Another mundane build that works well: Demolitions expert. Let the aug-up troll blow stuff up with rockets, that's not your thing. Your job is to remove inconvenient doors, walls, buildings and suburbs with a few well-placed charges. You're also a defensive expert, whipping up shaped-charge shrapnel mines and collapsing key areas of the landscape for tactical advantage.

Sure, there are a couple of augs that could help this build, but they're a few extra dice rather than a must-have I-win button (Like extra IPs are for a combat expert).

Off the top of my head....
Cerebral Booster (+1-3 Logic)
Encephalon (+1 die for Demolitions)
Math-SPU (+2 die for Demolitions [if you can argue that you use math in demolitions])
PuSHeD (+1 die for Demolitions)

NeoCortical Nanites (most of the time, +3 to demolitions)
Reflex Recorder (+1 to demolitions)
Genetic Optimization (Logic) (lets you get 1 more logic)

Why do people keep arguing mundanes are better at being generalists? That is totally backwards, it's where mundanes fail the hardest compared to augmented characters. If your goal is to be competent in as many different things as possible (where competence is defined as something like 8-12 dice or whatever), a mundane will trail so far behind an augmented character it isn't funny.

Reflex recorder is not an option. Demolitions is a Technical skill not a Combat or Physical skill.

Why do people keep arguing mundanes are better at being generalists?

Well, in our group there are two of those, maybe even three. Out of seven total.

I've been thinking a lot about wholly mundane characters, part because there are/were three of those in the party, part because I need to create an npc of the type and part because there are some mundanes in the setting - for example, Tit Nan Og elves who despise augmentations, but not all of whom are awakened.
And I would really like to see some examples of capable mundanes. Especially combat specialists. As far as I got, everything a mundane can do, an awakened or cybered can do better. The advantages are dismal. It's like comparing elves to humans - elves are better in every way save Edge, but I haven't seen characters with Edge 7 at all. Mundanes can probably be better skillmonkeys, being able to cross over many fields, but in each field they would be trumped by a non-mundane character, not even necessarily a specialist in the field. In the end GM has to tone down the opposition just because otherwise they will rape mundanes.

And to save the argument, I know all about roleplaying. This doesn't stop me from trying to make as highly optimised character as the concept allows. And When I want to make a, say, capable security specialist, and I see that certain implants would greatly benefit him, I need a reason not to use them.

PS: the rigger talk was enlightening. Thanks a lot!

Why do people keep arguing mundanes are better at being generalists? That is totally backwards, it's where mundanes fail the hardest compared to augmented characters. If your goal is to be competent in as many different things as possible (where competence is defined as something like 8-12 dice or whatever), a mundane will trail so far behind an augmented character it isn't funny.

Who, exactly, said that?

I think you've misinterpreted something. It's been stated that augments are clearly better "hyper-specialists" in most areas, but that hyperspecialisation itself often leaves you less-capable in other areas. But that is not the same as saying "mundanes are better generalists".

I have yet to see an Augmented/Awakened Character with 50 skills at start, Most of which (slightly over half, IIRC 28 of them) are in the 7-12 Dice pool range (with 10 of them at 12 Dice, IIRC), and with none of them less than 5 Dice. Yet, I have seen a Mundane character with just such a build. That particular character is often MUCH more useful than the specialists in the team due to his crazy amount of skills. *shrug*

Now granted, the skill pools for the Augmented/Awakened characters are in the 9-14 DP range for their important skills, but they are NOT generalists at that point, they are specialists.

You might not have personally seen one, but that just means nobody has actually built and played it. I don't suppose you have the character sheet of such an unaugmented mundane starting character on hand? In the interest of comparing apples to apples I would like to compare to an actual character instead of Schroedinger's Mundane.

Well, Tymaeus just did.

You might not have personally seen one, but that just means nobody has actually built and played it. I don't suppose you have the character sheet of such an unaugmented mundane starting character on hand? In the interest of comparing apples to apples I would like to compare to an actual character instead of Schroedinger's Mundane.

Not only that, but having a sheet and seeing how the skills are arrayed can tell if the character is actually better than an augmented character or not. Augments often provide dice to a large number of skills at prices cheaper than raising each of the skills by one. Unless you have a direct need to have ranks in the skill, more often than not the first rank + augments + further ranks is cheaper. So the consideration is whether or not the augments are too expensive more than anything else and if the augments are too expensive, you'll still likely end up worse off. When you're talking about 50 skills, however, the odds are that you're going to have most of the skills the augment boosts.

Enhanced Articulation is 40,000 (8BP) and grants a total of 9 dice. To raise Climbing, Diving, Escape Artist, Gymnastics, Infiltration, Palming, Parachuting, Running, and Swimming all by 1 rank would cost 36BP.

The only conceivable way that the mundane is better is if they have a rank of 1 in every skill and even then that's questionable. That's because for 4 BP you're effectively increasing your DP by 2 rather than 1 (+1 and eliminating the -1 from defaulting) but even if you assume the first rank is effectively doubled in value you're still comparing 8BP for enhanced articulation against 18BP for the skills.

You might not have personally seen one, but that just means nobody has actually built and played it. I don't suppose you have the character sheet of such an unaugmented mundane starting character on hand? In the interest of comparing apples to apples I would like to compare to an actual character instead of Schroedinger's Mundane.

No arguments on Augments. Yes, Augments would make the character MUCH better, especially with the array of skills he already possesses. And I have never argued otherwise. However, the original premise was not whether Augments were better (at least that was never my stance), it was whether you could make a Mundane Character that could compete with Augmented/Awakened Characters on a team. And the answer is an unequivocal Yes. *shrug*

You do realise, that challenge cuts both ways, right? Maybe we'll want to see an actual example, rather than Schroedinger's Adept or Schroedinger's Cybernaut ...

Not handy, no... And to be clear, I am not saying that the Mundane is BETTER than the Awakened/Augmented. But he IS generally more effective in more areas.

My point is that he is only "generally more effective in more areas" because you are comparing apples to oranges. If you compare an unaugmented mundane generalist to an augmented mundane generalist, the augmented mundane generalist will be as effective in some areas and more effective in some areas.

I'm not going to argue about whether this means the unaugmented mundane can or can't "compete." This is a waste of everyone's time as much as trying to argue whether someone is tall or whether a collection of sand is a heap or a pile.

How can that be? Your statements are in direct contradiction. If augmentation can be used to build the same character more efficiently which allows for higher dice pools, how can the unaugmented compete with that? In all categories the augmented would be better.

An unaugmented mundane generalist can compete with augmented/awakened specialists because he covers areas they don't. He can't compete with an augmented generalist because the generalist will be better in most things than the unaugmented mundane generalist. We need to compare apples to apples here.

Yes, that is the point. If you would like to provide an actual example of an unaugmented mundane generalist, then I am happy to provide an actual example of how much that character could be improved by being augmented.

The unaugmented character will have more areas of use than the Augmented character. Those augmentations do use resources that the Mundane can otherwise use for Skills. The question is one of scale, I guess. I have never managed to create an Augmented character with as many skills as the totally unaugmented character. I guess it could be done, I have just never quite accomplished that task. Something to look at I guess. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Augments use money, yes, but the amount of BP/Karma it takes to acquire them gives a far greater benefit than if you were to individually purchase those skills.

Qualia and PuSHeD together cost 40,000 and they give you a collective +1 to all logic and intuition linked skill tests. So for 8 BP you raise all your knowledge skills dice pools by 1.

No arguments here. In the case of the character I played, however, that 40k was more useful in actually acquiring some equipment (rather than benefiting a +1 DP for a bunch of those skills). Augments can always come later (when funds are less tight); it is hard to run with absolutely no equipment, though I did have a ganger who did so for a bit. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Seems like that's a pretty obvious benefit there. A lot faster to gain (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) and buy augs later than to get the karma for all those skills. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)