I got to wondering about the comparison between a samurai and a physad recently. I'm sure this has been done to

death, but here goes anyway.

I am assuming for the purpose of this test that a single player is trying to decide between the two archetypes, and

that he has a good idea of what abilities he wants - better reflexes (natch), heightened senses, better physical

stats, and a boost to Impact Armour since that's always the lowest rated (and besides, he's been reading the Ares

Viper threads again).

Since the Adept must have priority B for Magic, I am also putting resources there for the samurai, so that their

attributes and skills are identical. Both are Human: Attributes A, Resources B (Samurai)/Magic B (Adept), Skills C,

First he kits out a samurai:

Wired Reflexes (2)
Olfactory Boost (6)
Cybereyes
+Flare Comp
+Low Light
+Thermographic
Bone Lace, Ceramic
Muscle Replacement (1)

At this point the samurai has 0.1 Essence left. Okay, he's full. The player then tries the physad route:

Improved Reflexes 2
Improved Scent
Lowlight Vision
Thermographic Vision
Flare Comp
Mystic Armour (2)
Improved Str +1
Improved Quick +1

So far, they look pretty equal; but the samurai is already ahead of the game, since his Bone Lacing (Ceramic) not

only grants the +2 Impact Armour but a +1 Body for damage resistance and +3 to the Power of his unarmed attacks.

But then the player turns his attention to Bioware. He notices the Enhanced Articulation - +1 die to all his Combat,

Physical, Technical and B/R skills. Well, he's got Assault Rifles, Pistols, Martial Arts, Athletics, Stealth and

Assault Rifle B/R - hell of a good deal! And hey, if he drops Muscle Replacement 1, he can afford to get Muscle

Augmentation 2 and Muscle Toner 2 - +2 to Str and Quick, plus he's freed up another point of Essence. And this

alphaware business... make his Bone Lacing Alphaware, and he's up to 1.4 essence remaining. It takes him about a

nanosecond to add a Smartlink II to this array.

The physad would need around about 3 levels of initiation to match that (I see that Grade 0 initiate has vanished in

3rd Ed):

+2 physical stats = 1
+3 improved combat abilities = 1.5
+2 noncombat abilities = 0.5 (can't add to the B/R, and to be fair a lot of GM's wouldn't allow the Enhanced

Articulaiton to either)
He can't match the smartlink without becoming a physical magician, and I honestly don't know if that's possible - I

believe that choice has to be made at character creation.

Even if he can get into a magical group and do ordeals, that's about 30 points of Karma (40-odd if he can become a

physical mage); up to double that if there's no available group.


Bearing in mind now that as a samurai he could take a 3-point hit to his Attributes and get 1000000 nuyen in

Resources. That would let him alpha pretty much everything he's taken, giving him another point or so of Essence to

play with; he could knock a point each off of body, quickness, and strength and immediately replace the latter two

with another level each of the bioware. The samurai is so far ahead of the field, he's coasting. Just wait for the

beta-level replacements...

Back when I played Shadowrun a lot, we reduced the cost of a lot of physad powers simply because of this disparity

(also, the Improved Relexes didn't add to your Reaction in 2nd Ed, so we felt the cost should not be equal to Wired

Reflexes). Ironically, we didn't reduce the costs of anything that was taken in these examples - oh wait, I lie, we

reduced Mystic Armour to 0.25 per level.

I know that the theory is that the physad only has to "pay" Essence (well, Magic, but it amounts to the same)

whereas the samurai has to pay essence and cash, but given the examples above the samurai is still ahead of the game

since it takes the physad an average of - what - between 5 and 7 runs just to reach the same level the samurai was

at when they started. Oh, and the famous "cyberware shows up on scanners" response - well, security mages seem to be

everywhere these days, so the physad is going to be in the same state. And besides, how often do you go through

those kind of scanners in your average running career?

So I suppose what I'm getting at is, do you think this disparity is fair? And if not, what can be done about it?

I never make samurais because I hate all the accounting, number crunching, and the need to slavishly flip through M&M. I almost always make physads because it only takes 10 minutes to pick their powers.


I see the samurai power as being the reward you get for staring in M&M for an hour and trying out various numerical combinations to get the highest values for everything. Physads are there just so that lazy people like me can play.

Well, first off this disparity is not as large as you make it. Remember that most of the Adept powers you name are hands-down better than their cyberware equivalents; the natural Thermo provided by Improved Sense, for instance, is far better than cybereye thermo. Wired Reflexes make a sam jumpy, and without a reflex trigger to turn off the wires (and thus kinda negate a main point of wired reflexes in the first place) you will frequently be making serious errors in judgement, or even blowing off some kid's head in a crowded street if you're not careful and lucky.

Also, cyberware/bioware has many hidden costs that are unique to it. There are major social mods and TN mods for healing spell tests for installing cyberware. There are straight healing TN mods and lowered toxin/disease resistance for installing bioware. In truth I think there should probably be *more* penalties for installing cyberware; even the .01 Essence cyborg-man seems to be far more human than someone who's lost 99.8% of his humanity has any right to be, but I digress.

You're right, though, an adept at chargen doesn't have as many powers as a sam can have cyberware. I'm a little more concerned with the fact that the sam has much less that he can do afterward to increase his abilities. The sam's path is the risky and inherently limited one of repeated surgeries, where the adept has the relatively painless path of initiation. Add to this that there is no inherent limit to the adept's power, as there is to the sam, and you've got the makings of a debate.

Well I played a character that got up to grade 13, after a couple of years of play. It's nice being up at that level, and you don't ever run out of things to spend your points on, not to mention that most centering tests aren't too tough and no one really breaks your masking etc.

However it does get wickedly expensive to keep initiating over and over.

I'd agree that a street sam will start off generally "better" than an adept, but disagree it takes a year for the adept to catch up. Also, the adept can take a few select pieces of cyber and bioware, for the loss of a couple of points of powers, and close that gap a bit. Depending on what your character is good at, it can often be well worth losing a point of powers for one essence points worth of cyber. Bio is doubly friendly in that regard!

Let's not forget gesa either!

I made a mini-adept vs samurai comparison. My thoughts on this haven't changed.

Link

I suspect a number of my 'No equivalents' now have equivalents thanks to SOTA 2064. It isn't completely clear, but I'm trying to get across the point that a Samurai can't beat a highly specialized Adept at what an Adept specializes in, but Samurai can often beat an adept when it comes to being useful to the team due to their ability to capably fill multiple roles at once.

Of course, a Samurai has nothing on the raw tanking prowess that are Drones.

I actually did a full-on concoction of a Cybered-Samurai (literal) and a PhysAd-Samurai (also literal) (SR2 rules, I could easily convert and send them on over). At chargen, the cyber wins hands-down. Better reaction, more skills (thanks to things like Enhanced Artic., Reflex Recorder), can increase his Attributes up to their limits with the drop of a credstick (well, in chargen, at least), and generally kick a hell of a lot more ass.

Give the PhysAd some initiatory levels and he'll wipe the floor with the Cybered-Sam. Toss in a weapon focus to boot and there isn't a challenge. After a bit of karma, naturally.

The problem with characters who excel at everything right off the bat? No room for improvement. More skills, sure. But that isn't really improvement. That's expansion.

Personally, I'd go the Boosted Reflexes route over the Wired route. Boosted 3 is cheaper Essence- and nuyen-wise, and is almost the same thing as Wired 2. +2d6 +2 vs +2d6 +4. For saving a bunch of nuyen and Essence, I'd say that's pretty good. Not only that, but you can combine it with Synaptic Accelerator and have +4d6 maximum. Nifty, eh?

With Standard grade and full options (2), a character can get up to 6.67 points' worth of cyberware. To match the Essence cost of Standard grade and full options, an adept needs 12 karma (3 to join an initiatory group, 9 to initiate with a group and an ordeal).


With Alphaware and full options (5), a character can get up to 10 Essence points' worth of cyberware. To match the Essence cost of Alphaware and full options, an adept needs 47 karma (3 +9 +10 +12 +13).


With Betaware and full options (6), a character can get up to 14.29 Essence points' worth of cyberware. To match the Essence cost of Betaware and full options, an adept needs 115 karma (3 +9 +10 +12 +13 +15 +16 +18 +19).


With Deltaware and full options (8), a character can get up to 20 Essence points' worth of cyberware. To match the Essence cost of Deltaware and full options, an adept needs 235 karma (3 +9 +10 +12 +13 +15 +16 +18 +19 +20 +20 +20 +20 +20 +20).


These costs assume that the adept does not purchase any foci, nor improve any stats or attributes. If the adept takes Centering metamagic, he must expend an additional 51 karma to get 6 Centering dice, assuming that the character's Willpower is 6+. A non-Awakened character, meanwhile, will be receiving the same amount of karma as the adept, and putting it towards skills and attributes.

Adept vs Sam

An essence 6 adept is probably weaker than a sam at character creation, but if that adept is willing to install just a few points of cyber and bioware they can make up the difference.

Boosted 3 can replace Improved Reflexes 2 (with a little bit of magic to spare), and when you get enough cash and know the right people in goes a synaptic accelerator, which is better than initiating twice to upgrade from IR 2 to IR 3. Enhanced articulation is cheap bioware wise for what you get. Cultured Artwinkulation will cost you less magic than one level of IA: Athletics or Stealth. An alphaware smartlink/SL2 is fairly cheap in both essence and money compared to the benefit. Even if you can't afford to put another .4 hole in your soul, you can still go the smartgoggle route for 0 points of essence and the trade off of receiving only a -1 to your TN's.

At character gen, a samarai will probably be able to wipe the floor with an adept. After that point the sam can only significantly expand his abilities by spending money, but the adept has a productive outlet for both money and karma. Smart selection of cyberware, bioware, and magic enables an adept to get the best of both worlds.

An adept will usually be able to kick a sammie's hindquarters in his area of specialty, but be outclassed in other areas. For your particular player's character, I would recommend a street samurai, since he seems to want a generalist. When you try to create a generalist adept, you tend to wind up with a second-rate sammie.

I dunno - with the SOTA 2064 book, an adept can actually be a pretty slick generalist.

As others have pointed out, a cyber-junkie will be initially more useful and potent at char-gen, but an adept can be equally flexible if played creatively.

And as WR pointed out, the endless number-crunching to make sure your sammie's toys come in under budget just gets tedious after a while.

-Siege

SOTA:64 allows adepts to specialize in a wider variety of fields. adepts just don't have enough karma to be true generalists--the cost of raising new skills is too high.

i'm not complaining; i think adepts work just fine as specialists. but they are, and remain, specialists.

that really depends on how you define 'weaker'. in most fields, a samurai will best an adept--except in the adept's chosen field, in which the samurai can't even be considered competition.

Generally speaking, a character can get more flexability from low amounts of cyber than he can from the magic of an adept - until, of course, SotA '64.

If you want to weigh the numbers, the cyber-generalist comes out ahead in terms of starting cash, skills or attributes, depending on how the player spends his (or her) points.

However, with a creative player, the generalist adept has some potential uses as well, although significantly more limited initially.

-Siege

The problem is partly you designed the core of the Sammy and then made the phisad to match.

Try taking a point of magic loss (frag take a geasa) and install a smart link 2 and a couple of other toys of your choice. IA in your preferred weapon type.

With things like IA a phisad will be better at something than a street sam. Also h will not take the social penalties for excessive cyber. With what I have red about sota 2064 almost everything is now available but you wont have the points to do it all.

The sam will still be good at more things but the pizad will rull his aria of expertise.

Edward

This is my opnion on the matter, bearing in mind that this is all pre-SOTA 2064 (which I do not have and cannot comment).

A cyber-samurai would have, straight off the bat, a penalty to his social interactions unless Intimidation. Not so general anymore is he? He is also more vulnerable to cyber Stress and Toxin/Diseases. And that is if his Bio Index didn't exceed his Essense Index. Again not so general already.

Consider also the terrain: Urban/Forest/Jungle(no reduction in effectiveness for either), Desert, Polar, Space, Undersea.

OK, Urban/Forest/Jungle might have a background count, so the adept's powers may not be working at their full efficiency. How much Background count? 1-2 is a good number, you think? So he can use only 4 levels of Improved Ability, but consider that an adept could have geased(like a Sam could have Alphaed his cyber) that IA, he probably wouldn't have more than 4 levels anyway.

Next, Desert. Cyber Stress anyone?

Polar, same difficulties for both.

Space, Adept losses big time. But the cyber will have to jump through more hoops in a circus to get up there. So it is a draw.

Undersea, same as desert.

A cybered sam could get Alpha Cyber and Cultured bio (some). An adept could geas (and he could do some "creative" geasing). So let us compare, a cyber character can cram in 7.4(about) worth of cyber and 4 points of Bio(think Cultured). An adept can cram in 8 point of Powers. Oh, and the cyber guy can forget about Heal/Treat.

Therefore I believe that a cyber character isn't really that good a generalist as generally believed to be.

actually, background count doesn't affect adept powers, except for Attribute Boost, which is affected by the increased drain. Centering is also affected by the TN mod, but starting adepts don't have that.

Keep in mind, an adept only needs to "turn to cyberware" in certain areas that cyberware offers a specific edge - in this case, smartlinks.

No adept power offers a bonus to weapons or specifically firearms with the exception of IA dice.

So if the adept wants to be a gun bunny, (s)he turns to 'ware. The same with mages, until the advent of "Improved Aim."

-Siege

Er, where does it mention how a background count can affect an adept? I can't find the reference anywhere. I know it adds to magical target numbers, and mana warps can do even nastier things to people who cast spells, but adepts do neither.

IMHO, the Sammie is usually better at the start of the game. But an Adept with enough time and pacience will beat out a Sammie any day. I mean costs alone for anything above Alpha are prohibitive. If the GM also allows you to buy Karma with your nuyen, then playing an adept IMHO is even better.

Now I don't have SOTA 64 yet, so I don't know how much better it is to play with an Adept now.

And I do agree giving yourself 1,000,000 in resources and then having to spend it all is a major drag. I prefer just playing an adept; a tiger shapeshifter adept !

The only time I start losing ideas of stuff to buy is when I've got everything that fits. Then I either start Alpha-ing, buying contacts, lifestyle, more ammo... Or put it into useless things.

Although, I've been known to easily blow through 2mil and still want more.

Interesting - do you have a page reference?

I was under the impression adepts were immune to background counts unless the adept invoked a spell.

-Siege

that's in the mana warps section, toturi. mana warps are background counts of rating 5-6, and they're not exactly common.

...unless you're in Australia.

Go, Sensing!

Backgroud count doesn't decrease magic attribute, it just screws with manipulations of mana IE: makes it harder to cast spells/drain.

As for my humble opinion on the matter, Cyberjunks tend to hit the ground running a lot faster (figuratively speaking) than adepts, but adepts have the advantage of unlimited potential.

At MAX, a cyberjunk can install 12 essence worth of cyberware (well... 11.99). Period. As far as a PC is concerned, there is NO going over that, and even merely approaching it is ridiculously daunting, considering it would take all deltaware.
Adepts, however, can keep initiating til the day they die, or stop gaining karma. It's not unheard of in the games I play for characters to have a magic attribute of 15 or higher. The highest I've ever seen is a grade 14 initiate... so it's at least do-able.
Yes, it takes more and more karma to keep initiating, but karma is the one thing you are always gauranteed to get for going on a run. Cyberjunks, on the other hand, take a ridiculously disproportionate amount of nuyen to upgrade their 'ware. Upgrading a piece o' 'ware from alpha to beta costs two times the original cost of the 'ware. It's like you're buying an entire new piece of alphaware. I mean... if we're talking about a smartlink here, then big whoop, you're out what? 30... 40k with surgery costs? But if we're talking about upgrading wired reflexes, or Titanium bone lacing, or Boosted, or Dermal Sheathing... then you're talking about several hundred thousand nuyen or even up to a million or more. I know it's not unheard of, but SR chars in general just don't seem to be that rich.

And there's always the chance that your doc will botch the surgery. If you're lucky, you'll just walk away with a scar or three.

This is not even taking into account the matter of locating beta-grade 'ware, or the facilities to install it.

Ok this reply is long-winded enough, I'm shutting up now. But yeah, I guess I'm saying that I favor the unlimited potential of adepts to the broad-based and immediate goodness of cyberjunks.

well, like my numbers on the previous page show, that "unlimited potential" can take quite a long time to kick in. how many games do you know of that last into the hundreds of karma?

according to my calculations, the max is 20 essence. deltaware, plus 8 surgery options, equals a final multiplier of 0.3.

Then shouldn't it be only 0.40 multiplier.

how do you figure (literally)?
deltaware = 0.5 multiplier
8 options at 0.05 each = 0.4 reduction = 0.6 multiplier
0.5 * 0.6 = 0.3
6 divided by 0.3 = 20.

Given that each option maybe taken twice, shouldn't that be only -

Delta - 0.5
Twice Essense Reduction - 0.1
Total - 0.6

Unless you are saying that Delta is not a "similar" adjustment.

Hey, you're already required to get 11 successes... Might as well go for broke and shoot for the TN 12, right?

ah, i see what you mean. i dunno, i'd always read "twice" as "over and over again". not exactly the strictest interpretation, i guess.

However, you got to find a Doc with Biotech 8 with a Medical Clinic of Rating 8. And pray the GM doesn't choose Essense Cost twice -you didn't think you get to choose the negative options did you?

Note- sorry about my last post changing... I accidentally deleted it due to a touchpad malfunction of my laptop. I don't know if anyone noticed, but I still feel dumb.
My general jist before delete, though, was something like I would rule that "twice" means twice and only twice, because otherwise you could install standard-grade cyberware at the essence cost of beta-grade, which is ridiculous (although still requires a good surgeon).

yeah, but with a doctor that can perform deltaware surgery, those aren't really an issue. and, 'sides, i'm just talking the maximum possible.

The max is still 0.4. Barring any Essense Cost options.

debatable. you can say "i can do that twice", and mean "i can do that over and over again", which is how i've always read that sentence. regardless, 13.3 essence worth of cyber is still quite a bit.

twice = repeatedly? Perhaps my English faulty, but it is not that bad.

It doesn't say "more than once," but "twice," meaning two times. Period.

Maybe mfb's native language isn't English and isn't familiar with the nuances of the language.