Let's see, Night one with Exceptional Attribute: Quickness and Exceptional Attribute: Intelligence gives me a reaction of 14. Actually I wonder if the NSRCG is wrong there, it seems high to me.

Anyway Add Reaction booster 6 and Move by Wire 4 (Deltaware, of course).

Initiative is now 24 + 4d6.

Add in Small Unit Tactics 8 (Skills rarely, if ever get higher), on average get 4 additional points. Add in a battletac computer at rating 8 to get an additional 4 points average.

Initiative is now 22 + 4d6.

Add in a quickened Improve Cybered Reaction spell with 10 successes.

Initiative is now 32 + 4d6

Have I missed anything?

drugs.

Suprathyroid Gland and Enhanced Articulation for +2 more to Reaction.

I always wondered...how much stuff can a character cram into themselves before the GM just decides their nervous system/heart just up and explodes?

About six points of essence worth.

Although, roleplaying that 'he's so jacked up he can catch a raindrop in a hurricane' feeling is great. I mean, you know how pissed off you get when old people fill up a staircase in front of you going real slow? Imagine what that would be like to someone that lives their lives at six times the speed? And traffic jams? This is probably why the 2060s are so dangerous.

Problems with this.

a) MBW is not compatible with ANY reaction or initiative boosting cyberware. This includes reaction enhancers.

b)Suprathyroid is not compatible with MBW. Says so in M&M, in the cyberware and bioware compatibilty section.

c) 10 sucesses? HAHAHA. How in hell do you ever get 10 sucesses at TN 21(The actual max result you can get with tech)?

Add the Reaction Enhancers level 1 first. Then cast the Enhanced Cyber Reaction spell as a tatoo and quicken. Tada! Then add the rest of the gang.

And 10 successes only gives +5 to Reaction.

It doesn't appear you actually added in the Small Unit Tactics.

Haha, you can have as high an init you want if you're the GM, bee-itches!

If you mainline Kamikaze, Cram and Jazz at the same time, I'd insist someone roll for spontaneous heart implosion.

-Siege

that's when the cyberware stress rules come into play, see.

Night One, bonus attribute and exceptional attribute quickness, exceptional int. Quick of 10, int of 7. Suprathyroid, muscle toner 4, adrenal pump, Cerebral booster 2. Now we're up to quick of 15, int of 9. That's a 12 reaction. Add in the adrenal pump bonus and enhanced articulation, as well as suprathyroid, and you've got 18. Reaction enhancers 6, boosted reflexes 3, synaptic accelerator 2, and you're now hanging out at 26+5d6. Use small unit tactics for another 4, and increased reaction spell for another 5. We're at 35 + 5d6. Then, you can boost his quickness to 15, his int to 10. Final calculation yields quickness of 20 (22 with pump), int of 12, reaction of 39 + 5d6, combat pool of 17 (with will of 1), combat pool of 20 (with a will of 6)

Total base essence cost: 4.6
Total base bio-index: 6.1 + 1.8 of neural-ware
Total base nuyen:
450,000 of cyberware
290,000 of bioware
310,000 of neural bioware
Total Karma:
195 Karma for Quickness
81 Karma for Intelligence

Optimize route: [edited, since I forgot about using delta cyberware] Only through use of delta grade cyberware can this setup achieve a point in which the bio-index of the bioware does not exceed the "3+Essence" index. Any other grade of cyberware will require "reduce essence" and "reduce bio-index" surgery options.

For even more ridiculousness, Jazz would raise it to Q: 22 (24), I: 12, R: 40+6d6, CP: 18 - 21
Kamikaze would get you to Q: 21 (23), I: 12, R: 39+6d6, CP: 18 - 21.
Cram would get Q: 20 (22), I: 12, R: 40+6d6, CP: 17 - 20.
Kamikaze and Psyche would get Q: 21 (23), I: 13, R: 40+6d6, CP: 19 - 21
Jazz and Psyche would get Q: 22 (24), I: 13, R: 40+6d6, CP: 19 - 22
Cram and Psyche would get you Q: 20 (22), I: 13, R: 40+6d6, CP: 18 - 21

I'm not going to go into multiple drugs that enhance the same attribute.

[add]
Average initiative: 39 + (5 * 3.5) = 56.5
Max initiative: 39 + 30 = 69
Average # of actions: 6
Max actions: 7
Average intiative with jazz/psyche: 40 + (6 * 3.5) = 61
Max initiative: 76
Average actions: 7
Max Actions: 8

A move-by-wire setup would achive something ~35+5d6 before drugs. After drugs ~36+6d6, yielding an average intiative of 57, max of 72. Average number of actions on drugs will hit 8, with a max of 10 (due to extra actions after initial phases).

Also, if you want to be truly ludicrous, have a free spirit hide it's life in this person. Depending on how you interpret the wording, that means either another +(Force+Spirit Energy) to Reaction (from quickness/int bonuses), or +2x(Force+Spirit Energy) (from bonuses to quickness, int, and reaction). That, however, is going beyond the limit of "might be possible, someday, somewhere, by one guy" and into the realms of "WTF".
[/add]

To get really fast Adept is the way. Don't forget to buy "Quick Strike" to be the first to act in one initiative pass. Together with Imp. Reflexes 3 and other Adept powers + Cyber and Bio, you will get really fast. But you need more Karma then a starting characetr

For a starting character you could go with Imp. Reflexes 2 and Quickstrike... QUI 7, Imp, Attribute QUI, INT 6, Small Unit Tactics 6...

no cyber or bio enhancements to Rea works with Imp Ref. indirect enhancements, like those to Qui and Int, work.

mfb: Depends on the 'ware. Certain implants (like MBW and muscle toner) say that the bonuses to quickness also increase Reaction. Others (like Adrenal Pump and Muscle Replacement) say that they don't stack. <EM>In general</EM>, bioware will indirectly increase reaction, while cyberware won't. Past that, the only incompatabilites are right in M&M.

don't forget the Adrenaline Surge Edge either, nothing like rerolling all those 6's for initiative talk about wowzer's hella fast

That edge only applies if the character has no other reaction or initiative enhancements. That includes natural benefits like the extra dice some vampiric or shapeshifter creatures get.

I miss the days of being able to eek 6D6 + 34 initiative out of the system...

There is no maximum possible initiative because someone could always learn a force 100 Increase Reaction spell, rolling successes on all 200 sorcery dice. With infinite karma and infinite time, you're looking at infinite initiative.

Also, for the guys building speed machines: don't forget to have a force 12 Voodoo spirit inhabit these super initiative machines for +12 to all physical attributes. It's only 10 karma to be a serviteur, y'know.

Well, if we're talking about theoretical maximums, there really isn't one. There's no theoretical limit on the force of a spell, and an increase reaction spell can jack reaction up through the roof. There is one trick that people are missing though (while maintaining "reasonable" numbers of dice and TNs) - make the character a mage, and Channel a spirit. Around Force 10 is reasonable (we're looking at pretty advanced characters here, by the time they lay in all that delta-ware). That adds another 10 quickness and therefore another 5 reaction.

Human with an Intelligence of 9, running on a deck with 3 points of reaction, a reality filter, running pure DNI.

Init 9 + 6d6 - Max of 45.

People win the lottery because millions of people play the lottery, which greatly increases the chances of the correct numbers being chosen.

Millions of people aren't trying to learn a Force 100 spell.

And once he makes his TN 1000 roll, he can spend a Karma Pool permanently to reduce the time.

You're assuming he won't already have several successes to start with

Edit: Post withdrawn. Broke at least one rule.

The thing i find funny about Quick Strike (funny as in ammusing not in need of tweaking) is the faster his opponants go the faster he goes to the point that if his action was to sprint he would start and finnish his 33m dash before anyone (including mister im so fast i suffer friction burns) Practicly Teleporting!!

Why the fuck do these threads keep raking in so many replies? They pop up every once in a while and people furiously number crunch until they come to the conclusion that according to canon rules you can get an initiative of a blazillion d6 + google. The thread dies down again, only to come up two months later. Ad infinitum.

Personal Rule: After inititives are rolled, and player rolling more than 50 has to make a body test TN(Init-45) to resist a fatal heart attack.

Luckily I only had to use this rule once.

Come on, guys. Without these threads acting as a refresher every few months, we'll soon forget the many uber ways of screwing with the system. Unless we write a compendium of all the tricks and convince the moderaters to make it sticky.

just take the first strike adept power and you are the faster than the initiative 100+ supa dupa boosted cyberzombie...

There's an image...a sticky entitled "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Raping the SR System". "This new edition includes such ideas as 'how to combine adept and cyberware for the character who must be panzer-proof', and '5 simple rules to initiatives higher than my grandfather's age'".

You also seem to be forgetting that you can be a physmage and get cyber/bioware thus allowing for some ludicrous combos.

Attribute Boost Quickness is the way to go. Combine that with Boosted III + Synaptic Accelerator + Adrenal Gland + Drugs + Spells, etc. and you are rocking!

And all you do is make me move that much faster....

There's another issue here other than whether you can do this with the mechanics or not.

lets see...32+4D6
maximum initiative is 56.

That's 6 complex actions, or 12 simple actions.
One Round is 3 seconds.

Granted, I could probably pull 12 shots off with a pistol in 3 seconds if I REALLY tried with the right weapon.
On the other hand...

56-Shoots Grunt A twice
46-Drops pistol, and draws katana
36-Runs over to Grunt B
26-Slices Grunt B up with Katana
(23-somewhere around here a "normal" fast character would go.)
16-Throws Katana at Grunt C, and Draws pistol
06-Shoots Grunt C twice

All in 3 seconds?
good thing it's a game.

FYI, those are 2nd edition rules. In 3rd edition, EVERYONE has a go once before your super-ninja chops everyone up. Its also worth pointing out that how far you move is your total movement divided by the number of initiative passes you have, so your guy with say a movement of 30 will only move 5 meters with each action.

I'm pretty sure you can get a bit more insane with MBW-4. Assuming you can get to an un-drugged initiative of 19+5d6 (Night One Exc/Bonus QUI, Toner-4, SupraT, Cerebral-2, QUI14/INT8), that's a maximum of 7 actions per CT already, and an average of 6. Adding just Jazz and Cram you get 21+7d6. Pitting Mr MBW (with Quickdraw) against the "normal fast character" above in some Grunt Killing Madness:

I(63)-MBW shoots Grunt A twice
I(23)-NFC shoots Grunt B twice
I(63)-MBW shoots Grunt C twice
II(53)-MBW shoots Grunt D twice, drops revolver
II(13)-NFC shoots Grunt E twice
II(53)-MBW runs towards Grunt F, draws new revolver, shoots Grunt G twice
III(43)-MBW runs towards Grunt F, shoots Grunt H twice
III(3)-NFC shoots Grunt I twice
IV(33)-MBW runs towards Grunt F, shoots Grunt J twice, drops revolver
V(23)-MBW runs up to Grunt F, draws katana and slices him to pieces
VI(13)-MBW sheathes the katana, starts looting corpses
VII(3)-MBW is still looting corpses

How fast would a 60 grade initiate adept with a quickness of 60 be able to run?