[Blond Goth Girl]

Admittedly, I have not read every SR book out there so references are totally appreciated and ALL help ideas completely appreciated.

I have an NPC just created who is an adept.  His basics are 14 yr old kid living on the street for five years whose abilities were honed from necessity.  This character will be used so the other adept can readily be taught some obscure abilities because in my games you need a teacher and some downtime. 

Any thoughts as to abilities obscure and appropriate to street survival would be best.  Thanks everyone.

Rush in War is one I'm thinking of.

[Stahlseele]

improved ability Stealth and/or Athletics for sneaking/stealing and running the hell away for example?

[dashifen]

Don't be afraid to toss on some cheap powers that help street-life like Iron Gut and Iron Lungs.  They're both .25/level so you can keep things pretty affordable and still add some interesting flavor powers to the character.  Animal Empathy might help defend against swarms of Devil Rats or even just the occasional feral dog. Toss on Missle Parry and you can keep safe when the other local kids start throwing rocks.  Nimble Fingers and Flexibility might help a person find a late night snack or even something shiny to sell for actual cred.  Sustenance and Temperature Tolerance might be good options, too.   

All of these powers are less "flashy" than Facial Sculpt or Wall Running -- both of which might be interesting options for a street kid character -- but mix them all up and you have someone that can live for quite some time and potentially rather comfortably on the streets.

I'd have more to add but I'm staring in horror at Stahlseele's avatar.

[Stahlseele]

*snickers* ^^
Yah, those are good ideas too Dash. Usefull in more than one situation too.
Best power would be something that lets you switch off your sense of taste and smell.
As long as you have something that will take care of potentially ingested poisons, you can now really eat anything, without needing to force yourself to do so.

[FastJack]

Blind fighting because fighting in the slums isn't always well-lit. Cloak to avoid Knight Errant patrols and Corp "Recruiters". Linquistics, since there are a lot of different languages out there.

[Stahlseele]

Well, the last one is'nt really neccessary, as long as you know some engrish/cityspeak you should be fine in your corner of the sprawl . .

[FastJack]

Yeah, but it's a nice "weird" power that you don't see that often.

[Stahlseele]

*shrugs*
IF i made an adept character and had some power left, i usually took that one because it meant getting languages free of karma cost ^^

[Blond Goth Girl]

Thank you guys.  This is really helping me flesh the kid out.  I also want to add a couple things for our face to learn as well for some obscure skills.

Keep 'em coming.

[Stahlseele]

Well, for a FACE the Linguistics Power would be perfect.
Want some synergy? Get linguistics for the Adept so he can learn the language and something that helps him teach the face new languages.
Because what good is a Face, if he can only shmooze in one or two languages? ^^

[JimJungle]

Is this kid Fight or Flight? For Fight i'd say Missile Mastery and Quickdraw, that way there is always a weapon at hand. For Flight, Motion Sense and Flexibility, for avoiding trouble and getting into/out of tight places.

[Walks Through Walls]

power throw can make a nice compliment to missile mastery. Freefall could make a good power also. Jump from two or three stories without fear and no one will follow

[Glyph]

So what would summoning be like for a Darwinist?  "Evolve, Pikachu, evolve!"

[Charybdis]

I actually built a street-slum physad for a low power game (many many moons ago), and most of the above qualities were indeed utilised. Updating the concept to 4e, the following would probably apply:

In his local gang, he was the scout, so he had the athletics/stealth to climb into position, stay hidden, and accurately
- Improved Athletics and Stealth for the positioning requirements
- Enhanced perception, Low-light, Thermo and Eidectic Memory for the perception and reporting requirements

Living on the streets, he had to have other useful powers to survive
- Iron Guts and Sustenance to survive indefinitely on low-volume, poor quality food

My guy was definitely a 'Flight' option (in terms of a Fight or Flight mentality):
- Combat Sense for when he was getting ambushed
- Freefall for those daring escapes

With a long-term campaign and post-initiation karma, he evolved to be a good close combatant and infiltrator
- Killing hands, Critical Strike, Elemental Strike, Penetrating Strike
- Martial arts according to flavour
- Smashing Blow (bye bye barriers)...could also be replaced with Elemental Strike (Blast)

As I was GM'ing another campaign with the same players, I deliberately chose a low Charisma PC in this one to stop hogging the spotlight However in 4e, a few BP into Charisma and Linguistics options could make the PC a secondary Face-archtype pretty easily

[bigity]

So what would summoning be like for a Darwinist?  "Evolve, Pikachu, evolve!"

He'd summon 10 different spirits and see which one survives and has the most successful next generation.  Then he'd have the spirit he wants.