[X] My Assistant

[klinktastic]

Social Adept

Human
Adept

B:3
A:5 (7)
R:4
S:2
C:5
I:3
L:2
W:2

Edge: 4
Magic 6 (5)
Init: 7 ( + 1 IP
Essence: 5.18

Qualities: ambidex, first impression
Neg: addiction, mild (cram), allergy, unc/mod (silver), incompetent (swords), gremlins 2

bioware: muscle toner 2, synaptic boosters 1

adept powers: combat sense lvl 3, kinesics lvl 2, voice control, living focus, improved ability 2 (con), improved ability 2(inflitrate)

Active Skills:Influence group: 4
-con: 4 (6)
-etiquette: 4
-leadership: 4
-negotiations: 4
Running: 2
Automatics (Smgs): 5
Dodge: 4
Unarmed combat(parry): 3
Inflitrate: 4 (6)
Perception: 2

Knowledge Skills:
English: N
Mandarin: 1
Business: 3
Dealers: 2
Black Markets: 3
Current events: 2

Contact: Fixer (C2:L2)

Questions
1) which smg is the best?
2) what contacts are the most useful?
3) is Combat Sense good?

Any other critiques, comments or advice would be appreciated!

[Ophis]

1) The coolest looking one, probably the hk227

2) Fixer Wins, though should have more than connections 2 to deserve the name.

3) Yes, yes, and for a third time yes. Anything that adds to all tests to defend yourself is good.

[klinktastic]

Any tweaks to the current set up will be appreciated. And what future bio/cyber ware should I go after

[Ol' Scratch]

Living Focus is really, really weak. Especially since you still suffer a -2 dice pool modifier when doing so. Since you have Leadership, Commanding Voice would be a much better investment and is one of the bread-and-butter powers for a social adept in my opinion.

I usually avoid implants on my magical characters unless the concept specifically revolves around them. I just find it cheesy in most cases. But if you really want to go that route, Tailored Phermones are a "must." I mean, come on... it basically adds dice to everything you do well...

Not really sure why you have Ambidexterity, either. Using two SMGs at once is just going to make you a horrible shot due to doubled recoil and a lack of recoil compensation options. You'd be much better off using two Simple Actions to fire once without a penalty and actually hitting things with both shots versus splitting your pool up for a single Simple Action and not hitting anything worth hitting.

As the "face" of the group, your main use for Contacts will be getting important information, hard to get gear, and doing things that aren't normally achievable without outside help. Mob bosses, fixers, corrupt police detectives, Tanamous members, and things of that nature are all great choices. But, again, it depends on your concept and background more than anything.

[Dashifen]

I'd add politicians, university professors, travel agents, and media personalities onto Dr. Funk's contacts list. Oh, and don't forget the possibilities of being friends with an entire Urban Brawl team, too.

[Eleazar]

The very first thing that stood out to me was the influence group. You can get rid of that because leadership is mostly useless. It is cheaper to only spend points on the skills you need con, etiquetee, and negotiation. I am not too sure why you are getting unarmed combat, if you can use guns. Your strength is also low, and you don't have any adept powers that aid your unarmed combat. If you really want to do close-combat I would like to suggest a monofilament whip instead. A monofilament whip is also easily concealable. The SMG part is nice, but you might as well go for an assault rifle. I like the Ares Alpha myself. I would also suggest not getting any specialization at chargens if possible. They cost 2 BP at chargen, but also only 2 KARMA after chargen. It is more efficient to spend these points on attributes or skills.

Some things that could be improved:
1. If you don't mind playing an elf, make this an elf. Higher charisma and agility.
2. Raise your Intuition and Perception. Intuition because it is used on Perception rolls and your initiative. Perception because you want to be able to see things.
3. Get some contact and glasses with vision enhancments
4. Get some earbuds with audio enhancements
5. Gremlins really really sucks as a negative quality for any character.
6. What is the ambidex for, don't tell me you are planning on dual-wielding SMGs. The dual-wielding rules in SR4 severly hamper anyone from doing it properly. You would have to make a character totally focused on just dual-wielding to even be average at it.
7. With such a low willpower I really hope you don't fight any mages.
8. As a human it is best to put your edge all the way. You might as well take advantage of the only advantage they have.
9. Lose the Mandarin 1 and replace it with Linguasofts.
10. Business and Dealers are not specific enough as knowledge skills

Some quick guidelines concerning BP to Karma efficiency:

1. It is best if all Skills are raised to 4 or at the very least 3. Any skill below this would have been cheaper to just purchase with Karma after chargen. Even at 3 the efficiency ratio is very close to 1:1.
2. Attributes are best if raised 1 below racial maximum. So for a Human this would be 5. The only discrepancy here is if the stat is what is called a "weak" stat. Meaning the racial maximum is 5 or 4. With weak stats sometimes you jsut have to suck it up because the stat is important to the type of character you are making.
3. Metatypes come with attributes raised for free due to their racial minimums. Even though you might pay 35BP to be an elf, it works out because their attributes are higher compared to a humans at the minumum racial level. They are also more BP efficient in their strong attributes. Strong attributes are attributes with a racial maximum higher than 6.
4. Gear while very helpful is wasteful of BP and it would be more efficient to spend it either on skills or attributes. Attributes are the most valuable because they are used in so many tests. I suggest spending the full 200BP on attributes. Edge, Magic, and Resonance are special attributes that are not factored into the 200BP limit.

Remember, even with all of these guidelines they aren't going to fit perfectly to the type of character you want to make. They are just things to keep in mind. Unfortunatley the BP vs. Karma efficiency guidelines do not allow for well-rounded characters if you were to follow them 100%.

[odinson]

I didn't think you could take an incompetence in a specialization. Shouldn't it be incompetence: blades.

[Ol' Scratch]

[WeaverMount]

1) Ingram Smartgun. More ammo, recoil and an internal smart system. IMO the Ares Alpha is the best Automatic though. Personally it tickles me pink to watch the gun bunny akimbo SMG bad ass spray 4 mooks a round missing half the time, while my "support" Character puts two short burst into one head after another.

2) Every team needs several fixers. Fixers = :nuyen:. If your teammates are pulled their weight and each getting a fixer you only need one under RAW, but contacts get houseruled to some degree in most games. Of the official uses of contacts (Legwork, swag, networking, favors), Faces don't need them for legwork or swag. I feel a couple of good networking contacts are a must: minimum a street level squatter, at least one organized crime syndicate and one corporation. I'd also throw in a media/pop/cultural contact.

3) Yes anything that makes you not get hit is good.

I'm going to have to second that living focus power being, well not not good. I promise you that is instant you get the money for the focus you will regret spending the power points on it.

I don't feel like 'ware on adepts is cheesy. Its unique to SR and starwars, and I'm not big on starwars. And yes 5 kinesics and enhanced skill and Tailored pheromones = 20+ dice for the win. Troll some edge on top of that and you can pull crack moves like buying rating 6 IC in one week.

Also a truely awesome move for a adept face to is to give up on being a good gun bunny and take 2 power points and 32 BP to be the best support hacker in the world. 4 skill + 4 adept power = 8 dice in hacking and Electronic Warfare. That way you can do all the incredibly important but not very sexy things like scanning for hidden nodes and monitoring traffic. Plus if you are the one maintaining communication dominance then you have the social ninja issuing false orders to the opposition rather the (usually socially) socially inept hacker/rigger. Also you can rock it on the matrix meets. I know that my Johnsons demand only one person come to the matrix meets. that way the face gets matrix raped or the hacker gets a crappy deal.

EDIT: "you only need one under RAW" I do not mean to imply that the RAW require everyone to have a fixer, but that if contacts are being run with RAW that I feel one is enough

[klinktastic]

Social Adept 2.0

Elf
Adept

B:3
A:6
R:4
S:2
C:7
I:2
L:2
W:2

Edge: 3
Magic 6
Init: 6
Essence: 6

Qualities: first impression
Neg: addiction, mild (cram), allergy, unc/mod (silver), incompetent (blades), allery, unc/mod (gold), addition, mild (sex).....jk!

adept powers: combat sense lvl 4, kinesics lvl 4, voice control, commanding voice, sustenance, improved ability 2 (con), improved ability 2(inflitrate)

Active Skills:
Influence group: 4
-con: 4 (6)
-etiquette: 4
-leadership: 4
-negotiations: 4
Running: 4
Automatics: 5
Dodge: 4
Inflitrate: 4 (6)
Perception: 4

Knowledge Skills:
English: N
Business: 2
Dealers: 4
Black Markets: 4
Current events: 2

Contact: 7 BP worth

Later I'll drop some 'ware in for activeskills and various other upgrades.

[Eleazar]

[Kyoto Kid]

...the 2.0 version looks pretty close to my Reporter/Social adept Media Blitz (save for the knowledge skills and NQs)

The one thing I could not afford was the 6 MA. I notice your build only allocates 170 BPs to base attributes. Media used the full 200 to get an intuition 5 and logic 3 (her Agility was 5 including the bonus for being an elf)

[jklst14]

Social Adepts can be great infiltration/disguise types too. I would consider dropping your Magic from 6 to 5, losing Improved Con and Improved Infiltration and using the saved points to upgrade from Infiltration 4 to Stealth Group 4.

Something else to consider, Running 4 and Dodge 4 cost 32 BPs. If you could scrape together 8 more BPs somewhere, you could get the Athletics Group at 4 instead.

[Glyph]

Dodge isn't part of the athletics skill group, though. Gymnastics is. And while gymnastics can be used to dodge ranged attacks, it can't be used for normal dodging in melee, and is half as effective at full defense in melee. Gymnastics dodge is only really useful for a character who also has a melee skill to parry with.

[klinktastic]

Thanks guys! The feedback has been great for sure. I'm gonna tweak him up a little bit tonite and I;ll post a finalized version tomorrow.

[Marwynn]

Looks very good.

Gymnastics is pretty handy to have with high Infiltration. Sometimes necessary as the best avenues of approach are often hard to reach. And while Dodge is a lot more useful as a defensive stat as Gymnastics is, its full defense bonus is really just that; a bonus.

If it was possible to get even 2 points in Gymnastics you'd be an even better Infiltrator for it. Of course, Climbing is useful too. But that and Running is based on Strength and you have 2 for that attribute...

If you're content with tip-toeing by guards and such, I say you're good to go.

[Dancer]

There's no way I'd let that set of negative attributes fly. Allergic to two precious metals with a very rare chance of it coming up, incompetence in a skill you'd never have a reason to use anyway

[toturi]

As a GM, I'd probably approve the PC. Even on those days I feel non-canon(which is often but anyway...).

The negative qualities are by the book and unless you have a "negative qualities MUST be such a pain in the ass" (even though Postive Qualities aren't such great stuff all the time) GM, I think you are set.

[Ol' Scratch]

The allergies will come up often when dealing with foci and other magical thingamabobs. Especially weapon foci. Incompetence needs to be changed or removed from the game (I'm still boggled by its existance as written). Gremlins is a blast, however.

[Crusher Bob]

Heh, no intimidate skill. In addition, intimidate is resisted with willpower.

being an ork gets you:

BOD 4
AGL 5
REA 5
STR 3
CHA 4
INT 4
LOG 2
WIL 5
(190 points in stats)

Magic 5
Edge 3

Athletics 3 (giving you gymnastics for dodging)
Influence 4

Automatics 5
Infiltration 4
Intimidation 2
Perception 2 (still as perceptive as the elf)
Unarmed 3 (for close combat defense)

Assuming Adept, First Impression, 35 points in flaws

And leaves you 21 points for contacts and gear.

If you want more points you can get 20 out of willpower and lower to WIL 3.

You lose 3 dice from social skills (CHA 7 vs CHA 4) but you gain a bunch of extra points.

[Wasabi]

The rules for Notoriety mean that from the start the character with incompetence rolls one less die for all social rolls that dont use Intimidate. Incompetence, Spirit Bane, and Criminal SIN should all be avoided for face characters. [EDIT: First Impression would negate the Notoriety from Incomptence I'm pretty sure]

For weaponry you'll need something you can take to a high end restaurant. The Yamaha Sakura Fubuki ("Cherry Blossom") with stick-n-shock ammo is a light pistol that does better than most SMG's when used at pistol ranges. It allows burst fire of stick-n-shock and halves the opponents IMPACT armor.

SMG with APDS ammo versus armored jacket: 8P (Burst) versus 4 Ballistic
Cherry Blossom with Stick-n-shock versus armored jacket: 9S(e) 8S(e) (Burst) versus 3 impact with a chance to stun the target:

[Wasabi]

[Fortune]

[Ol' Scratch]

I rather like the Street Cred, Notoriety, and Public Awareness rules. Though particularly in the case of a Face, it can get a touch overpowered pretty quickly after just a few runs. Just take those 200 Karma sample threads; a Face would have a Street Cred of 20, bolstering all his Social Tests by +20 dice...

[Fortune]

The rules themselves are alright, I guess. It's just the dumb idea of all those negative qualities (I miss typing flaws!) automatically give you a bad rep.

By the way, have you extrapolated these rules out to the level of a +/-300 Karma point character? Intense is quite the understatement.

edit: Damn! You edited! :P