Minimum team size? Options

[James McMurray]

Hey Big D, check out the mentor spirits. You can basically pick your area of social expertise and make a spooky Face / Shaman or Mage. If you're willing to drop a point of Magic to bioware and get tailored pheremones you can get +3 dice when face to face. Or you can drop two magic to be an adept mage and get level 2 kinesics for +2 to social tests all the time, plus a little boost somewhere else.

If your GM is a goof and lets you combine them you can get level 2 Improved Ability on 2 social skills and level 2 kinesics by dropping two points of magic. You've still got a magic rating of 4, which isn't bad with SR4's easier overcasting. :)

[Big D]

Oh, yeah, I assumed that. I was considering a "true" Face Monster to be one with a pool of 20+ (which can be done at chargen). A "multiclass" Face/Adept/Mage that puts 4+ Magic into casting can still get close to that, but it's probably more effective to "settle" for 12-16 dice and beef up other skills.

Moon Maiden and Seductress (and even Dragonslayer) are good for that. Raven is good if you're running mind control munch. Firebringer looks good, but half its benefit is worthless for shammies.

I like the look of Raven best, myself, unless all MC spells are out. The ele bonus helps give the face back some combat power.

[Butterblume]

My newest Sam/Face char has 7 dice for social tests (charisma 4 and influence group 3), and a whooping 15 for his main weapon, a SMG.

I know powergamers will pity me, but most GMs that i know would be glad about a char like that ;).

This char is build for 4 team mates, though. I just wanted to inject a dose of realism back in this thread :D.

[Edward]

You can still do solo runs. With the right contacts and equipment, and your fixer choosing runs that play to your strength you will be fine.

If you don’t have a mage you don’t go to places where you expect significant astral protection.

You make shore you enough knowledge of the matrix to survive, and a powerful comlink with a carefully crafted agent or 3

If you need extra combat support a drone can be programmed to assist you without requiring you to ride in it. (especially if its upgraded to system 5 gunnery soft 5)

Thus a mage with a hacker contact setting up a couple of agents for him, and a rigger contact setting up a couple of drones for him and a couple of bound spirits for backup can deal with practically anything.


If your going to have more than one player each I would say each player should play a unsociable combat type (or silent ninja or a hacker that dose nothing outside the matrix) and a more sociable character. Trying to play more than one character socially is tricky so the pure combat char can be background for those meats,

Edward

[Voran]

SR4 skill limits and the ability to have external bonuses to really amp up the particular pool does also lend to a more generalized role for your 'mundane' types. Taking a base char template like a 'weapon specialist' from the sr4 book, its not too hard to make them into a tricked out bio/cyber urban warrior, that can kill you from afar, mid range, and up close, with or without explosives.

I would tend to lose competitions of 'best builds' as I tend to end up making above average 'generalist' type characters, rather than savants.

I think part of that is due to my history of less than stable long term rpg groups, so when I have situations where I have chars that can be ported into someone elses game, I don't really know what role he'll have to fill, so its nice to have some backup professional abils.

Sure, I could roll up a new char, but I also have a habit of getting invested in a particular character, playing him until he dies or gets really boring.

Hacker is something I find easier (at least skill wise) to get into than previous edition deckers. With the costs of becoming a hacker much cheaper than being a decker (remember the 1 mil plus decks?) it helps to pick up even a skill level of 3 or 4 if possible, and load up with a decent mix of hardware/progs.

[James McMurray]

[Clyde]

Second that: the generalist is always the "best build" in my campaigns as well.

You might dispense with a Hacker using the old SR1-3 standby of hiring an NPC to do the minimum hacking necessary to pull off the job. You also might manage something by playing a "hacker lite" whose got only the bare minimum skills (computer, hacking, cybercombat no higher than rating 3) and relying on your programs to do the heavy lifting. A tooled up Agent might well work as a hacker in a box, too.

Mages are harder. You could hire one to summon up a spirit to provide you with some Astral protection once in a while, and to ward your safehouse. Still, with magic's rarity and careful planning you could do a lot of jobs. An adept with Spell Resistance (or any character with the Quality) has a chance against a mage, especially with Astral perception and some combat abilities.

[NightHaunter]

1!
Mage with hacking, infiltration, combat and Social skills.

Job's a good 'un.

[Moon-Hawk]

I will say, that concept is more feasible in SR4 than in any previous edition, IMO.

[NightHaunter]

Feasible?
I've built it!
It's not amazing in any catagory, but thats what karma and cash are for right?

[fool]

a freind of mine likes to run the pool cleaner. Started in second edition and the idea was to have everytype of pool, rigging, hacking and magic. Wasted some essense and therefore magic on the necessary cyber and wasn't phenomenal at anything, but he was the most rounded character I've ever seen. Oh Yeah he was a gator shaman of course.

[booklord]

Hacker: Nice, but not entirely needed even in 2070. The biggest problem would be runs requiring on-site hackers. For these runs the runners may be required to have an NPC tag along. As long as you create him with minimal combat abilities and no real desire to be the team "face" then he'll do little to interfere with the team actions. ( As an added bonus you can "fake-roll" his matrix interactions to provide the results best suited for the story flow and speed up the gameplay )

Face : As long the shadow team doesn't consist entirely with gunbunnies or other anti-charisma freaks then you can role-play the interactions with NPCs. Anybody can be a face, as long as they maintain their professionalism. It really just depends on your style of play. The best "face" character I've ever seen was a player who had a low charisma sorceror adept in SR3. Minimal social skills but the player himself could role-play social interactions with NPCs like none other.

Gunbunnies: Not really needed. But good luck finding a group of players where there isn't at least one player who wants to play one. In extreme cases everyone will want to play one.

Magician: Not fully needed. But not having one does put the team at a disadvantage and the adventures will have to be tailored to suit the characters. More often than not a player will want to play one.

Rigger: Accessory character at best. Riggers have always bugged me because WAY too often the rigger character is unable to fully participate in the run.



I generally allow 2 characters per player. But I require that each character be a different type. Can't have 2 magicians or 2 Hackers or 2 gunbunnies. Got to mix it up. Its also quite helpful when it comes to character mortality. If one character dies or is put out of commission, he still has one other.

[iron_ic]

(First Post)

-> One-man-team: I thought about that, too. My idea was to build a Mystic Adept (1 Point of Magic for "social" adept powers). Add some spells (covers almost every situation), a small gun, social skills and a commlink with autosofts, linguasofts, dunnowhatsofts,... and an agent (max rating). Since Pilot programs are "smart" now (!= the ones in SR3) the agent could do some *very* basic hacking ("open that door").

[Shrike30]