[baronspam]

There have been some hacker/technomancer threads lately.  I was thinking of looking at the augmented/adept dicotomy a bit.  It seems to me that Augmented has the clear edge at character creation (although  you can certainly make a playable adept, I don't think they are optimal). 

So question for discussion: do adepts have compensating factors for this.  They can improve their adept powers with karma, but it can become a horrible karma skink to add more than a couple of points of magic.  They have the advantage of being somewhat easier to heal, of not setting off MAD and cyberware scanners, etc, but those are fairly minor things.  When the rubber meets the road, they seem to be somewhat behind of the power curve.  What does anyone think?  Do the adepts ever "catch up" or do they have elements that offset the street samurai's quick and easy road to power?

[SirDelta]

As I can see it, there main advantage is that they can get more abilities than an augmented character can.  An augmented character generally has 6 points of Essence to work with (excluding Cyberzombies).  An adept has the advantage of being able to get an indefinite number of power points through initiation.  Also, they can get Metamagic, such as Adept Centering and Item Bond.  So yeah, as I see it, they can easily catch up.  I also find it easier to create an adept at creation instead of a Street Sam, but that may just be me going "But what if I need that essence later?"

[Valashar]

And the addition of the path qualities from Way of the Adept really lets adepts keep their pace with the augmented character. Being able to reduce the power point cost of related powers, and the addition of giving each path their own specific adept power. It's a good read.

[Mystic]

Yes, it has always been a gripe of mine that a starting Sammie can wipe the floor (statistically speaking) with a starting Adept.

However, I tend to see the advantages in more abstract terms. Yes, a sammie for example is a very limited character. Great if that's all you want to play. But look at some of the adept powers. One that I found a particularly interesting use for is Multi-tasking. OK, not a combat power per say, but imagine if you are say an Adept who is say a leader of some group (military, merc, standard runner team, dosent matter). Being able to read the situation, issue orders, send return fire, etc all at the same time can be a VERY good thing when the waste matter hits the occalating cooling device.

Another adept power, linguistics. Being dropped into a new territory and being able to get at least a rudimentary understanding of the local language, also a VERY good thing.

So I guess the point is, that while in raw power the adept is at a disadvanage early on, creative use of adept powers can go a long way if the player is smart and that to me is a real advantage.

[The Big Peat]

A couple of things an Adept can do that the Augmented can't...

Bump their abilities up way high. The Street Sam is limited to Reflex Recorders, where the Adept only has the limits of how many points they want to sink into it and the 1.5 limitation.

Buy weapon foci. A nice little bonus for anyone who wants to kill people face to face and also useful if the Adept wants to astrally project, which is another thing the Street Sam can't do.

Be an unarmed monster. Stuff like Critical Strike, Killing Hands, Elemental Strike and so on.

I don't think Street Sam have an analogue to Spell Resistance.

Oh yeah, they can also have Mentor Spirits... which isn't that great as they don't spell cast, but if you really want the greatest gymnastics rating known to man it might be useful.

Where Adepts look really bad in comparision is how much it costs them to get long term boosts to their attributes and initative passes - statistically, if you want those, you're far better off as a Street Sam, or as an Adept with a bit of Augmentation.

The way I see it/have been told it, Street Sam make better all round combatants - they'll be faster, stronger and tougher. But the Adept is more skillful in his chosen spheres and probably uses Boost Attribute/Berserk to temporarily help close the Attribute gap if needs be (not that they'll be able to fully do it). In particular, the Adept can get a lot of bonuses for close combat and thrown which the Street Sam can't.

[farothel]

Another adept power, linguistics. Being dropped into a new territory and being able to get at least a rudimentary understanding of the local language, also a VERY good thing.

Add the linguist positive quality to this and you get a language at 3 for no karma (1 for free from teh linguistics adept power, +2 from having the positive quality).  This is very useful if you play a travel campaign or if you're in Lagos (where you have a lot of tribes).

I find that for general 'shoot them in the face' type of combats, the street sammie will probably statistically win.  But for special situations you can do things with adept powers that no augmented can match.  For instance the nerve strike power.  I've always considered it a sort of Vulcan nerve pinch, but when you're sneaking into a facility, being able to take out the guards without shooting is very useful.  Just give them a shot of Lael/laes afterwards and drop them slumped on a nearby desk and everybody will assume he's been sleeping on duty.

And with things like astral chameleon and masking metamagic, you actually don't show up as adept, whereas a street sammie can't pass close to certain places (like airports) because of all the scanners in the place.

[UmaroVI]

Adept is like mayonnaise... not very good on its own, but it goes well with other stuff. The comparison is best done between a cybered mundane, and a cybered adept focusing on the same skills.

[Mystic]

I would also submit that it depends on the campaign played. A short term one with lots of shootie-shootie, better to go sammy for that instant gratification kind of thing. More long term where there will be no limit, adept. I played one for damn near six years, and got him so powerful I had to retire him or risk game overbalance. Thing was, I should have been dead, but I knew when to back off and when to push....also helped that he was a long range shooter first.

 

[Glyph]

Adepts lend themselves to hyper-specialization, and have some unique abilities that cannot be duplicated by technology.  Also, while sammies can't get magic, adepts can get augmentations.  Adepts with one or two points of bioware can be brutally effective, at the expense of losing some versatility.

Adepts are best at comparatively narrow roles (marksman or martial artist vs. overall combatant like a sammie), and they are also good at anti-magical roles, with powers such as spell resistance and killing hands, as well as the ability to use weapon foci.

They are actually very versatile characters - but they will come out second best if you try to build the equivalent of a street samurai with them.  Because that's not really playing to their strengths.

[baronspam]

Having reflected on it a bit, another thing that I think the adepts would be very good at would be highly boosting non-combat skills.  You can have a 20 dice infiltration pool straight out of char gen and still have enough magic left for a level of increased reflexes and a extra goodie or two.  You don't even need outrageous skills/stats to do it. (4 skill plus 4 agi plus 12 from being an adept, cost you three magic points, less if you took way of the artisan) Same trick works for pilot, mechanic, armorer, hardware, etc.  Or instead of one staggering bonus you can take two very good ones.

So I guess the idea is that for a straight up combat monster the street sami probably wins, at least until you have a dumptruck full of karma.  Adepts can be used in other ways, however, such as skill specialists, anti-spirt/anti-magic combatants, etc.

Edit: Artisan's Way adepts only get a discount with techical skills.  Invisible way adepts get a bonus with physical skills.  I picked the wrong path in my example above.

Edit again: Bloody hell, doesn't really work.  Maxium modified rating for a skill is base rating times 1.5.  There goes my supa-ninja dwarf out the window.

[Mäx]

Another adept power, linguistics. Being dropped into a new territory and being able to get at least a rudimentary understanding of the local language, also a VERY good thing.

Add the linguist positive quality to this and you get a language at 3 for no karma (1 for free from teh linguistics adept power, +2 from having the positive quality).

Only if you have a nice GM, by RAW language skills have the same 1,5*current skill augmented limit as other skills.

As for the Adepts Advantage, it's  that they can't get everything the mundane sammy can get and they can also get cool adept powers.

[Medicineman]

(4 skill plus 4 agi plus 12 from being an adept, cost you three magic points, less if you took way of the artisan)

hows that possible ?
+2 for improved Ability Infiltration......
and the other +10 ?
(maybe its too early here in Germany (07:40 ) but I don't get it)

with an early Morning Dance
Medicineman

[Glyph]

Check his second edit - he forgot about the modified limit rules.  You can get pretty high infiltration for an adept, but street sammies can hit 20 dice as well (Agility of 9 with muscle toner: 4 bought with the restricted gear quality, infiltration of 6 plus specialization, then 3 more points from the Catlike quality, a reflex recorder, and enhanced articulation - all this without stuff like exceptional Attribute, aptitude, or being an elf).

[Onion Man]

There's a lot more to any game than hitting a stupid high skill rating.

[baronspam]

There's a lot more to any game than hitting a stupid high skill rating.

Like hitting stupid high combat numbers?