Is there or is there not an optional rule in one of the books to allow adepts to gain power points in place of initiate powers? If so where?

Street Magic, somewhere in the Adept parts. Don't have the PDF, as I'm at work currently, but it's somewhere in there.

Street Magic Errata:

http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources/sr4/sm_errata_v12.pdf

First page, left hand side, about middle of page.

Ahh ok been tearing through the books, I know I'd seen it recently and was considering it for one of my players. Wanted to go back and reread it. Thanks all.

I love this rule. To death. As a GM, even. Because frankly, unless an Adept has Astral Perception, they run out of worthwhile Metamagics in 2-3 initiations. Masking, Centering, Flexible Signature. Extended Masking is only really useful for weapon-foci toting Adepts, and damn near everything else requires being able to astrally percieve.

attunement(item)? cognition? somatic control? infusion? i daresay there are plenty of adept types who could benefit from these metamagics, if they felt so inclined. all you need is to take a few adept powers at less than your cap, and you can boost them up when needed for infusion. or to have a specific item that you use quite a bit, but which isn't enchanted (like, oh, i dunno... a gun, maybe, or a commlink....) or, for the other two, all you need is to have a mental (or physical) attribute that isn't maxed.

Naaa, Attunement is worthless for a Commlink. For a gun, its good. Attunement provides no bonus to items controlled by VR or DNI (read it again). I was going to take it with my NovaHOT Adept/Decker, but read that and was like "Well damn!"

The rest of the stuff you said though Jaid, I gotta agree with. Cognition is great for any mental or social Adept. Somatic for when you need to tweak your physicals. Infusion is nice for that couple extra points of power too.

I believe you are thinking of Attunement (Item) on page 54, SM, not Infusion on page 61.

I agree with Jaid, there are several metamagics that adepts can use profitably that don't require Astral Perception. Astral Perception of course opens up a lot more.

*kicks his comp* Sorry about that, I noticed it, was changing it, and had to run away for a hour cuz of work.

Well, yes, there are several more adept powers that adepts CAN use. But many of which are not thematically appropriate for many adepts. An athletics and stealth adepts, mobility adepts, unarmed combat adepts - all of these are the sorts who most of the time would not gain any real benefit from any of those powers when compared to adept powers they likely already have, such as improved attribute or improved ability, and for whom it may not even be thematically appropriate to purchase those metamagics.

I'm not saying they can NEVER use these things. I'm saying that much of the time, metamagic is MUCH less useful for them than a mage.

I got a question. Do you guys count the PP gained from Initiation as a Metamagic?

Because if so, well there is a rule allowing you to buy Metamagic for 15 Karma a pop (Cap: Magic + Initiation total Metamagics). You could just spend karma on that and end up with more PP. Hell, depending on if the GM requires people to Initiate before learning Metamagic, you can end up just dumping points into that instead of Magic for a while.

Of course, it is not really cost effective until your Magic is 5 or more.

I don't think I would, no. Effectively what the "PP metamagic" does for an adept is the same as increasing his magic attribute.

ummm... i can find perfectly good uses for most of those powers for any kind of adept. but heck, let's just go through your specific list for some examples:

athletics: infusion can increase the rating of improved ability, any improved attribute score powers, and any number of appropriate adept powers (combat reflexes for a runninback football player, throwing powers for any number of sports, and so forth). attunement(item) can be used to give the adept a lucky <insert piece of sports equipment here>. this could range to shoes for running, a tennis racket, a baseball glove or bat, and so on. cognition: fair enough, probably not logical. somatic control makes perfect sense. the boxer who knows his opponent is tough to hit and so he increases agility at the expense of something else, or who knows he isn't gonna soak the punch from that 9 foot troll so he dumps body for reaction, etc.

stealth: infusion can still increase the rating of any power you have that has a rating. in fact, i don't think it's possible to come up with a concept of a type of adept that infusion couldn't be useful for, because if nothing else your concept is going to include a skill, and that skill can be boosted with improved ability, and improved ability is a power with a rating. i suppose if your concept is "completely maxed out in all the adept abilities he has" this might not apply... at least, until a new power gets added. attunement(item): let's see... climbing gear, ruthenium suit, lockpicks, pry bar... do i really need to keep going? maybe a preferred weapon, such as a garotte, a syringe for injecting drugs, a blowgun, etc? cognition: hmmm... goodbye charisma, hello logic(for hardware tests such as picking electronic locks)? somatic control: goodbye body and strength, hello agility

mobility: item attunement: suppose this depends on how you define mobility. if it includes climbing, this could include shoes for running, climbing spikes for climbing, any sort of vehicle (if you mean that kind of mobility), and so forth. cognition: well, you could probably stand to give up charisma to pick up intuition for faster reaction (higher init) and better perception. but i'll grant you this probably isn't a huge deal... it's still not useless though!. somatic control: yup. being able to pick and choose which attribute is currently boosted could definitely be handy. probably body or reaction would be the usual choice to reduce, but it really depends on the situation (if you're dodging through an operating factory or something like that, you probably want your reaction more, and might consider dropping strength if your agility is more important than speed).

unarmed combat adepts: item attunement probably doesn't directly apply... unless you use hardliner gloves, or equivalent. still, most unarmed combat adepts will have a second specialty (such as mobility, or stealth) designed to let them actually get in close to their opponent. cognition: higher intuition = higher initiative. higher initiative means more likely to go first. going first means you can run up to your enemies before they can shoot you, which is generally considered useful. somatic control: probably not as useful, since you want pretty much all your physical attributes decent. still, the ability to customise your physical attributes to the occasion should not be underestimated.

so there we have it. i didn't even have to think too hard. this is largely because when i was choosing which metamagics to name as being useful, i was specifically aiming for stuff that is generally useful to all types of adepts (which is why i didn't mention attunment(animal) or animal empowerment, for example).

oh, and about the commlink: if your adept uses the commlink without using AR/VR, then attunement helps. though admittedly, many GMs seem to limit this kind of hacking to 1 IP per turn (regardless of actual number of IPs possessed), that still isn't completely useless.

Yes, for the particular types of adepts you list, I see your point.

I also recognize that there are other ... focuses?... for adepts that are not directed so firmly into combat. Some of the abilities available to adepts that allow them to be different from combat characters come through the metamagics. For example, I'm working right now on a character who is an academic forced into the shadows, and there are abilities available to adepts that are marvelous for the studious types -and- useful in the shadows.

And, when all is said and done, why is it such a bad thing that so many of the metamagics require Astral Perception? Yes, this is an extra power point the adept must spend, but once spent, a lot of really interesting things open up, some of which can be enhanced greatly by abilities unique to adepts. As one example, look at Psychometry, which has a lot of honking big, potential negative modifiers. The adept power Heightened Concentration can deal with the worst of these, making the adept likely one of the best at this ability. As another example, Flux would temporarily remove links to Attuned/Empowered animals, making excellent, untraceable spies.

No metamagic is going to be completely worthless - but there are a lot of them that I would be pretty lukewarm about as a player. I think that the option to take a power point instead is a good idea, since it gives more options to players who are not enthusiastic about most of the adept metamagics.

I personally allow it. Adepts don't generally gain the same benefit from metamagic that magicians do, even though they work the same for it, and they still need a huge amount of PP to even match someone with good ware.

...which is handy, because adepts can't learn Extended Masking. It's not on the list on page 53 of Street Magic so it's not a power they're allowed.

I didn't notice that before! Is this an error? Why would they be allowed Masking but not Extended Masking?

Yeah, I suppose by RAW that's true. I've just always ignored that rule, because I want Adepts to be able to mask foci.

I allow this, but at 4 Karma per 0.25 PP (3 Karma per 0.25 PP if you take the PP with a Geas).

So end up costing 16 Karma per full PP, rather than 15. Not bad. Do you have a limit on the total they can take?

I'm asking because I'm seriously considering allowing the Adepts in my game to buy 1PP for 15 Karma, taking up one of their Metamagic slots (Max Metamagic = Magic + Initiation). I'm seriously considering this because Adepts will actually hit a limiting wall before a Sammie will.

Don't believe me? Given enough time and money, I figured out you could fit 13.3 points of cyber, 7.6 points of bio and 0.2 genetic mods without taking any of the qualities that reduce the cost (Ending with a 0.005 Essence). If they start with or save up Karma and buy Bio/cyber-compatability in game, it goes even higher. Your choice of 20 Cyber or 9.5 Bio to be exact. Find an Adept in your game even pushing close to 20 PP and I'll be completely shocked.

Another reason is because I'm an ol' school SR3 GM and still remember PysA's being able to buy PP for 20 Karma.

Over in the 800 point thread in the Community Projects forum, I have an adept, Oro the Unstoppable, who has 17 PPs, without purchasing PPs directly, as we used to in SR3.

I have mixed feelings about purchasing PPs directly. On the one hand, it parallels mages being able to buy spells with karma, or bind spirits or spells with karma, whenever they build up the necessary karma. On the other hand, adepts get a PP automatically for each point of Magic attribute, whereas mages still have to pay for magical skills and/or spells, even from the start.

I'm not convinced adepts are all that disadvantaged to begin with. If not, then why fix something that isn't broken?

We play with this rule, for initiation you can choose a metamagic of a PP, end for 15 karma you can buy metamagics or PPs, up to a max of magic + initiation...
So far it hasn't upset game balance at all, just gives adept some more options and more options are always good IMO...

Well, it's not in the Street Magic errata so it's either deliberate or they hadn't spotted it yet. I guess the rationale would be something like them not having as well-developed an ability to manipulate mana on the astral as a magician or mystic adept does.

I only noticed when the face/infiltrator adept in my group was asking about it, and I just checked to be certain and realised it wasn't there!

Pity Mystic Adepts can't take advantage of this rule. I suppose it would overcome their main disadvantage though, of being less effective in both areas.

As I understand it, mystic adepts really come into their own where metamagic is concerned, because they can have any metamagic in the game (as long as they have Astral Perception, I guess) -- the adept-only ones and the ones adepts can't ever have.