500 point games...good or bad? Options

[Mistwalker]

[Lantzer]

On the perceived lack of need for generalized characters in groups of 4+players.....


Many tasks become easier if you have more than one person who can fill that role. This is why special forces do cross-training. The game even supports it with teamwork rules.

Your character is a back-up face? You can run more complicated scams if you have two people working as a team.

Back up technician? Tell me you've never wanted an extra hand working with tools.

Back up samurai? Um, more shootin' is good.

Back up Rigger? Better surveilance, fewer distraction penalties, more than 1 jumped-in drone, pilot and gunner.

Back up mage? More spell defense anyone? And thats just the start.

Back up medic? For when the medic is hurt... or busy.... or needs a hand.

Backup troll? Hah! they'd never expect _two_ trolls!

[ElFenrir]

Well, i have Vil, my weapons specialist. Has really good weapon skills-Firearms Group 4, Unarmed with spec 4(+2), blades 3(+2), with Heavy Weapons 3 and even a peppering in Thrown Weapons and Archery of 2 each. With a modified 6 Agl, he does quite well. However, if he got in a pure skill shootout with a Gun Adept or twinked Sam, he's be outclassed by several dice. But, he does his duty well in the way that hes prepped for about any situation you come across. Again, a Stealth Group 1 doesnt make him a ninja, but he can hold up there too. A Negotiations and Etiquette skill of 3(+2 for spec) each and a 3 cha doesnt make him a full on face, but he can surely help out.

I actually wanted to make a good character who could fill in on lots of roles...providing creativity with weapons and good backup, rather than the 'main guy'.

However, it is also just as easy to spread a character WAY too thin. But i like what Lantzer is saying.

[Kyoto Kid]

...VIolet is also our team's Technician, EW Security Specialist, and occasional B & E specialist (electronic locking systems).

Surprisingly, KK4.3 has become the team's Cultural and Relations expert when it comes to anything relating to Japan (including the Yakuza whom she has successfully dealt with on a number of occasions) as well as our driver.

[DragonWolf]

Hello all, I'm one of the players in Begisle group and I finally (I think) decided on my character. Basis of the character is a mix of street sam, bounty hunter and a starting face. I like playing characters that are agile, have useful skills and that are good with guns (any troll can hit someone with a club ;) ). Also, I don't care too much for min/max, but being new to SR I don't know where this limit is (see questions below).

Anyway here's Kerani:

[ Spoiler ]

500BP build using standard rules.

Elf

B4; A6[8]; R5[7]; S2[4]; C6; I5; L3; W4; E4; ess .63; init 12; passes 3

lifestyle Middle (2 months); Street cred 0; notoriety 4; Public Awareness 1

resources = 46

Qualities:
Guts; Quick Healer; Magic Resis 2

SINner (crimial); Spirit Bane (earth); Addic mild (stim patches); Allergy cats (mild, uncommon); Incomp (pilot aircraft)

Active skills:
Pistol [SA] 3 (15)
Auto [smg] 4 (16)
Unarmed C. [parry] 2 (12)
Infiltration [urban] 4 (14)
Pilot GC [bike] 3 (14)
Percep 4 (12)
Shadowing [urban] 3 (10)
Tracking [urban] 2 (9)
First Aid 2 (6/12)
Influence Group 1
Con (7); Etiq (7); Leader (7); Negotiat (7)
Athletics Group 1
Climb (7); Gymn (11); Run (7); Swim (7)

Knowledge skills:
Street Gangs 3
Crook Hangouts 3
Vory 4
Black Market 3
Lone Star procedures 2

Languages
English N
Seperethial 3
Russian 3
Spanish 3

Contacts: (loy/con)
Mr Sam [fixer] 4/4
Piet Shovot [Vory Lt] 3/4
Mitz [armor] 3/3


Weapons/Armor: Ares Predator; Ingram Smartgun; Hammerli 620S [w/stick n shock ammo] Lined Coat; Armor Jacket;Armor vest (armor is for different occasions).

Gear (just some of the notable gear):
Sport Glasses [flare comp;image link; smartlink; thermo; vision enhance 3; skinlink]
Luxury Glasses [same as above]
Fake Sins [4]; [3]
Medkit [6]
Metal restraints
Fake License x2 [4] [concealed permit and gun permit]
Autopicker [6]
Suzuki Mirage
Stim patch [2]
Novatech Airware w/Iris Orb (set to hidden mode and skinlinked to guns and glasses)
Sony Emperor w/Renraku Ichi (set to passive mode and linked to glasses)


Cyber/bio ware:
Muscle Augment 2
Muscle Toner 2
Sleep Reg
Wired Reflexes 2
Olfactory Booster 3
Bone Lacing [aluminum]
Orthoskin 2
Synthacardium 2
Cyber Ears [audio enhance 3;select sound filter 2;spatial recognizer; damper]

Couple of questions:
1. Is any of this min/maxed? If so is there a lot, a little, not enough to worry about?
2. How useful is Tracking in an urban area (taking into account all of the positive Perception gear/cyberware)?
3. What skills should I drop?
4. What skills am I missing?
5. Should a character with only 4 Body and .63 Essence have Quick Healing? I'm hung up on this one.
6. What else should I be Incomp in? Pilot Airspace seems a little cheesy.
7. Can you have a comlink never connected to the Matrix and still run your gear via Skinlinks?
8. Any of the Attributes unreasonably high/low?

I'm sure I have more questions, but this what I can remember at the moment. Thanks for any help.

Dan.

[Jaid]

everything is min/maxing to some extent. how much min/maxing is too much is up to you and your GM, as a general rule. imo, nothing in your build really sends alarm klaxons screaming in my head, but your GM may feel otherwise; ask him how he feels about it.

tracking in an urban area is generally going to be handled by the shadowing skill if you are following them physically, or by doing legwork (data search, social skills).

i would drop tracking, personally, and pick up some basic computer skills. electronics skill group at rating 1 would allow you to track down people on the matrix more easily, as well as giving you some basic knowledge for messing with maglocks and such. if you have the BP elsewhere, you may even want to consider picking up the cracking group. alternately, you could just get yourself a reasonably high rating agent and load it up with appropriate software.

i wouldn't worry too much about quick healing unless your GM uses a variant rule. everyone heals fairly quickly in SR4, especially if you have someone with high first aid as well as a mage with healing magic.

a commlink can be connected only to a skinlinked PAN, but you will want a second commlink (with no skinlink) for situations where you need to be broadcasting information but don't want to allow your PAN to be accessed from outside. a meta link should be sufficient for that purpose.

and your attributes are pretty much exactly what i would expect from a sammy/face.

[ElFenrir]

As for min-maxing, of course there is some, but as Jaid said, everyone does some.

To me, there is min-maxing, and there is twinking. Min-maxing is trying to get the most numerically out of your character concept. A little is expected and even good. Your stats have some minmaxing, but thats not a bad thing, i think many of us minmax our stats out. They are about right for that kind of job. :) Some are high, some are lower but you put something into everything what you could. You used half of the points about so were quite generous with them. Minmaxing some skills is not bad either, there are only so many BPs, so dropping a skill to add a couple specializations instead is sometimes effective.

Twinking, to me, is when you give big advantages to your character at what is essentialy no disadvantage. (Agl 6 Str 1 sammies are examples of this. because its cheaper to buy a str of 3 or even 5 with nuyen BPs than it is with Attribute BPs, people do this for the sake of getting more gun BP, even if the numbers make no sense for the character.The Logic Dump hackers fall into this category...since its skill+program, hackers can dump Logic to go ahead and max their programs out.) Taking useless disadvantages is another twinking example, of stuff that will never come into play. (Incompentence: Aardvark Training for example.) Twinking skills involve taking a twinked attribute(usually Agility, as its so easy to increase and links to all of the combat skills), and taking a crapload of skills at rating 1,(4 Bps each or groups for 10) and still netting a huge amount of dice with each skill. And im not saying a high Agility or Intuition is bad at all(hey, they are important), but its the intention behind them. ;)

[ornot]

I loathe loathe loathe the incompetence quality. It is taken far too often as a means to gain a few extra points by sacrificing a skill that is unlikely to ever be needed. Addiction and allergy are subject to similar abuses, but can be useful/interesting to a GM. Incompetency never is, as it is nigh impossible to put a character in a position where they must use a particular skill.

/rant

[ElFenrir]

Unless the character actually takes an incompetency in something that is big...Negotations, Infiltration, Pilot Ground Craft, Computer, even Longarms. Longarms might be, on average, the least taken of the firearms skills, but if someone takes it, they cant even use a common shotgun, so that could actually be a real disadvantage.

But those are typically not taken.

[Kyoto Kid]

..my big peeve is still Sensitive System for awakened characters. I look at it as 15 free BPs and have not taken it for any of my adepts nor my one spellcaster, Hermoine.

[Konsaki]

I personally stay away from all the negative qualities.
I wouldnt take a neg unless I knew I wasnt going to be affected by it much, and then I feel like a heel for doing that.
So I guess the only negative Quality all my characters have is the fact that they dont have the bonus BP that people who DO have neg qual have. 35BP is alot to toy around with, especially if you are spending 35 in positive qualities...

[Butterblume]

With 500 points it's easier to stay away from bad qualities - my 500 BP char actually only had one, incompetence: electronics, which is a pretty hefty one (just to refresh your minds: leader of a special military team, I modeled him a bit after Leroy Jethro Gibbs).

Another char of mine had incompetence: blades. I would feel cheap if I took an incompetence that would never come into play.

As GM, I allow one cheesy allergy (mild, uncommon) without questions asked... The points have to come from somewhere ;).

[ElFenrir]

[Kyoto Kid]

...the only thing is, none of the awakened characters I've seen in my group take any cyber implants or have intent to do so later.

I also take back one thing about my adepts not having Sensitive System (bad KK, bad KK no Karma for you). I do have a Face Adept with some sensory mods and both the Sensitive System and Weak Immune System qualities. She is a reporter (I still love Shadowbeat) who has the basic "recording/editing remote broadcast studio in the head" package (alphaware) complete with implanted commlink.

This leaves her with an MA of 3 (out of 5) which is still enough for the "Social" based powers she needs. Alas, she has only one IP.

She is also built on only 400 BPs. 500 would be really nice.

As Audrey W. used to say: "I am the camera..."

[Fortune]

[Fortune]

[Kyoto Kid]

[Grinder]

[Kyoto Kid]

[Jack Kain]

Lets face it the book teaches you to take negative qualites what won't really effect you.
The sample combat mage has the negative quality sensitve system. And we know he ain't taking any cyberware.

[Kyoto Kid]

...nah, a bad quality (flaw) should always have some kind of effect on the character.

Really hate to do such things, but looks like a bit of "unauthorised" surgery may be in store the next time someone gets captured.

"...damn that datajack is costly."

Mwahahah! :evil:

[Pause]

...OK, I'm all better now... :twirl:

[Mistwalker]

There will always be Min/Maxers. You deal with them as they come, but don't punish everyone else for their possible abuses / mistakes.

For those that abuse sensitive system, like KK suggested, you can always mess with them. Backstory isn't too hard either.

Put in eyes, ears and a commlink when they go to prison. They can't access the commlink, no controls for them to do so, except maybe to "phone" the guards, the rest is under the guards control. Perfect for knowing what is going on in your prison, and at a fairly cheap cost too.

[James McMurray]

That's one thing I really like in nWoD: the new flaw system. You can take as many crazy flaws as you want but none will ever do you any good until they actually hamper play, at which point you'll earn XP for it.

[ElFenrir]

Ahh, the only problem with that is you have to know, A. Are they taking it to twink? or B. Are they taking it because it fits?

A back to nature shaman who lives in a cabin doesnt like guns so they fight with a sword and a bow or crossbow, lives on natural food and have never touched cybertechnology, it could indeed be a fitting flaw.

As Mistwalker says, it becomes tough when you punish everyone for one person's flaw. (this is why i wasnt a big fan of the whole Hunted flaw taken at lv. 6. You could very well screw your entire group with that one.)

In the old systems, Sensitive System was worth -2 to the awakened, as opposed to -3. A houserule to make it 10 instead of 15 might be what you are looking for.

In addition, the old book had Bio-Rejection, in which the body would violently try to eject anything not the persons, including replacement limbs, imagine someone in the hospital when their new limbs don't agree with them. If mages want the 15, perhaps they can take that one in the new system?

I think that there could be a place for ANY edge and flaw, but its WHEN and HOW its used. Incompetence: Swimming, Nautical Mechanic and Pilot Watercraft would be indeed worth the points in a cyberpirate campaign, for example, as would Allergy: Seawater. Allergy: Sunlight in a desert campaign could be hell.


Allergy: Sunlight in a campaign that took place in winter in Lapland, i'd question. ;)

I like one theory for testing edges and flaws. Let a decent sized group make characters. If you see the same flaw/edge popping up ALL the time, its probably broken. Likewise, if you NEVER see one, even on people who you know are NOT twinks, its probably too crippling/worthless.(I hear many on the forum calling Uncouth and Unlucky nearly falling into these categories..that 20 BPs are occationaly deemed too low.)

I usually just take a look at characters and see where they are going. Im pretty lean myself, ill let a fair amount slide if they can back it up with reason(but dont test my patience or good nature too much).

[Jaid]

yeah, it's worth noting that flaws which are brutally crippling are as bad of a problem as flaws which are not bad enough to be worth points. infirm or uncouth are not a recommended choice for any player. heck, i've never seen a character that i feel justifies the full effect of uncouth, and i have a hard time imagining someone who actually survives in the shadows with infirm as a flaw.