Look on the adept's face when you ventilate him: Priceless.

I've always had a penchant for characters who, for one reason or another, were slightly reluctant. I'd usually end up with combat focused characters who didn't like fighting. For some reason it would annoy my group no end - like a game of CP2020 in which someone decided to start a bar fight so my Solo (the best fighter in the group by far) just walked outside and let everyone else take a beating

Definately Sammies in SR, although I've started to take a liking to hermetic mages.

Not that I actually play

Of course, most adepts take stealth +6, so if the sammy doesn't see them comming...

As starting characters, I'd say they are about even overall. Sammies make better tanks and starting speed, adepts are better stealth close quarter combat. Good with grenades too.

As a long term PC, I'd start with a physad. Then, after a lot of karma and initiation, get ware, mostly sens and reflex mods. (in the end, it is cheaper) This type of PC works really well, it just takes hooploads of karma, but they're good.
Hence why the Wildcats, Paladins, and Ghosts all use cybered physads.

Or, you could make a gun adept. Oh, or use a shotgun, and then take a special melee skill with bashing peoples head in with the stock. Then you have the best of both worlds. Firearms, and melee combat. I've actually see a few char that have used this, and it worked well.

IMHO, but I could be wrong

I just caught something that I find disturbing. Cybered PhysAds??? Bioware I can understand, but not Cyber for a PhysAd. They're supposed to have a Purity of Mind, Body, and Soul. I've read in the books that Cyberware takes away from essence which takes away from magic, so why take away any of the PhysAd abilities by giving the character cyberware.

Because not everyone metagames.

It might be that Cyber was implanted before the Adept knew he was Awakened, or even knew the consequences of implantation. It might be that the Adept thinks the advantages outweigh the disadvantage. Perhaps the Adept chooses to Geas the Magic loss.

There are any number of reasons why an Adept would implant 1 or 2 Essence Points worth of Cyber.

Incidently, Bioware also reduces Magic, (but to a lesser extent than Cyberware when using the errata'ed SR3 rules).

Because cyberware and bioware can do many, many, things better, for cheaper, than the similar/exact same Adept power. If you'd ever seen a well made cyberadept, you'd understand.

And the "purity of mind/body/spirit" is just how you see Adepts. Not necessarily how every Adept sees himself. It's a stereotype, not a rule.

> Awakened people born awakened, they don't choose... You can have hard training to improve your physical abilities, you can be stronger by your physad ability, but it doesn't mean you can't want cyberware... Every physad have his way. Some of them have a philosophical approach, others are just athletes and they just want to be better. Most of them think it's important for them to be "pure" with their mind body or soul but if it's the majority, some other think differently. Even if they lost some power some of them prefer have some piece of cyberware because they find them more efficient. As I say, some of them don't choose to be physad, some of them prefer use cyber but they use also their power (it's an advantage after all, even if it wasn't wanted). In some case physad have no choice too... an accident and you get up with a cyberarm... it's an example. And sometimes even with the "pure" way, if the characters live in a country where his culture is technophile he can see nothing wrong to have a datajack since it's common, but he can refuse heavy cyberware... (it's the case for example for my character Jia, she is korean and technophile, she have a datajack because she just can't imagine don't have one. But she stay adept and she don't want wired reflex for example).
So... I think there is nothing wrong to see physad with cyberware. It's just less common than the "pure" physad. He choose his way, that's all.
> Daegann

Here's an easy example: sink an essence point into cyberoptics, smartlink 2, and plastic bone lacing (which can all fit, if some are alpha). Then just make an Adept like normal, after that.

What do you end up with? An Adept that can shoot better (SL 2 and improved ability: weapon of choice is a nasty, and easy, combo) than a normal Adept. An Adept that can take a hit and dish out a hit better than a normal Adept (bone lacing is a two-way bonus; extra soak, plus a bonus to power which is nasty when combined with the near-mandatory Killing Hands). An Adept that has crammed all those .25 cost vision mods, and some vision mods some GM's don't let Adepts get (ultrasound, eyelight, for example), into the tiny, reasonably essence-friendly, cyberoptic package.

It's .5 just for a level of Improved Body (which mimics one function of one part of the package you just purchased). It's another .5 power point for, say Image Magnification and Flare Compensation (both of which will work exactly as the cybered versions).

Which would you rather get for your power point?

And, to be honest, I can see a lot of these same decisions being very purposefully made by an Adept, in character. If they've got military or police experience (much less elite/higher budget version of either), I imagine the temptation would be even stronger. They can directly see other people around them, people still fairly normal and human, taking advantage of technology to augment their combat effectiveness dramatically. As a professional Shadowrunner, even one that knows he's an Adept, it'd be a logical wish to be the best you can be -- does that mean "best Adept," or "best guy at doing the things an Adept does?"

Now, I'm not saying every Adept, or every character, thinks like that. I've got a "cyber adept" that got an arm blown off and is extremely bitter about the magic loss he incurred, the matte-black plastic thing that he wears from his shoulder and pretends to feel with, blah blah blah. My point, overall, is that it's up to the player (and character) in question to decide if a pinch of cyber is the right choice for them.