[Whiskeyjack]

Eh. Maybe it's my group. I have never missed it and never felt like it was better than PP in 5th. Astral questing doesn't happen often in my games mainly because it seems pretty selfish for one person to be the focus of entire sessions, or that stuff happens in downtime, which isn't exactly appealing either.

[Reaver]

Kinda agree on the astral questing. It's the magical equivalate of 1-3e matrix work. (When using the matrix to open a door was a GM/decker 20 minute mini-game)

But it is an option.

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

Sadly, at time matrix stuff is still a GM/Decker mini game if both don't really understand the rules. Worse when the GM thinks he does 'cause he played a hacker in 4th, but forgot that 5th rewrote how the matrix works. And his old memories and the current rules didn't jive. It made for crappy and boring nights. Current game uses a decker contact and we don't spend a lot of time with matrix stuff.

[Whiskeyjack]

Having played deckers and TMs all through 4th and playing in a group with a decker now, it's undeniable that 5th made the process much faster and greatly alleviated the Decker Problem. Decking stuff takes a fraction of the time and doesn't pull people out of the action unless you intentionally jump down the rabbit hole with it. 

[Marcus]

Your both Right Wisky and Reaver, and I agree it is fairly selfish, and should never be done during regular session, unless the whole team can/wants to come along. The abbreviated  3rd method wasn't actually too bad, though it generalizing the process to what was essentially a mini-game but it did kinda take the drama out of it. However I don't think that system was officially converted over to fifth, though it wasn't very complex so it could be done fairly readily.

[Strange]

Ok, given the info provided, I'm revamping a little bit. 

Howzabout this...

B:3
A:4
R:3
S:4
C:8
I:5
L:2
W:5
E:1
M:6

Qualities: Mentor spirit (DragonSlayer), Allergy (Common, Mild), Distinctive Style, SINner (National)

SKILLS:
Artificing 1
Assensing 4
Blades 4
Counterspelling 5 (Magic Priority)
Etiquette 1 (bought with karma)
Perception 3
Pilot Ground Craft 1
Running 2
Spellcasting 6
Summoning 2

For adept powers I have this so far (If I stick with Mystic Adept)
Critical Strike (Blades)
Combat Sense 4
Astral Perception
Improved reflexes 1
1 point left to fill (opinions are welcome)

I have $50,000, Thinking that a weapon focus 2 would be fine.  Going to be cutting it close with karma. 

One question I have, what foci are good, and why? 

[Halinn]

For adept powers I have this so far (If I stick with Mystic Adept)
Critical Strike (Blades)
Combat Sense 4
Astral Perception
Improved reflexes 1
1 point left to fill (opinions are welcome)

Probably Improved Reflexes 2. I'd even consider dropping 2 from Combat Sense to get IR3, to move the 3rd pass from "about half the time" to "reliable". Attribute Boost (Agility) 1 or 2 is also good. If you go with 1, I like Improved Sense to fill out the remaining 0.25. Something like vision magnification seems like it'd be fun.

One question I have, what foci are good, and why?

If you're focusing on spellcasting, power foci and sustaining foci are the good ones. For the adept side, weapon foci for the extra dice and bypassing spirit ItNW (the second part being more important) and qi focus for getting more of a limited resource. For standard load-out when you've gotten some runs under you can have the nuyen and karma to spare, a weapon focus 2 and a few qi focus 4 to swap between seems ideal to me. Go for versatility rather than the straight power boost that power or sustaining foci could offer.

[Whiskeyjack]

Personally I think IR3 can wait for an initiation. IR2 is good enough.

I am a huge proponent of Combat Sense but I'm not sure if 1 PP wouldn't be better spent on Ability Boost: AGI 1, Enhanced Accuracy (Blades), and Motion Sense.

Make sure your weapon focus has a personalized grip!

Edge 1 is something that needs ASAP fixing though :\

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

I love having IR3, but I will have to back Whiskeyjack here. 4 ranks into combat sense at character creation is overkill. Use that extra PP for improved ability blades 2 (you now have an effective rank of 6 for blades). Then drop combat sense by two and do as Whiskeyjack says. Except maybe instead of enhanced accuracy take another rank of agility boost and improves sense (thermal), so now you have all the basic vision mods covered. Also fix edge 1 ASP!

[Whiskeyjack]

Thing is, his current Improved Reflexes is rating 1, so that remaining 1 PP should probably go to IR2 first and foremost, then you have to trim existing stuff to add other stuff.

And I took Combat Sense 6 on my face MysAd at chargen and never ever regretted it  but then again I wasn't trying to buy all the powers that make melee weapon adepts more badass.

Basic vision mods are what contacts and glasses were made for. I can never see the sense of paying in PP what you can buy cheaply with nuyen. I generally don't like Enhanced Accuracy for that reason but at a certain point you WILL benefit from another +1 ACC on top of Personalized Grip.

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

I generally make melee adepts, so I focus more that way. I generally go with Dog Mentor Spirit and pick up vision type I am miss (low light if human, etc.) and usually the version that gives the advanced navigation stuff under enhanced sense power, and use between 1-2 group points on the outdoor skill. Part of this is because my adepts start around squater lifestyle.

My blade adept is currently not at the dice pool for blades for enhanced acc yet, but getting there.

[Strange]

Ok, put 'flexes up to 2.  Thinking about dropping the astral perception, but it is tied to assensing (Which fits the character concept) and is useful for an occult detective type of guy, so I think it has to stay.  As far as edge goes, if I drop my Magic to B and raise my race to C  I get 3 special attribute points, putting 2 in magic and 1 in edge gives me a 6 and 2, respectively.  This drops the two skill i receive at 5 to 4, also, but only one of them is a concern to me, the other can stay at 4.  It also drops my spells from 10 to 7.

As far as adding accuracy to the sword, right now I am sitting on a physical limit of 6 and the sword's accuracy is already 7.  Getting the grip will still happen, however I think I won't be able to benefit from the adept power a whole lot.  With a level 3 focus I am throwing 11 dice to hit that limit.

If I wanted to make a similar build using a regular mage priority, could I use sustaining foci with level 3 reflexes and perhaps an AGI boost, also sustained, to create a similar level of combat ability?

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

You use weapons acc not physical limits for most attacks. Dice pool of 11 basically makes it your secondary attack, which is fine. Increase ability (blades) which you can take one rank in place of increase accuracy adds one to your effective rank into that skill. Making your pool be 8(9) pre foci. Dropping astral perception (for now picking it up as a foci later) would free up 1 PP and 4 skills, letting you max blades as well, and have 2 skills let over, one for blades specialization, and one more for either perception or counterspelling, also drop artificing, with rank you will burn yourself out to make anything, this can be used for specialization for your most common spell type to aid in casting. Taking specialization swords adds +2 making you pool 13 with your katana, pre foci, 16 post. Now you have a decent combat skill pool.

I understand wanting to keep astral perception, but for 13 karma & ¥12k you can get a F4 Qi Foci (astral perception) and 1st rank in assensing. Remember majority of assensing test are threshold based, with 4+ hits giving everything you will ever need to know. Another option is not to get the weapon foci yet, get the astral perception foci instead and free up PP that way, and only having 2 ranks in assensing will get you 8 dice, which will get you decent info. And use the 3 (1 from artificing) skill points for specializations in spellcasting, assensing, and blades.

Edit: enhanced acc is .25 pp.

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

Don't forget you can pick up (as a spell) extended detect magic, which will give some of the same info as basic assensing will. Such as presence of wards, spirits, etc.

[Halinn]

I second moving Astral Perception over to a Qi Focus. It fits the toolbox aspect of Qi Foci perfectly, being something you want readily available, but don't mind spending a few actions turning it on.