I am wondering if in the next FAQ there is a possibility of Adepts being able to use the optional rule for initiating. The rule that allows you to recieve a point to buy adept abilities with. Most of the meta magics are no good for any adept and a couple are really only good for mystic adepts. I am creating a social adept for the new missions season and cmps and would hate for initiation to just be so I can raise my magic rating. Here is hoping.

Are you talking about p52 of Street Magic, "Optional Rule: Learning Metamagic"?
If so it doesn't seem too broken to me as long as initiation+metamagic techniques cannot exceed magic rating.

But alas, still Optional for now...

Until this is allowed, I'd not play an Adept. Their glass ceiling is too low. I hope that SRM04 becomes stream lined-- we get this rule, and lose the 10% Fence and force 4:1 rule.

I have never seen the rule you're talking about that lets an adept get a point worth of powers instead of a metamagic.

Like Metamagic for anyone else, Adept Metamagics aren't useless. Just less overtly awesome than more Power Points. I find Adept Centering to be pretty neato.

Unless you're a Social Adept, in which case you're pretty well boned.

Wow. Initiating for social adepts really DOES do nothing but raise Magic cap, huh.

While yes some metamagics do have their uses my level 5 adept just gets no benifit from 2 of his metamagics but i took them cause they were there to be had.

This is the big issue I have been trying to get changed with the optional rules some of them are just way too usefull.

Instead of the massive spray gun of banned on optional rules I'd love to see them use smaller brush strokes.

This rule is one of my top rules I'd love to see added to allowed.

There is an optional rule that allows you to take power point instead of a metamagic at inniate. It is in the errata

@Triggvi ~ The rule does exist but understand in Shadowrun Missions the Offical Campain Optional Rules are not Allowed

I think he does understand and that's what he means by spray gun v. brush strokes.

Anyway could someone give me a page ref for this optional rule? I own like all the 4E books and have never seen it.

It's in the newer versions of Street Magic, page 31. It's also in the errata if you have one of the older printings.

Thanks.

Ok, see what happens when I don't read this for a bit. Yes the rule is on pg 31 in the new street magic. And I play a Social Adept. So the MetaMagics are useless for me. I just really hope for the rule to be allowed. Now saying that, my face is one of the ones that people don't want to talk to. She sells ice to Eskimos and flame to those on fire. Raising my Social Adept powers is just not necessary. However, adding more to the gun bunny side of her would be nice. Those are the skills I would love to pick up. She has fire power, it would just be nice to add some adept powers to it.

Can you use attunement to get the bonus dice with your guns?

Or with your emotitoy.

True. I was pointing out that the PC in question (who has no need to increase its social powers) can use metamagic to be a better shot (though buying 2 ranks in improved skill would be much better than attuning).

Yes, I could use it with my guns. However, it limits you to one type of gun and attunement is only one power. And limiting, you are only able to attune one item. It and adept centering are the only 2 skills that would be useful. However, If I took them then I would be moving away from being a Social Adept. And I would have to keep attuning to a new item each time I initiated past 2 levels. Why would I want to do that as a Social Adept? Currently I want to round out the character more, but she is not supposed to be the gun bunny. Just not useless in a combat situation. Being able to pick up new adept abilities would be helpful in more areas. I can make a more rounded character by getting some of the other adept abilities. And I would love to be able to pick up things like Linguistics to balance out the Social side. And as for the emoti toy, I do not have an one, I just use the software. Why be obvious? And the character is already hard capped on her social abilities. I actually have more dice than I can use due to things like the emoti software and my powers.

I don't see this limitation in the description of the metamagic (SM, p. 54). In looking for it, I did discover that the Attunement doesn't work through an electronic interface, so the emotitoy idea is out.

That was meant as if I wanted a new power that is what I would have to do. There are only 2 meta magics that are useful to a social adept and they are only kinda and if you want to be in the fight. Adept centering reduces dice lost in combat due to circumstances and attuning an item. And attuning states that you can only attune one item per time you take it. I could take it multiple times but that would not be advancing the character as a social adept. That is in Street magic 4a page 54 paragraph 5 under the heading of Attunement Adept. The metamagic also states you have to spend karma to bond the item to you. So not only does this magic cost the character the initation karma but bonding karma and on top of that a skill roll to see if it works with a 12 successes to one week ratio. So the character with a technical skill in guns of 1 and a logic of 3 has to get 12 successes on 4 dice to bond the item. Not going to happen. As I said before, there really are no good metamagics for Social Adepts. I am sure there are others out there too. The metamagics are mainly intended for straight casters or mystic adepts. Phys ads don't get boned as badly but would benefit more imo from the optional rule. And social adept definitely do.

I see your point. Why don't you sit down with your GM and see what it would take for your PC to develop a new metamagic that is useful for social adepts. It could be the basis for a whole arc of runs.

EDIT: Oops. I forgot which thread I was in. Sorry. So keep hammering in the forums for the game to add a few.

Because it's Missions, and we can't.

I dunno, I play a social adept who is also a gun bunny.



-karma

Keep in mind that there are both limits to how many successes you can get as a social adept (And this isn't likely to change), and that we generally try and write for "Normal" Face characters with decent (But not overly specialized skills). If you can toss 12 dice for social tests, that's often enough.

The super specialized characters shouldn't be necessary.

That said, the fact is, Adepts got hosed in SR4. They get less magic, it's much more expensive and harder for them to get Magic and Power points, and their costs didn't go down any. Unfortunately, shy of completely changing the rules, there's not a lot that can be done. I'll look at the power point option though and consider it.

No promises though. I hate any and all exceptions that have to be made to the base rules, just because it complicates and confuses things. You shouldn't need a 20 page document in addition to the core rulebook to make and play a character in Missions.

Bull

Thanks Bull. That is all I was hoping for. Midnight isn't a one trick pony. She does use her guns too. Just not as well. But being able to take things like linguistics wouldn't give me more dice, just take away negative language modifiers. And I really don't think this would just help faces. I think it would also help the phys ads as well.

Bull your read on adepts is very different then mine. They start out as good or better then their street sam counterparts and have no upward ceiling. They don't have to worry about availability ratings on their starting powers so in a focused area they will generally be very strong. And then there's what a pornomancer can do. *shudder*

LOL just you wait till next Gen Con Lurker. . .

I will make you shudder. . .

Pound for Pound, I'm better making a cyber/bio Sammy than I am an Adept. The Adept might be able to eek out a couple extra points in one area, but he'll be sacrificing in others. All around, an Adept can start with better all around abilities.

And this is how it should be. Coming up with 2nd and 3rd ed Adepts, they always started a little behind the Sammy. But in the long run, they could surpass them.

Unfortunately, these days that's no longer really the case. Adepts power points stayed the same from 3rd edition (Except for Reflexes, which got bumped down a little in SR4A), but they usually start with fewer points (That 6th point of magic at chargen is hard to justify). They no longer have the option to just buy power points like they did in 3rd. They no longer automatically get a Magic point when they initiate. So you're looking at 40+ karma for your first point of magic, and 1 more lousy adept power point (Which rarely gets you that far). Meanwhile, the Sammy is either investing in skills or bumping up a stat or two that was low because it was secondary, like Willpower. PLus he's earning money, to buy more Cyberware. Fragging dirt cheap Cyber and Bio (I still have issues when Wired Reflexes cost less than a car).

Yes, in the LONG run, Adepts can be better. But until you're hitting hundreds and hundreds of karma? No, they're really not. Not if you're competing with a Sammy.

Now, if you want your adept to be a one trick pony, then yes, they can get ridiculous numbers at chargen. But they're only going to be really good at that one thing.

Adepts, IMO, are generally only worth playing if you're doing something that is tough to replicate with Cyber. Some of the unusual Adept powers, which are usually over-priced and not nearly as useful as they could be (Water running, wall running, jumping). These days, Face stuff, to a degree. But again, you're specializing, and in this case you're specializing in an area that may not be useful all the time.

Adepts are, as I said, don't work as well as they should. They;'re not horrible, but if you're going with an Adept combat character (WHich is traditionally what Adepts are supposed to be), you're often going to be lagging behind for a long, long time.

Bull

The 'traditional' view of adepts you mention is a strong one, coming from many corners of our folklore, but there really is a lot more that can be done, more useful things that can be done, with adept powers that rarely get mentioned.

As one example, there are a whole lot of abilities and metamagics that can be directed into an investigator type character... magically augmenting Skills and Attributes relatively inexpensively. Whether such a character would fly in a Missions environment is up to the player and the writers.

Technology may have caught up to Bruce Lee, but Sherlock Holmes is still untouchable.

I don't think anyone is disputing that when adepts compete with mundanes in things other than combat, adepts clean house. As investigators, hackers, riggers, faces, and infiltrators, they're almost without peer.

I'd say the problem lies in trying to shoehorn them into being combatants. With a lot of money spent on the right 1.0 essence worth of bioware, they can be good but they pay an arm and a leg in cash and karma to get there. Meanwhile, the mundane shooter they're finally as good as has learned to hack, fly a helicopter and a suborbital, and has seduced the adept's girlfriend, little sister, and mother.

Oh, I agree. I'm mostly just counterpointing Lurker's comments above, as he specifically was talking about Adepts vs Samurai.

Bull

I don't understand how you say they don't have a ceiling? They have one: and it's low. This is why the sam is better; the sam doesn't have to pay (6*5) 30 karma to get his next bump in power. Nor will he have to pay (13 + 35) 48 karma for the bump after that. Instead, they could have spent those 78 karma increasing skills (or two attributes to 6 and have 18 karma left to play with) and spend their nuyen on extra gear/ware. By the time I had 78 career karma with this character I had earned around 200k in nuyen.

Some notes:
1) the sam will get to the point where they will be less economical and need to rip out old ware, and replace it with a more expensive better grade to make room for more stuff. However, this should be the time the adept is looking at getting a magic rating 8: which is 56 karma the same get's to use to bump more attributes and skills.

2) the adept can install a point or two of cyber+bio and be very effective, but this will cause him/her to lose powers in trade.

3) As for the ceiling, to get to magic 8 you'll need to spend another (16+40) 56 karma... or a total of 134 career karma just on magic and initation if you started with magic 5.

4) For math hammers, initiation and ordeals weren't factored in b/c they are about a wash since you need to spend +5 karma to join; +5 karma to learn arcana, and it only saves you 6 karma for the first two initations.

However, in missions you can end up doing runs that will count as an ordeal for initiation. I know we did in one of the CMP's. I think It was 5 but I am not sure right now. So ordeals can be "free".

Ordeals are always free, but the initiation costs karma, joining the group costs karma, and learning Arcana costs BP or karma. THat mission gave you access to an Ordeal you normally couldn't do in SRM. Very handy.