Ah what the hell, A History of Lightning Jack. Options

[Jack Kain]

All these guys posting char critiques makes me want to join in. Dispite the fact that Lighting Jack is about seven runs into his existence. Its all for fun anyway. Besides I can get feed back on how i've spent Karma so far.

[ Spoiler ]

CLICK Below, I transfered his char sheet to a image file on one of those acrobat sheets
[img]http://img1.yoxio.com/img/261780.jpg[/img]
For a little back engineering.

First the (.85) after his essence, is his essence hole resulting from removed cyberware. Its empty space to be filled before more essence loss is suffered.

6 Karma was spent to improve his strength from 1 to 2
10 Karma was spent in first aid. 10 Karma was spent in Monowhip from 4 to 5
and 4 karma was spent in specializations for skills in the influence group.
Which totals 30 of his 31 Karma total karma
the [1] after monowhip is the reflex recorder bonnus bought after creation.
142 BP in skills
200 BP in attributes
30 BP in elf
-30 in qualities
10 BP spent in contacts
The rest in gear which should total 48.
I won't go into the full details on his gear.

He has 4 lingasofts in his comlink japanses, chinese, spansih, russian.
System and Firewall of 5. Plus some other little required bits.
Armor Jacket nonconductive, fire resistance and insulation rating 6. And helmet
Total for 9/8
Suzuki Bike
Security License Rating 4
Security License Rating 4
Fake Sin Rating 4
Fake Sin Rating 4
Medkit Rating 6
Tool Kit Armorer
4 Flashbang Grenades
3 High Explosive Grenade
Armor Shop
3 Kilos of Rating 12 Foam Explosive(actually aquired from another player)
Goggles, with smart link, vision enchancementx3, vision magnification and flare compensation.
A monowhip of course
Steyler TMP smartlinked, rating 3 gast vented.
Ceska Black smartlinked with sound suppressor.
And a crap load of ammo.

Original Cyberware
Rating 2 Wired Reflexs (alpha) (now synaptic boosters rating 2)
Rating 2 Muscle Toner
Rating 2 Muscle Aug
Platelet Factories
Datajack
[Reflex Recorder for monowhip purchased at end of last adventure]

I'm stil working on fleshing out his backround.
At 39 Jack Kain often called Lightning Jack. Born under the name Oswald McKain in 2031 In florida. Oswald as he was then known suffered greatly during his childhood like many metahuman children.
His father was a smuggler by trade who past on several of his skills. Including how drive a bike. fire automatics and how to talk your way out of almost anything. Oswald would help his father in his opperation until. At age 18 (2049) He along with his father were arrested during a Lone Star sting opperation. His father confessed to all charges in exchange, no charges were field againts Oswald. His father was sentinenced to 15 years.

For the next 8 years Oswald worked for a demolitions company. He took great pride in being paid to blow things up. He eventually became the union leader using his impressive negotiation skills to earn his co works a 5% pay increase. A union record that stands to this day. In 2054 Oswald married an elven woman named Jade.

The company he worked for was bought out in 2058, by a Aries and Oswald was out of a job, that was until they discovered his skill with an automatic. He was transfered to a security postion an the corperate office in Boston.

In 2060 he found a VR training program for the monofiliment whip. While he new the weapon to be highly ilegal a VR "game" was perfectly legal. That same year he led a security force of 4 men and stopped a team of shadowrunners from extracting corp property, then disarmed a sizable amount of C4 they left behind enougth to level the building.
The corp instailed his wired reflexs, muscle augmentation and toner so he could continute to fight off any incursions by shadowrunners. In January of 2062 Oswald was furious to learn they expected him to pay back the money.
In July that same year his wife (2 months pregnant) was murdered by known members of the Humanis Policlub. Dispite DNA evidence and being captured on tap.
The three suspects were acquitted after there lawyer arqued that Knight Errant had intentionally contaminated the evidence. It should be noted that the Judge and 4 members of the Jury happend to belong to the Humanis Policlub. One month later the Judge, 4 members of the jury, the suspects and half a dozen other memembers of the jury died when there headquarters exploded.

That was Oswalds first shadowrun. He had hired a team using his own life savings to extract revenge for his lady love. The team consisting entirly of metahumans happliy aided him in his goal. After witnessing his skill with the machine pistol and the way he handled explosives the asked him to say on. Oswald declined the offer saying his was comfortable in his job.

In 2064 while telecomunicating with his father through the matrix (who was due to be released from Jail in a weeks time) The matrix crashed, Oswald surrived the experence and his mind was successfully returned to his body. The experenced left Oswald scorched but alive. His father was not so lucky and died in jail. Oswald found his entire family history erased. His father, mother and his late wife.

With no family and his soul owned by the corp should he try to reestablish his SIN. He disapeared into the shadows and took on the name Jack.

[Jaid]

6 karma to raise strength from 1 to 6?

you mind running that by me again?

[Jack Kain]

[Jaid]

ah, ok, so you meant you raised strength *by* 1, costing 6 karma, but you only raised it to 2 :P

yeah, that makes more sense.

hmmm... you know, i have to say... i find your choice of unlucky.... "interesting"... when added into the fact that you use monowhips :P also, i'm curious why you boosted strength at all, since you don't seem to have a single skill point in it, and you don't deal damage based on it... and your previous 1(3) would have been plenty. too late now of course, but i'm just curious about it.

now then, i assume you're looking at where to go from here... i might suggest you pick up gymnastics for ranged dodging, personally. in fact, athletics in general might not be a bad idea, and stealth would be handy for a street sam too, which i gather is his main job.

along those lines, i would add a chameleon suit with thermal damping to his toys, personally.

i would consider skillwires just for utility (with that lousy edge, you don't suffer from not being able to use edge on it either). you should be able to get the best ones, and buy a skillsoft or two (might i suggest the previously mentioned stealth and athletics type skills? maybe even an alternate gun skill). and i'm guessing you plan on picking up armorer at some point? you don't appear to have the skill for it...

[Jack Kain]

oh thats odd, I left the armorer of that copy of it.
He has armorer 2+2(explosives)
I improved his strength incase he gets into a grappling contest so he at least has a good chance.
Skill Wires are high on the list of future cyber/bioware.
Concidering active softs only go to rating 4, I'll limit the skillwire to that rating.
Loading up some rating 4 infiltration would be nice.
(I'm fairly sure the active softs are for skills and not groups)
I'm reluctant to switch to the chameleon suit as it has a lower armor then my jacket. But then again, they have to see me coming and that might be kind of hard.

Maybe throw in the climbing active soft and some gecko gloves. Now that be some death from above.


When I took unlucky I was under the impression that you couldn't negate a critical glitch at all with edge. And I didn't fear a normal glitch. I also didn't understand how edge worked and how usefull it really is.

I don't think I'd put down the cash for other gun activesoft maybe 4 karma to have a rank in pistols.


I improved his strength after his last adventure. In my group karma isn't concidered spent until the start of the next session. So you have time to change your mind over the course of the week.

[ElFenrir]

Well, upping Strength, even tho 4 and three are same damage wise, sometimes its nice to be able to carry a lil more :)

Yeah, Unlucky with the monowhip can be a doozy...but, well, disadvantages are just that--disadvantages.

Seems cool! so, is Sam more his direction, or Face? Or sort of 50/50? seems to have a pretty big array of skills, which is cool. I like how he's near 40, sort of more experienced type, and still alive to speak of it.
With that mad Agility, a Gymnastics skill would definately be handy. Would take care of any of his dodging needs. And i second a bit of a Infiltration skill...especially for a sam type.

Seems to have a lot of room to grow background-wise, he's pretty much starting with a new slate. Well, youve played him a bit, so i guess he's fleshing out for you more. :)

[Jaid]

[Jack Kain]

Yeah I love having a big array of skills, but still excelling in a few areas. He’s blown off more then a few doors with his demolitions team. Palmed his machine pistol and monowhip past secutiry. (he often keeps the monowhip on an armslide).

I probably increase his negotiation skill in the future but I'll leave the rest of the group behind.

A master of diplomacy classical, street and aggressive.(Negotiation with a machine pistol in one hand and monowhip in the other)
He loves to fight but conciders the greatest victory in a run to be going home with out anyone having died.

Quotes:
"Six of them, thats 3 for each of us. Not very fair them now is it." He said to the fulllbody armoed dwarf adept when the six gunless go-gangers closed in on them.
"Have no fear Lightning Jack is here... oh the fights over already. I'll go check on Brodie"
(my character missed the battle while he tended to the dying technomancer.)

[Charon]

It's perfectly legal, but I have always had a pet peeve against PC with STR 1 and Agility 6.

It's, well, complete cheese. Someone who moves fast and with great coordination is never also a couch potato who has trouble lifting his remote. In real life, that just doesn't happen. Just by virtue of training to maintain a high agility you will maintain your strenght at least at a decent level even if you never touch a bench press. But in a RPG when you are trying to squeeze some more efficiency from your chargen ressources, you see that all the time, in all systems.

I always felt that if there was a difference of more than 3 between your agility and your strenght, you are pushing the limits of credibility. Same with STR and BOD (or STR and CON in D20) for mage type.

I have yet to outright ban this kind of chargen character in my games, but usually subtle persuasion works with my players ("Strenght 1, Agility 6? Is this a real person or a loony tune character? 'cause these are the stats I'd assign to tweedy bird!") ;)

---

I'm also annoyed by things like Allergy (Silver). But that's just me ; as a GM I'm annoyed at a flaw that require me to sometime come up with silly situation that put the PC in semi-regular contact with silver for it to be worth its point. Addiction (Alcohol) is far more natural or the like is far more natural.

More cheesy though is getting 5 BP points for being scorched. Please. Your PC has no computer skill whatsoever. When will he ever get exposed to black IC? At least he has a datajack so there is a remote possibility, or perhaps the GM will join in the cheese in come up with a wacky scenario where your PC get forcefully fed BTLs.

But if he had a mild addiction to BTL instead of Allergy to silver as a werewolf wannabe we'd be talking seriously less cheese.

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Edge 1? And Unlucky? That's a brave choice.

But I'm guessing you have a lenient GM because it's impossible to perform well with so little edge over a significant period of time when the GM sets up reasonable challenge and lets the dice fall where they may.

Even the craftiest and most careful PC will sometime simply roll poorly at a crucial time and unless the GM is kind enough to immediately provide another opportunity to save the situation, things will crash.

In my experience, edge 3 is about the minimum in order to perform well consistantly in a reasonably challenging adventure where the GM doesn't fudge or contrieve second chances.

Less than that and at worst you get killed while at best your are the one that usually FUBAR the plan for the whole team by failing an important roll early and being unable to recover.

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The main problem I see with this PC is that he hasn't a very well defined function.

Which is actually OK in a tiny team. If you have a team of three, being reasonably good as a gunman and as faceman is quite a bargain for the operational efficiency of the team. Get a Hacker and a Mage and let's roll. In those circumstances, he is reasonably functional.

In a team of 5-6, however, the value of this PC drop sharply.

He's not nearly as good as a combat specialist, he's not a top notch faceman and he's not really a good jack-of-all-trade that can play back up in almost any situation either. On a large team, he's a waste of a team slot.

---

I just noticed : No Dodge!

No dodge, no edge... And yet he fights in close combat (Favored weapon are the whip and machine pistol).

Really, how the hell is he still alive after 7 session?!

---

The background is... Well, it explains everything but doesn't always make sense.

The traditional "Ares bought my company and now I'm out of a job" is a bit silly. What are you saying, that Ares bought this company for the purpose of closing it down? Obviously not. You missed a good occasion to explain why your character left or was fired. It can't be because he ain't competent (4) or because he was victim of cutbacks (he's a technical guy with 8 years on the job ; it's management and 'new hiree / almost reached pension' people that will get chopped down in a takeover). So it has to be something more personal and is exactly the kind of thing a SR background usually focus on.

And don't tell us he lost his job in demolition but then was transfered by the corp into security. They'd never do that! What silly ass company will transfer a trained demo guy into a new field he hasn't been trained to, and at a junior position at that? If they don't want you anymore, they don't want you period. Pack your bag and leave.

If he got a job working security, he did it by finding a position in another company (Good occasion to develop a grudge toward the first Corp that caused you to lose your cushy job, BTW).

Okay, skillwise, the guy works 8 year in Demolition and has a skill of 4 (quite reasonable).

But then he's out of a job and at the age of 27 he "discovers" automatics? At level 6, but he can't even shoot a pistol? Who are you kidding here?! It makes no sense whatsoever. If you wanted him to have automatics 6 it would have been better to send him in the army (An elf of 27 is still very young, could easily have done the Rangers and all that).

Especially since you tell us he was basically hired as a sec guard. These guys will train with a pistol before they'll train with automatics. Heck, they'll train with various stun weapons before they'll train with automatics. Because you of course start at low security post where guards carry a side-arm and a taser, not in Area 51 type of labs where everybody carries SMGs and shoot on sight.

Speaking of which, machine pistol ain't the most logical choice for a specialisation as a sec guard. If you purchased it as a runner, it makes sense, but a sec guard doesn't care about concealability! He'd carry a full SMG or Assault rifle, depending on the site. But you had 6 years as a runner in your background so let's assume that's where you picked it up.

And the VR training thing for monowhip... Wow. You really wanted to explain that skill, huh? At least you recognized that it wasn't a sec guard skill and seeked an outside explanation.

Here's a tip ; it's a runner's weapon (discrete and deadly) and your PC has been a runner for a few years. Just assume it's one of the skill of the trade he picked up in those years. Less embarassing than explaining he "found" a VR monowhip training program.

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The murdered wife and corrupt judge is classic SR fare. Just don't say they were humanis, especially the Judge. No judge would pass the nomination process as a humanic policlub member. Use the Human Nation instead, they are more appropriate.

As for the destruction of the HQ as a revenge I think it's a bad idea for two reason.

First of all, you deprieve yourself of the opportunity of playing it out. Vengeance is classic stuff. If the Count of Monte Cristo was a PC, who would want to start his career after he has had his revenge!? No, you tell the GM you have some unfinished business and to plan something down the road along these line.

The other problem is that I assume that by saying the HQ exploded you imply that your PC did it himself (with support)? Unless the GM is very lenient, the HQ of an organization powerful enough to count amongst it member judges is going to be well hid and defended. So how will you explain that 6 years later you (presumably) have trouble accomplishing what you so casually described your PC doing 6 years ago?

As a rule of thumb, don't describe yourself doing amazing heroics in your background. Do it in your play time if you are able. If you succeed, it's fun. If you fail badly you don't have to explain the paradox of your apparently fading skills between the background and the gameplay.

[Jack Kain]

He's in a group of with.
One technomacner
one dwarf adept.
one combat mage
and formally a human hacker but the player can no longer join us due to work.
You'd hate to see what the dwarf did (charisma 1, Intuition 1, logic 1) He's just shy of brain dead.
Jack was created because the team need a face and I didn't want to be left out of combat.
The combat mage isn't there for ever session. The dwarf adept is well, more into melee then I.
My GM is to lazy to deal with bring up most disadvantages anyway. This is a guy who let me fence an aries chopper for 70% its market value. He allowed the rule to mark the price down 5% and add and extra die to be reversed to subtract a die roll and add 5%. Throw in the fact you can add the items availblity to the roll. And while I'd never allow such a thing. I wasn't about to argue.

As already stated the machine pistol was HIS weapon of chocie. And if you read his history HIS father taught him his skill in automatics. He's had that skill longer then the whip or demoltions.


The reason for the VR training in the whip is because, training with the physical whip would result in death until one was actually. SO I figure the weapon is designed to be trained in VR unless they have blunt monowhips out there.

Near as I can tell uncommon allergies are supposed to only come up uncommonly thats why the samples are gold, silver and seawater in a denver based campaign. (it is a denver based campaign by the way).

Half of that backround I made up as I was typing. I could have givin him incompent hacking like the sample street samurai, instead of scorched. He's often connected to his comlink to access his linqasofts a hacker could strike him then.
And older more joking version of his backround included he used to have some computer skills until the crash fried that section of his brain.


How is he still alive? You only use dodge when on full defense when dealing with ranged combat. A dodge of six won't help him if he wants to shoot during that turn. When in melee he can just parry with his weapon. When you just get shot at and aren't going full defense you still get your reaction.
Effective Reaction 7+Armor Jacket+Helmet+Body of 4+platelet factories. Thats how he's still alive.

Also in the backround is spending his life savings to have a shadowrunner team help get his
revenge.


I do however appreciate the critique of his background, as that is one area I was unusally lacking in. That above is just a rough draft.

My entire group only started playing shadowrun back in october. GM included.

I originaly though of placing the bioware and muscle toner and aug installation earlier in his life not long after it came onto the market. Because he suffered from I don't know some degeretive condition. The bioware allowed him to more fully develop his weak muscles.

[Lovesmasher]

[Jack Kain]

Thank ya kindly Lovesmasher and now you may spawn some epic debate if he comes back to read it.

[Lovesmasher]

Eh, epic debate is kinda moot when people on both sides are sure they're right. I'm content to wallow in my self-assured cocky glow.

[Jack Kain]

[Fortune]

[Charon]

[Fortune]

If the range scale was 1 to 100, I would say you have a good point about extremes, but within the limited range that Shadowrun uses (1-6), I don't see it as being as big an issue.

[Charon]

As I said, I didn't houserule it.

I just mock any PC who come up with this spread and describe him as a loony tune PC. It works very well.

I'm such a bully.

[Konsaki]

I have to agree with Charon.
I would have problems with the character and ask the player to rework the stats, though I would still allow the character if the player didnt change anything... During the game though, normal everyday tasks would require attribute tests to see if the charcter is able to function properly in normal everyday life.

So 'Bob' has 1 strength, huh? Well, that door to your low lifestyle appartment has been jamming up due to cold weather rolling in rececntly. I need you to roll a strength 1 + Body 3 test to see if you can leave your own apartment.
What, you mean you only have 1 logic? Ok, well I guess you need to roll a logic 1 + will 3 test to ignore the guy in the alley waving you over...

[Lovesmasher]

But you didn't address any of the non-gymnastic uses of agility that are presented in the system that are completely valid real world examples of agility without strength. Locksmith is a really good example.

[Lovesmasher]

Because of the point buy system, if you're going to have any outstanding attribute, you MUST have at least one outstandingly bad stat. Admittedly, I try to keep everything at 2+, but when it comes down to it, I'm gonna drop that strength to 1 to get my logic to 7 for my hacker... and I did.

[Charon]

[Charon]

[ElFenrir]

Couldn't you essentialy use Gymnastics for that situation? Ive read all over these forums you can use Full Def+Agility+Gymnastics in those cases of not having Dodge...

[Jack Kain]

Listen, when I made this guy I didn't fully understand the system. I didn't know how powerful edge really was.
I didn't know that you could take a full defense on the first inititve pass then end it on the second. I throught it was an entire round kind of thing. (actually I just learned the now as you told me).


But when will there be a situation that falls for a pistol rather then an automatic?
His choice for the machine pistol was for that very reason. It was a smaller kind of automatic.

If you were my GM, I'm sure you could have helped me make a more well rounded character. But when your in a fresh group with a GM just as new to shadowrun as you are. **** happends.


If I could make him again with what I know now I would have givin him far less specialization and some ranks in dodge or gymnastics. Maybe I would have only taken ranks in just negotiation and saved the extra BP for other things.

If she combat mage had been a shaman (or other charisma+will power) using spell caster. I could have devoted him fully to combat. Givin him a 3 strength. Kept his charisma lower, held of on the influence group and gave him those other skills.

As it would have it, I had to make my character on my own with out a GM who was experenced with the system. I had one charcter before a Troll swordmaster but he didn't add much to the group, and while he had dodge he lacked more then one IP, so it really didn't help him all thta much.

If I could even go back and spend the last 6 karma over again I'd put it into dodge(gunfire) gymnastics can't specialize in gunfire after all. Wait I spent the last six karma after the last adventure but before the next one on wensday. And in our group its not spent until the session starts.

But thanks for saying I wasn't the worst offender.