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Posted by: guy-jin Mar 9 2007, 12:56 AM

I finally managed to locate a shadowrun group. Never thought I'd ever get to play it.

They use 4th edition, of course, and noplace in town (and Omaha has about a dozen FLGS's and at least that many chain bookstores) has the book. I've asked two of my favorites to call when they get the book in. I've considered paying for a PDF, but I worry it's not worth it (saving $10 off the cover price, but you have to print it, and bind it, etc.)

So in last nights session, just for character creation, I only had intermittent access to a 4th ed. book, and the GM didn't really look over my character at all. So I'm not really sure this character is legal, much less playable. Can you tell me anything I'm blatantly missing?

First, the stats:

Posted by: Tomothy Mar 9 2007, 01:14 AM

Only had time for a brief look over but here's some things I noticed. For skills you can only have one skill at 6 or two skills at 5. So either your assensing or your unarmed combat has to go down.
10 BP will get you 50,000 nuyen not 30,000 so you should have 4 BP left over to spend on more gear or on contacts.

Posted by: the_dunner Mar 9 2007, 01:38 AM

Posted by: lorechaser Mar 9 2007, 02:56 AM

As a Physad, you need at least 2, preferably 3 Init. passes as well. You can get them from street drugs if you want, but that's tough. Synpatic Boosters are always a good route, but you'd have to make more room in your gear.

Posted by: ShadowDragon Mar 9 2007, 03:37 AM

The way you wrote it is kind of hard to read. For those who like a more traditional layout:

So you still have 10 more BP. You're missing contacts. As has already been said, you can only have one skill at 6 or two at 5, the rest at 4 or lower. You probably didn't mean to spend the extra 2 BP on knowledge skills; don't forget that languages other than your native one cost knowledge points too.

You can use some help with optimizing this guy. I assume that's why you're posting him, so I'll take the liberty.

First you need more initiative passes to be effective in combat. If you want to stay true to your magical side, pick up increase reflexes 2. Unfortunately this takes up a whopping 3 of your magic. If you want to go with the munchkin way, pick up synaptic booster 2 (bioware). This will lower your essence by 1, effectively taking up 1 of your magic.

Lower your unarmed combat down and raise your pistol skill. Guns are by far superior to melee. Not only do you have range so you don't waste time and health running upto guys shooting at you, but you can shoot most guns twice per turn vs one attack in melee. Melee skills are good to have for backup, but guns rule in Shadowrun.

Get rid of the improved sense powers (keep combat sense though, that's a good one). You can stick these in contacts/glasses for very cheap. Also don't forget to pick up a smartlink for your gun and contacts/glasses.

Melee damage is always str/2 +x. Lower your strength to 5 and you'll do just as much damage as strength of 6 because of the way rounding works.

Raise your will. A higher will is your only defense against mages without counter spelling, and a higher will raises your stun damage track (more hit points).

There's other little things I would do, but these are the basics.

Posted by: Matsu Kurisu Mar 9 2007, 05:08 AM

You have also forgotten the PERCEPTION skill (at least 3+), which is crucial for a PI character. You are better to drop first aid a couple of points.

Also second other peoples comments, if you want a chance to survive in combat you NEED at least 1 extra Initiative Passes (increased Rexlexes or Synaptic booster)

Get 35 points of negative qualities will give you more skill points / cash

Have fun

Posted by: pestulens Mar 9 2007, 05:10 AM

If you want, as you say, to do a pi charictor than you realy nead the Influance groop, even if you rely mostly on adept powers.
As has been sead before, mala combat just dosn't mesur up to firarms without a wepon focus (witch you can get for unarmed)
as stated you have no means of interfacing with youre comlink, get at least glasses or contacts with image link (Also includes a camara) and smartlink of corce. also a subvocal mike to act as a controle. also youre using a responce one comlink with a system 4 os. the matrix rules can be confusing but you're system is limated by you're responce so you will run as if you had system 1 unless you upgrade. you probably want to by a brose program to use you'r data serch skill as well.

Posted by: Glyph Mar 9 2007, 05:14 AM

I can see what you were going for, but your concept has a few fundamental problems.

First, you have a super-high Assensing skill, but you are defaulting on Perception tests? For a detective?

Secondly, you have astral perception and assensing, but are woefully unprepared for astral combat, not only lacking the skill itself, but also having a low Willpower. Unlike SR3, you can NOT use your mundane unarmed combat skill for astral combat.

Finally, your adept abilities are a hodgepodge, including things like one level of Kinesics for someone who is defaulting on social skills.


I think you need to reconsider the whole astral angle - either you need to do it right, or you need to drop it in favor of being a more effective detective/martial artist, because the way you have it now, it's more of a hindrance than anything else. So I am giving you advice for both possible ways (changes to Attributes, Skills, and adept Powers, with everything else left alone, and keeping the same point totals for each area):

If you keep it:

If you drop it:

Posted by: guy-jin Mar 9 2007, 05:57 PM

Thanks for all the advice so far. I'm going to ask a bunch of questions about it, though, so the quoting may get confusing.

Glyph wrote:

Posted by: Thanee Mar 9 2007, 07:01 PM

Hey, if you correct this part here...

[quote]
Raise your will. A higher will is your only defense against mages without counter spelling, and a higher will raises your stun damage track (more hit points).
[quote]

(the / is missing on the end quote tag)

...your quotes will actually work.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: thewolf Mar 9 2007, 07:31 PM

Smartlink can be integrated into contacts or glasses, just as easily as cybereyes and just as effective.

Critical Strike is an adept power that increases your base unarmed damage level by 1 for every 0.25 PP. Quite nice for slamming things with your fists.

First Aid is pretty handy for someone to have. Sure, you could leave it at 1, you will get some bonus dice from the medkit, but every little bit helps.

To use counterspelling, you would need to be a Mystic Adept or a Magician.

Maxing out your negative qualities is kinda munchkin-ny. It twinks your character out, but it lacks a bit of class IMHO.

Posted by: lorechaser Mar 9 2007, 07:55 PM

Posted by: thewolf Mar 9 2007, 08:03 PM

Posted by: lorechaser Mar 9 2007, 08:25 PM

Posted by: ShadowDragon Mar 9 2007, 09:35 PM

Posted by: guy-jin Mar 9 2007, 11:09 PM

Posted by: Narmio Mar 10 2007, 01:35 AM

In the way of the sword, one slash makes all the difference!

Posted by: toturi Mar 10 2007, 02:37 AM

While RP is good and number-crunching is also good, you might want to take a look at your gaming group and see what are they missing. If your group already has a mage with good Assensing, then it does not make sense to duplicate that.

Posted by: pestulens Mar 10 2007, 02:55 AM

Posted by: lorechaser Mar 10 2007, 03:19 AM

SINner means that you're in the database. It means your real ID can be located, and tied back to your entire history. Someone can find you, then find your family, you friends, your 5th grade teacher.

They have to be looking, and have to know how to do it, but it can happen.

Posted by: Glyph Mar 10 2007, 03:48 AM

As far as the first build vs. the second build, the first one is not optimized for mundane combat - he is better than most gangers or security guards, but the sammie will still be the one doing the heavy lifting, combat-wise. He is designed for an assensing role, and as you can see it costs him (by the way, there is no limit on how many Attributes you can get at 5, other than the 200 BP limit - it is skills that have the 1 - 6 or 2 - 5's limit). The good thing about enhanced perception, for this build, is that it gives bonuses to perception and assensing tests.


The second build is more functional, combat-wise, if somewhat more bare-bones than a purely combat-oriented adept. But the enhanced perception (better than improved senses which can be duplicated by glasses/earbuds) for his detective side and the killing hands/critical strike for his martial artist side both took a point of magic each, so I could only get improved reflexes: 2 - normally I try to add some combat sense to it, but you can always do that when you improve your Magic.


As far as flaws, sensitive system is common for awakened characters. A moderate allergy to silver is another one that I like - it fits a magical character, and with 'shifters and a few other critters, silver ammo or weapons are something you will encounter occasionally. That's 25 points right there, and I would rather have both of those than the SINner negative quality. If you really want to go for broke, you can always get the spirit bane flaw - which would fit a detective who has occasional dealings with the spirit world.

Posted by: Thanee Mar 10 2007, 07:26 AM

Posted by: guy-jin Mar 10 2007, 07:26 PM

Well, I bit the bullet and bought the PDF. if I print the whole thing out, it will have cost me more than the real book. *sigh*

However, I'm looking at some of the qualities as replacements for adept powers, freeing more magic for them. How does Quick healer compare to rapid healing? high pain tolerance vs. pain resistance? aptitude vs. improved ability?

Posted by: Glyph Mar 10 2007, 09:00 PM

Quick Healer is equal to 2 levels of Rapid Healing, or about 0.5 Magic for 10 BP

High Pain Tolerance is equal to Pain Resistance, 0.5 Magic for 5 BP per level, up to level 3. The best bargain of the lot.

Aptitude only raises the maximum level for a skill, so getting it for 10 BP and spending 8 BP for getting that skill from 6 to 7 is equal to one level of improved ability (0.25 or 0.5 Magic, depending on what type of skill). As you can see, Aptitude is the least cost-effective of the three.

Posted by: Seyluun Mar 12 2007, 12:44 PM

I wouldn't raise the willpower. The mage is going to roll his best skill and probably best attribute. Rolling 2 or 3 dice to resist isn't going to make a difference. So i suggest you raise your Edge later, because you WILL use your edge to resist a spell anyway.
I wouldn't bother with astral combat either. You re going to use astral perception to assens places and peoples, not to fight astral beings who can flee at whim and use spells and powers from a safe distance.

Posted by: guy-jin Mar 12 2007, 11:56 PM

Some potential allergies I'm thinking about. Please tell me if you think these are common or uncommon, and any other thoughts you have about them.

Cigarette smoke (i suspect uncommon, since it's a subset of pollution, which is common)
Nutrisoy (common, i think)
Gunpowder (this could be bad, since some gets on you ever time you fire a gun, but I would guess common, for a 'runner anyway)
Meat (uncommon? this would be funny for an orc, IMHO)
Yeast (uncommon - but you have to avoid both bread and dirty girls )

Posted by: Glyph Mar 13 2007, 02:08 AM

Some GMs frown on food allergies - they think the negative quality should only be used for things your character could come into contact with whether he wants it or not, such as pollution, seawater, etc.

Personally, I would possibly allow it for things that would inconvenience the character. A nutrisoy allergy would mean that the character would have to spend more on food, and would have to go hungry in certain areas where the "good stuff" is unavailable. Such an allergy would probably be Common, and would be about as inconvenient as an allergy to pollution or seawater.

Meat, on the other hand, is not that hard to avoid. Plus, an ork allergic to meat is kind of weird - that's like a grizzly bear allergic to meat. It might be possible as an uncommon allergy if not eating meat would cause the character to lose respect among other orks, or some other in-game consequence beyond merely having to avoid something that is not commonly encountered and is easy to avoid. A better possibility would be an allergy to, say, MSG, which is used in a lot of things and is difficult to detect.

Yeast, like meat, is not that hard to avoid. Unless the characters have running gunfights through bakeries on a regular basis, it's a bit of a stretch.

Gunpowder would be common for a runner, and might be too debilitating - it literally gives you a penalty at the worst possible time.

Cigarette smoke would probably be a common allergy in Seattle now (unfortunately), much less in the gritty noirish dark future of Shadowrun.

Posted by: guy-jin Mar 13 2007, 02:31 AM

OK, here we go: Torg 2.0. (that's his 'street' name, BTW: he has a rather geekier real name.) I'm just posting the crunchiest bits; I'm going to buy some contacts and gear, but this is the key stuff.

Body 5
Agil 5
Reac 5
Strn 5
Char 2
Logc 3
Intu 5
Will 3
(Magic 6, Edge 4, initiative 10)

Active Skills:
unarmed combat 4 (+2 martial arts)
Assensing 4 (+2 metahumans)
perception 3 (listening +2)
pistols 2 (SA +2)
Astral combat 2
data search 1
etiquette 1
stealth group 1

Negative qualities: Moderate allergy, seawater; SINner. (and I plan on buying a fake)

Adept powers:
Astral perception
Improved reflexes L2
Combat sense 1
improved senses(vision magnification, scent)
killing hands
mystic armor 1

Posted by: ShadowDragon Mar 13 2007, 07:36 AM

Torg 2.0 looks fine. Not very optimized, but playable and good enough to contribute to a team if you play him smart. He definitely has room to grow with more karma, and 3 IPs, 4 edge, and 5 body will probably let him live long enough. I'd spend your karma on better skills before sinking them into expensive magic increases.

Posted by: lorechaser Mar 13 2007, 02:43 PM

The only change I'd make is to drop magic to 5, find 7 BP somewhere, and pick up Synaptic Boosters 2 for 32 bp. That puts you magic to 4, but you still come out a point ahead for adept powers.

Posted by: TheOOB Mar 13 2007, 10:59 PM

Some food alergies work a bit better as you can acidently be exposed to them. For example a soy or peanut allergy is hard to avoid because they can be found anywhere. I also had a character with a garlic allergy once, and just the strong smell from being around it was enough to trigger it. Made a few people think he was a vampire (he was a black mage, so not too far off).