Stat Mr. Lucky, Let's see how well you can do. Options

[Cain]

In the Edge thread, a lot of people are saying the Mr. Lucky build is inefficient, and should have an Edge of 6 instead of 8. Despite my assertions to the contrary, no one is willing to put their money where their mouth is, and post a better character.

So, I'm creating a new thread, and letting Dumpshockers prove their points. I'd like to see what kind of pistol sam builds people come up with, on the provision that they have an Edge of 6 to 8. Also, I posted a half-assed quickie mage that people are deriding as weak. I haven't done so well creating mages yet, so I'd like to see what you can come up with for a Mr. Lucky the Mage. Again, he must have an Edge of 6 to 8.

Oh, and here's the character in question:

Mr. Lucky:

Body: 5
Quickness: 5 (7)
Reaction: 4 (6)
Strength: 2 (4)
Charisma: 3
Intuition: 4
Logic: 3
Willpower: 3

Edge: 8
Initiative: 8 (12) IP: 2
Essence: 0.75

Skills
Pistols (Semi auto) 7
Gymnastics (Dodging) 2
Unarmed combat (martial arts) 2
Con (Fast talk) 1
infiltration (Urban) 2

Knowledge Skills (Your choice, but here are mine):
Farming: 3
Sports (Rodeos): 2 +2
BK: Firearms: 3
Safehouse Locations: 5
Denver Border Crossings (Shadow Crossings): 4 +2

Edges:
High Pain Tolerance (Or 5 pts, your choice)
Lucky
Apt: Pistols

Flaws:
35 points your choice

Cyberware

Skillwires (Rating 3)
Smartlink
Wired Reflexes (Rating 1)
Muscle Replacement (Rating 2)

Bioware

Enhanced Articulation
Reflex Recorder (Skill Group) (Firearms)

Gear and weapons: 59,000 :nuyen: your choice
15 points contacts.

[Ddays]

Better in what way exactly? And by my count, your character should only have +1 reaction, and 9 initiative.

Ok, your guy has 7 Agi + 7 Skill + 2 Spec + 1 Recorder + 3 skill wire +2 smartlink(Assuming you spend the 2 points in gear to get rating 3 autsoft) with pistols. 22 dice, 30 edged.

I counter with a 7 Agi + 6 Skill + 2 Spec + 3 Skill + 2 smartlink, losing out 2 dice, but specced in sniper rifles and hit you from beyond your maximum range. Not to mention that I have more points left over to spend on other things. Exactly what are you looking for?

Oops, I didn't see you specifically mention pistol sam. But in that case, if that's the criteria, are we just throwing out all the advantages of points freed up in versatility for maximum pistol shootiness?

This post has been edited by Ddays: Jul 14 2007, 08:13 AM

[odinson]

I think he wants complete builds not one line with what stats you could possibly throw.

[Ddays]

Well, let's say I make the same exact char, dump the huge points costs to max pistols and get 24 points for gear instead of 12, would the versatility inherent in double the points in gear be worth not being completely twinked out for pistol combat?

How about not having 35 points in unspecified flaws? Would that be a better character?

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[Glyph]

I would probably allow someone to take tumbling as the appropriate specialization for gymnastics dodge. But Cain, you still have 210 points put into Attributes - might want to drop Strength down to 1 (3) to fix it, since a 3 Strength does the same damage as a 4 Strength.

Ddays, skillwires don't add to skills, they replace them - skillwires let a character slot chips to be able to do things they are untrained in. So this build has 19 in pistols, 27 when Edged (although with a dice pool of 19, usually it will be more effective to use Edge to re-roll failures, instead).

Cain, I've given up trying to convince you anything is "better" than Mr. Lucky. He has all of the things you consider essential, so spending 55 points on anything else wouldn't convince you. If you're curious what I would do, though, it would be: 16 points to improve gymnastics and unarmed combat to 4; 28 points to add perception (visual): 4 and pilot ground craft (cars): 2; 6 build points (30,000 cost) to add synthcardium (rating 3) - lowering Essense to 0.60; and 5 points to get the ambidexterity quality.

I will post a "Lucky Mage" later, though.

[Ryu]

Minimum edge: 6... cp a lucky ork with edge 6 costs the same but has body 8 and strength 6. I´d of course take body 7 and strength 3(5).

20 saved points say "influence group 2" to me. (6 pts from con(spec) go to gymnastics 4 (no spec), but thats not important).

I´d also never take apt:combat skill, as BP/dice is very bad on that one. 18/24 dice should do the trick just the same.

[Fortune]

[Fortune]

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[toturi]

[Ravor]

Besides, part of the problem is that you are insisting on a pistol hyper-specialist, and I can't really give you a better hyper-specialist because as far as I'm concerned they all suck equally.

However if I were to try to play your game, I'd definently listen to toturi using skillwires and Edge for skills like perception and the like is suicide unless you have an overly nice DM, and no, you can't "stack" the bonuses from vision enhancements by wearing both contacts and glasses in order to milk more dice. (Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "stacking" of course, if you are just talking about using two devices in order to be able to have access to all of the vision modes but are only using one at a time then yeah, that's legal but still won't make up from a lack of perception skill.)

[Cain]

[jklst14]

I usually don't make high Edge characters so it was fun to give it a shot.

Lucky Pistol Samurai
* He isn't as good with pistols as the first example but he's pretty good and also has Automatics for long distance combat as well as good social and athletic skills plus skillwires to fill in the gaps.
* I usually don't purchase any specializations at character creation since they are so cheap to purchase later on.

Human

Attributes (200 pts + 40 pts Edge)
Body:3
Agility: 5 (7)
Reaction: 5 (6)
Strength: 2 (4)
Charisma: 4
Intuition: 4
Logic: 2
Willpower: 3
Edge: 6
Essence: 2.45

Skills (156 pts)
Athletics Group 4
Influence Group 4
Automatics 4
Infiltration 3
Pistols 6
Perception 3
Unarmed 3

Knowledge Skills
Your choice...

Cyberware/Bioware (147 000 nuyen)

Muscle Augmentation 2
Muscle Toner 2
Reflex Recorder Firearms Group
Skillwire Rating 3
Synthcardium Rating 3
Tailored Pheromones Rating 3
Wired 1

Qualities
-35 points in Negative Qualities

Cost
Attributes 200
Edge 40
Skills 156
Qualities -35
Nuyen 30 (150 000)

with 3000 nuyen + 9 more build points for more gear or Contacts

Edit once: forgot to add Essence stat
Edit twice: corrected Unarmed Combat to 3

[jklst14]

Here's another guy. He breaks the guidelines Cain set since his Edge is only 5 (he's an Ork) but I think he works well.

Lucky Pistol Adept


Ork (20 pts)

Attributes (160 pts + 40 pts Edge +40 Magic)
Body:4
Agility: 5 (7)
Reaction: 5 (6)
Strength: 4 (6)
Charisma: 2
Intuition: 4
Logic: 2
Willpower: 3
Edge: 5
Magic 3
Essence: 4


Skills (128 pts)
Athletics Group 4

Assensing 3
Etiquette 3
Infiltration 3
Pistols 6
Perception 3
Unarmed 4

Knowledge Skills
Your choice...

Powers (3 power points)
Astral Perception
Improved Pistols Level 3
Killing Hands

Cyberware/Bioware (156 000 nuyen)
Muscle Augmentation 2
Muscle Toner 2
Reflex Recorder Pistols
Skillwire Rating 3
Synaptic Accelerator 1
Synthcardium Rating 3

Qualities (-30 points)
Adept
-35 points in Negative Qualities

Cost
Race 20
Attributes 160
Edge 40
Magic 40
Skills 128
Qualities -30
Nuyen 32 (160 000)

with 4000 nuyen and 10 build points left over for gear or Contacts

[odinson]

[Cain]

Both those are really good. Before we get into the comparisons, I'd like to thank you two, and congratulate you on a job well done.

[ElFenrir]

This seems fun to do, ill have one for you when i get home from work, i think. Or ill try, at least. :D

[Fortune]

[James McMurray]

I personally would not allow any form of dodging speciality for Gymnastics. If you do that you may as well get rid of the didge skill altogether, since there will be no reason to take it.

[Fortune]

That's a fair enough way of looking at it as well.

[jklst14]

[Cain]

[Glyph]

For a combat-oriented character who has a close combat skill to parry or block with, no. But for a character less oriented towards physical melee, dodge works way better for melee.

Normal defense:
Dodge: get to add it.
Gymnastics: don't get to add it.

Full defense:
Dodge: get to add double your dodge skill.
Gymnastics: get to add it - once, as opposed to the twice for full dodge or full parry.

So for characters such as faces, mages, tech-focused hackers, and the like, dodge is a much, much more useful skill to have for defense.

[jklst14]