Whats Up Doc?, The How To of making a chopdoc in SR4 Options

[Spark]

Hi guys just wanted to see what you all could come up with. In SR3 I made a really kickass chopdoc moonlighting as a shadowrunner that turned out to be an expert in lots of fields however with SR4 and the more limited rules Ive had more issues getting it done so to speak. If you could post some test builds based on 400 BP for me to look over Id appreciate it. Ive already got one that Ive worked out pretty well but im debating taking magic vs not. Either way even with skilwires I find that Im much more limited than my SR3 toon was.


Ty in advance.

[ornot]

I think a shadowrunning street doc is just as easy to make in SR4 as it was in SR3. It really depends on quite what you expect him to be capable of He's not going to have 6's in all the appropriate skills, but just taking the biotech group at 4 makes you a pretty damn good and widely skilled doc and that's only 40BP. Stick 4 or 5 in logic and with a rating 6 medkit you're rolling 14-15 dice before situation mods. There might be some stuff in Augmentation you'll want to get too, and the applied chemistry from Arsenal would probably amuse as well. I'd recommend against magic, as you're going to run out of BPs or karma getting all those additional skills and the magic attribute. Makes sense though. It should take lots of effort and study to be a spell-slinger, and being a good doc is no cakewalk either.

[Zaranthan]

Biggest issue I've found with converting 3rd to 4th is people fretting over skill ratings. Lower skills are okay. You don't need 6s in everything. A single rank is worth 2 dice, and a 2 or 3 is pretty good for anything outside your specialty (especially with a specialization or reflex recorder).

ornot pretty much hit the nail on the head. Take the Biotech group to whatever you feel is appropriate (likely rating 4 for a character defined as a doctor), bump Logic to 3-5, grab a R6 Medkit and a Middle lifestyle (which would cover having an office to work out of) and you're set. Tack on Knowledges and other skills to suit.

[Cabral]

Runners company explains how to expense an office space as a second lifestyle.

Grab an Orderly (Arsenal) or two and rigging gear to medicate by telepressence. As a bonus, it gives you a basis for doubling up as the groups rigger and/or hacker. An encephalon (Augmentation) will give a +1 or +2 bonus. the [Profession] autosoft (Unwired) makes your orderly a capable doc in its own right (perhaps the Adaptability Autosoft would also help avoid malpractice suits) ... for about 4k, you can have minion with a 10 medical dicepool, more if you shell out for the shiny pilot program. At almost 20k roboquack rolls 15 dice.

So, for 1 BP, you get 10 dice in one skill; for 4 BP, you get a 15 dice in one of the medical skills; and for 5 Bp, you get 15 dice in all medical skills. By comparison, 4 BP gets you 1 rank in Biotech and 10 BP gets 1 rank in the medical group.

Of course, they can't get as high a dice pool as you can (somewhere around 23 or even more as an adept, not including specialization, aptitude, exceptional attribute or similar) and can't use edge (woo! insane exploding dicepools!) but they are much cheaper.

As for builds for the character itself, what are you interested in? A streetdoc (do you want cybertechnology too or just medical and biotech?) a mystic healer (mage or reiki style adept?), drones or no drones, etc? There's a world of possibilities. What do you want to be today?

[ornot]

Doubling up as a rigger or hacker and medic works well. There's a PC like that in my game, although she has next to no combat utility, she can patch up anyone or anything from bats to boats, from wetware to software. And that's out of the box.