[Man Who Walks At Night]

But what about the old skool "Burned Out" Mages?  Where's their love?

Kinda doesn't exist any more, grab a geas to compensate for magic loss, or get a few initiation levels and taadaa, part of the problem - the "price" for adding cyber/bioware to an awakened character is so low (per the rules) that its almost a no-brainer.

[Frostriese]

Lets face it, the reason you (and others) add cyber/bioware to adepts/mages is a min/max approach to roleplaying, trying to get the most bang for the money.

And that's something that would hold for most shadowrunners, including most shadowrunning mages, too. That was the entire point behind burn-outs - even mages are always looking for an edge giving them better survival odds. The only difference between in- and out-game here really is that ingame people cannot calculate as exactly what the 'ware is doing to their magic. But so what? If there is a magic character who has his or her essence at N.01 then I groan, because that's really obvious, but apart from such extremes it's just a magic user trying to gain an extra edge, because that`s needed in the shadows. Outside the shadows, maybe not so much, but then that isn't the focus of the game. Or, at least, not of most campaigns.

but then again, there is alot of character options I just don't see the justification for adding to the shadowrun universe, its becomming worse than AD&D 3.5 with 3839080398 classes to pick from.

Yeah, versatility is such a bad thing, and all characters need to confirm to certain stereotypes... I mean, that's a definite advantage of SR over D&D, that it does not have those annoying classes, that apart from the racial bonuses/maluses you can freely build your character from scratch. How the hell is that a bad thing?

its a gamble if that piece of "upgrade" will render them mundane forever.

Yeah, I don't buy that. There is a risk, but it's manageable: Before the wireless world, there were countless mages who at least had a datajack. Which after all is only minimally intrusive, but in any case it goes to show that a vague "mages can handle at least a minimal amount of 'ware" was present even in-universe, and not only in the rules.

but if this is a must in campaigns, then we have reached a sad point in the world of shadowrun if it is something everyone just have to have to be able to play.

That's just the world of Shadowrun. Magic is a fact of life, and augmentations are not even only that, but quite ubiquitous, too. Shadowrun just is borderline transhumanist. And the rules have to represent the world. 

And Magic IS the edge - the pure power of it overshadows anything else, and its rare, adepts turning to bio/cyberware is not about the shadowrun universe, its not done with basis in the canon, but with basis in rules and how to optimize your character.

There is a base in canon. As said, this "I want to have an extra edge" is the entire point of burnt-out mages! Which are canon. And "ingame character optimisation" is also part of the canon, that is the entire point of augmentations after all!

Also, it would be quite a bad thing (for admittedly game mechanical reasons of balance) if magic were to really overpower everything.

[WareWolf]

First off my apologies to everyone if I screwed up the quotes in this section. I am not very good at quoting in forums.

Whoa... maybe I'm reading too much into the tone here, but it sounds like a chill pill script needs to be administered.

I'm sorry if I came off a bit harsh there - but its a pet peeve of mine that people optimize chars beyond what makes sense from a roleplaying perspective - it was not directed at you (although I can understand if it seemed like it) but more against the principle that I think the roleplaying part of making a character is often overlooked in favor of maxing out game technical capabilities.

A) It's a game

Yes, but its also a roleplaying game - while playing, the player is supposed to take on the role of the character - and as such, it needs to be believable more than optimized If every character in books, movies and plays where optimized it would truly be some sad fiction

B) There's every chance a PC's development didn't ALLOW for refusal. If an adept works for Aztech/UCAS/Renraku etc, is he really going to say 'No' when the bosses come by to explain a little upgrade?

No, but again, I don't think people (or corps) gamble with peoples awakened abilities like that - they don't have a 0 to 6 rating judging how much bio/cyberware someone can take before being burned out - its a gamble if that piece of "upgrade" will render them mundane forever. Awakened people are damn rare in the world, if a corp (or army) "aquires" such talent, I don't think they are prone to gamble it all for a little cyber/bioware.

C) As for min/maxing, I'll admit this is always a concern. However until the balance shifts back from Bioware towards Magic for what adepts can do, I'll take an R4 Muscle Toner vs 6 points of magic raising my Agilityx4 (@1.5 per point over Racial Limit), thank you very much indeed.

Muscle Toner is ridiculously overpowered compared to everything else - granted, but anyway, my concern is - you should not need to make this choice, yes it makes you better in combat, but if this is a must in campaigns, then we have reached a sad point in the world of shadowrun if it is something everyone just have to have to be able to play. Something I could rant about for a long time in general, any character without extra IP's is basically out of luck in shadowrun these days, the old non-enhanced detective of shadowrun 1st ed is never a viable option if there is just one person in the group going the route of "how do I max out my character", as soon as one person does it, everyone needs to do it at the table to survive the increased challenges the GM has to come up with (which again leads to another series of problems as the GM is then forced to have every single grunt security guard enhanced (or have 30 guards for every runner) - it just leads to a never ending escalation of things.

D) Idealistic PC's while great Roleplaying points, have to accept some limitations in that regard. This is why ideals such as Pacifism or Code of Honour are Negative Qualities in the game. I love them, and they provide fantastic storylines, but they come with a downside, and that can be either external interference, moral conflict, or in the case of outr Adept, falling behind the SOTA curve (which is a MASSIVE downside to magic in general, but that's another thread)

E) there are excellent (and canon) short stories describing Awakened characters accepting Cyber (normally in response to fear from a run that sent them to hospital, killed an ally, or blew off an arm etc etc). This can be just as much of a roleplaying point as the idealistic refusal to accept it.

I'm not saying it shouldn't happen, I'm saying it shouldn't (as it is currently) be the rule, but rather the exception. It should be something done to survive, a whole character concept introduced (hacker adepts as we are originally discussing here ) relying on awakened people with cyberware makes this the rule and not the exception.

F) Shadowrun is about living on the edge, survival of the fittest. Everyone in the Shadows is hunting down the next thing that will help them get more nuyen, survive another day, and maybe, just maybe, give them that big break freeing them from the shadows forever. Sure, some nice comfortable, SINner Magician College professor can afford to maintain his awakened purity, but working in the shadows is not that easy, and any runner (Awakened or not) should grasp any edge that they can get.

And Magic IS the edge - the pure power of it overshadows anything else, and its rare, adepts turning to bio/cyberware is not about the shadowrun universe, its not done with basis in the canon, but with basis in rules and how to optimize your character. The problem may lie in the fact that a pure adept starts the game less powerful than a full blown cyber monster, but in the long run the roles are changed, I think this is the problem - if you had 3-4 more power points from start, I doubt we would see people doing this. Fact is, awakened characters are weaker to begin with, but can advance far beyond mundanes, its a balance problem started with the initiation procedure for awakened. If I could ask for one new thing in Shadowrun 5th edition it would be an "initiation process" for mundanes to remove this problem.

Really? If Adepts had more power points to start we would end up with even more overpowered magic types who crammed a little more cyber because the consequences of those actions had been lessened. The scarcity of magic points and the fact that some abilities can only be gained through magic means more people would go for the cost effective solution.

G) By your rationale, there's no market for 2nd hand ware either, as the street sam wouldn't consider such a thing. However, you take what you can get.... This is true even for the awakened...

Not quite the same - a street sam doesn't throw away special abilities, a way of living and seeing life - by using 2nd hand ware, he just gets a bad quality product of what he would have liked to have, a lesser version, lower rating, but still essentially the same he is used to and wants.

1. Optimizing a character and creating a roleplay character are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

2. Characters in books never need to roll dice. Those characters have an author deciding things.

3. Wildcat Shamanic commandos. I believe the original NAN books referred to them as being cybered shamans. Clear back in Fields of Fire second edition Matador predicts the rise of special forces part magic part cyber. This is 2072 that future is now. 

4. I have bad news for you, the non enhanced detective character of Shadowrun has always been outclassed and morphed in to the Face. in 1st edition Shadowrun anyone with any type of ware or spells could jack attributes to the moon and get all their actions before the detective ever drew. 2nd edition was worse with an unlimited amount of actions. 3rd edition overpowered everything magic by moving the extra initiative passes behind everything else and mana combat spells having such cheap drain. Now in 4th edition so many of the fundamental changes to the rules have brought magic and technology into a better balance of each other. Are somethings still really broke by RAW? Yes, but frankly Magicians are far from the worst offenders nowadays. Potentially, Riggers can be far more disruptive than any magician for much fewer karma and nuyen.

5. Is there anywhere harder to survive than the shadows? You can't run to the security force or the corps for backup it is you and maybe some trusted allies against the world. That makes the Magician think long and hard about how long they can afford the luxury purity of being. 

6. Really? If Adepts had more power points to start we would end up with even more overpowered magic types who crammed a little more cyber because the consequences of those actions had been lessened. The scarcity of magic points and the fact that some abilities can only be gained through magic means more people would go for the cost effective solution since the power curve has been wisened.

As far as a mundane initiation their is always cybermancy. No that wasn't a serious suggestion. You are correct the purely mundane character is inferior in the long run to the purely magic character and the tech magic hybrid is superior to both. I just don't see that changing.

7. A Sam by expending his precious essence for upgrades loses the flexibility of what to put in there A sammie throwing in second hand ware pays extra essence and therefore has fewer options in the future. A magic tech hybrid is doing the same thing just from two different sources.

Since how Magic and tech are advanced, one is potentially infinite while the other is not, you will never have balance between them. You cannot balance infinity.


 

[Man Who Walks At Night]

This has obviously gone way off topic, so I'll refrain from replying and get back to the original topic

For a long time we only had deckers. Now we have Hackers and Technomancers - which in itself is one "class" to many in my opinion, you now want to add a 3rd way to accomplish the same? Wouldn't it be more prudent to get the broken hacking rules fixed before we add a 3rd way to use those messed up rules?

[Fortinbras]

I believe the old axiom was "Adepts do everything a normal hacker does, but with 3 more dice."
Ah, dice counting. The yin to my player's "What do I roll to shoot things?" yang.

In terms of theme, story, plot and tone, I feel hacker and other mental adepts have something to offer. They could be the first step in understanding the gap between man, magic and machine.
In terms of game mechanics, I'll leave that to others. I certainly don't think the Matrix rules are "broken." I often feel the word broken has become a synonym for "something I don't like."

[Man Who Walks At Night]

In terms of theme, story, plot and tone, I feel hacker and other mental adepts have something to offer. They could be the first step in understanding the gap between man, magic and machine.

Mental adepts I can easily see, and wouldn't mind those (unless it turns into collection of comic books superpowers ), mental adepts add something to the game, hacker adepts however, simply add another way to do something which can already be accomplished.

In terms of game mechanics, I'll leave that to others. I certainly don't think the Matrix rules are "broken." I often feel the word broken has become a synonym for "something I don't like."

You are right, they are not broken, and maybe I'm just less intelligent than the average shadowrun player, but for 4 editions of Shadowrun - I have never fully felt I understood the rules or felt comfortable using them, first 3 editions they simply meant a lot of solo time with the hacker, and in 4th edition they really confuse me

[Rockopolis]

Personally, I'd always liked the idea of creating a Mentat (from Dune), but I was never sure what to do with them.  And I don't think I'd be smart enough to play one correctly.
Probably want to take Common Sense, Analytical Mind, a bunch of Mental Adept powers, and maybe get some points back with Distinctive Look (Eyebrows), Addiction to Psyche.
EDIT:"It is by my will alone that I set my...it is by my will and magic alone that I...it is by my will and magic AND cyberware..."

[Charybdis]

Personally, I'd always liked the idea of creating a Mentat (from Dune), but I was never sure what to do with them.  And I don't think I'd be smart enough to play one correctly.
Probably want to take Common Sense, Analytical Mind, a bunch of Mental Adept powers, and maybe get some points back with Distinctive Look (Eyebrows), Addiction to Psyche.
EDIT:"It is by my will alone that I set my...it is by my will and magic alone that I...it is by my will and magic AND cyberware..."

+1 for the reference. That would be an awesome fixer!

[Raithe]

Well, I'd say part of the question is..  Is there some specific shift between a Mental Adept and a Hacker Adept?

If you've got an Adept thats developed with the high end mental skills, just like the whole role of highly-analytical / intelligent character... then in the world of Shadowrun it makes sense that they'd end up dabbling around with Computers and the Matrix.

It wouldn't be odd for such a character to develop Adept improved skills relating to understanding/dealing with Computers, Hacking, and even basic Technical/Mechanical aspects.

You've got Adepts that are brilliant mechanics and drivers/pilots... What's the difference in them dealing with Computers and the Matrix?

Hell, if you've got people who don't realise that they're physical adepts and just thought they were good at sports... It's just as likely there could be a few hackers who didn't realise it was magical talent that made them so smart and quick with computers.

Heh, although I could also see the funny side of it being some kid thinking he was a computer-genius, getting a scholarship , getting sponsorship and getting a whole heap of bio/cyberware implanted.. and suddenly losing all his genius due to Essence/Magic loss without realising it at first. 

[EmperorPenguin]

Don't forget to get your aura tested, kids!

[Ten-Hex]

But what skill powers? The problem I see with having a separate Hacker Adept is that (s)he needs to get access to the Matrix. Only two ways of doing that, if you're not a TM: Cyberware and outer ware.
etc
In order to be relevant, a Hacker Adept would need to be something special, something different. So what would you want in such a character that would make it stand out from the other options?

A hacker adept is something like this.

And what makes him relevant? The fact that he can hold his own in the matrix surprisingly well considering he's limited to 3 IP and only using AR for the majority of his matrix work. The fact that he has 3 IP and can hold his own in physical combat at the same time. The fact that he has perfect eidetic memory that a mundane hacker or technomancer cannot gain, multitasking and nimble fingers giving him tons of little situational advantages, sustenance which is like a sleep regulator on steroids, etc. The fact nobody looks at him like he's a technomancer freak.

He's seriously in the top three most enjoyable characters (if not #1) I've played in any iteration of Shadowrun.

[Charybdis]

A hacker adept is something like this.

I like the concept, but can't get to the GDocs link. Repost?

[Ten-Hex]

A hacker adept is something like this.

I like the concept, but can't get to the GDocs link. Repost?

The link won't open for you? It should be sharable to anyone accessing it directly from the link. I've added it as an attachment here as well.

[Charybdis]

A hacker adept is something like this.

Now I not only like the concept, I can read the practical exercise

I like it. And nothing min-maxed either. Very balanced, yet competent in their chosen field. Very cool.