[kyoto kid]

...well, discovered Adepts and Chicago mix about as well as pouring water on a grease fire.

While my  Adept  rocked in places like Seattle, Denver, and Berlin, she was not much better than a ganger or grunt in the City by the Lake.

Why?

Well there was this little incident back in the 2050's known as the Bug City/Cermak Blast affair, the fallout from which caused the surrounding area to have an ambient background count of 2 (as much as 4 and even 5 in some locales like former. bug hives).  Kind of renders a starting adept rather impotent as most powers and foci would only be in the 1 - 2 range and thus, easily cancelled out.  It's not just in the CZ either, but pretty much prevalent around most of the city (the way it sounds, maybe Kenosha, Gary, and Elgin would be "clean").

The way I look at it, among adept circles, Chicago would not be very high on the list of places to visit.  As a matter of fact, it would most likely be one of the top places to avoid like the proverbial plague. Who in their right mind would want to go into a place where one's powers and foci are pretty much useless, where there still may be straggler bug spirits and who knows what other magical threats wandering around that suddenly you'd be powerless to deal with?

I went through various build schemes and none really work all that well to even minimise let alone counter the effect. Basically one needs to have a pile of Karma to invest in initiations/bonding as well as resources to get a powerful enough weapon focus (like a Force 6 [42,000¥/18 Karma]) that wouldn't be emasculated once you stepped off the bus or train.

I realise that spellcasters have to deal with it as well, however they have a couple options to help offset the effect that adepts don't.

So if you are ever going to be in an extended campaign in the Windy City, consider bringing in a Merc or Paranormal Hunter with a very big gun, the best armour you can find (make sure it is treated for fire and electricity), and lots of APDS. You'll need it.

Chicago is no place for fancy mystical ninja types.

[adzling]

Sure it is, you just gotta go bio-adept.

Pure adept? Yeah your hosed.

Dem's da breaks for magicrun...

[kyoto kid]

...yeah, but then I might as well play a full mundane as you need ¥¥¥¥¥¥¥  for bio. Just to get an extra 2d6 to initiative costs 190,000¥. almost half your resources at priority A.  Crikey I could burn through almost twice that amount easily just purchasing bio as the prices have remained pretty much the same as they were back in the "Million ¥ Sammy" days.

Chrome has become a bit easier on the credstick, but has the big downside of not being very "Essence friendly" as well as now it is both easy for a decker to mess with or anyone/place with an MAD scanner to detect.

[Beta]

I would advise adepts to avoid Boston: Lockdown too.

I do consider it a game design problem when one character type has real advantages most of the time, balanced by being pretty terrible under certain circumstances.

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

Yeah, game design wise SR has its issues. Only "effective" counter to magic is make is so it is hard to use and make adepts crapy 'wareless street sams. Bio-adepts work fine in Chicago, but take time to develop well. Another option is home turf or letting oneself become accustomed to the background.

[Dr. Meatgrinder]

I went through various build schemes and none really work all that well to even minimise let alone counter the effect. Basically one needs to have a pile of Karma to invest in initiations/bonding as well as resources to get a powerful enough weapon focus (like a Force 6 [42,000¥/18 Karma]) that wouldn't be emasculated once you stepped off the bus or train.

To be fair, those are things you're going to invest in anyway, so it's not really that crippling.  Initiating is the easiest way for you to get more power points, so you're going to do that anyway; just give up one of those power points for the Adept Centering metamagic and you're good to go.  If you're buying a weapon focus, you're not going to be satisfied with a Force 1 or 2 anyway; you're going to buy as big a focus as you can lay your hands on.

Adepts are better at a lot of things than street sams will ever be, because of the limitations of how much money and Essence are required for top-level 'ware, and because there are so many high-force spirits in the CZ that street sams can't touch.  (As others have said, a point or two of 'ware can solve all your problems.)  Occasionally, if you're not prepared, you'll be slightly worse than a street sam.  That's the (minimal) price you pay for magic.

[Poindexter]

the best armour you can find make sure it is treated for fire and electricity

Forget that. Chemical seal and radiation protection.

[kyoto kid]

Yeah, game design wise SR has its issues. Only "effective" counter to magic is make is so it is hard to use and make adepts crapy 'wareless street sams. Bio-adepts work fine in Chicago, but take time to develop well. Another option is home turf or letting oneself become accustomed to the background.

...unfortunately  the Home Ground quality as I understand it, would only relate to a few square blocks, not the entire CZ. so that is pretty pointless to use unless you are in a very localised street level/gang based campaign.

Here I was so glad they made Adepts playable (or so I thought) but this whole background count thing makes them pretty much useless again.  Background counts used to just be annoying to spellcasters but now they cripple adepts. Disappointing as Adepts are the only awakened characters I like to play.

[kyoto kid]

I went through various build schemes and none really work all that well to even minimise let alone counter the effect. Basically one needs to have a pile of Karma to invest in initiations/bonding as well as resources to get a powerful enough weapon focus (like a Force 6 [42,000¥/18 Karma]) that wouldn't be emasculated once you stepped off the bus or train.

To be fair, those are things you're going to invest in anyway, so it's not really that crippling.  Initiating is the easiest way for you to get more power points, so you're going to do that anyway; just give up one of those power points for the Adept Centering metamagic and you're good to go.  If you're buying a weapon focus, you're not going to be satisfied with a Force 1 or 2 anyway; you're going to buy as big a focus as you can lay your hands on.

Adepts are better at a lot of things than street sams will ever be, because of the limitations of how much money and Essence are required for top-level 'ware, and because there are so many high-force spirits in the CZ that street sams can't touch.  (As others have said, a point or two of 'ware can solve all your problems.)  Occasionally, if you're not prepared, you'll be slightly worse than a street sam.  That's the (minimal) price you pay for magic.

...I understand that, the issue I have is you pretty much end up having to take a back seat for say a dozen missions or so to get to that level which is kind of dull and feels like cheating. 

Normally, adepts out of the box are already a cut or two below a chromed/bioed up beginning sammy. Not having access to most of your powers and/or foci on top of that puts the character about at the level of a ganger or grunt in comparison. What good is spending 3.5 PPs for Improved Reflexes 3 to only roll 2D6 plus your reduced initiative because the background count cancels out 2 levels of the power? Crikey, a ganger amped up on Jazz can beat you to the punch.

[ZeldaBravo]

IIRC Background counts work differently. In BC5 your initiative will be 13+4d6-5.
BCs don't decrease the levels of adept powers, they affect dicepools increased with adept powers. I may be wrong though.

[Marcus]

5th edition has very much been an edition of tech, I have said so several times before, but others for whatever reason disagree.
My recommendation is ether redo your character into tech, or just make a tech character. Alternatively there are ways to over come the BC issues, but the easiest one (Home Ground) is blocked by mission rules. The other options is very point intensive (Ways).

[kyoto kid]

IIRC Background counts work differently. In BC5 your initiative will be 13+4d6-5.
BCs don't decrease the levels of adept powers, they affect dicepools increased with adept powers. I may be wrong though.

...just posted to my missions group on this awaiting a confirmation.

Seems to me the designers went a little overboard trying to rein in magical power to the point awakened PCs are more crippled than the awakened oppos who seem to be the only ones able to use a background count to their advantage.

[kyoto kid]

5th edition has very much been an edition of tech, I have said so several times before, but others for whatever reason disagree.
My recommendation is ether redo your character into tech, or just make a tech character. Alternatively there are ways to over come the BC issues, but the easiest one (Home Ground) is blocked by mission rules. The other options is very point intensive (Ways).

...I just looked at the latest update to the Missions FAQ and it doesn't list Home Ground as a prohibited quality. However again, as I understand, it only covers a limited area so you can't claim the entire CZ is your home turf even if your character lives there.

[Lucean]

Please read up on BGC before spreading false Information.
Initiative is not a test and therefore not subject to BGC.

Furthermore claiming that adepts are below street sams without added disclaimer sounds strange, since adepts can be faster and better dodge monkeys than street sams.

[kyoto kid]

...I read through the Background Count Rules (P 32 Street Grimiore) and for several situations, the rulings sounded rather vague and inconclusive. For example in one part it mentions

"A foci will not activate in a background count".

So does that mean a count of 1 will not allow a focus to be activated no matter what it's force is?

A major part of the discussion seems to centre around types of backgrounds, anchored/quickened spells, and astral actions like assensing, perception, tracking and combat as well as Acclimation and Alignment..

It does mention that a background count "imposes" a negative dice penalty on skill tests that use "active" adept powers like Killing Hands or Improved Sense as well as the fact an adept can turn off a "passive" power (which Improved Reflexes falls under) if the penalty exceeds the "bonuses gained from their powers". For Improved Reflexes, that "bonus"  is both +1d6 and +1 to Reaction per rating of the power.   So, based on the wording in the BC rules, it can easily sound as if someone with IR 2 walks into a background count of 3, the "bonuses" from the power.would be exceeded by the penalty and the power would not grant the bonus.

As I am still new to 5th ed (the last version I played with any regularity was 3rd and that was almost a decade ago), I find it confusing and again, somewhat vague as few specific examples are illustrated and none in the case of the adept initiative power..

During the session earlier this week I couldn't get a concrete answer on this and other questions I had (after being told my character would be negatively affected by the CZ's background count) due to the time constraints we were under (only 4 hours) to complete the mission at hand, so I hope you can understand my frustration on this matter.