Kerrigan O'Malley, That's right... yet another character critique Options

[Mickle5125]

Streetname: Kerri
Primary SIN: Kerrigan O'Malley
Race: elf

Attributes: 200 BP
Bod: 3
Agi: 6
Rea: 7 (10)
Str: 1
Cha: 3
Int: 5
Log: 2
Wil: 2

Init: 15 (4 passes)

Edge: 2 (10 BP)
Magic: 5
Essence: 6.00



Skills: 110 BP

Influence Group 2
Firearms Group 4
Dodge 6
Perception 4
Stealth Group 2

Knowledge Skills: # (18 free)
Firearms 4
Seattle Layout 3
Modern Architecture 3
Seattle Safehouses 4
Organized Crime 4

Negative Qualities:
SINner (Standard) [-5]
Sensitive System [-15]
Weak Immune System [-5]
Moderate Addiction ??? [-10]

Total Negative Qualities: -35

Positive Qualities:
Adept [5]
Exceptional Attribute (Reaction) [20]

Total Positive Qualities: 25

Adept Powers: (Power point cost)
Improve Reflexes III (5)

Gear: (4BP)
ares pred
FN HAR
Raecor Sting
HK 227X
Remington 990
Misc ammo and gear for guns

lined coat (6/4)

Renraku Sensei comlink w/ Iris Orb OS
_skinlink
_subvocal Mic

Fake SIN 4
fake license weapon
fake license misc

goggles
_Image Link
_smartlink
_vision enhancement 3
_vision magnification

contact lenses
_Low light
_flare comp

earbuds
_audio enhancement 3
_spatial recognizer

Medkit 6

Low Lifestyle (1 month)

Contacts: 11BP
Seamus L6 C2
Fixer L1 C2


short background: Kerrigan grew up in a bad part of the town. Really bad. As in, the part of town where you're just as likely to be "accidentally" shot on your way to the store as you are to actually make it there in one piece. For an elf female, it's even worse. Kerrigan learned quickly to pay attention and be ready to react to everything that's going on around her. Luckily for her, magic decided to take an interest in her. Or, at least to hear her talk of it, that's the impression you'd get. She was just walking to the park one day when some Humanis scumbag stepped out of an alley and started pulling a gun on her. Suddenly everything slowed down and she had a strong sense of something looking at her and liking what it saw. Whatever it was, time didn't speed back up, and she was able to dodge out of the way and escape.

Whatever really happened, She put her newfound powers to good use, training with them until she was ready react to anything. As she grew up, she was discovered by Seamus, the bodyguard of some small time celebrity. Having a small amount of magical ability himself, Seamus quickly took her under his wing, recognizing the potential in her. He trained her to be his partner in the business, training her to use her quick reactions to take out any threats aggressively while he focused on protecting the client. Unfortunately, due to a well prepared team of shadowrunners, their teamwork wasn't enough to protect the client, which in turn was a serious black mark against their business.

These days, they're mostly hired as supplemental security for celebrities when some pop star feels threatened by a stalker or other fanatic. Unfortunately, supplemental security doesn't pay the bills, so while Seamus stays at the office and tries to find new clients, Kerrigan often slips off to find alternate means of securing an income for them. Many times, she's able to get a quick wetwork job or other short term run from her fixer.

Concept: Kerrigan is a character I designed to be all about the quick actions. She's designed to go first in combat, hit hard, avoid any returning fire, and hit the enemy again.

[Glyph]

It looked like you were over on BP, until I noticed that you actually only had 11 points of contacts, not 32.

However, you can not start out with more than one Attribute at the maximum, so either Agility or Reaction needs to come down by one. I would probably make it Agility, since Reaction is the main shtick for this character.

Personally, I consider an Attribute of 1 to be the lowest functional rating for that Attribute, something that will give the character some disadvantages but not be crippling. Other GMs, though, will often go out of their way to hammer a character with any Attributes of 1, so be sure your GM doesn't have a big problem with this.

I am not sure that maxing out your Magic is necessary, either. Five points will get you the Improved Reflexes: 3. It's a lot cheaper to raise Magic with 18 Karma than with 25 build points.

If you lowered Agility and Magic by one, then you would get 50 build points back. With that, you could, for example, buy the Exceptional Attribute quality for Reaction and increase it to a base of 7, and get two more points in the stealth group.

[Mickle5125]

Looking over your suggestions, I like most of them. I made most of the changes, but only increased stealth group by 1 and put the extra point into logic because of a few plans running through my head for her.

[jklst14]

I totally agree with Glyph. That last point isn't usually worth the BP cost so I second dropping Agility and Magic by 1 and using the 50 saved BP elsewhere.

[masterofm]

The character feels a bit dry, and personally I feel that you will not be throwing enough given certain situations. What is your goal for your character? I mean personally I feel that you do not throw enough dice to be super effective at what you do, while at the same time suffering from the problem of having a somewhat narrow skill list. Just my 2 cents.

[WeaverMount]

I'm assuming you know that BP wise getting your IPs from the adept power isn't a good buy, and that you are doing it for concept. I know you wrote of the background that Kerrigan is naturally super fast, but you could keep that if you got attribute boost [reaction]. That said you are paying a very High cost for that 4th IP. 3 IP sufficent for most sams.

Also You could stand to trim the fire arms group. You can easily get away with only 2 of the fire arms skills freeing up a little extra BP

I'd use that room to at a slightly broader range of abilities. My be armorer , a drone or two, or a chameleon suit. If you drop down to a mere 3 IPs you could add the face dancer package Facial sculpt, and voice control (.75 PP), and still have 1.25 PP of extra. I'd go with attribute boost [agility and reaction], commanding voice, or Kinesics.

[jklst14]

I know that having a high reaction is your main thing but having a reaction of 7 is costing you 45 BPs. Consider dropping your Reaction to free up extra BPs to pick up a close combat skill, the Athletics Group or something else. And if you really want to be very hard to hit, consider buying Combat Sense. Drop your Improved Reflexes to level 2 and you can buy 4 levels of Combat Sense with the points you've freed up.

[Grinder]

With a Str of 1 he wouldn't do much harm in close combat anyway. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Sir_Psycho]

Drop your agility to 5 and the 4th IP and pick up two or three levels of Muscle Toner bioware. Much cheaper BP wise and with a much greater return. It will really help your fire-arm dicepool. Also pick up a point in the athletics group to complement that attribute.

[WeaverMount]

With a Str of 1 he wouldn't do much harm in close combat anyway. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

findle sticks! he can always default on mono whip. That NEVER ends badly

[Sir_Psycho]

Shock gloves.

[WeaverMount]

Shock gloves! Sir, that is fare to practical an answer to compare to the hilarity of an over twitchy elf lopping off her arm with her own mono-whip on a crit glitch.

[Ryu]

Do you have access to Augmentation?

[Hocus Pocus]

I'd change the body from 3 to VA-VA-VA-VOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mickle5125]

Shock gloves! Sir, that is fare to practical an answer to compare to the hilarity of an over twitchy elf lopping off her arm with her own mono-whip on a crit glitch.

Aww... I was just about to talk my GM into letting me get a monowhip at build time, too...

Do you have access to Augmentation?

Sadly, no... hoping to grab a copy from my friend soon, though

I'd change the body from 3 to VA-VA-VA-VOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...huh?

[Mickle5125]

I'm assuming you know that BP wise getting your IPs from the adept power isn't a good buy, and that you are doing it for concept. I know you wrote of the background that Kerrigan is naturally super fast, but you could keep that if you got attribute boost [reaction]. That said you are paying a very High cost for that 4th IP. 3 IP sufficent for most sams.

Also You could stand to trim the fire arms group. You can easily get away with only 2 of the fire arms skills freeing up a little extra BP

I'd use that room to at a slightly broader range of abilities. My be armorer , a drone or two, or a chameleon suit. If you drop down to a mere 3 IPs you could add the face dancer package Facial sculpt, and voice control (.75 PP), and still have 1.25 PP of extra. I'd go with attribute boost [agility and reaction], commanding voice, or Kinesics.

1) attibute Boost (the adept power, I assume you're talking about) costs 2 pp for each level over your natural max, so it's more cost efficient this way.

2) you've actually hit the nail on the head with my future plans for Kerrigan. I'm planning on building up her armorer skills and getting her a chameleon suit in game, so I don't want to do too much along that path yet. Character development and all that.

I know that having a high reaction is your main thing but having a reaction of 7 is costing you 45 BPs. Consider dropping your Reaction to free up extra BPs to pick up a close combat skill, the Athletics Group or something else. And if you really want to be very hard to hit, consider buying Combat Sense. Drop your Improved Reflexes to level 2 and you can buy 4 levels of Combat Sense with the points you've freed up.

This is actually a good idea... didn't even see Combat Sense. I don't really want to drop the initiative pass, though... I feel like it's a big part of the character build... *shrugs* I don't know.

Drop your agility to 5 and the 4th IP and pick up two or three levels of Muscle Toner bioware. Much cheaper BP wise and with a much greater return. It will really help your fire-arm dicepool. Also pick up a point in the athletics group to complement that attribute.

Athletics group is a pretty good idea for her, but I don't want to drop my essence until I've initiated a time or two, so the Toner'll have to wait.

[WeaverMount]

1) attibute Boost (the adept power, I assume you're talking about) costs 2 pp for each level over your natural max, so it's more cost efficient this way.

There are two adept power to get your stats up the good choice and the bad choice. Improved attribute works like what you are talking about is made of 160 proof fail. Attribute boost is dirt cheap if you have a high magic score.

[Ryu]

Combat sense is a good idea. Spending all magic on one power usually not so. Having multiple IPs is not something that makes a char special amongst running peers.

The fast reaction bit can be done with combat sense alone. How about spending 4 power points on Imp. Reflexes II and Combat Sense II? The exceptional attribute is also not necessary, as a reaction of 5(7) is still impressive. Saves 10 BP from magic, 20 BP from qualities, and 35 BP from Reaction (Even with Exceptional Attribute, the last point still costs 25 BP). 65 BP afford quite a lot of things that are superior to a 4th IP.

[Hocus Pocus]

...huh?

Huma-na,huma-na, huma-na then?

[Muspellsheimr]

I would recommend getting your hands on Augmentation.

Use a point of magic for Muscle Toner 2, Reakt, & Genetic Optimization (Reaction).
Change your Adept Powers to Combat Sense II, Increased Reflexes II.
Drop Reaction down to 6((IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) .

That will cost you 91,000 of resources, which is easily paid for with the 25 points saved from Reaction. Your ranged defense pool is now 12 dice, before going on full defense.

I would suggest invest in Gymnastics for your Full Defense. If not, at least specialize in your Dodge skill.
A melee skill is always a good choice.

Later on, when you can afford higher-grade ware (or are willing to burn another point of magic), invest in Synthicardium, if you went with Gymnastics Dodge. It will ultimately give you a higher Full Defense pool than even specialized Dodge skill.


Or, if you want to stay pure, scrounge 25 points from somewhere, up your magic back to 6, and take Combat Sense IV, Increased Reflexes III. Ranged defense pool of 14 with 4 passes, before Full Defense. But it comes with a strong lack of doing anything else.

[Grinder]

Average adept = one-trick-pony. That's nothing overly surprising, scaring or new. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Ryu]

Average adept = one-trick-pony. That's nothing overly surprising, scaring or new. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

But it is a reason to minimise the amount of magic pulling said trick requires. Two points of magic for a second IP is somewhat acceptable, two for the 4th IP isn´t.

In this case, reaction 7 for 20+25 points is also questionable. The super-fast part of the concept is pretty much fulfilled by the super-metahuman reaction you have after factoring in the Improved Reflexes power. Your average citizen has a reaction attribute of 2-3.

[masterofm]

Do you really want to take sensitive system and bone yourself that hard? Most magic users will highly benefit from using at least some bio and cyberware. Doubling the essence cost will cripple your character in this respect. Lets say you wanted to get a trauma dampener and platelet factory to basically reduce 2 P or 2 S from every attack you take? Well you can't do that now. Or if you wanted a datajack, or the agility, or reaction booster.... well tough luck on that too. Sensitive system is if you want to go pure adept, and you never truly want to go pure adept as cyber/bio will go farther then the price you have to pay for getting them.

Also get an Ares Alpha and maybe a pistol.... other then that you don't really need any more types of firearms. Carrying tons of weapons is kinda suspicious.... unless you are in the barrens and even then having more then 2-3 weapons on you might prove cumbersome.

[Muspellsheimr]

Sensitive System applies only to cybernetic essence loss - it does not affect biotech or genetech, which, I would say are typically far superior to cyber anyways, and at least equal to nanocybernetics.

[masterofm]

Um.... it's good to have a mix of both imop. Fine lets do some hard math then if you are thinking this is such a bad idea. Ok so that last point of reaction is. You have taken exceptional attribute which is 20 points + 10 points for upping the skill by one in boning yourself hardcore. Lets say you just reduce your agility by two, and take out the exceptional attribute, which frees up 50 bp. You take 15 bp of that and take away the sensitive system. That leaves 25 bp left. You sink an extra 25 bp into magic and instead of taking that point you grab some cyberware and bio ware with the 10 bp (50k) remaining. You get muscle toner at rating 3 (can't get r4 at character gen).... so now you have spent 24k to just raise your agility by three in lowering your reaction by one. Then you take 20k and buy.... you guessed it CYBERWARE reaction enhancers which stack with any other initiative boosters.

Now lets do the rundown.... you have just successfully REMOVED a flaw, added to your reaction by 1, added to your agility by 1, and have 6k or 1 bp left over, and have 0.1 essence to spend in cyberware country if you want and add a datajack. If you can ever get this deltaware or beta then you are in flavor country.