[Kincaid]

The spirit issue is partly why my build has a melee weapon skill--shooting them can be tricky.

Land of Promise has lots of good info regarding Tir, it serves as an update to the 2nd edition sourcebook.

[MortimerBane]

Aranador made an interesting Orc Merc that you might want to look at.  I took it apart and put it back together into a great character.  I've been to busy to get it all together and post it, but he will be coming in the next week or so.  Anyway, look at his numbers then play around with different mentor spirits and their bonuses.  The way Aranador puts Skills at top priority means that although his adept has 4 initiative dice and whatever weapon skills he wants he still has enough points to take him out of the realm of the one trick pony.  I like my characters to be able to do 3 things.... 1) Something to do in combat (great combat skills and high dice pools).  2)  Some other role while on the mission but out of combat.  3)  Some role for the group while on downtime.  I don't like combat monkey's... they are like role playing The Gimp from Pulp Fiction.  You just take em out of the box every once in a while for combat.  So boring to play. 

Aranador's Merc:   http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=15869.0

So here's how I am building my adepts skills....

Combat Component... (for In Combat)

Firearms (group)  6
Unarmed  4
Archery (bows) 4
Blades (tomahawks) 4
Thrown 2

B&E Component...  (role while on mission but out of combat)

Locksmith (Maglocks) 4
Hardware (Security Systems) 2

Armorer Component... (role while on downtime, in between missions)

Armorer (Firearms) 4

So there's his 3 roles making him fun to play no matter what stage of the mission you are on.... but that's not nearly all he does...

Face Component... (Oh yes, he can negotiate his own jobs and have enough dice to buy/fence his own gear!!!)

Influence (Skill Group) 4

And... just to add some icing on his cake we'll finish out his skills with ....

Perception 4
Sneak 4
Pilot: Ground (Wheeled) 2
Tracking 2
Navigation 2
Survival 2
(Yes, I know those are all from the same skill group, but I used all 10 group points so I listed these separately, the way they were paid for.)

Also note that there were a lot of specializations taken.  I purchased these with Karma.  And let me appologise again for not posting the entire char sheet.... I promise it will come soon.  This is the perfect charracter to replace your street sam and all his roles just as well if not better, while allowing more roles which in turn makes him much more fulfilling to play than The Gimp.

Crap.... I almost forgot....  He also has
Con (fast talk) 2
Gymnastics (Climbing) 2
Running 2

Oops

P.S. His stats end up as ...
Body 4
Agility 6
Strength 5
Reaction 5
Willpower 3
Logic 4
Intuition 4
Charisma 4

Again, I'll show how I came up with these incredible stats AND so many great skills in another posting.  I'm going out of town for a couple weeks on Monday so I'll try my best to get it posted before then.  If not, I'll get it up as soon as I get back.

[OneofSorrow]

Hey Lucean can you point me to the pages where it says that I can do that?  I'd like to be able to reference it for my GM down the road, please and thank you by the way. 

As for wanting to be from the land of promise I would recommend actually having knowledge of the Tir, that is a skill that means you were either heavy into the politics or not, skills such as etiquette or negotiations might reflect your business heritage. If you had to be kicked our or smuggled to Seattle I suggest having gang knowledge specialized in the ancients because they are usually keen to pick up Tir refuges and a adept is a nice addition to any gang.  Try and decide what you do with your spare time be it watching action trids to clubbing with friends or just relaxing cause that will define who you are when you have down time.  Believe it or not runners don't go straight into the next job the moment they get their pay checks, it could be days, weeks or months before you get a call from your fixer and you'll either be honing your skills or doing hobbies.  My Gun Adept likes to shoot pool in seedy dive bars and is a pretty good hustler. 

[Michael Chandra]

Hey Lucean can you point me to the pages where it says that I can do that?  I'd like to be able to reference it for my GM down the road, please and thank you by the way. 

Do what? Hurt spirits with normal guns? Materialized Spirits have Immunity Against Normal Weapons, which acts as Hardened Armor, so non-magical damage must be great enough to pierce and armor-after-AP gives auto-hits as well.

[Lucean]

Hey Lucean can you point me to the pages where it says that I can do that?  I'd like to be able to reference it for my GM down the road, please and thank you by the way. 

You mean being able to actually hurt them?
All spirits have "Immunity to Normal Weapons" (pg. 398) but since this trait behaves like "Hardened Armor" (pg 397), we see, that we just have to do enough damage with an attack, to actually break the immunity.
The Hardened Armor of each Spirit equals its Essence, which equals its Force, so Force 6 translates to Hardened Armor 12. So you need to deal at least 13 damage (less for each point of AP), the spirit has to make a damage resistance test.
Hardened Armor further states, that half of the armor rating is applied as automatic hits on this test. So when you have 0AP, the spirit would start with 6 damage already soaked and roll with BOD+12.

So when you have the appropriate weapons, ammunition and skill, you can face a spirit without need of a weapon focus.
Edit: Of course, long-winded postings attract ninjas ...

[Michael Chandra]

Actually, just like when penetrating normal armor, it's >= nowadays, rather than >. I believe it basically applies everywhere, but isn't always stated properly.

[Lucean]

Well, they seem to have three different wordings in three different places.

Armor (p 168):

If the modified Damage Value (DV) of an attack causing Physical damage is less than the APmodified armor rating, then the attack causes Stun damage instead of Physical damage.

Hardened Armor (p 397):

If the modified Damage Value of an attack is less than the Hardened Armor rating (modified by AP), the attack does no damage.
If the modified Damage Value of an attack is greater than the Hardened Armor rating (modified by AP), then perform a Damage Resistance test for the critter as normal.

No mentioning what happens, if modified DV equals modified Hardened Armor.

Immunity to Normal Weapons (p 398):

This means that if the modified Damage Value of the attack does not exceed the Immunity’s rating, then the attack automatically does no damage.

But this seems clear cut. DV has to be greater for it to matter.

[Michael Chandra]

Except that, as I noted, Immunity is sloppy in its recap. And SR5 switched from > to >= in normal attacks, so it'd make little sense for it to not do so in other attacks.

[Lucean]

But since Hardened Armor only mentions ">" and the recap of Immunity is explicitely spelled out, I see a clear case of RAW.
That it works differently for normal attacks may be intentional, I don't know of an official RAI-statement.

[Michael Chandra]

So are you arguing then that Immunity ignores AP? Because its description doesn't mention modified Armor. And either its description is sloppy and you can't draw conclusions from it, or its description is top-notch and it goes both at > and ignores AP, unlike Hardened Armor.

[Elektrycerze3]

I see a clear case of RAW.

Not that clear:

Effectively, the critter has a Hardened Armor rating equal to twice its Essence against that particular kind of damage (see Hardened Armor, p. 397).
This means that if the modified Damage Value of the attack does not exceed the Immunity’s rating, then the attack automatically does no damage.

It can be argued, that the bold part (emphasis mine) and the sentence that follow is there just to remind the reader how the Hardened Armor works in general, not as a modification of the rules.

One might certainly read it your way, but I can't say it's crystal clear.

[ProfessorCirno]

One bit of general advice to add to this, I see a lot of people aying "Oh and grab a force 4 Qi Foci to boost Improved Initiative!"

Do not do this.

Oh my god, do not do this, this is terrible advice!

Qi Foci are your versatility.  You cannot cram in as many permanent small bonuses like a 'wared up character can, but you can do them one at a time.  Look through your power list and think about what you want to ALWAYS be activated (LIKE INITIATIVE), and then do not put these on foci.  Now look at stuff that's more situational; your Light Body, your sensory boosts, etc, etc.  This is PERFECT for Qi Foci.

The big thing with Qi Foci is that you can swap between them.  Time to do some tense mobility?  Switch to Light Body.  Now you're in the corp building and you need to grab that key card the suit over there is wearing while concealing the pistol in your pocket?  Switch to Light Touch.  Qi Foci = versatility.  Pound this in.

This also ensures you don't hit situations like mana barriers and suddenly fine, oh no, my awesome initiative is now terrible because I foolishly put it on my qi focus!

[ZeConster]

One bit of general advice to add to this, I see a lot of people aying "Oh and grab a force 4 Qi Foci to boost Improved Initiative!"

Do not do this.

Oh my god, do not do this, this is terrible advice!

Qi Foci are your versatility.  You cannot cram in as many permanent small bonuses like a 'wared up character can, but you can do them one at a time.  Look through your power list and think about what you want to ALWAYS be activated (LIKE INITIATIVE), and then do not put these on foci.  Now look at stuff that's more situational; your Light Body, your sensory boosts, etc, etc.  This is PERFECT for Qi Foci.

The big thing with Qi Foci is that you can swap between them.  Time to do some tense mobility?  Switch to Light Body.  Now you're in the corp building and you need to grab that key card the suit over there is wearing while concealing the pistol in your pocket?  Switch to Light Touch.  Qi Foci = versatility.  Pound this in.

This also ensures you don't hit situations like mana barriers and suddenly fine, oh no, my awesome initiative is now terrible because I foolishly put it on my qi focus!

You seem to have missed the part where both Csjarrat and I (the ones who recommended a Force 4 Qi Focus for +1 Improved Initiative and 1 or 2 ranks through PP) didn't recommend any utility powers with PP. If you had noticed that, I doubt you would have been so overdramatic.

[ProfessorCirno]

One bit of general advice to add to this, I see a lot of people aying "Oh and grab a force 4 Qi Foci to boost Improved Initiative!"

Do not do this.

Oh my god, do not do this, this is terrible advice!

Qi Foci are your versatility.  You cannot cram in as many permanent small bonuses like a 'wared up character can, but you can do them one at a time.  Look through your power list and think about what you want to ALWAYS be activated (LIKE INITIATIVE), and then do not put these on foci.  Now look at stuff that's more situational; your Light Body, your sensory boosts, etc, etc.  This is PERFECT for Qi Foci.

The big thing with Qi Foci is that you can swap between them.  Time to do some tense mobility?  Switch to Light Body.  Now you're in the corp building and you need to grab that key card the suit over there is wearing while concealing the pistol in your pocket?  Switch to Light Touch.  Qi Foci = versatility.  Pound this in.

This also ensures you don't hit situations like mana barriers and suddenly fine, oh no, my awesome initiative is now terrible because I foolishly put it on my qi focus!

You seem to have missed the part where both Csjarrat and I (the ones who recommended a Force 4 Qi Focus for +1 Improved Initiative and 1 or 2 ranks through PP) didn't recommend any utility powers with PP. If you had noticed that, I doubt you would have been so overdramatic.

I feel you're missing the problem.

If all you do with Qi Foci is buy one at force 4 and that's it, the end, you're losing a ton of versatility and you're tying one of your more important powers to something that can get shut off.  That's the issue.

[ZeConster]

I feel you're missing the problem.

If all you do with Qi Foci is buy one at force 4 and that's it, the end, you're losing a ton of versatility and you're tying one of your more important powers to something that can get shut off.  That's the issue.

You do realize it's impossible to get a Force 4 Improved Reflexes Qi Focus unless you already have ranks in it, right? So you'd already have decent Initiative, and you can max it when needed.
Anyway, we were talking about fresh out of chargen: it's easy enough to pick up more foci later. Plus for real versatility you'll want some expensive powers in some of them, since there's a limit to how many you can have bonded.