[The Dweller]

A fair number of people seem to have the view that physical adepts don't quite stack up to augmented characters at character creation.  Well, I won't deny they can end up being the stereotype 'one-trick pony.'  But if that trick is good enough, you might find it can take you pretty far.

The following is modified from a character idea I had helped someone build for a local game.  And I have to say I was quite surprised at what I discovered an adept could be capable of starting fresh with in a normal 400BP build.  Two things to keep in mind:  If a GM applied the dice pool caps from SR4a p.61, this idea would have a limit of 28 dice to any one pool (so its fine).  And second, a panther cannon has a base damage profile of 10P, AP -5 (keep this in mind).

I won't fill in all the stats here.  Just the ones needed to make this example.  So without further ado....

Elven Physical Adept
Agility 7, Reaction 5 (7), Strength 4, Intuition 3, Magic 6, Initiative 10, Passes 3, Unarmed Combat 7 (10) +2 (SP Martial Arts)

Qualities:  Adept, Aptitude (Unarmed Combat), Martial Arts II (Tae Kwon Do), The Warrior's Way*

Adept Powers:  Improved Reflexes 2*, Critical Strike 6*, Improved Ability (Unarmed Combat) 3*, Penetrating Strike 3 (total power point cost:  4.89)

Martial Art Maneuvers:  Finishing Move, Full Offense, Kick Attack, Multi-Strike
Martial Art Advantages:  +1 die on Charging attacks, +1DV on Unarmed Combat attacks

Gear:  Hardliner Gloves, Assorted Armor (anything Softweave modified is good, form fitting and securetech PPP parts)

In case you're not following and doing the math (and possibly already slack-jawed), here's how it comes together"

Base melee combat pool is 19 with specialization.  Lets say Bruce here just had two triad posse members try and shake him down for everything he owns in an alley.  Bruce is at a dead end and they're at medium range (15m) with their machine pistols.  One of them has a knife, the other a sword.  Bruce takes a combat stance to show them hes not intimidated.  Combat begins.

Note: to avoid a lot of dice rolling to show this example, I'm going to say 1 in 3 dice is a success for everybody, rounding down.  Feel free to use 'Bruce' in some examples yourself and roll the dice if you want to see something with more chance.

Initiative:  Bruce gets a 13, the triads 10.  Bruce goes 'kung fu' on them, declares full offense and Charges both of them (+6 dice added to his pool,and he can cover up to 25m on the run).  Bruce has a dice pool of 25 currently and throws 12 dice at the knife wielder  and 13 at the swordsman.  Neither posse member is very worried at this time and so they each elect to parry (7 dice for each). Bruce gets 2 net successes versus each.

Combat Note:  the sword's reach really doesn't help here.  Bruce threw in an extra die in case the reach made a negative for him, and the triad would only have a pool of 8 if it was added to his dice (remember I abstracted this 1 in 3 for successes from pool).

Damage Time:  AP of -3 leaves each triad with 1pt of impact armor, so 4 dice pool to resist 12P (remember that panther cannon comparison I mentioned?).  With 1 success they each take 11 boxes of physical damage.  Game over, triads.

But lets say they made all 4 of their resistance dice to soak some damage and are still on their feet.  And Bruce declared Full Offense so he won't be able to defend against any melee attacks until his next action.  That's okay, its not the triad's turns yet.  Since Bruce hit (whether damage was caused or not) he can declare his Finishing Move.  He gets to make an immediate follow-up attack in the same Action Phase (counting as an interrupt and using up his next available action).

Bruce Part II, aka "Finish Them!":  No longer Charging and Full Offense already used, Bruce has a 'mere' 20 dice pool attacking both of them again.  10 pool against each gets him 3 successes each.  each of the triad members has already defended (-1) and is wounded (-2) leaving them each 4 dice.  Again, 2 net successes on the triads.  Which means once again they're ending up with 8-12 boxes of physical damage.  This time, they're off their feet.  For good.

While this was a pretty light example, I think everyone can see other options of how this plays out.  If Bruce were to get initiative on a single tough opponent during a run, he could rush in with a 24 dice pool, and follow it up with another attack at 19 pool before the enemy can react effectively.  In many cases, this could likely be a one-action knockout from his deadly hands.

Think these numbers of dice seem unreal?  Try making the build yourself.  Look at all the relevant rules.  Then you too can stare in amazement at how this is possible right out of character creation.   

[JoeNapalm]

Very interesting thread. I'm toying with the idea of working up a PhysAd just for kicks, at the moment. (Or maybe as a backup character for when my Street Merc gets himself nuked from orbit once my GM realizes he really IS that scary... )

The real question, though, wouldn't be how he does vs street thugs, but vs a similar Augmented build.

I'd say that, in the long run, the Adept has the edge in that they can become Initiated, or whatever - but I could also make the argument for Deltaware being similar in effect...your Augmented character also can become more powerful as they gain fame and fortune.

Math aside (and I am a big fan of grinding the numbers) I think it comes down to A) what your preferences are, and B) what are you better at playing?

The obstacle for me has always been...bringing a knife to a gunfight. I see PhysAds as being an extreme expression of style over substance...which is NEVER a bad thing (in game...in RL, even Bruce Lee himself said "Why doesn't somebody take a .45 and...BAM!...finish it?").

-Jn-
Erstwhile Ninja

[SwampFox]

Another fun way to play a pure Phys Ad is to go the "So you want to be Bullseye?" route.  Instead of making him an up-close combat monster, go for a Power Throw build with Missile Mastery.  SUddenly every piece of junk within reach that's heavier than a playing card is a lethal weapon.

[Critias]

Nitpick:  Raise Strength to 5, or (better yet) drop it to 3.  Having a Strength of 4 is a waste of points when your primary goal is makin' a melee monster. 

On topic:  Yeah...but now what?  There are lots of ways to sling an awful lot of dice and drop someone in one or two Initiative Passes in Shadowrun.  A one-trick pony of an Adept doesn't really prove (or disprove) anything, and the other problem is that he doesn't really do anything you can't get a cybered character to do, almost as well (perhaps while losing a few dice on the main schtick, but being better at everything else in the game).  You've made a pretty awesome basket, sure, but you've then put every single egg square into it (including all your Positive Qualities).  I hate that adept players feel they have to do that, to make a worthwhile character.

Taking an adept down the unarmed combat demigod route is plenty of fun, but building one should either be a matter of making a character that's awesome anyways and that you have fun with, or purely an experimental exercise in character building.  Not a stepping stone to an argument about whether adepts can "stack up" or not (especially when you have to resort to optional rules to make that point).

I think we'd all rather keep outright arguments/debate about that sort of thing elsewhere, and at least try to leave this corner of the forum for folks to share character concepts and sheets, and get some healthy, positive, critique about them.  There are other nooks and crannies of the forum we can get into debates about whole character archetypes that are balanced or not.   

[UmaroVI]

There are two problems with this character.

One is that you dump everything else to be good at unarmed combat. This is a one-trick pony, as you mentioned. The problem is that it isn't a particularly good trick. The ability to take down 2 people standing right next to each other within charge range is neat, but you can't do anything else and in a whole lot of situations, you're just screwed.

Incidentally, Kick Attack can't work with Hardliner Gloves.

The second is that this character would be dramatically improved by taking ware. You could if you so desired make a mundane who's just flat-out better at melee and is much less of a one-trick pony. Or you could make an augmented adept who is just as much a one-trick pony, but dramatically better at melee to the point of making this guy look like a joke. Neither is particularly hard to build, although if you don't believe me I'd be happy to outline them for you.

[Exodus]

The problem I noticed. Movement rate is divided by the number of Initiative passes in a combat turn. Mr. Bruce has 3 IPs. So he moves 8.33 meters in an IP. So he would not close distance before being shot.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Mr. Bruce would receive a couple bursts from ceska machine pistols before he could get punchy.

This is just some nitpicking, do the Triads have knives or guns as their readied weapon here? Cause if it's the guns you can assume they took aim and are prepared to fire should he attack them. Mr. Bruce might take a couple bursts before he gets 2 steps.

[Glyph]

It used to be adepts with bioware > street samurai > pure adepts.  But the born rich and restricted gear qualities (for street samurai) and the "ways" for adepts (pure adepts) seem to have evened out the playing field a bit.

I'm not sure this build quite warrants the "one-trick pony" label.  The character still has a point of Magic left to spend, and probably has enough skill points to get at least one ranged attack.  Remember that a high Agility and multiple initiative passes are good things to have for ranged and melee combat.  And Agility is used in conjunction with quite a few skills.

[Critias]

Yes, but (sadly) actually buying your Agility up to your hard-cap is one of the (sadly) worst ways to get that high Agility.  It eats up such a tremendous chunk of the 200 BP you can spend on core attributes, and there are so many other cheaper/better ways to do it, that you're still going to end up lagging behind someone who dips into various upgrades to get the same high attribute.

[Glyph]

Yeah, I'm a big fan of soft-maxing, myself.  From an Agility of 6, it is easy to either get muscle toner: 4 with the restricted gear quality (for street samurai and bioware-enhanced adepts), or, for a pure adept, spend 0.75 on improved Attribute and 0.25 on boosted Attribute: 1.  Although this build hard-maxes Magic, too.  Magic is one of the few stats I will even consider hard-maxing, but it isn't really needed for this build, since the listed powers came in at a hair under 5 power points.

[Critias]

Although this build hard-maxes Magic, too.  Magic is one of the few stats I will even consider hard-maxing, but it isn't really needed for this build, since the listed powers came in at a hair under 5 power points.

The powers only came in that cheaply because Magic was hard-capped.  They wouldn't have gotten discounts on three powers, with a Magic of 5.

[UmaroVI]

It used to be adepts with bioware > street samurai > pure adepts.  But the born rich and restricted gear qualities (for street samurai) and the "ways" for adepts (pure adepts) seem to have evened out the playing field a bit.

I'm not sure this build quite warrants the "one-trick pony" label.  The character still has a point of Magic left to spend, and probably has enough skill points to get at least one ranged attack.  Remember that a high Agility and multiple initiative passes are good things to have for ranged and melee combat.  And Agility is used in conjunction with quite a few skills.

In order to judge that I would need to see the rest of the sheet, but I doubt he can do anything else well enough to be particularly useful. Let me add it up, actually. 220 points spent on attributes - before buying any Body, Logic, Charisma, or Edge. 35 positive qualities, let's assume he can also get 35 negative. 30 on Elf. He probably can cut as low as about 5 points on gear. He needs at least 34 for 7(9) unarmed. 12 on manuevers. That leaves him 99 points to pick up something he can do that's actually useful - and this is including stuff like Perception, Infiltration, a Body score about 1, Edge, etc. He's not going to be good at anything else, or he's going to have some glaring weakness like having no chance of spotting people sneaking up on him or going down to a papercut.

It would be trivial to make an augmented character who was far less one-trick-pony and also at least a bit better at this guy's trick. If you were willing to go all in one one-trick-pony-ness as this guy does, an augmented adept could more or less just take his build, insert some of the better cyberware, drop some of the overpriced stuff like hardcapping attributes, and be Bruce Lee ++

[SwampFox]

It used to be adepts with bioware > street samurai > pure adepts.  But the born rich and restricted gear qualities (for street samurai) and the "ways" for adepts (pure adepts) seem to have evened out the playing field a bit.

I'm not sure this build quite warrants the "one-trick pony" label.  The character still has a point of Magic left to spend, and probably has enough skill points to get at least one ranged attack.  Remember that a high Agility and multiple initiative passes are good things to have for ranged and melee combat.  And Agility is used in conjunction with quite a few skills.

In order to judge that I would need to see the rest of the sheet, but I doubt he can do anything else well enough to be particularly useful. Let me add it up, actually. 220 points spent on attributes - before buying any Body, Logic, Charisma, or Edge. 35 positive qualities, let's assume he can also get 35 negative. 30 on Elf. He probably can cut as low as about 5 points on gear. He needs at least 34 for 7(9) unarmed. 12 on manuevers. That leaves him 99 points to pick up something he can do that's actually useful - and this is including stuff like Perception, Infiltration, a Body score about 1, Edge, etc. He's not going to be good at anything else, or he's going to have some glaring weakness like having no chance of spotting people sneaking up on him or going down to a papercut.

It would be trivial to make an augmented character who was far less one-trick-pony and also at least a bit better at this guy's trick. If you were willing to go all in one one-trick-pony-ness as this guy does, an augmented adept could more or less just take his build, insert some of the better cyberware, drop some of the overpriced stuff like hardcapping attributes, and be Bruce Lee ++

I'd like to just agree to disagree with you here.  A lot of this character's viability is also dependent on the play-style of the group the player is in, as well as what houserules may be in effect.  99 BP is more than enough to get some decent skills.  And really, why the focus on making him a general character?  I thought one of the big points of Shadowrun was TEAM play.  You have other players there, with other characters, who fill in your character's weaknesses.  For example, I recently put together a Street Shaman Combat Mage.  He's got maxed out Charisma, and one level of the Influence group, but he's no Face by any means.  One of the other players in the group IS however.

[UmaroVI]

I was responding to someone arguing that this character wasn't going to be a one-trick pony. He is most definitely a one-trick pony. I think that his one trick is of debatable use, but yes, I can see the ability to take out two people within charge range standing next to one another being possibly worthwhile in games run a certain way.

The point that he'd be better off not being a pure adept stands though, whether you want to be better at the one trick or have more that you can do.

[SwampFox]

Actually, in the long run augmentation hinders an adept more than it helps.  Sure, you can initiate and buy up you magic, but it gets increasingly karma intensive, for diminishing returns as opposed to a pure adept who went without the augmentation.  One thing to remember about augmentation is that usually there's gear that you don't have to integrate into your body that has the exact same function as most cyberware.  And in order to get the best out of bioware, you need to have an obscene amount of money and access to a Deltagrade lab (or take the Type O quality, which usually comes with its own set of problems *coughTamanouscough*) and even then there are adept powers that get you the same abilities.

[The Dweller]

On topic:  Yeah...but now what?  There are lots of ways to sling an awful lot of dice and drop someone in one or two Initiative Passes in Shadowrun.  A one-trick pony of an Adept doesn't really prove (or disprove) anything, and the other problem is that he doesn't really do anything you can't get a cybered character to do, almost as well (perhaps while losing a few dice on the main schtick, but being better at everything else in the game).  You've made a pretty awesome basket, sure, but you've then put every single egg square into it (including all your Positive Qualities).  I hate that adept players feel they have to do that, to make a worthwhile character.

This wasn't about a character than can do anything.  With the name like Bruce lee thrown in the title, I figured everyone would assume it was a concept purely about unarmed melee (unless someone was really thinking about Bruce Lee the actor).  And if every character were stacked up the idea that what they can do someone else can do 'almost as well', then whats the point of listing any concept?  And as far as losing dice for someone to do the same, less dice could still result in success.  But it won't be a success on the same scale   One person shooting a target ten times is not the same as someone who can shoot a target once, and send the next nine shots through the same hole.

Taking an adept down the unarmed combat demigod route is plenty of fun, but building one should either be a matter of making a character that's awesome anyways and that you have fun with, or purely an experimental exercise in character building.

So you believe a character can't be designed that does both?

Not a stepping stone to an argument about whether adepts can "stack up" or not (especially when you have to resort to optional rules to make that point).

If the character can't stack up, can't be just as useful or moreso than another, then why play it?  And what optional rules?  Nothing used in Bruce had any optional header in front of it.

I think we'd all rather keep outright arguments/debate about that sort of thing elsewhere, and at least try to leave this corner of the forum for folks to share character concepts and sheets, and get some healthy, positive, critique about them.  There are other nooks and crannies of the forum we can get into debates about whole character archetypes that are balanced or not.   

This is part of a character someone is playing in a local game.  And I was fishing for critiques on it (positive or otherwise).  And it looked like you were the one person that was making an outright argument over its viability (let alone the ability for someone to enjoy playing it, which the person is).