The thing is, in Shadowrun 4 it's really NOT hard to get primary dicepools in the 16-24 range, a few secondaries at 10-14, and several 6-8 pools for tertiary stuff. And still have resources leftover for roleplay stuffs or whatever. You really DON'T have to make significant sacrifices to gain great power.

I am able to even build really bizarre builds with similar dice pools, like my pixie rigger adept. More "standard" builds I can probably push further.

And this isn't even pushing the extreme stat limits. None of my characters have a 4th or 5th initiative pass, for example, or more than one starting attribute maxed. (Many have NO starting attributes maxed). Those are way too expensive for what they give you. It's just that so many damn things in SR4 stack.


-k

With an ordinary character, I would agree with you.

The difference for me is, I tend to have elaborate and exotic character concepts, and I end up spending a lot of points on fleshing out the concepts themselves, rather than on making the character more powerful. If I wanted to play as "Guy In Trenchcoat No. 482", sure, I could be tossing 24 dice around, but for me, I prefer to have more unique sorts of characters.

Heck, even your Pixie Rigger Adept is still highly doable, because being a pixie itself isn't that big of a deal - you're still building an otherwise normal rigger adept, you just happen to be a pixie and that costs you some points. My stuff is... well... a little more "out there".

For example, some folks may remember my T'skrang Taildancer changeling project, and the sheer difficulties of mechanically representing the physiology of a T'skrang. Not only are most of the options that you have to take to pull of something like this expensive in their own right, they also don't exactly give you benefits quite worth their costs, and they often lack synergy with each other and the rest of the character.

There's also the fact that I tend to build "wide" with my skills, rather than "tall". Instead of a small number of skills with large dice pools, I tend to end up with a larger number of skills with more moderate pools - often because the skills make sense in terms of the character and their backstory. My Taildancer has 16 different skills which he doesn't default on, because his character archetype demands he be able to do all those things with at least some degree of ability.

For example, I know the average Runner is NEVER going to use Tracking, Navigation, or Survival, (because how many GMs actually enforce things like Navigation rolls for driving around town without getting lost?) so of course they never bother putting any points into them. But if I'm playing a character whose backstory would reasonably include them having such skills, I take them, even if I never expect to use them and am essentially "wasting" points.

So those 20 BP someone else can spend pumping up a single major skill to Rating 5? Yeah, I spend them on getting the Outdoors 2 skill group so that with an average Intuition of 3, I still manage to have a measly 5 or so dice for the skills my character should, logically, possess at some degree of basic competancy given who and what they are.

Oh, and in this specific case it also doesn't help that - again, for thematic reasons - I'm an Adept and a lot of the things I'm using my Power Points for are much, much, much, much cheaper and more efficient to get as cyberware. Not a problem in itself, but stacked on top of the rest of my restrictions, it adds up.

Granted, I fully and readily admit both myself and my characters are somewhat extreme outliers. I do personally think that too many GMs are too lenient with allowing people to hyper specialize ("Why do I need Social skills? That's what the Face is for, and I will literally never be called to roll on a Social test ever, so it doesn't matter if I can only throw 2 dice before negative modifiers!").

But I also realize that a lot of what I do is the exact opposite - I actually, literally, will never roll most of my skills, but I include them anyway - and that probably seems bass ackwards to a lot of folks.

Different strokes and all that.

~Umi

I design my characters in much the same way, Umidori.
My Russian Unaugmented, Un-awakened, Un-emerged Mercenary was sporting over 40 skills with actual Points in them so as not to default (Karma Gen, obviously). Main Skills were in the 12 DP range, Secondary were in the 10 DP range and Tertiary were in the 7-9 DP range, and Minimum DP was 4-5 IIRC. He is one of the most fun characters I have ever played, right up there with my Spider Changeling, Occult Investigator and my Cyberlogician.

Sounds like a real Jack of All Trades. Is it fair to assume a lot of what made him fun was pulling out unusual skills for all sorts of weird situations? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

"It's a new prototype hybrid biotech-manatech ciphered lock system! Even if we had an expert safecracker, we'd also need someone with the proper magical AND medical knowledge to deciper the bio-arcana passkey, and THEN we'd need someone who can reset the electronics and reprogram the control mechanism on the fly!"
"Give me ten minutes and a liter of vodka and I'll have it open."

I'm personally still waiting for an opportunity to play my T'skrang, hopefully in some sort of Asian-centric campaign since I finally settled on his being from Malaysia. (Specifically he's an Orang Laut "Sea Dayak" who grew up in the floating pirate black market city of Mompracen, and due to his "condition" ended up working as hired muscle before branching out into bounty and head hunting.)

He's probably the most physically outlandish character I've built so far, and I think I'm ready to start a few more subdued projects. I have an idea for a minimal-combat infiltrator and spy, with a strong focus on disguises and outside-the-box problem solving - which probably means I'm once again going to have a whole bunch of skills, and will need to spend my points very efficiently to pack everything in.

~Umi

Not so much Unusual Skills, but Skills that would make sense for a Spec Ops Trained Mercenary with Multiple focuses (and there are a LOT of them). But yes, he was/is a blast to play. I think it is the cheesy Russian Scandawhovian accent I affect when I play him.

A Tskrang sounds interesting to me as well. Along the same lines as my Spider Changeling, who only wanted to fit in. I know he is extremely physically outlandish. It is sad that everyone tries to kill him all the time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I actually have a player for an upcoming campaign who just recently handed me a preliminary character sheet for his own Spider Changeling out of the blue. I was and still am intrigued, and I think it could make for some interesting times.

I did warn him of the severe stigma that is associated with the Insectoid Features quality, but we hammered out reasonable ways for him to cover up a bit and he's really excited to try out something new and different.

~Umi

That was one of the most interesting aspects to me. He wanted human interaction, and needed Human Interaction, to stay somewhat connected (and sane). His trials and tribulations in regards to that were always very interesting. Sadly, even when people get to know him, they still can't get past that Insectoid features and ultimately, inevitably (Curse your expected and inevitable betrayal) try to kill him. In the end, he stays on the move a lot. But it never dampens his desire for that interaction. He is a fun character. One of the few where I actually went to the trouble of crafting answers to the 52 Questions interview. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Wow, things have picked up a lot since my build was fully finalized. To set things to rest, this character has a meat Agility of 5, with my right limb sporting enhancements bumping that to seven. That, along with a cyber-gyro and modded smartgun in my Steyr TMP, I've got a DP of 12 for what is ultimately a backup combat skill, not my primary. That would be (Semi-Automatics) Pistols, at DP 17 with smartlink.

First session was this past monday, so my ability to muck about with stats is very limited.