[KingOldBoy24]

I have just started playing shadowrun and I was wondering if I can change my adept powers after creation, like can I change my Improved Reflexes 2 into Improved Reflexes 1 to get more adept points?

[Critias]

Normally, no.  Adept powers can only go up (so that if you start with Improved Reflexes 1, and later gain more Power Points, you can just "upgrade" to Improved Reflexes 2). 

That said, if you're wanting to make a change to your character because something just isn't working out the way you thought it would, I imagine if you talk to your GM, s/he might just let you make a change.  Especially as someone that's new to the game, if you thought a power worked one way, or you thought you needed X ranks in it, or you just discovered a new power you think would be cooler?  Well, just chat with your GM, explain why you'd like to swap out one for another (or whatever it is you want to do), and the odds are good they should let you do so.

The first few sessions have a steep, steep, learning curve!  I encourage GMs to be flexible and let folks make changes (whether you're talking Adept powers or anything else), and let players get their feet under 'em.

[KingOldBoy24]

Thank you very much.

[Critias]

Thank you very much.

No problem.  Holler if you have any more questions!

[Xzylvador]

If your GM says "no", tell him the author on the book on Adepts personally told you he should be saying "yes"!

[Falconer]

Xylvador... that's the kind of thing which is singularly unhelpful to GM's.   It makes things more adversarial.  Even in this case... Critias was clear that it's generally not done... but as a new player his GM may give him some slack with respeccing early on.

If his GM says no... he has a reason for it.  He doesn't need some 3rd party telling his players to take him to task.  Especially on a forum like this where the general advice is for how best to powergame anything.


KingOld:
Generally the only way to 'lose' adept powers once chosen is to lose magic (from something like essence loss).  The most common case of this I generally see is this one... they start the game off with Increase Reflexes 1... then buy synaptic 3 after the games gone a little while (and they have 240k, the contacts, and time to do it).   Then as part of their 2 point loss of magic... they normally lose the increase ref and 0.5PP more.


Any & everyone...
Might make for a good thing to do as part of an initiation... at initiation you can choose to respec up to your initiate grade in power points.  Work well as part of some life changing event capstoned by the initation.   Just a rough cut idea.

[Xzylvador]

Hey, I was just joking!

Respec initiation sounds a bit too MMO-ish to me, but that might be my allergies acting up.

But imo, this should be a kind of thing you should always be able to talk to your GM about, no matter if you're new to the game or rusty old veterans.
Being 'stuck' with something a player isn't happy about, will lead to players not enjoying their characters and not enjoying the game, which will inevitably "leak" into the game and make it less fun for all the other players and the GM him(her?)self. It's still a game and everyone's supposed to be enjoying it. Unless it's extremely unreasonable, a GM should be able to find a way to fix the players' problem with their character no matter what it is.
I'm not saying your character should be able to *poof* magically transform from a troll into an elf overnight, but if you picked a power or chose an adepts way or something that you're -really- not happy with, a GM could (and imo should) come up with an ingame solution. Doesn't have to be immediately, but something like "Don't worry about it, Bob. Have your character have all his contacts pull all their contacts and maybe someone will come up with a solution. Probably won't be the cheapest thing he's ever done, but in a couple of weeks, someone might have found a ritual/surgery/item to ...."

[Falconer]

Yes but by the same token.   You have a street sam... he buys the influence group at 2.

Suddenly 3 mo's later he realizes he wants stealth instead?   Do you simply have him buy it up with 20 karma.. or allow him to respec.   Just because one is magic and the other isn't?  From a game continuity standpoint... it's far easier to simply buy it up and have both.  (and good reasons to have a point or two in both)

The reason I brainstormed as an option for initiation was more or less... magic it's very easy to get into a case where it's going to cost 100 karma to buy up more magic to buy new powers.   Initation on the other hand is cheap but with enough cost to make people think twice about doing it too much.  (would you rather initiate and get a metamagic, an extra PP, or very nearly completely rearrange your adept abilities and reinvent the character).

[Critias]

Suddenly 3 mo's later he realizes he wants stealth instead? 

I think there's a world of difference between the OP's "I just started playing Shadowrun," and "suddenly 3 mo's later."

[Mirikon]

Well, this is ultimately a GM call. However, most reasonable GMs wouldn't fault a new player for doing a bit of a rewrite in their powers, so long as things stayed basically the same. For instance, if a player with combat-focused adept wanted to trade down a level of Increased Reflexes to boost their Mystic Armor or Killing hands, then I'd be cool with that. Same goes for someone with a social adept who wanted to trade down increased reflexes for speaker's Way powers. However, if you wanted to switch from a Speaker's way to Artisan's way, that's more of a change, and would probably be better suited by just allowing the player to transfer his Karma over to a new character.

[Xzylvador]

Yes but by the same token.   You have a street sam... he buys the influence group at 2.

Suddenly 3 mo's later he realizes he wants stealth instead?   Do you simply have him buy it up with 20 karma.. or allow him to respec.   Just because one is magic and the other isn't?  From a game continuity standpoint... it's far easier to simply buy it up and have both.  (and good reasons to have a point or two in both)

The reason I brainstormed as an option for initiation was more or less... magic it's very easy to get into a case where it's going to cost 100 karma to buy up more magic to buy new powers.   Initation on the other hand is cheap but with enough cost to make people think twice about doing it too much.  (would you rather initiate and get a metamagic, an extra PP, or very nearly completely rearrange your adept abilities and reinvent the character).

Well, becoming better at stealth is something that's already in the game mechanics, so "just save karma to buy the skill" would be a good answer -if- the players are getting the karma to get a couple of skillpoints within a reasonable timeframe. Might be useful for a GM to also remind the streetsam that those social skills will sometimes be more useful to get in/out of a building or past a checkpoint than stealth skills, so the character shouldn't be thinking about trading them but would be better served with having both.
But, for there is the "reasonable timespan" thing:
At the moment, in the table game I'm in we're having trouble even playing just once a month for a four hours session. If you then have a GM who only gives the karma rewards as they're written in the modules (like ~5 karma per mission). In that game, it would literally takes years to get the character 2 ranks in stealth. Making a player continue play with a character he's not happy with, really can't be the reason there's no rules for changing characters. Different games need different styles of course, but in some cases using some flexibility really is better than quoting RAW.

Oh, and saying no to the respec thing was my fault... it really was an allergic reaction to anything that smells MMO-like.
In the way I suggested ("maybe someone will come up with a solution"), something like 'spend 10 karma for a magical ritual to re-channel your powers' probably would be one of the possible solutions.

[WSN0W]

Yes but by the same token.   You have a street sam... he buys the influence group at 2.

Suddenly 3 mo's later he realizes he wants stealth instead?   Do you simply have him buy it up with 20 karma.. or allow him to respec.   Just because one is magic and the other isn't?  From a game continuity standpoint... it's far easier to simply buy it up and have both.  (and good reasons to have a point or two in both)

The reason I brainstormed as an option for initiation was more or less... magic it's very easy to get into a case where it's going to cost 100 karma to buy up more magic to buy new powers.   Initation on the other hand is cheap but with enough cost to make people think twice about doing it too much.  (would you rather initiate and get a metamagic, an extra PP, or very nearly completely rearrange your adept abilities and reinvent the character).

Honestly? It depends on if during those 3 months if the Street Sam ever USED the Influence group. If it's something that comes up every session, than I'd be relucatant to let a PC just 'drop it' without a major in game reason happen. I agree overall with Xzylvador view that if a PC is not having fun that having a chat with the GM to help 'reimage' the character (within the bound of story sense) is something I'm totally for. A minor tweak to an existing character is generally easier to cope with as a group (and as a GM with hooks, background notes, NPC connections, etc) than a PC deciding to just make a new character.

to the OP I would suggest when you talk with your GM (Which is always the best course) that you give a player reason and also a suggestion or two how the change IC"ly could happen. Maybe a paradigm shift in how the adept views his magic if the change is something radical (like dropping killing hands, critical strike and increased reflexes for some of the magic sense, Magic resistance, astral perception powers.)