I have heard a ton of different theories on how to create Shadowrun characters. The beauty of Shadowrun that separates it from other tabletop RPGs is the amount of customizing that you can do with your character right from the beginning. It raises questions though on how you SHOULD create your character. A lot of people argue that a Shadowrun character should be specialized in what they do, but the other camp says that they should be good at one type of thing and decent at a lot of other varied skills. This represents a well rounded character that has a lot of room for growth.

Personally I am in the varied skillset camp. I believe that you can get way more mileage out of your character if you give him multiple skillsets. There are a couple of skills that SHOULD be on ALL character sheets. Those skills are Shadowing, Perception, Dodge, Infiltration, and maybe Disguise. Let me explain why. Shadowing is important and in most of the games I run I have my players roll for shadowing a lot when they are doing surveillance. Shadowing should be in every shadowrunner's skill tree because of the nature of their work. When doing recon you HAVE to have some stealth skills to avoid being noticed. That is where Shadowing comes in. You don't have to have a lot of skill points invested in it. Just 2 at the max for certain characters. It really doesn't cost that much and it will help you later on.

Now for Infiltration. Shadowrun is the type of game where it does not pay to go in guns blazing. That is a good way for a runner to get him/herself killed. Shadowrun is all about strategic positioning and getting the drop on an enemy AND remaining undetected. That is why you need Infiltration and EVERY runner should take a couple of points in it.

Perception is a no brainer, but it also has some other uses that a lot of players don't think about. Usually players are only thinking about visual perception when they roll. They rarely think about the other four senses and it is important to keep in mind that you can find a lot about a situation if you use all five senses. It is best to have at least 3 skill points in Perception.

Dodge is a no-brainer. If you are a runner you need those extra dice for Full Defense, they will help when you are in an extended firefight and somehow YOU are the favorite target.

Now for disguise. All of my players know by now that they should be showing up to jobs, meets, and just about everything to do with crime in a disguise. The one thing a runner can't afford is to have his face on the computer of some Lone Star database. You need disguises and EVERY runner needs this skill. You don't need a lot of skill points, just 1 or 2. You can purchase nanopaste disguises to augment Disguise tests or just use a simple Latex Face Mask. Never go out on a run in your "true face" it does not pay.

The essential skills aside, not it is time for my main point. If you vary your skills at character creation and avoid min maxing the points you alot for purchasing skills you will find that the game will run much smoother later on because you not only have a wide range of skills to use, but you can fill in where needed much easier AND you can improve on said skills with karma, making you more than average with them. Isn't this the better alternative? Shouldn't the sweet spot of the game last longer before you become all powerful and pidgeon-holed? I tell my players not to min max, design your character after the personality and image you have in your head of her/him. If you are playing a skinny elf, go ahead and give em that 2 body, you can upgrade him later and provide a roleplay answer for why he/she gets more buff. Don't be afraid to tailor your character sheet on how your character is ACTUALLY LIKE. Trust me, you will be much happier with your character in the long run.

I get a rebuttal that I would like to refute from the get go and it goes as follows, "But I won't roll as much". Not true if you spend your BP wisely. Cyberware, Genetech, Nanoware, and Bioware are beautiful things. I can promise you that I can make a character that has average attributes and average skills and make him/her roll like a prime runner. Even mages and adepts have powers that will do everything that all the warez can do. Don't worry, if you stay true to your concept, it will carry you far.

A penny for your thoughts Dumpshockers?

I agree with this philosophy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) But many do not.

I have never understood people who min/max Shadowrun. I can understand it if they do it for D&D because you have so very little to work with in terms of customization and if you don't choose the right stuff you end up falling behind the power curve, but in Shadowrun it is completely different because you CAN have all the customization you want. Makes no sense to min/max attributes and skills because you can still be useful to the party with average skills.

P.S. I love your signature XD

"Roll like a prime runner" isn't a clearly defined objective, though. You can get a respectable die pool, I don't doubt, but the simple fact -- the simple math -- remains that someone who doesn't stick to "average" attributes and skills will roll more than you do, because they have access to all the same boosts you might choose. What's more, given some of the rules that limit modifications to skill pools, someone with better than "average" skills will easily and certainly have more dice than you, every time.

In the end, you're just opening a can of worms that's been opened, closed, and re-opened about a million times around here. Some people like generalists because they feel they have more depth, some people like min/maxing because they feel they have more quality, because they enjoy the mental challenge of getting as big a die pool as they can, or because they feel that min/maxing and character depth aren't exclusive.

There's no right answer. There's no wrong answer. Everyone's got an opinion, and every opinion is correct as long as that opinion meshes with the rest of their gaming group, at their game table, in their game. Don't worry about what Dumpshock wants. Worry about what your GM, or your players, want.

Role-playing vs. Roll-playing, round 596,289,833: fight!

Honestly, your campaign style is pretty much coloring what skills are a must have for everyone. You apparently run a very stealth heavy campaign, but not all are like that. If I were playing in your campaign I'd always have a high stealth group based on how often you described stealth as coming up, but in many campaigns you can get by with far less or none. On your "everybody should have these" list:

-Perception I agree with wholeheartedly. My group's first set of characters didn't realize how bad it was needed, nobody had the skill, and I think the best of us rolled 3 dice on the defaulting. Everyone should have at least 1 or 2 ranks, and Vision/Hearing Enhancement rating 3. There's really no reason not to.

-Infiltration I tend to get on all of my characters, but I don't think everyone needs it. The high agility characters may as well get one rank in it so they can take advantage and be all ninja-like, but generally when sneaking is needed, we have a couple people with infiltration move in unnoticed, and make sure the way is clear for those who are less stealthy.

-Shadowing is a skill that has literally never come up in one of my games, so I find it a stretch to say it is a must have skill for everyone. I can see situations where it would be useful, but not something that every character needs to have.

-Disguise is another skill that only comes up infrequently with my group. Using disguise and getting a new face for every meet and every run? That's on the extreme end of things. Most runs, we simply knock out or edit electronic surveillance and make sure none of the guards have cybereyes. I could see the need for a disguise for someone with like distinctive style, or fame, or something along those lines, but typical shadowrunners are anonymous just by virtue of not being particularly distinguishable and living in a city of millions. If someone sees your face for a few seconds in a firefight, it doesn't really matter because they won't be able to ID you.

-Dodge is okay, but Gymnastics does everything dodge does, and then some. Why take dodge when you can pick up a rank or two in athletics?





As for other skills, I personally think you should have a specialization, and some sub role that you can jump into. You might be a street sammy with a nice commlink and some hacking skill, so you can help out with that when needed, or you might be the mage who has some knowledge of demolitions, or a specialized infiltrator who has some good datasearch skill. But basically you should have primary skills at 4-6, a couple of secondary skills at 3-4, then pick up stuff like perception, athletics, etc as needed and as fits.

I totally agree with Perception... and really I always thought that should be an attribute instead of a skill, but oh well

Dodge or Gymnastics... not required I don't think but really good to have one or the other

Infil/Shadow... those are only useful in certain types of jobs. If your PC's don't have them then no one should be hiring them for jobs that involve sneaking around or tailing someone.

On perception, I defenitely agree. If not because it's so obvious, then from the practical experience of watching the best observer (Invisible way Phys Ad) get smacked around because a character who couldn't see a board right in front of her (Mage. No perception 2 Intuition).

Dodge and gymnastics, useful, not necessary, though almost all my characters have one or the other.

Infiltration, shadowing, disguise and I'll add ettiquette to the list. These are helpful. Disguise and shadowing less then the other two in my opinion, but they have their moments. Ettiquette and infiltration, to me, are the same job in a different bow. Both involve slipping into a situation, and slipping out, without unwanted attention: One is is not being physically noticed; the other is not being remembered, or being sure enough to not draw that attention. I use both of these a lot in my games, and most characters would be foolish to not have them.

(Note: In my house rules, I use ettiquette to determine a general idea of how each character is acting at that moment, within the character's personality. I also use it to determine how well each character sees the others, for example, in one recent mission, the team met a Johnson who rolled 1 hit on 5 ettiquette+cha dice. Because of his background, I figured he was fidgetty and obviously distracted by another long-term job he had, but also as the character was homeless, he hadn't changed in a while either, and was smelling rather ripe. He is based on a former PC I played.)

To me, the whole specialist vs. generalist is less a question of playstyle, and more a question of whether a particular character is one or the other. Some characters are generalists because their role requires a lot of different skills, while others are more specialized because their skill set is narrower. Some characters are not min-maxed because their skills are support skills that don't have a lot of negatives, where success or failure is not usually a matter of life or death. If I put together an unlicensed private eye, he would probably have a mix of social skills, stealth skills, a bit of B&E, data search, and know how to use a pistol or his fists. If I put together a street samurai, he would have multiple initiative passes, augmented Attributes, and high combat skills.


I do think the debate of min-maxer vs. generalist is a false dichotomy. To me, a shadowrunner is someone who gets hired because he is really good at something, who survives because he is also able to function outside of that sometimes narrow role. A generalist who is not particularly good at anything, or a specialist who is not useful when not doing his particular job, are both what I would consider lower-end, fledgeling runners. But specialization does not always preclude having a good range of skills.

I tend to build a character around a concept so when I make a character I give them what makes sense whether that is a specialist skill set or a generalist one. The arguments for both are about roll-play - role-playing not involved.

Friendbot, what bothers me about arguments like yours is the implication that more specialized characters don't really have anywhere to grow whereas the sky is the limit for generalists. Hate to say it, but under standard BP generation that is just not supported mathematically. Specialists have plenty of room to grow, they just do so laterally. If you are taking the long view and your goal is to be a fairly well-rounded shadowrunner who is also a world-class marksmen then you will reach your goal for less karma by starting as a world-class marksman who picks up new skill groups and specializations instead of starting as a generalist who hits the firing range four nights a week. That's because BP costs are flat and karma costs scale upwards with rating. Mind you, being well-rounded from the get-go has its perks, certainly, but mechanically I'd say there's enough going on under the hood to call it a wash. I've ran games times where the players would have benefited from not having to default on an Intimidate test but I've also had games where springing for Restricted Gear and a Pain Editor would have kept a character conscious and contributing instead of becoming a complete liability. Claiming that the game will really run that much smoother for the generalist players is thus simply too big of an assumption for me to feel comfortable making given that it can be rather easily shown that on a long enough timeline chargen specialists typically get the same dice for less points.


Anyway, with that said, I don't go out of my way to encourage all that much specialization at my table. When it comes right down to it, Shadowrun isn't a game that's really all that concerned with things like challenge ratings or making sure all the opponents have level appropriate abilities for the encounter or whatever, since often a big part of the game is engineering things so that hopefully you don't run into anyone too savvy or dangerous. Ultimately, all I ask is that the players bring characters to the table that can feasibly run in the same circles without failing the sniff test.

Personally, I would at Athletics and <combat skill of choice> to the list. There will come a time when you need to scale a wall or run from pursuers. Ever tried climbing with mediocre strengh and no climbing gear?

As for combat, unless you're playing a game where social engineering and stealth are always sufficient to succeed, there will come a time when the shit hits the fan. Combat, by nature, takes up a lot of table time, so it's advisable that everyone can contribute to it. You won't even need to be that good at it; an Agi 3 Skill 2 person with spec and smartgun will be rolling 9 dice, which is enough to make an impact against most enemies.

About the discussion of specialists vs generalists: Like I've said, certain skills are essential for runners. However, in BPgen, there's almost no incentive to not get them at a later time. That's why our group plays with Karmagen.

I hate to say it, but we have a word for generalists at my table: dead.

Granted, I set out to run a high-powered game. I helped everyone who wanted help in building their character, and min/maxing to whatever degree they felt like. Only one guy turned down my advice, opting for a generalist; and he's had to burn Edge twice to survive in the last six months. He also had to rewrite once, because his initial build was simply that ineffective.

SR4.5 chargen isn't especially flexible when compared to other game systems. HERO and GURPS are just as intensive, and flexible. Savage Worlds is equally flexible and many times easier to use. D&D 4e is less flexible, but still simple. And so on.

Basically, I find SR4.5 character creation to be too much work for too little reward. It's too easy to make a gimped character, specialist or no. And you can break a character by accident just as easily.

Honestly, outside your specialty, you don't need especially high dice pools. You just need to have your bases covered. Who needs Dodge, when you have gymnastics? And who needs gymnastics, when you have cover? If you're not a shooter, you should be relying on cover over instead of Reaction; and if you are a shooter, you shouldn't be wasting actions on dodging when you should be taking down enemies. Besides which, a properly-done hyper-specialist will look an awful lot like a well-built generalist, only with one super-high dice pool. Really, it's not as big of a tradeoff as everyone seems to think it is: it's all a matter of degree.

Shadowing is so 2000. Why bother doing that in the meat when you can send a micro-drone or stick an RFID tag?

Because a Microdrone sucks at shadowing unless it is rigged, or you have more than a couple of them working in tandem. And you need to be able to place the RFID tag, so you still need at least One, if not Two, skills from the Stealth Group to do that.

There's an autosoft for that!

That reminds me of Street Samurai I dubbed "Roboface". Uncouth samurai with MBW 2, average charisma, tailored pheremones, and a bunch of social Activesofts.

And a Buggy Ware that causes the skillwire to randomly switch on and off? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Yes, I know. However, They work best in teams for stuff like that. Or Rigged.

Social skillsofts/Linguasofts like the Hungarian dictionary would be absolutely hilarious.

"Ok chummer, you got the goods?"

"Do.. do you vant to come beck to my place? Bouncy Bouncy?"

The firefight is extended because you're dodging. Besides if you have gymnastics (Athletics skill group) then you're wasting points on dodge.


You keep saying that everyone should have these because how your table plays. Yeah....


Not necessarily. If you are using BP for character generation and karma for character advancement it is MORE cost effective to purchase expensive skills at chargen and cheap skills (1-2) with karma. If you do it the other way around, your character will have less ability for the same BP/Karma.

Now you may value certain things more than other things, for example, you may simply prefer your way because you prefer your way. That's fine. It's better for YOU. But that doesn't mean it's better.

Personally, I find it funny that you encourage someone to be weak on body but tell them certain skills are "essential". Personally, I find being able to wear armor "essential".

Damn straight. I had a hacker with 4 body, heavy bone lacing, and armor to match. When the bullets went flying, he was target numero uno but ended up with barely a bruise.

Also, in BP gen, I find that buying skills at 1 is still a decent deal as it avoids the defaulting penalty. Any higher and it's most efficient to go with a skill of 4-6.

I find cover and a high Reaction to be more important than armor and soaking. Better to not be hit in the first place, you know? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

Stuck in a burning car in an otherwise empty parking lot. Nearest cover was surrounded by 6 guys. Thankfully, they were gangers and my edge was mostly full at the time.

Personally, I think a mix of good reaction combined with the ability to soak small arms hits is essential. I'm currently playing a combat hacker, and in the last shootout both Adepts with Reaction 8 and Combat Sense 6 got taken out due to the enemy firing wide bursts. Meanwhile, my Reaction 9, Body 5 combined with Bone Density Augmentation 4 and 2x Armor 2 from my cyberarms meant that their SMGs didn't put a scratch on me.