In which case it doesn't really matter anyway. Mute point. Head shots on anyone is gonna be brutal.

Yes, yes I did

I was introduced to the concept a couple of years ago, playing DnD, and it has improved my gaming experience immeasurably. Imagine, coming up with a concept and being able to make it actually work, both in a mechanical sense and a practical one. I'm quite fond of it.

Are cyberlimbs really the way to go? Could I not get a similar effect from Bioware? I was thinking things along the lines of Enhanced Articulation, Muscle Toner, Orthoskin, that sort of thing.

Are there any ways to reduce Essence cost, beyond Alpha- Beta- and Deltaware?

And what's this about taking things out of capacity versus essence?

With the cyber limbs, you spend 100k nuyen (which is 20 BPs) to basically take 10 BPs of physical attributes to 8, 8 and 4. So for 30 BPs, you get awesome physical stats. To do the equivalent with stats and bioware, you'd spend 100 BPs easy. Cyberlimbs gives you the ability to pump Body as well, which is hard to do otherwise.

Nanohive is an item in Augmentation. Its you use nanites. Its pretty good for hackers. Anyway it costs .8 essense, but only 2 capacity in a cyber limb. So a replaced limb uses up like .5 essense and then you can put a nanohive in. It just costs like 20k nuyen to install it in cyberlimb, not 9k if you straight implant it.

Oh yeah, 10 BP quality called biocompatabilty cyberware reduces the essense cost of cyberware. Needed for this build.

To my mind, that cybered character goes beyond optimization and into munchkinism. Which is why I'd disallow it or terminate it.

If you dump stat str, agi and body, no, you can't match limbs, nothing comes close. As to enhanced articulation it's virtually useless thesedays.

As to reducing essence cost, there are a couple of qualities you can do it with and a geneware treatment that is supposed to be unavailable at the start of play.

For most characters, a mix of cyberware and bioware is optimal. For someone trying to be both a street samurai and a hacker, I wouldn't spend the massive amounts of Nuyen for synaptic boosters - I would get wired reflexes. Muscle toner bioware is a good investment, though, for any combat-oriented character.

Capacity vs. Essence - some things, such as cyberweapons or senseware, can be installed into an existing cyberlimb, costing some of the capacity of that cyberlimb instead of Essence. The nanohive is notable in that it costs a lot of Essence, but not a lot of capacity, so it is usually far more optimal to put it into a cyberlimb than it is to get it installed by itself.

You can reduce Essence cost with the biocompatibility quality (Klinktastic's last build on this thread has it). It reduces the Essence cost of either cyberware or bioware by 10%. There is also Type O System, which lets you treat basic bioware as if it were deltaware for Essence purposes. That quality is very pricey, though, and probably wouldn't be quite worth it for your particular character concept. Both qualities can be found in Augmentation.

Of course, the way that Essence loss for cyberware and bioware is calculated, you can get the most savings by having almost equal amounts of cyberware and bioware - because the lower of those two Essence loss scores gets halved.

It is pretty potent. But I mean, that is the point of what the OP is wanting. It's not great, its above average at a lot of things, hacking, offense, and durability. Personally, I prefer the adept, just because it's better at the hacking, and I'm sure there are other character that are good at the whole street sam thing too. Idk, I think its pretty bad ass personally. The fact that his torso and head are weak is known really by no one. Someone would have to metagame to take advantage of it via called shots.

Also, it makes kind of an interesting character personality options. Born to a weak body, he hated others with physical gives. So he opted for cyber help. Born rich means comes from a wealth family who could afford the surgeries.

Edit - Forgot to say, after the game starts you can add another level of armor, 3 on each limb, and have 12/12 natural armor.

Oh shit, I just realized this. So PuSHeD actually helps your hacking skills because they are "logic based" even though they dont actually use logic in the roll. Wow, that is really good. So PuSHeD and then a Nanohive with Neo=Cordical nanites you can add those bonuses to your hacking rolls?

Personally, I just plain hate that cybered character.

I guess I better man up with an Adept build

Neo-cortical isn't as good, because it can only be used for "non-stressful" situations - it's great for writing programs or upgrading your commlink, but not so much for hacking. The main boosts for matrix activity are PuSHeD, the encephalon, and adept improved ability. Oh, and the optimization modification (from UnWired), although that is only good for one program.

Pushed gives a bonus to Logic-linked skill tests. VR tests don't involve Logic.

Has it been FAQed that it actually works in VR?

I mean, the benefit of the cyber character, especially with the synapse booster, is that you end up getting quite a bit of free BPs for skills and better attributes over all. The adept that I rolled up, is pretty solid, just swap the skill recorder for PuSHeD. With the cyber guy, I have essense of 1.89 remaining due to use of synapse booster. Therefore, there is room for extra goodies to be added in. It is possible to take out the synapse booster, replace with wired reflexes I and save about 20 BPs (no longer need born rich quality) for more skills, but you then don't have any room for any more wares.

They're Logic-linked, Zyerne. *shrug*

When in VR, the linked attribute is program rating, is it not? Possibly AR too, I don't recall.

VR is not different from AR. They're Logic-linked skills. It may well be that PuSHeD wasn't intended to work that way, and they'll certainly address it when the errata come out. *snirk*

I was looking over the Adept build again (as I'm leaning in that direction) and I have a couple of questions. Why buy 5 magic when it's going to be reduced to 4 due to 'wares? Why use IP adding combat drugs (as opposed to Wired Reflexes or Move-by-Wire)?

I'll check with my GM to see if PuSHeD applies to my hacking skills even though they don't have logic in the roll.

Magic loss from bio/cyber happens after you've bought your points. If you only bought 4 points in the build above, you'd only have 3 left after the cyber/bio.

As to drugs, you'll need to check whether your GM allows them to stack with other IP boosters first. As to wired reflexes and move-by wire, they're just not essence effective for an adept. They would lose you more magic than Improved Reflexes costs and you'd have to buy the magic anyway.

1) If you only buy 4 magic, it would be reduced to 3. It is reduced by your essence loss rounded up no matter what.
2) Combat drugs are cheaper on essence (Reflexes/MBW costs a LOT of essence)
3) They're under the list of logic-based skills (also, nothing says you can't default to logic-1...)

Ah, I see. And if I only buy 4 magic now, with an essence of 5, it'll be reduced to 3, but can I buy more with karma (up to my maximum of 5?). Also, do any upgrades beyond Cyberlimbs have capacity that I can exploit to bring the essence costs down?

Nope. It's Cyberlimb Capacity.

Actually, defaulting on Matrix tests is Program-1, I believe.

Ok, here goes. This is 400 points with 0 negative qualities. You'll probably want to take the full -35, 20 going on nuyen for hacker gear, Pushed and basic gear (weapons, armor, etc). The other 15 can go anywhere you like, except attributes which are maxed on point spend.

Human Adept

Body: 4
Agility: 5(7)
Reaction:5(6)
Strength: 3
Charisma: 1
Intuition: 3
Logic: 3
Willpower: 4

Edge: 6
Magic:4
Essence: 5.1

Qualities:

Adept

Bioware:
Muscle toner 2
Synthacardium 3
Platelet factories
(0.1 left for Pushed)

Skills:
Blades 5
Automatics 5
Cracking Group: 4 (+2 Hacking and Cybercombat from Improved Ability)
Electronics Group: 1
Athletics Group: 1 (+3 from Synthacardium)

Rescoures: 4k unspent from 15 BP allocated.

Adept Powers:
Improved Reflexes 1
Improved Ability: Cybercombat
Improved Ability: Hacking
Combat Sense 2
Attribute Boost: Strength 1
(0.25 points unspent)

I know you mentioned off-face in the initial post and I've put charisma at 1. It's about the only viable dump stat, you can raise it with karma later if you want to go down that route.

Yeah, you buy magic 5 and utilize enough 'wares to get down to 5 essense, which drops your magic to 4. It's ok though, because 4 points is enough. When you get enough karma and you pump your magic again to 6 (5), you can use that next point to up your improved reflexes from 1 to 2 (since lvl 1 is 1.5 power points and lvl 2 is 2.5 power points). You're going to want to trade Reflex Recorder Group to PuSHeD for sure. The advantages you gain from the 'wares outweight what else you could do with extra magic at chargen, but can be increased later.

As far as I know, combat drugs and improved reflexes should stack. If you can't use Cram, you can use a variety of other combat drugs if the IPs don't stack. You do not want to use wired reflexes or MBW because they eat up way to much essense, and at that point, its silly to be an adept at that point, because you would burn up all your magic. You could leave some excess space or add platelet factories for a little durability. Since your character isn't much in the way of durability, I'd suggest automatics or long arms. Auto gives you machine pistols (for concealability) and assault rifles for range. Or longarms for you get a short barreled T-250 for concealability and a sniper for range.

You're going to have pretty weak secondary skills with the adept build, just an FYI. Something to be said for having all sorts of random skills. Additionally, having these extra IPs give you the ability to hack on the fly in AR, meaning you can still take physical actions. When you go VR, your physical presense is pretty limited. You can't do a whole lot. If you are going to be a combat hacker, you need to function well in the Matrix via AR with the extra IPs. VR gives you extra 2 dice for matrix actions, which is good, but not necessary.

Personally, dump stat strength and get rid of blades. Your character at this point is very craptastic at anything but matrix and combat, and is pretty crappy for like 80% of the rest of the game. Combat sense is not a good use of points. Use them to get improved skill gymnastics for your dodge. Then you still have some points left over for other stuff (like combat improvements maybe). All of these are too expensive for what you get. You are dedicating too many points for not much benefit, aka not optmized.

Funny you recommended platelet factories, which I did too, which I was thinking. But if you use synthacardium to pump your athletics/gymastics dodge, then you might want to trade it out for Math CPU and Sleep regulator. Don't understand the value of the electronics skill group, espeically for a combat hacker as hardware to manually jack into stuff and use some B&E gear as well.

I'm a fan of the cybergland, but you can put an autoinjector on your armor for the same effect. You need some perception for sure. Ettiquette would be nice. Also stealth is really important in every shadowrun game, I'd recommending a stealth group 1 or 2 if possible. Shy away from attribute boost, its not that great, especially for strength.

Just some of my thoughts.

Blades is in there per the initial request for a swordsman.

The character was always going to be craptastic at anything except hacking and combat without the judicial application of karma.

Can't get improved ability gymnastics as gymnastics is only 1. If it gets raised to 2 in play, the last 0.25 of magic can be spent giving effective gymnastics at 6 and the rest at 4. Combat Sense applies even in situations where you can't or don't want to spend an action dodging. Don't see how that's not useful.

Math SPU is more useful to riggers than hackers, IMO. Platelets give the build a little bit more survivability, which it needs.

Electronics is in there mostly to avoid defaulting and so that he can hit buy his way through extended software and hardware tests.

Perception, stealth and ettiquette I totally agree on but I think the other 1 point skills are more immediately essential. The 3 you mentioned can all be bought with karma or the points available from neg qualities can be used to get them.

Lastly, all my combat adepts get strength boost.

That's the worst possible reason for the strength boost.

It would be if it wasn't for the fact that all my combat adepts are designed for melee and it's more points magic/essence effective than muscle augmentation, if slightly unreliable. It also doesn't cost any of the money they usually don't have.

Also, in the case of bio adepts, there's generally more useful things to spend 0.4 points of essence on, where as for 0.25 of magic I consider if good value. I've never built an adept with more than 1 point of bio/cyber, should I in the future, toner will likely get a look in.

No, I meant that 'all mine get it' is the bad reason. The other reasons are better.

I wasn't attacking your build per se, just the OP's hypothesis that melee + hacking would be construed as optimized. It is not, and therefore I am merely letting him know. There are a lot more useful things you can do to diversify the character and make him more useful in more situations. The big problem is that you're going to be very skills like. With the few points you're allocating to very niche skills just doesn't make sense.

Firearms is more optimized because you are more suvivable. If you have to snap into VR, would you rather up in some mook's face swinging your sword or you could be hiding behind cover shooting your gun.

A few posts ago, where you asking why Electronics group or commenting it was too low?

Ah, darn. Now I'm not sure if I should go with a cybered character or an adept. To make a properly effective cybered character is it necessary to have both arms and legs be fully cybered? I'm mostly concerned with the arms, or keeping at least one of them fully meat, for fluff reasons. Could I get similar benefit from partial cyberlimbs (do such things exist?)? And if they do, would I be able to combine them with bioware? That would work best for me, aesthetically speaking.

As far as charisma and acting as a face goes, I'm willing to drop that part of the build if it's too much to fit, as we've already got a face and I can probably just use skillsofts or something to keep from making a complete fool of myself socially.

Also, how would these builds look if I went Ork? I'm considering it if I go the cybering route rather than Adept.

Concerning whether melee + hacking is optimized, and whether or not I want to play a swordsman: I don't doubt that firearms is more effective for me, at least initially, so I will likely specialize into that first. I would like to be able to grow into the swordsman role, but the reason for the subtitle of "...Hacker and Greatest Swordsman in the World" was mostly because it seemed an applicable quote from the great novel Snow Crash.

I'm not sure what the optimization level of the group is, so I don't want to go with anything too out there. Which of the two routes is more versatile (at least initially) as that may be the more optimal route to go for the group I'm playing with.

Actually, the fewer cyberlimbs, the better. Unless you're going for a really special 'robocop' setup.

Why are fewer better (I have no doubt that they are, I just don't know why)?

Oh, and we'll probably be using the SR4 (that's what the GM has, though it seems some of the players have the SR4A).

Partial limbs do exist and you'd have more room for bioware if you took them instead. I don't think the build would be as effective, I don't remember the stat rules for partials off the top of my head.

As to going Ork, it would be more effective for the adept than the cyber, the ork bonuses would be overridden by the limbs.

For the Adept, you'd lose a point of Edge but gain 3 stat points. You could also use some of the points from negative qualities to buy more, but I wouldn't recommend more than 1.

As to growing into the swordsman role, there's a couple of options.

Go ork, drop blades, spend the points on 2 more points of stats and pick up blades later OR stay human and keep blades, unless there's a skill a different skill you want that high. When buying skills at chargen, as mentioned, it's all or nothing except for the ones that you have to have to avoid defaulting etc. Stats > skills at chargen in terms of points effectiveness.

Here is a quick little setup I made

Second hand bioware? Icky, you don't know where it's been

Also, I believe the OP wanted a high edge char; are those -35 points from qualities available or already spent?

The most versatile is the cybered human with 4 awesome limbs. You are not a good at hacking, but you are awesome in combat, and you will have spare points for extra skills, making you more well rounded.

The more specialized is the adept hacker You are better at hacking, but you aren't as good at combat, and you wont have nearly as many supplementary skills.

The 35 are spent. I'd have loved to do higher edge, but the character is just stretched to thin. OP wanted:
Primary Hacking
Primary Combat (Possibly two types)
Secondary Social
Secondary Artisan
High Edge

Two of those alone would a potential tight fit, all of those is nigh impossible.

I suppose if he really wants he could drop body to increase edge.

Agreed on the nigh impossible. 100 poiints of skills is the lowest I've ever specced I think.

I don't see that at all actually. The character I put forth has a larger pool for combat and a larger hacking pool than the cybered human. Haven't looked at the adept one as close, but I'd imagine my build edges it out a bit too.

Edit: Yep, edges out the adept as well.

(There are 2 adept builds posted btw)

I never expected an adept build without improved (combat skill) to match a cybered sam. I may be blind, or tired, or both, but I can't see where your build beats mine on hacking.

You also seem to be 10 points over, stats wise.

Ah, did a last minute change to edge and forgot to adjust the written amount. The total for the build is correct at 400 though.

@Karoline

1 - A non-adept hacker cannot be better than an adept hacker, just not possible. Also, all of the mundane hackers are going to be on the same level. Actually, your build will be worse, since it will lack a variety of hacking programs.

2 - The cyberlimbs version is far more durable, at the expense of maybe 1 combat dice.

I think your build is quite nice, though, but I'd recommend the OP forget anything face related. Just some ettiquette to not look like an idiot. Use the leftover points for some more skills. I'll rework the build to something more focused.

First adept build: (Adjusted to fit the rules)
Hacking: 5 (program rating) + 4 (skill) + 2 (adept power) = 11 dice, 13 in VR
E-War: 5 (program rating) + 4 (skill) + 2 (Math CPU) = 11 dice, 13 in VR
Cyberwar: 5 (program rating) + 4 (skill) + 2 (adept power) = 11 dice, 13 in BR
Longarms (sniper rifle): 6 (agility) + 4 (skill) + 2 (specialization) + 2 (adept power) = 14 dice
Defense: 4 (reaction) = 4 dice
Social: 3 (charisma) -2 (no skill) = 1 die

Second adept build:
Hacking: 5 (program rating) + 4 (skill) + 2 (adept power) = 11 dice, 13 in VR
E-War: 5 (program rating) + 4 (skill) = 9 dice, 11 in VR
Cyberwar: 5 (program rating) + 4 (skill) + 2 (adept power) = 11 dice, 13 in BR
Automatics: 7 (agility) + 5 (skill) + 2 (adept power) = 14 dice
Defense: 6 (reaction) + 1 (gymnastics) + 2 (combat sense) + 3 (synthacardium) = 12 dice
Social: 1 (charisma) -2 (no skill) = -1 dice

My build:
Hacking: 5 (program rating) + 4 (skill) + 1 (pushed) + 3 (neocortical) + 1 (encephalon) = 14 dice, 16 in VR
E-War: 5 (program rating) + 4 (skill) + 2 (Math CPU) + 1 (pushed) +3 (neocortical) + 1 (encephalon) = 16 dice, 18 in VR
Hacking: 5 (program rating) + 4 (skill) + 1 (pushed) + 3 (neocortical) + 1 (encephalon) = 14 dice, 16 in VR
Automatics: 9 (agility) + 6 (skill) + 1 reflex recorder + 2 (smartgun) + 2 smartlink = 18 dice
Defense: 7 (reaction) + 4 (gymnastics) + 1 (reflex recorder) + 3 (synthacardium) = 15 dice
Social: 2 (charisma) + 2 (skill) + 3 (Tailored Pharamones) + 3 (pharamone receptors)= 10 die

Edit: should also point out that my build has 3 IP, while the two adept builds only have 2.

Edit2: And for completeness, the cyberlimbed monster (once again modified to make fit the rules)
Hacking & Cyberwar: 4 (skill) + 5 (software rating) = 9 dice, 11 in VR
E-War: 4 (skill) + 5 (software) + 2 (Math CPU) = 12 dice, 14 in VR
SMGs: 10 (cyberarms' agility) + 4 (skill) + 2 (specialization) + 2 (smartlink) = 18 dice
Defense: 5 (reaction) = 5 dice
Social: 3 (charisma) -2 (no skill) = -1 dice

Hacking et. al. are logic-linked, so you can default them to logic-1 (and get a book thrown at you. Seriously, don't do this. Especially not with maxed logic and a restricted gear cerebral booster 3...)

You assume NeoCordial is working in stressful situations, which I don't think any GM would let it count in any hacking situation. So I doubt that will work. Good for other stuff, just not hacking.

Also, you need about 100k nuyen to get all the hacking programs at 5 and a tricked out commlink. However, your use of Used Standard 'wares was pretty ingenious. I'm about to start a game, and I'm gonna retailor my character using some of that to cut costs, I have most the 'wares I want.

Edit - The cyberbuild didn't include any other skills (gymnastics, social). I'll rework it out in full, I was just messing around trying to give the OP some ideas.

My build will have Pushed if his GM allows it and hacking in a combat situation will negate neocortical.

That said, your build is more effective (I'm not going to argue groups vs individual skills) straight out of char gen, which is to be expected vs an adept build. I'd argue that the adept has more long term growth potential unless his GM is very free with the cash.

Personally I've never figured that a hacker would be particularly stressed while hacking, because it is what they do. That's like saying a waiter is stressed while waiting because they have to deal with a bunch of people. Fact is, they aren't, because they do it all the time. If GM really wants, can call for a composure test, which is willpower + charisma, so my build has 8 dice.

Have to remember that stress is relative.

I don't think that argument is valid. That's like saying, a soldier isn't stressed out in a firefight because thats what he does.....PuSHeD ok. Neocordial, definitely not. Maybe it works until an alarm is tripped. That's about as far as it will go. I guess with that many dice, you probably will never trip an alarm.

If he's a combat decker, good chance he'll be hacking under fire, or at least while his buddies are, down the hall. That's gonna be stressful I'd imagine.

Anyways, I'm off to finish some characters I'll actually use

Even Hacking on the Fly in your own super-Lifestyle-d house is often 'a stressful situation', doubly if you're in VR.

Among other things, a soldier is under imminent threat of death. And even then, I'd say that they are a hell of a lot less stressed than you or I would be. And I'm sure they could compose themselves (composure test).

Also keep in mind that if they're only using AR, they aren't in any actual danger, so are very unlikely to be seriously stressed.

It does kind of vary from GM to GM, but I think you'd be able to talk a GM into giving you a composure test.