Our GM now refuses to accept metavariants in combination with Surge. I created an fomori-mystic adept with 5 power points (hardmaxed magic) and i urgently need a higher agility. I am not going to implant ´ware and i lack spellcasting skills. I also spent most of my quality points (10 for mystic adept, 10 for "way of the adept", 5 for mentor spirit) so i don´t have the 20BP left that would be needed for the exceptional attribute (agility). I planned to ask the GM for a medium rating 2 surge, only to get metagenetic agility, nothing freakish or something else. IF he declines, do you see how to manage to raise the attribute anyway and save the build?

I would suggest using Adrenaline Surge Attribute Boost. Yes you don't have a lot of dice for it on a Mysad (although arguably your powers take your full magic attribute, not just whatever you didn't devote to casting), and yes you have to keep refreshing it, but it works reasonably well for me.

Your GM probably won't let you use Geas-learning, if he's already concerned about overpowered stuff, but that of course always helps.

Disclaimer: I'm personally biased against SURGE, Infected and Metavariants. To me, it's like they stand for "the species is the character concept", as well as somewhat cheesy powergaming. I'm not saying that's what you are doing, just my biases in general. No offense meant

How high an Agility do you want? You can get pretty high without resorting to The Strange. Agility 5 is nice, 6-7 is good, and 8-9 is really quite high. Of course, elves are even curvier.

I like Muscle Toner. It's reasonably affordable and at 0.2 Essence per point, more efficient than spending Power Points on it. Restricted Gear and R4 Muscle Toner costs 8.2 BP, add about 10BP for "Magic" - then you've saved 21.8BP over trying to do the same with Magic or mundane Attribute-buying.

Version A: cheapass
Softmax Agility to 5 (40BP), Restricted Gear (5BP), R4 Muscle Toner (3.2BP), compensate a point of Magic (10BP): 58.2BP and 0.8 Essence for Agility 9

Version B: expensive but bigger
Elf (30BP), Genetic Optimization (9BP) Hardmax Agility to 8 (75BP), Restricted Gear (5BP), R4 Muscle Toner (3.2BP), compensate a point of Magic (10BP): 132.2BP and 1.0 Essence for Agility 12, +2 Charisma and Low-Light Vision.

Well, as you can see, there's some diminishing returns when you push past 9.

The problem is, that trolls get a -1 reduction in agility. So 7 would already be absolute augmented max. The goal of this build would be to become at least as "flexible" as a human or ork char. This means max. natural agility 6, augmented 9. The char. is intended to be some kind of tank, so i don´t want to switch the metatype. I could go back to standard-troll, but orks, elves etc. are no option. Because ware etc. is no option (genetic optim. also costs essence) there is not much left. I can either go for regular troll and max. surge (but in this case i lack the arcane arrester) or i stick with fomori and find another solution...

Maybe i can convince the GM to let me switch the metagenetic body for metagenetic agility?

Ok, sorry, well I totally didn't see that problem..

Wish-list: fomori adept with agility 6 as racial max. but without surge and ware. I only know about genetic optimization, surge and the quality that raise natural maximums...but all are not available. Any alternative solution is welcome.

So basically you want all the benefits of a troll (variant) without the downsides?

Looks like it...

In a topic called "Preventing of Powergaming", no less.

why not just get Attribute Boost [Agility]. with a softmax Agi of 4, you'll end up at 5 to 8 depending on luck.

Well, he will still max out at 7, regardless of Luck. Maximum Augmented is still Maximum Augmented after all.

What do you need a 6(9) cap on agility for? If you aren't spellcasting nor using cyberware, what's your plan on raising your agility? Sure it's neat and all to the theoretical max as a human or ork, but what are you going to do with it? Have a friend sustain an increase agility on you? Otherwise you're only down 1 point of agility (softcap 4 versus 5 or hardcap 5 versus 6) which isn't that big.

If you're planning a possession build, then yeah you're losing 2 dice on agility. That isn't so bad. It's less than a hit on average. I would just live with it.

Edit- Removed comment

typo *g*. wanted to write 5 to 7, ofc

and 7 is fine. there are no more ways to increase your max attribute than the already mentioned.

Yeah... I am often fine with Agility in the 5-7 range. That is downright good in fact.
There is a drug or two that can increase Agility as well, if I remember correctly. Temporary, but useful.

Aaah, they got me. Ok, lets specify a little more detailed: "less powergaming". As an mysad with focus in adept powers, agility is important. I can live with reductions in charisma, logic and intuition, but agility? No way. ^^

So.... Don't play a Troll or Troll variant. Play an Elf (or Elf variant) instead.

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein
But elf variant do not give you a +4 to Body, you know.




Well, I guess he knows why...

Powergaming for life^^

be a gnome. increased body, normal agi, arcane arrester

Yeah, but all powergaming fades at the thought of playing an DWARF....baaaah.^^

Sure, but you don't suffer with Agility... Which is apparently the concern...

BUT you suffer with Reaction. Not a good trade. AND with running speed...drastically. You suffer with strenght...and body...and mean nasty DWARF JOKES!!!!! The WORST^^

Well, Dwarfs are short... what do you expect?

in my home group there was never one dwarf joke. because i have been the shortest of the group in RL for two decades now, I can play always dwarf as they stopped making short people jokes towards my direction 1.5 decades ago
I think that's actually bad roleplaying by them

Definitely, i think everybody in our group tried at least one time to play a dwarf-character...and no single one lasted more than 2 runs. We have a LOT of dwarf-jokes...^^

And no dump troll or gay elf jokes?

I mean dwarf are small, so...

They don't get a logic mali after all.

elf-jokes are fine, but most of them are magically active...so beware.

Troll and ork-jokes seem quite logical, but they are strong. And do YOU want to get over there and tell him how ugly he is?^^

Dwarfs are strong too.

No but nothing beats telling a ork.
Well, I will but some flowers on the grave of your grand children.

This thread reminds me of "will you do my homework for me?" on Yahoo answers.

How about you just tell the GM your situation and offer to pay 10 build points of exceptional attribute before as a sort of down payment. When you pay the rest off in game (20 karma for the 10 build points not payed) then you get the quality but nothing before then. Almost exceptional attribute. Like getting latent awakening. He could even charge you an extra 5 karma to keep everything fair.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This... very much this... fomori are bad enough and should be banned, let alone surged.

Also consider there is a reason your GM nixed the Fomori. Trying to get around that reason may make create an antagonistic relationship between you and you GM. There are no stats that will save you from that.

Maybe you should just suck it up and not try to make a character that's good at everything.

So your games won't allow the Combat Hacker/Rigger Face Mage, Critias?

[This was the right quote.]

Hmm... in the past, with SR3, a dwarf joke too many about the albino dwarven mage would quickly end up with a TPK and the dwarf standing grinning over their smouldering corpses. But then of course that's basically the same thing. [Duh, I quoted the wrong post at first]


I had it worse, my gothic albino dwarven cybermage was infected with hairy-butt disease, and that's when the jokes really started.

Dwarves make good casters due to willpower, have high Strength and are at the ideal length to punch you in the crotch.. make jokes at your own peril

Honestly, an Ork has almost as much body, only lacking a single point plus the dermal armor. Why is this a problem to play an ork instead?

Also, why are you taking Mystic Adept if you aren't doing spellcasting? Seems like a waste of 5bp.

Honestly, you sound like you're trying to create some kind of do-everything ultimate badass. You need to pick a direction. Tanks generally aren't super agile. Super agility characters usually aren't there to stand and take damage. Pick one and roll with it.

@Jhaiisiin
Because he took a fomori.
This back holds:
Smaller (lesser Problems), one additional point of Body and Arcan arrester.
(There is no orc variant with those benefits. The best Orc variant is the oger or may be the Satyr.)
But nothing there is able to beat that troll.

Lets but it like that:
What the pixie is for the caster, the fomori is for the tank.

While the importance of attributes in uncontested, I still don't quite understand why the two dice are such a big deal: He wants to be a tank, sure enough. So he obviously won't be a 30 Dice elf gunbunny.
Still, for a mysad, there are ways to get more dice on your attacks. There is also posession/channelling, which breaks the max stats by default, and which you can do as a mysad. (At least there are many indications it's supposed to, while not being explicitly spelled out.)

So while I think it's a definite compromise, it's just one you have to make when you want to play a Fomori without shenanigans.

No, it does not if you consult the FAQ. It was open for debate.

This. I go all the way up to around 9 Agility & Reaction on virtually every Samurai I create and I still find this a touch brazen.

This is nothing in comparison to what i usually play if i have completely free hands. I already refused to surge...big step in my progress to get away from real powergaming^^

"Downscaled" powergaming... play an augmented spellcaster with a bunch of sustaining foci (health) and boosting spells. Fomori are not a good choice here (Arcane Arrester), so go Ogre.

Getting a fomori up to 9 Agility is normally no biggie - either get metagenetic improvement to Agility, or some geneware, and add muscle toner: 4. But doing it with no SURGE and no 'ware is kind of a different beast. Honestly, if you are playing a tank, an Agility of 7 is fine. Get a 4 or 5, then get Agility Boost: 1 (you will almost always boost Agility to 7, and you will almost always soak the Drain). Give up on the 9 Agility - if you find some way to get it, odds are your GM will just nix the character anyways.

If you're playing a Tank, you want to prioritize Reaction over Agility, anyway.

Each net hit on the defense is worth about 3 hits(on average) on the soak/damage resistance test. And what do you roll for defense? Reaction.

Having a lower Agility cap can be made up for in other areas. Higher skill, specializations, reflex recorders, tacnets(rating one works with just a smartlink, for example), personalized grips on melee weapons, some geneware like synch(or is it reakt) adds to general combat tests, or just plain old wide burst fire. To name a few.

An interesting idea if you're trying to avoid min-maxing: make a character using just SR4A, no splats. Or even less min-max capable: pick a pregen. Why bang your head against the GM's fear filters when any character can be fun to play?

Note: I'm not against power gaming, just the idea of trying to power game (and even soliciting help from others) when the GM is uncomfortable with it.

This was the intention for this topic. The GM feels uncomfortabel with class 3 surge metavariants that use restricted gear and possession magic...so i tried to reduce the powergaming a little bit but this doesn´t mean that i want to play a sore loser. I thought about a combat-character that is capable of doing the tank-job. So a troll is definitely preferable. If you want to be a real tank, you should also bring along some resistance to magic...so magical capabilities are the thing to go. Because i cannot do metavariant and surge alltogether, i had to choose and took the fomorian. But the problem with a troll is the relatively low agility and for this problem i needed a solution. Acutal status is "exceptional attribute - agility" for 20BP, i dropped "way of the adept" for the moment (buy it later in game) and i would also switch the metagenetical increase in body for the same increase but in charisma. So he is tough enough and can deal some damage in the future. Is that still powergaming?

I've always thought it'd be darkly hilarious for a Fomori Supremacist group to form and pick on other trolls (and possibly, well, on EVERYONE).

They're only the most optimal metavariant in a sea of more-optimal-than-base metavariants. By a longshot. So they do kind of have a whiff of cheese to them, despite being kind of cool and undeniably kickass. And they've been part of the game for years upon years, so it's not like you're exploiting anything a great many SR players have exploited before ye.

But no, taking exceptional agility for a fomori (or any troll, really...) isn't powergamey in the slightest. Though you should, as with any other character, play up just how vital that dedication to being above and beyond in an attribute is to your character's...well, character. Years of training, if won through hard work, or how they've always been gifted in that one area, winning competitions or games with their peers (sports, for instance), etc.

But that's no different than any other "big" quality for any given character, really.

You still have 10bp worth of positive qualities to spend.

Go for Genetic Heritage - Genetic Optimization (Agility)

Since it's inherited, there's arguably no Essence loss.

At the very least, the essence loss would occur before awakening, so you wouldn't have to pay for the lost magic point since essence loss before awakening does not reduce starting magic, only maximum magic. So, you'd be sort of like an Infected where your starting essence is below 6, but you don't have to pay for the lost magic to go with the lost essence. That loophole could potentially free up 10bp you could spend on .8 essence of ware/treatments to make up for the lost PPs.

Really though, just get a tac-net or something. 7 Agility is enough.

What does a tacnet do? Have no books around.