Hoi Chummers

This is my first real post after lurking for a few years. I've finally managed to gather a group of P&P gamers to play SR4. A few players have experience in the group, but one of my players hasn't got a clue what SR is about and asked me to spruce up his character, a Night One who's focus is Archery. To compensate for the player's lack of knowledge of SR he opted to take the Amnesia and Erased qualities for ease of getting in the game. As the GM I decided to give him the most bang for his buck since he wants to have fun despite his fears of crap dice rolls so with a bit of Borrowed Time and a lot of Bioware (Unknown to the Player) I've made him an Ace Archer.

But this is where my problem arises within the rules of the game, technically his Skill Rating in Archery is 7(8) with augmentation, and I'm wondering if that is legal.

Under standard character creation rules I've went and purchased the following to get the skill where it is...
Aptitude (Archery) to boost his Active Combat Skill Archery to 7 at the 32 BP cost and then with the bioware Reflex Recorder (Archery) pumped it up to 8.

Does it work like that?

As far as I can tell, this is legal, but it cannot be advanced further, without nullifying the reflex recorder.

Reflex Recorder states:



I don’t see why it doesn’t work like that. AFAIK you are doing it correctly

Yes, that's right, although really, really expensive. Aptitude costs 10 BP and Skill 7 costs 8 BP, that's 18 BP for one die. Think about, what you can do with 18 BP. that's a rank 4 in a new skill, which means now defaulting and therefore 5 (!!!) more dice here.

Cool, but I'm wondering if it's too much of a boost now. The character will be using a bow, with the specialization as well as the benefits of the Enhanced Articulation and Muscle Toner (rating 2) biowares so his Archey dice roll will look like this...

Agility 7(9) + Archery 7(8) +2 Bow Specialization +1 Enhanced Articulation for a total of 20d6

That's nuts, right? But on the other hand the characters is a ticking time bomb and the player himself has stated he may drop from the group out of lack of interest.

Here's the rough character sheet for those who would like to comment, any tips or advice is most appreciated.

Metatype: Elf, Metavarient: Night One

ATTRIBUTES
BOD: 3
AGI: 7(9)
REA: 5(7)
STR: 4
CHA: 3
INT: 2
LOG: 1
WIL: 2
Edge: 3

Essence: 4.2
Initiative: 7(9)

ACTIVE SKILLS
[AGI]Archery (Bows +2) 7(8)
Athletics Skill Group 4
-[STR]Climbing 4
-[AGI]Gymnastics 4
-[STR]Running 4
-[STR]Swimming 4
[REA]Dodge 3
[REA]Pilot Ground Craft 3
[AGI]Unarmed Combat 4

KNOWLEDGE SKILLS
[INT]Fletchery 4
[INT]Archery 5

LANGUAGE SKILLS
Sperethiel N
English N

QUALITIES
Aptitude (Archery)
Amnesia
Bilingual
Borrowed Time
Erased
Lightning Reflexes
Restricted Gear
Will To Live

Gear & Lifestyle
AR Gloves
Armoured Vest (B/I 2/2)
Street Clothing
Low Lifestyle (3 Months)

Augmentations
Cybereyes (Rating 1, w/ Vision Magnification)
Enhanced Articulation (+1d6 to Physical Related Tests)
Muscle Toner (Rating 2)
Orthoskin (Rating 2, B/I 2/2)
Platelet Factories (Damage of 2< Reduce by 1 point)
Reflex Recorder (Archery)

MATRIX GEAR
Renraku Sensei (w/ Renraku Ichi OS)

WEAPONS
Composite Bow (Rating 4, 6 DMG)

CONTACTS
Socialite (Connection 4/Loyalty 4)

NOTES
Night One Ability: Low-light Vision, Mild Alergy Sunlight, Keen Eared, Nocturnal, Unsual Hair (Fur)

Enhanced Articulation (+1d6 to Physical Related Tests):
Combat test are not Physical related test, they are combat test.

additionally:
Drop Agi to 6((IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) as the last point is too expensive with the 25BP cost. Together with the suggested drop of Aptitude you can free up 43 BP. Invest 40 of these into your mental stats ( Int 4, Log 2, Will 3)

get Muscle Augmentation for +2 Str and a Rating 6 Bow

Dropping two dice from ditching aptitude and max agility can be regained by attaching a smartlink to the bow.

Eww, lightning reflexes? Drop that and give the character wired reflexes.

Also, don't saddle the character with borrowed time. Throw on biosystem overstress and some other qualities instead. You don't want to force your own hand to kill off the character if the player enjoys themselves.

And as Makki said, enhanced articulation only affects skills in the Physical skill group which are linked to physical attributes, so that drops 1 die.

You can also get 25 BP back out of the character (and lower the DP by 1) by not hard maxing the agility. Put that back into perception.

Oh, and as to your original question, yes, it effectively gives you an 8 skill because skills, like attributes, can go above their normal maximum through augmentation.

I hate to be the turd in the punchbowl on this...but why would you want to be saddled with archery?
I can see it being neat for fluff, but it's such a huge handicap.

Correct me if I'm wrong...
Like melee combat, archery is limited to one attack per initiative pass.
Archery does not have a semi or full auto mode, no additional armor piercing, limited ammunition choices, a strength threshold, a two-hand and proximity requirement, limited range, plus reloading them requires a "ready weapon" action. "A character may ready a weapon by spending a Simple Action. P147"

Guns are so simple, if not too simple, to use.
I don't know if I'd handicap a new player with such a mediocre weapon and so many rules to use it.
It seems like he's spending a ton of build points on a bad idea.

It's the 2070s, maybe it's time to put the stone-age weapons down.

It is a lot of dice, but he's not shooting the bow, what else is he good for?

Shadowrun is a game where many jobs require as little combat as possible. The player should be aware that spending three quarters of play sessions doing nothing isn't actually all that fun.





-k

Actually archery can be quite good, and there are quite a few arrowhead options. Bows can only be fired once an IP due to needing a simple action to reload and another simple to fire (Though I think there is an adept power that could change that to free for the reloading), but that can be offset by the fact that they can be the single highest damage dealing weapon in the game. The above character should get muscle enhancement to raise strength up to 6, which would allow use of a rating 6 bow which does 8P damage (And that isn't even particularly high for archery characters).

The bow is also perfectly silent and comes in a collapsible option for more stealth at the cost of 1 damage.

Stone age weapons are surprisingly effective in the future.

"single highest damage dealing"
It's still a single shot /single target weapon.
An average runner with a average skills can take on more targets more easily with an average gun.
Plus, they have access to more BPs for a greater variety of weaponry, attributes and skills.

Run a couple combat simulations.
Pit this guy against an all 3's NPC and see how it turns out.

Plus, in order to make it effective, you need to dump 50 build points on it.
It just seems like a really restrictive waste of build points.

But if it's fun, who cares?

Okay, sure, no problem.
Assuming they are in mutual range of each other, both are prepared for combat, and not bothering with things like cover and such, and no surprise. All rolls done on IC but not posted. Also assuming grabbing muscle enhancement because there isn't much reason not to.

Night's init: 9 + 5
NPC's init:6 + 2

Night goes first. Weapon already loaded, fires at NPC:
Bow attack: 9 hits.
NPC uses full defense to dodge: 1 hit
Bow hits with explosive head: 9P + 8 net hits = 17P damage
Damage soaked with 3 body and 6 armor: 3 hits, 14P damage taken. NPC is dead.

Well, that was quick and easy.

NPC 2 and 3 now act, and the Archer is likely dead as well... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

He said an all 3's NPC, not 3 NPCs. I could do that too, but I'd need to know weapons. If they've both got assault rifles then yeah, reasonable chance they'll fire, Night will squeak by alive, kill another NPC, then get killed by the third NPC unless he gets wired reflexes, in which case he'd likely be seriously injured but kill all three NPCs.

Of course that has more to do with the power of assault weapons even in unskilled hands than anything else.

Heh... Good Point. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I'll admit a 1 on 1 with an average Joe NPC might be a *little* stacked in Night's favor..
I'm not saying Night isn't a badass, but I am saying it would be much easier, especially for a new player, to use any of a dozen guns.
Maybe run him against a few of the sample characters and see how it goes.

***I'm also ignoring the other elephant in the room which would be the explosive arrows.***
A character with 1 grenade and no skill can do almost the same thing.
Explosive rounds exist too.
What would happen if Night weren't using explosive arrows?

***In your combat, without explosive arrows, the NPC would have taken what...5 stun?***

Give somebody with 9 Agility a bow see what happens...
Give somebody with a 9 Agility a gun and see what happens...

Am I seriously the only person who'd rather bring a gun to a bow fight?

Unless it's a Ki-Ad Troll Archer, you're right.

I think if the player wants to be an archer, that should trump everything else. Though I get the sense that he may have played a lot of D&D and thought 'drow archer' right off the bat.

My concern would be the Night One part. If it's this cat's first foray into shadowrun, you may not want to saddle him with such a rare specimen of metahumanity. It's just a little too much 'different' to saddle a new player with right out of the gate. He may have picked the race with the thought that drow are cool without knowing that they are about as rare as a honest politician.

Recommend the kid try out a regular elf first and see if that's good fit. Once he has the feel of the universe, then give him the option of becoming a rarity in it.

Of course not. But there's a huge difference between numerically subpar and unusable. If someone wants to play an archer, it can easily work in the game. If you want to give advice, what about "X makes for a better archer"?

We can remove that elephant, I did it just to show what can be done for a few extra nuyen per shot. If you remove the explosive arrows in the example then the NPC would have taken 13P instead of 14P and still been dead.

And actually as I recall grenades suck quite alot, and sure, explosive rounds exist. Is there a point?

Points:
1. Guy wants to use a bow, let him use a bow.
2. Spending that many build points on that much specialization is overkill and detracts from doing anything else.
3. Guns are much easier to use, abundant, and don't require nearly as many build points in specialization.
4. If a player is just a hammer, he'll feel frustrated and useless unless your entire campaign is made of nails.

He certainly could use infiltration which could be paid for along with perception by taking agility off a hard max.

Agreeed on hardmaxing. Its just so bad. Those 25 bp are so much better to use elsewhere.

You can even get the same performance with ware. Take Restricted Gear: Muscle toner. Bump that toner up to rating 4. Boosh. 4 agility for 11 BP in total. Get a level of martial arts. Any. Doesn't matter. Take the Iajutsu Maneuver. This will let your archer fire twice in one turn with a skill test to Quickdraw his arrows. One he'll likely pass with that massive agility. Plus, its hella cool. Thats 7 more points. (i'm leaning towards Ninjutsu. Nobody takes it. Nobody will expect it. This is perfect.)

Use the leftover on Infiltration - anything to make use of that high agility, and thus, useful to his team - probably shadowing or palming.


Nitpick: You don't want both Gymnastics and Dodge. For personal defense, just use Gymnastics. Shave those points, use it elsewhere.
Dodge is only useful if you plan on rigger-fighting too.

This guy NEEDS at least two initiative passes if he's going to be any decent. Drop lightning reflexes(its BAD), give him a Synaptic Booster 1. (maybe 2).
Will to live is terrible. Get rid of it. Take something else. Anything else. Like that martial arts i mentioned. No really, its bad. Overflow only helps if your're on the ground, unconscious and bleeding out, and won't even save you from that.

Get that bow to rating 6, use some Muscle Augmentation. Smartlink the bow. Add specs to all the skills you can, if you have extra bp for it.


that being said, taking amnesia is basically GIVING your GM an opportunity to mess with you. I'd take make use if it, but try not to railroad it.
Look at the Judas quality(RC), or possibly deep cover. It goes hand in hand with amnesia - the blank state is a good cover identity. Later, the character might not so much remember who he is as snap back to who he was. Whether or not he's on his new teams side, though...
Don't be afraid to break the rules slightly when designing the character.
I'm amused at this character having a Superthyroid Gland, being hungry all the time, and NOT knowing why.