Archetypes, Replacements for the SR4A Sample Characters Options

[mmmkay]

The pugilist is exciting but I have some notes/questions

1) you can't take off-hand training with unarmed combat skill

2) the 0/0 overcoat that costs 20 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) , where is that mentioned?

3) can you really get a personalized grip for gloves? I guess by RAW it makes sense, but you're not really gripping anything.

4) why don't you have a rating 4 fake SIN/license?

5) I didn't get the significance of having most of your knowledge skills being related to things you either had a compulsion to not get (bioware) or could not learn (firearms), but perhaps that's just the charm of the character. Also the fomori knowledge is important?

6) It seems awkward that you can do 5S(e) damage with a touch attack, but if you punch with the stun gloves it still only does 5s(e). Then if you train at boxing you can do 6S(e) or more. RAW is RAW?

I learned so much from reading this, there were a lot of neat tricks that you used.

[Xenefungus]

Be aware that at MOST tables this would never fly. Not so much tricks as exploits, imho. Dual Wielding Gloves, seriously?

[mmmkay]

Be aware that at MOST tables this would never fly. Not so much tricks as exploits, imho. Dual Wielding Gloves, seriously?

They are reach 0 weapons, which is covered by two weapon style. That aspect actually makes sense. As I imagine it typically unarmed combat would be performed with someone in the orthodox stance and you get a -2 modifier for using your other arm explicitly (or if you went southpaw for some reason). Learning two weapon style basically means your stance and style has been trained to be more defensive. I wouldn't consider this an exploit. Increasing damage with a stun weapon with boxing skills... that's more of an exploit, although I don't see a RAW issue.

[Xenefungus]

RAI over RAW anyday. Seriously, i cant do two-weapon-stype with my bare fists but with gloves it works? no way!
And of course, the +DV to electric attacks via fighting styles is just as invalid.

[UmaroVI]

The pugilist exciting but I have some notes/questions

1) you can't take off-hand training with unarmed combat skill

2) the 0/0 overcoat that costs 20 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) , where is that mentioned?

3) can you really get a personalized grip for gloves? I guess by RAW it makes sense, but you're not really gripping anything.

4) why don't you have a rating 4 fake SIN/license?

5) I didn't get the significance of having most of your knowledge skills being related to things you either had a compulsion to not get (bioware) or could not learn (firearms), but perhaps that's just the charm of the character. Also the fomori knowledge is important?

6) It seems awkward that you can do 5S(e) damage with a touch attack, but if you punch with the stun gloves it still only does 5s(e). Then if you train at boxing you can do 6S(e) or more. RAW is RAW?

I learned so much from reading this, there were a lot of neat tricks that you used.

1) You are 100% right on that, I missed it [I'm less familiar with the MA rules since they aren't used in missions]. I think the way to go is going to be to just suck up the -2 to parrying. I updated the google doc.

2) It's just "Clothing." (SR4A 327) The idea is it's a "homemade" version of a Ghost in the Shell style camo shroud.

3) Yep. I see no real problem with it - not all gloves fit everyone perfectly, so "personalized grip" gloves would be suited to the exact shape of your hands. I don't see anything suspicious about this one.

4) It's fairly arbitrary - most of the SR4A sample characters have rating 3 ones, so I used rating 3.

5) That was a joke.

6) I can sort of see that being skilled at boxing would let you land blows in the right place to inflict more pain with the electrical damage. RAW, it works. RAI? Honestly, I doubt anyone even thought about it.

[UmaroVI]

RAI over RAW anyday. Seriously, i cant do two-weapon-stype with my bare fists but with gloves it works? no way!
And of course, the +DV to electric attacks via fighting styles is just as invalid.

I think it's more stupid that you can't use two-weapon style with your bare hands. I mean, think about it, without TWS it wouldn't even hurt a boxer to have their left hand tied behind their back, but in real life boxers wear gloves on both hands and they do, in fact, frequently block with one hand and punch with the other.

[mmmkay]

I think it's more stupid that you can't use two-weapon style with your bare hands. I mean, think about it, without TWS it wouldn't even hurt a boxer to have their left hand tied behind their back, but in real life boxers wear gloves on both hands and they do, in fact, frequently block with one hand and punch with the other.

This counterargument was a billion times better than mine. Sigh, brevity is the soul of wit.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I think it's more stupid that you can't use two-weapon style with your bare hands. I mean, think about it, without TWS it wouldn't even hurt a boxer to have their left hand tied behind their back, but in real life boxers wear gloves on both hands and they do, in fact, frequently block with one hand and punch with the other.

Yeah it is fairly sad it works that way, you don't get much for your complex action. The only things I would not allow are the +DVs or the changing it to physical damage of the shock gloves. That is a big stretch IMO.

[UmaroVI]

Yeah it is fairly sad it works that way, you don't get much for your complex action. The only things I would not allow are the +DVs or the changing it to physical damage of the shock gloves. That is a big stretch IMO.

RAW both those are legal, but of course you're free to houserule them and I would understand that one, especially if SnS was also getting the nerf bat.

You could modify the pugilist to not use Unarmed if your GM hates it; you would probably want to use a Vibrosword, suck it up and dumpstat your way to STR 5 until you can dig up the karma to fix your dumpstats, and then slice and dice people instead of facepunch (of course, this makes the "wants to be an ork or troll" factor much bigger, also the "should use Bioware" factor). You'd want to switch the martial arts to have +2 with Blades from Arnis de Mano and Sangre Y Arroco, pick back up Offhand Training instead of Vicious Blow (since you're now using Blades) and I dunno what you do with the freed up 5 bp/quality points. That would leave you doing 9P/-4 which is nothing to sneeze at.

[Neurosis]

This is what my version of the adept concept in question looked like when I made him. Very different from Umaro's pugilist. Looking back on Phoenix, I think the one major change I'd have made would be to focus on fists or knives (not both) and put all the points I saved into Agility. Alternatively, I might have just eaten a point of Magic and gotten Muscle Toner, and found *some* way to justify that into the concept I was working with. Fortunately, he has fared well due to a lenient GM and some favorable house rules in play.

(In case there are mistakes, don't judge my rules fu by this. I did make this character quite a while ago, and have learned quite a bit about SR since then. Still I don't think there are any glaring errors, at a glance anyway. Oh, also Improved Reflexes and Improved Ability (Blades) are not already factored in to the stats in this format. Likewise his martial arts advantages aren't listed: both are from Kali/Eskrima and I believe are +1 DV with Blades and inflict damage when making a called shot to Disarm.)

If anyone can name the fictional character this guy is loosely based on, they get a virtual cookie. I'll give you a hint: it's really obscure and you probably haven't heard of it.

[UmaroVI]

The main things I would QQ about aside from lack of focus are:

1) You have a lot of stats at 4, but the BP/karma system punishes you for that. Especially Body and Willpower being even. You'd be better off having 5s and 3s unless you never want to raise most of those stats.

2) You have a lot of skills at 1 and a lot of specializations; again, best bought with karma.

3) No Manuevers! A lot of the value of Martial Arts comes from manuevers, especially Two Weapon Style.

[Neurosis]

I don't actually believe that 'lack of focus' is problematical character design in and of itself. I don't think everyone needs to be hyperspecialized or even highly specialized. Some things I should definitely have tossed back, however, like the Clubs skill; that was a pure flavor tax that could have been lost. Same probably goes for escape artist.

1) Interesting. Again, I was building to a concept so, yeah...
2) These are all things I wanted to be able to do out of the starting gate. And a few of them are the difference between a terrible dice pool and a halfway decent one. Pistols, Dodge, and Pilot Groundcraft in particular are all good choices, I think, since the character is never going to be firing a non-semi-automatic pistol, dodging a non-ranged attack, or (hopefully) driving anything but his bike. So those are all almost like having the skill at 3 for half the cost. Otherwise I'd be stuck with Attribute - 1 for all of those things.
3) Yeah, I agree. It would take this character's melee defense from good to awesome (Dice pool of 12 to a dice pool of 20). And it is also basically how he fights. A knife in one hand for parrying, a gun in case he has to shoot someone, and making his actual attacks, generally as kicks, knees, and elbows, sometimes using shock frills. So the guy is already effectively wielding four weapons; vibroknife, gun, shock frills (again, delivered effectively with body slam type contact) and his 8P feet, knees, and elbows. (My GM has been really lenient about the 'Off Hand' penalty, I know.)

EDIT:

Wow. Holy poop is the 'Full Offense' maneuver terrible for non-trolls.

[Glyph]

I think it's more stupid that you can't use two-weapon style with your bare hands. I mean, think about it, without TWS it wouldn't even hurt a boxer to have their left hand tied behind their back, but in real life boxers wear gloves on both hands and they do, in fact, frequently block with one hand and punch with the other.

I have always felt that this is because normal use of unarmed combat uses both fists (as well as the feet for most styles).

By the way, manfully resisting the urge to make an O.J. Simpson joke about the personalized grip gloves.

A blade version would definitely work better. You can do some nasty combos. Get the Arnis de Mano advantage of being able to inflict damage on a disarm, get two-weapon style, and get a level of counterstrike (the adept power from Street Magic). Someone attacks you, you get full defense for free, even with the penalty of -4 dice for disarming you will still outclass their dice pool - you damage them, and then get to use your net hits +1 as a bonus to your attack.

[UmaroVI]

I don't actually believe that 'lack of focus' is problematical character design in and of itself. I don't think everyone needs to be hyperspecialized or even highly specialized. Some things I should definitely have tossed back, however, like the Clubs skill; that was a pure flavor tax that could have been lost. Same probably goes for escape artist.

1) Interesting. Again, I was building to a concept so, yeah...
2) These are all things I wanted to be able to do out of the starting gate. And a few of them are the difference between a terrible dice pool and a halfway decent one. Pistols, Dodge, and Pilot Groundcraft in particular are all good choices, I think, since the character is never going to be firing a non-semi-automatic pistol, dodging a non-ranged attack, or (hopefully) driving anything but his bike. So those are all almost like having the skill at 3 for half the cost. Otherwise I'd be stuck with Attribute - 1 for all of those things.
3) Yeah, I agree. It would take this character's melee defense from good to awesome (Dice pool of 12 to a dice pool of 20). And it is also basically how he fights. A knife in one hand for parrying, a gun in case he has to shoot someone, and making his actual attacks, generally as kicks, knees, and elbows, sometimes using shock frills. So the guy is already effectively wielding four weapons; vibroknife, gun, shock frills (again, delivered effectively with body slam type contact) and his 8P feet, knees, and elbows. (My GM has been really lenient about the 'Off Hand' penalty, I know.)

EDIT:

Wow. Holy poop is the 'Full Offense' maneuver terrible for non-trolls.

The lack of focus I meant was the one you were referring to with too many melee weapon skills.

Full Offense isn't quite that bad. It only stops you from defending against melee attacks. People who aren't melee specialized are usually not going to be as effective with melee attacks as with ranged attacks even if you do get no defense. It's a specialized manuever to be sure, but when you need to, say, take down a mage, or a gunslinger, or whatever and there aren't melee-oriented enemies around it might be handy. Admittedly it would be low on my priority list but it might be worth 4 karma eventually.

[UmaroVI]

I have always felt that this is because normal use of unarmed combat uses both fists (as well as the feet for most styles).

By the way, manfully resisting the urge to make an O.J. Simpson joke about the personalized grip gloves.

A blade version would definitely work better. You can do some nasty combos. Get the Arnis de Mano advantage of being able to inflict damage on a disarm, get two-weapon style, and get a level of counterstrike (the adept power from Street Magic). Someone attacks you, you get full defense for free, even with the penalty of -4 dice for disarming you will still outclass their dice pool - you damage them, and then get to use your net hits +1 as a bonus to your attack.

I think the blade version is also good, but I don't think it's better. Shock Gloves are both highly damaging and also concealable, but with blades there's a tradeoff and relying on large weapons like Vibroswords makes me uncomfortable. Yeah, there are concealable blades, but it's forcing you into a damage vs. concealability tradeoff that isn't there with unarmed. Also, you can use Arnis de Mano's damaging disarm with anything, not just blades - it's not really an advantage of blades.

Counterstrike is by no means bad; just lower on the priority list because you can already thrash anyone who's meleeing you pretty hard.

I'm kind of meh on the disarm manuever, because it only works on people who are meleeing you with weapons, whereas the most dangerous melee opponents are paracritters and spirits. Called shot to disarm is better, IMO, because you can disarm guns and two-weapon style won't help you against them. That said if you can spare the bp it's not a bad idea.

[Glyph]

I did a close combat adept myself, with the more stringent restrictions (no martial arts, no ways, and no bioware), and he didn't turn out that bad. Obviously not as high-powered as less-restricted characters would be, but still decent. Here he is:

[ Spoiler ]

Name: Close Combat Adept

BREAKDOWN (400 Points)
Core Attributes: 200
Special Attributes: 75
Race (Ork): 20
Active Skills: 118
Qualities: <25>
Contacts: 6
Resources: 6

=Attributes=
Body: 6
Agility: 5(6)
Reaction: 5(7)
Strength: 5
Charisma: 2
Intuition: 3
Logic: 2
Willpower: 5
Magic: 6
Edge: 2

Essence: 6.00
Initiative: 10
Initiative Passes: 3
Physical Damage Track: 11
Stun Track: 11

Current Karma: 0
Total Karma: 0
Street Cred: 0
Noteriety: 0
Public Awareness: 0

=Qualities=
Adept
Allergy: Silver, Moderate
Combat Monster
Guts
Sensitive System

=Active Skills=
Athletics Skill Group: 2
First Aid: 1
Etiquette/Street: 2/+2
Infiltration: 2
Intimidation/Physical: 4/+2
Perception/Visual: 3/+2
Pistols/Semi-Automatic: 4/+2
Unarmed Combat/Martial Arts: 6(7)/+2

=Knowledge Skills=
Languages>
English: N
Orzet: 4

Other Knowledge Skills>
Magical Background: 2
Martial Arts Background/Pit Fighting: 2/+2
Ork Underground: 4
Underworld Politics: 2

=Adept Abilities=
Attribute Boost (Agility): 1
Critical Strike: 6
Improved Ability -
>Unarmed Combat: 1
Improved Physical Attribute -
>Agility: 1
Improved Reflexes: 2
Killing Hands

=Contacts=
Fixer (Connection: 4/Loyalty: 2)

=Lifestyle=
Custom (all Middle, except Entertainment and Security are High, 7,000 Nuyen/Month) (1 Month)
Starting Money: 4d6 x 100 Nuyen

=Equipment=
ID/Credsticks:
Fake ID (Rating: 4), Fake Gun Registration (Rating: 4), Fake Concealed Carry Permit (Rating: 4); 4 certified credsticks.

Weapons:
>Colt Manhunter with silencer, concealable holster, 160 normal, 160 gel, and 160 EX explosive rounds of ammo, and 5 spare clips.

Armor/Clothing:
Armor Jacket with chemical protection: 2; FFBA half suit with Nonconductive: 4; PPP forearm guards, shin guards, vitals protector, and arm/leg casings (the discreet protection version); 2,000 Nuyen worth of assorted clothing.

Commlink/Software/Simsense:
Sony Emperor Commlink with system: 2 and firewall: 6; armor: 6, hardening: 6, biometric reader, sim module, skinlink, trodes, and subvocal mic; utilities - analyze: 4 (with optimization: 2), browse: 2, edit: 2, encrypt: 2, & purge: 2; mapsoft of Seattle sprawl: 2, Virtual Surround Music.

Other:
Goggles with skinlink modification and - image link, ultrasound; duffel bag (100 Nuyen), medkit (Rating: 6) with 2 refills, tag eraser, survival kit, wire clippers, chisel, operations cleanup toolkit, metal restraints.

[Neurosis]

Pretty similar to my guy, actually, just better by virtue of being an ork and not a human. : )

[mmmkay]

By the way, manfully resisting the urge to make an O.J. Simpson joke about the personalized grip gloves.

Too late, I lolled.

[Ascalaphus]

I've seen Critical Strike in action, and it definitely makes Adepts deadly enough. The guy who built the character optimized him for speed and damage; he tended to charge groups of goons and multi-kick any two of them unlucky enough to stand too close together. Critical Strike 6 did a good job of making them fall down very quickly.

Sadly, this was in the days when we fully appreciated the importance of Body and Armor, and he was shot down by a couple of wide bursts that deprived him of Reaction defense.

[Ascalaphus]

I've seen Critical Strike in action, and it definitely makes Adepts deadly enough. The guy who built the character optimized him for speed and damage; he tended to charge groups of goons and multi-kick any two of them unlucky enough to stand too close together. Critical Strike 6 did a good job of making them fall down very quickly.

Sadly, this was in the days when we fully appreciated the importance of Body and Armor, and he was shot down by a couple of wide bursts that deprived him of Reaction defense.

His crowning moment of awesome was when an enemy mage was hiding behind a door, poking out his head now and then to cast a stunball. He crept towards the guy across the ceiling and attacked him from above, throwing him into the middle of the room.



Useful lesson: a melee adept needs to be able to close in on enemies and enter melee combat extremely fast, preferably by surprise.

[UmaroVI]

As promised, more archetypes. In particular, they round out the numbers of each metatype, leaving 4 of each (except dwarves, of which there are still only 2). Also, more adepts. There were some requests for a more rigging-focused character, which the Info Savant is (for mundane rigging, see the Mercenary Rigger).

Martial Artist, a troll augmented adept focused on melee combat and social skills.
Former Neoprimitive, a troll augmented adept who uses archaic throwing weapons to great effect.
Gunslinger, a human augmented adept focused on mastery of pistols.
Magical Rocker, a human magician focused on flashy combat magic and rocking out.
Info Savant, an ork technomancer focused on rigging, with hacking secondary.

[Grinder]

Why are all archetypes upload at google docs and not posted here in spoiler tags for easier reference?

[UmaroVI]

Mostly because I made them in google docs originally, and it's easy to print them off. Would people like to have them here in spoiler tags?

[Grinder]

Would be cool do have them here too. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[czarcasm]

Wow. These archetypes are great. Kudos for the creativity and hard work. I was curious about two things:

1. I don't follow the calculation of the essence of the transhumanist mystic adept.
2. Why no dodge on the characters?

Thanks.