When Initiative is called for, the character rolls a number of dice equal to his Initiative stat, and then adds the hits to the Initiative stat itself to determine action order for the turn.

Initiative Passes, being separate from the actual Initiative stat, are calculated as described in earlier posts.

I would read the SR4 book. If you are looking about everything astral what happens is your physical stats get replaced by your astral stats. For instance your reaction is a reflection of your intuition on the astral. Your agility is your logic, your strength is your charisma, and wisdom is your body. In the case of intuition since you normally add intuition + reaction in most cases, however since your intuition is your reaction as well on the astral all you do is stat it as 2x intuition. You can w/o ware have three IPs in the physical. You take drugs that can add +1 IP and then you use edge which is another +1 IP for that combat turn. This is the only way you can have 3 IPs w/o using any powers, spells, or ware (and you can't get 4 IPs without any type of ware, adept power, or spell.)

The smart thing to do is break it all down like this

Physical
Astral
Matrix

Each one has different IPs and each one has different things you can do with them. For instance the astral stats, Matrix uses the response chip of whatever you are jacked into hotsim as reaction.

Thanks, Fortune.

Yes, Stahlseele, I was looking for that particular SR4 definition. I know the porn one you speak of.

Thanks, Masterofm.

Let's chalk this thread up to a Brain Fart & call it closed.

Augmentation has a simsense booster implant that raises VR initiative passes to 3 for cold and 4 for hot sim. Unwired has a simsense accelerator that adds another initiative pass exclusively for hot sim users that specifically states it stacks, thereby taking hot simmed, simsense boosted/accelerated users to 5 initiative passes in VR only.

Don't forget that with just K-10 you get 4 initiative passes, as well as super-stats.