I'm thinking of making a Chinese style "Demon" Hunter/Phsical Adept. I plan for him to have astral perception and a wepon foci. My question is, is that going to be enough to fight a fully astral being like a unmanifested spirit or astrall projected mage? He'll also have the asral combat skill.

Also any other suggestions would be appreciated.

If memory serves, and i am away from my books Astral Combat doesn't actually do anything for you unless you can project astrally. You want either a weapons focus or probly more conveniently for a starting character, killing hands.

If spirits are going to be your main enemy of choice but you still want the physad side of life you really need to look hard at magician.

Per Running Wild, Astral Combat is still used anytime you attack an astral entity.

I'd consider mystic adept over adept. Some of the anti-spirit-specific spells are perfect for what you're doing.

Bah. It's been a while, but didn't there used to be an Elven of maybe Soiux or other Amerind group that hd some kind of Ghost Hunters that were basically along these lines?

Overall, even if you could fight a spirit using Astral PErception only, the fact the spirit can move faster that the speed of sound up, down and around you would make the fight pretty one-sided anyway.

I'd suggest Limited Astral Projectiong, or whatever the hell the power is called, as a power. Because otherwise a spirit can just run away into the astral and zip off, leaving you going "Gee, wish I had a mana net spell right about now."

Adepts rock when it comes to going hand to hand with manifested spirits - killing hands, or bound weapon foci, negate a spirit's immunity to normal weapons - those dice are simply gone for the spirit. And adepts can usually get their melee attack dice pools up pretty high. The only real snag they run into is when they fight spirits with powers such as elemental aura, where you hitting them can mess you up.

Astrally, though, adepts (as others have pointed out) are stuck in their meatbodies against enemies that have 360 degree super-fast movement, and their dice pools in combat, even with a decent Willpower, won't be as impressive.

While the adept ghost hunter is a neat concept, it's difficult to effectively implement it. If you do go that route, you are probably better off focusing on battling mages, vampires, spirits, etc. in the physical world.

Or you could be an actual Mage, possibly Astral Aspected and just focus on Assencing and Astral Combat, sure you won't get the nifty Adept Powers, but on the hand, the various "Touch Spells" could be used to simulate an adept's hand-to-hand abilities and you wouldn't have to let your meat body limit your ghost hunting.

http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=52&issue=10
3rd Panel....

Honestly, other than combating the physical manifestation of a Spirit, I think you'd have to talk to the GM about fighting Astrally....somehow being able to Astrally Project would be good enouh in my book....or maybe you can find a mage to make a sort of Mana Net enchantment for you, so you can lay a trap for the Spirits and take them out afterwards....

Astral Perception makes you Dual Natured for the duration of AP so you could fight something that is solely Astral. Granted, it's going to be a bit lopsided since the Astral being can move a lot faster.

But you still use your meatbody skills rather than Astral Combat.

One of the SOTA books has Limited Astral Projection metamagic (or adept power, can't remember which) which allows adepts to use Astral Projection for (Magic) minutes.

Running Wild disagrees, at least with respect to critters. There's not really any good reason for different mechanics to apply to metahumans, so I'd view the newest source as correct.

First of all these are all good points, Thank you. I've decided to go with a PhysAd who specializes in fighting "supernatural" evil such as manifested spirits, vampires, ghouls etc...He uses Astral perception to detect these paranormal creatures.

in SR4 the average spirit it not that much faster then a adept with improved reflexes.

as for 3D movement, that will at best buy it a superior position modifier.

i would say a adept with improved reflexes 2, counterstrike and distance strike should worry a spirit that wants to get those filthy flesh beings out of its domain...

The spirit could stand off from pretty far away and attack with its ranged attacks.

Nothing is too far for a Manabolt.

True, but hobgoblin wasn't referencing spells.

OP, check out the Sons of Thunder and Sea from page 74, Street Magic. They seem right up your alley.