What for are Sams at Char-Gen and later? Options

[Steadfast]

Alright. The gras is always greener on the other side, everyone wants his favorite char to be 'el Supremo'.
Having said that, I ask for suggestions or opinions, come out fellow Sams, infuse me with hope and let me see the light again!

/whine
Can anyone gimme the roundabout exactly why or rather what for a group now is in dire need of a Sam? I mean, gimme situations and honest opinions why I, as a Johnson, would like to take a Sam if I had 2 Mages at hand? And dun gimme «Because Mages are more rare!»™ please, we all know that there is no real gamewise hampering for players to create magically active ppl..

And they took my last line of defense, my Smartlink and gave it to Joe Average, respectively to »Humongous-Da-Mage«. :(

Sniff. Now I am a soulless cybermonster without something special, I've given my essence for minor cosmetics or what? Where is my edge against other specialists, what am I good at?

If I at least could be always sure that I am the fastest lad in my group it'll be more than ok, but take the friggin mage and let him get his accelerated Initiative into his spellsustaining focus from game start and I am screwed again in that regard.

But maybe I am suffering from tunnel vision here, I just don't see a real reason for a Sam, or rather I don't see him as an important member of the group.

I mean, it can't be that I am just a heavy weapon platform if the drek hits the proverbial fan, ain't it?
Like, if we screw up, I get to spring into action and hopefully screw the opposition mage faster than the opposition screws our mage?
Thats it?
There must be more to it.
Please?

Probably my bad mood moment, but this is eating me now for some time. And yeah, I AM biased against those spellchuckers. :D
/whine OFF

So, what are your char concepts for your Sam? I am interested in broadening my horizons!

Mine is currently the classical eat-a-lot with orthoskin and a bit body-attribute paired with reflexes II and some agility enhancements to dish out with firearms and to suck damage up. All the cyber/ bio is optimized for that (Ortho 3, Blood platelets, Wired 2, Muscle toner 2) my envisioned *Tank* role.

If it hits the fan, I am your friend and human-shield. If nothing happens at all I am happy nonetheless and eagerly count my easy money after the run.

Regards
Daniel

[mfb]

edit: gah, crap. forgot, this is an SR4 thread. nevermind.

[ef31415]

To soak up damage for a couple of rounds while the mages summon their elementals and tell them what to do.

[Squinky]

I haven't read a lot on spellslingers in SR4 yet, but I would assume they need to focus on spellcasting attributes, so you got a lead on them there....

As for adepts, they can in the long run be better (just like in SR3 cept now they can get cyber-like things like smartlinks without cyber) but at first, if an adept wants to be fast he has to drop 3 to 5 magic into inititive boosting (don't remeber teh power)There is no geasa (yet).

As an implant heavy character a sammie can be pretty powerful out of the box. Many pieces of bio and cyber are pretty essence friendly now and you can pack a lot more in per essence point as compared to magic points (bone density 4 is 1.2 essesnce standrard grade, whereas improving the body attribute +4 is 4 whole points for an adept.)

Also, I'm sure there is a magic equivalent, but lots of the cyber add perception benefits, which rocks....

And no matter what, those fancy-lad magical characters will never be as cool as a cyber -guy (in my book)

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[warrior_allanon]

as far as the amount ofcyberware goes we have a guy in our SR3 game that would qualify as a sammie, though heres the catch it is his skills and what some of his cyber is that redefine him as a jack of all trades or even a face, he started out as a tech character with a heavy sam backup, but now he's as fast in combat as any of us, and all he uses is a pair of squirts...

he hasnt rebuilt this character for SR4 yet and actually our GM is talking to about us making our characters kids, (since we are running from the begining of the adventure modules and are only up to the fourth adventure in harlequinn). for our game right now though it is mid march of 2055 and i think we kinda just stumbled into "dragon hunt" as well. but be that as it may, he's the best all around character we have,

my point being that his jacked up reflexes let him take out two guys with roomsweepers before anyone else could get a shot off....(i got the third one with a capsule round)...otherwise everyone would have been stunned there until the goons got their shots off (there was a shoddy reaction roll)

[Nikoli]

Well, a decent command program, commlink and a well firewalled couple of drones help you considerably and don't take up nearly the resources they used to. Use that to your advantage. Useful drones don't seem to be limited to just riggers. Imagine a sammie with 2 lynxes that aquire targets from his lead and provide suppressive fire or additional targets to soak ammo from the opposition.

[snowRaven]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Actually, upgrading a streetsam to a combathacker is the way to go in SR4.

[Clyde]

What does a Sam have that the adept and mage don't? These days, the answer is: Skill. Both the mages and adepts will be maxing out their 200 points on physical and mental attributes. Then they buy a cheap edge that lets them be magic and buy up their magic attribute. That sets them back 50 or 60 points. Your job is to make stats almost as hard on fewer build points. That means staying away from the bioware, for the most part. Your soul hasn't done anything for you lately, anyway, right?

As for beating an augmented mage in purely mundane combat (i.e. no spells), the Street Samurai sould do it every time. The mage has to boost Willpower and Logic in order to take drain - the Sam needs to boost Reaction and Agility. There are only so many points to go around.

The Street Sam can buy 5.99 essence worth of cyberware for very little money these days - and not everything even needs to be cyber! So you get a jacked up Reaction stat that makes you hard to even hit in a fight, let alone kill. You grab muscle replacement (way cheaper moneywise) and get 40 points worth of stats on hardly any BP worth of money. Then you turn around and put the rest in skills. Your top skills are 5's, with everything else you want at 4's. There's room to round out with a social or technical or vehicle skill if you want - you've got plenty. Augmentation is cheap these days, unless you're shy about trashing your essence. Of course, as an aspiring chrome god you know that metal is stronger than flesh!! :grinbig:

[blakkie]

Except for that 4th Initiative Pass. That one is damn costly in either cash or cash and essense. 240,000 for bioware, or 100,000 and 5 essense or 200,000 and 4 essense in cyber.

[Eagle]

Reaction modifier. enhanced articulation and skill booster to make the character untouchable in combat.

Pheromones to be the ultimate face in the game.

I imagine that the augmented book will have some funky stuff based on the tactical computer, making the character the ultimate combat co-ordinator.

You could also the ultimate in terms of walking CSI lab, with vision and chemical sensing enhancements, add in memory enhancement and you too can know that the mud can from the Evo sewage outlet at the Puget Sound.

From what I've seen of the system so far is that diversification is the key to the street sam in 4th ed. Doing stuff with cyberware that none of the others can do or doing it better/cheaper.

I think overall it will give street sams more depth.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Fortune]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Tailored Pheromones are illegal, too... considering how cheap olfactory sensors now are...

For the adept part - there is a cap for augmented skills. ;)

[OSUMacbeth]

I have to say, I've been playing a soldier style sammie, and I'm loving it. When the shit goes down, me and my trusty ares alpha assault rifle will be there tossing grenades about and firing long bursts till the cows come home. I've played a mage and an adept, but I must say I've never loved playing any character as much as I love playing this one.

OSUMacbeth

[Azralon]

Augmentation vs. magic is a matter of resource expenditure. Do you want your power to be increased by spending money or karma?

If you're a karma-based life form, then you're going to have a slower but steadier progression. You get tougher when your GM gives karma to the party and you can usually self-upgrade with minimal legwork. The downside is that your skills and attributes are relatively static since your karma is getting funneled elsewhere.

If you're a vatjob, then 100% of your karma can go into increasing skills and attributes. Your money, however, is your direct line to enhanced power.... AND only if you have a well-supplied and sufficiently-reliable cyberdoc available. This means that you get tougher in erratic spurts; whenever there's a big financial gain, mostly. The good news is that earning nuyen isn't quite as arbitrary as earning karma; if you do a job and/or fence something valuable then you're going to get paid according to the game rules and the in-game arrangements.

Mages might seem like they can do everything a razorguy can and more -- but karma is still their bottleneck. And most importantly, bullets don't cause drain. :)

[hecar]

And playing a sam can be a growth process i.e. you do not need to spend 5.99 in essence right at the start...

Start with fewer cyber(I love synaptics, they are so essence-friendly that you have to wonder if adepts should buy them(1.5 essence vs 5 magic points and you get to add .5 of goodies for nuyens that you do not really need as an adept))and build it up during the game. This personalize the character to the game/world by having it develop according to a story-line i.e. you might not get the same pieces of cyber in the end but the reasoning behind the character is more solid and based on experience(why do i have a voice synth? Well, there was this Johnson...).

We once had a troll who developed in the hacker of the group due to game circumstances and it is one of the more memorable characters I've seen because you can follow his history and growth throughout the games. And, as Azralon mentioned, you get to develop on multiple fronts instead of planning your karma for the next three years and waiting for it...

This, of course, implies that you plan on playing your char for more than 3 games sessions... ;)

[Fortune]

[snowRaven]

[Azralon]

To directly address the OP's concern (if I understand it): Yes, newbie samurai are less potent in SR4.

Cyberguys and adepts are now much closer in potential effectiveness straight out of chargen than in any other edition of Shadowrun. Used to, you could drop your million nuyen on Wired:3, Reaction Enhancers:6, a Smartlink 2, Enhanced Articulation, Reflex Recorders, and a few other toys to become insanely lethal with your dual Predators. Meanwhile the freshly-built adept is looking at Increased Reflexes 3 and a little left over for a Firearms skill boost.

My point is that street samurai are no longer as frontloaded as they used to be. You don't, as previously mentioned, habitually spend 5.99 Essence in character generation and then spend the rest of your career converting to alpha- and betaware. You now have room to grow, but you're still starting out as one tough SOB.

[FrankTrollman]

The "Samurai" archetype as we used to know him is a god damned joke in SR4. An Adept can outshoot you from the start, and you can't ever catch up. Spirits and drones are faster, tougher, and often higher powered than a street samurai can aspire to be.

But life as a cybered character who carries his own gun isn't all sucktastic. You get a couple of things that others just don't have:

1> Subtlety. In the wireless, more awakened world of 2070, mages and riggers leave traces that people can and will pick up on. Someone with all internal gear can turn their wireless access all the way off. The ability to astrally perceive that someone is an adept is a crap tonne easier and more common than the ability to identify someone's implants - so the Sammy picks up points here over the Adept even.

2> Agility. Let's face it, buying Agility with Adept Power Points is inefficient. People will still do it, but it's not a good deal. Muscle Toner, OTOH, is like eating Butterscotch Ambergel. Sammies don't buy a magic attribute, and that leaves points left over for skills yes, but that hardly matters. Skills are horrendously overpriced in the basic book for what you get and you aren't allowed to buy enough of them to make much fo a difference anyhow. The Adept is definatley going to roll more dice than you on something - but there's a good chance that you'll roll more dice on other agility skills like Lockpicking and Infiltration.

So the "street samurai" of SR4 is like the "stealth adept" of SR3. By having a skin-link on your firearms, the Samurai can get by with no astral signature and a completely non-wireless PAN. The street samurai is going to have higher average B&E dice pools than any adept. The firepower that a cyborg brings to the table is less than any other meaningful archetype, but the stealth ability is second to none. A Street Samurai with a monowhip is not perceptably different from a civilian bystander by any reasonable scan, whether magical or technological. And that's something that no other archetype can boast.

The old school "RAZORGUY" is essentially dead. If you want a giant hammer solution to your problems, you are better off with literally any other character: mage, adept, rigger, or hacker.

-Frank

[Azralon]

Your assertions confuse me, Frank. I haven't gotten hardcore on character generation yet, but I don't see how an adept can outpace a vatjob when throwing skill dice. Per page 63, adept powers, implants, and magic can't ever provide a bonus to a skill higher than +3.

So your razorguy can max out his Firearms at 6, pick up a Smartlink and then either Enhanced Articulation or Reflex Recorder... and he's done. That's 9 dice and he's capped.

The adept, too, maxes out his Firearms at 6. He throws down Improved Ability: Firearms 3 and he, too, is capped.

If you want, you can make both of them pick up the Exceptional Attribute and Aptitude Qualities and raise their Agility & Firearms caps by 1. Make them both elves with natural Agility attributes of 8, and then they can get their Agility +4 enhancements from their respective sources. In these respects the two maxed gunsels come out even.

.... Except the adept has paid his full 35 BPs for Qualities and the vatjob has 30 BPs of Qualities. The adept has used 4 magic points on Improved Physical Attribute (Agility:4) and 1.5 magic points on Improved Ability (Firearms:3). So he's at 5.5 magic used, which means out of the gate he's had to max that stat. He's got .5 magic left over to allocate.

The samurai, however, has plenty of money and essence left over for Wired Reflexes:2 and a few other toys.

What am I missing?

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Smartlink does not fall under the cap of skill... but overall, Combatmonsters still are scary in SR4.

[Squinky]

Adepts can get smartlinks now also, without cyber. And Enhanced Articulation dosent add dice to combat skills anymore....