First Character, street samurai Options

[sagehoge]

Hey I'm new player to shadowrun and I'm trying to make a useful character. I've got a street samurai who is a compentent hacker and I was really happy with that. Until we had our first fight. I got shown up by our gunslinger adept who did something like 18 damage in one round while I did 6. I wanted to make a character who was raised by wage slaves and rebelled by becoming a hacker and later discovered martial arts and to compensate for his crappy body he got tons of body mods and practicing every waking moment.

I guess what I'm really asking is how do I do more damage with a katana without raising my strength.

[The Jake]

Dikote + DMSO + Cyanide.

Hang on, is Dikote featured in Arsenal? I know DMSO and Cyanide are...

- J.

[ElFenrir]

SR3 or SR4?

SR4 has no Dikote. If it IS SR3, yes, Dikote.

As for SR4, Martial Arts exist to give you +DV for Blades, which can help. Reflex Recorder can give you an extra die for Blades. Are you specialized? If your strength is around 3-5(which is decent), a Katana, No-Dachi, or Combat Axe will all do pretty good damage.

And yeah, gunslinger adepts are nasty. They can show people up, indeed.

But check this out:

Blades(Pick a Specialty, I'll say Swords): 4(+2)

Agility: 5(7)
Strength: 3(5)

Reflex Recorder/Blades(+1 die)
Custom Grip on Sword(+1 die)

Pick up a couple of Blade arts with +1 DV(for +2), and get some Maneuvers like Riposte(can counterattack if you borrow next action), Finishing Blow(this is great-can follow up a successful attack with another one), and the like.

Total Swords Die Pool: 7+6+1+1=15, and if you have Reach of 1 or 2, you can throw 16-17(or use Reach to cut out their pools).
Damage(Katana, for example:) Str/2+3(6, in this case-remember strength is rounded up when it's halved), +2 from the Martial Arts, for 8P damage.

8P damage with 16 dice is no joke, and he'll be able to turn people into human sashimi fairly efficiently.

Keep in mind, this isn't even minmaxed. You could get 5(+2) blades for even more, etc.

[Degausser]

Another thing to note is that your character is not super focused. Unlike the gunslinger adept who is (I'm assuming) focused only on shooting things in the head, your character is part street sam, part hacker. Would it be fair to ask to be just as awesome as the gunslinger and have another set of skills that the gunslinger didn't have? Other than that, lousy rolls can make a major difference in the battle. Your character may be less awesome in combat, but you are more versatile.

As for getting better in combat, I always opt for more dice, as that both increases your damage and chance to hit (though Combat Axes are nice.)

Some things people often forget are: Enhanced articulation, reflex recorders, and muscle toner, great bioware that can add a lot of dice to your rolls.

[Glyph]

Enhanced articulation doesn't add to attacks any longer (although it still adds to many other skills).

Melee combat is less effective than ranged combat unless you are really good at it. You are only good at point blank range, you only go once while the guy with the gun shoots twice, and you are rolling against someone who gets to actively defend against you (as opposed to ranged combat, where the target only rolls Reaction unless they are using full defense). You can have a high dice pool and pump up your DV by a couple of points with the right martial arts, but you still shouldn't expect to be as good as someone using a gun. I have made some dangerous close combat adepts, but every one of them also had a good pistols skill.

[ChipheadCharley]

There's always melee hardening on your pistols and Firefight Martial Arts

[Degausser]

Enhanced articulation doesn't add to attacks any longer (although it still adds to many other skills).

Melee combat is less effective than ranged combat unless you are really good at it. You are only good at point blank range, you only go once while the guy with the gun shoots twice, and you are rolling against someone who gets to actively defend against you (as opposed to ranged combat, where the target only rolls Reaction unless they are using full defense). You can have a high dice pool and pump up your DV by a couple of points with the right martial arts, but you still shouldn't expect to be as good as someone using a gun. I have made some dangerous close combat adepts, but every one of them also had a good pistols skill.

Enhanced Articulation no longer adds to attacks? Aw, MAN, when did this happen?


Seriously though, you make good points all, but let me offer some counter points.

Impact armor is almost always less than balistics armor, and sometimes it can be less a LOT. Additionally, a lot of people don't have many, or any, unarmed combat skill (instead favoring guns), so if you corner them in close combat, there isn't much they can do against you. Lastly, in my groups, our GM has (often) set us against guys with anti-bullet spells, making the melee guys superior in those situations by far.

I am NOT saying you are wrong, and usually in a firefight, the guy with the guns will do better (the go twice, can get explosive ammo, and have smartlinks). BUT in certain situations, melee can REALLY mess someone up.

[Mickle5125]

Melee always messes people up when done properly. It's just difficult to get close enough to hurt them before the guy with the gun shoots them from down the hall.

[Glyph]

Melee is great, but it's like sniping - it's a combat niche, and you'll get bored if it's all you can do.

The one area where it can shine is when you are fighting multiple opponents. If you outclass someone, odds are that your defensive dice pool is higher than his, too. A pistols adept surrounded by 10 mediocre gangers with pistols is still in trouble, but a melee master surrounded by 10 mediocre grunts will often be able to take out all of them while remaining untouched.

But a hacker with a katana, while he can get a good dice pool and boost the DV with some martial arts, is not on par with a dedicated firearms adept. I don't care if his name is Hiro Protagonist. Just no.

[Degausser]

I don't care if his name is Hiro Protagonist. Just no.

ROFL. That is the BEST shadowrunning name ever. That's it, my next character is gonna go by the name Hiro Protagonist . . . HP for short!

[Glyph]

Hiro is from the novel Snow Crash... he is the archetypical katana-wielding hacker.

[Adarael]

I'm a big fan of maximum recoil compensation on an automatic weapon, plus Ex-Ex or APDS, plus long burst/short burst combos. You can hit 12 damage only rolling a single net success.

I mean, it's worked for most militaries for at least 60 years. Why mess with a good idea for the sake of a sword?

[Artemis]

Enhanced articulation doesn't add to attacks any longer (although it still adds to many other skills).

Can you give me a page ref, as i can only find where it says it says it adds to physical skills using physical attributes

[ElFenrir]

Physical skills are not Combat Skills. If you check the Skills listing(111+), you'll see the listings of Combat Skills, Magical Skills, and Physical Skills, etc. Physical Attributes are indeed the first 4, but Combat/Physical skills are separate. It confused me at the very beginning as well; in fact, it might be a decent idea if they names of the skills categories were maybe changed to be a little more obvious. It's easy for someone to take ''physical skill'' and assume it's anything that is used....ahh, physically.

[hack and slasher]

Personally grips haven't been mentioned yet so, personal grips on melee weapons give you a cheap extra dice.
Calling shots for damage is often overlooked and can make differance.

[ElFenrir]

Custom Grip on Sword(+1 die)

Already mentioned. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) But it was kind of lost in the mix there, and it is worth mentioning again.

[hack and slasher]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/embarrassed.gif) missed it the first time, guess more augmentations or optimised cyberlimbs could get a higher agility, so more dice/sucess's

[The Jake]

Personally grips haven't been mentioned yet so, personal grips on melee weapons give you a cheap extra dice.
Calling shots for damage is often overlooked and can make differance.

Called shots have been severely nerfed from SR3 and beyond.... *sniff*

- J.

[InfinityzeN]

They still do give you more damage then you would roll with the dice it cost for it. If you have a really big dice-pool, it is worth it.

[sagehoge]

this is going to make people face palm but I didn't know you add your dice pool to hit to damage. I still can't find it in the book so if you could clear it up.

Please don't hate me.

also my character

Afro

Metatype : Human
Mundane

Attributes
Body: 3
Agility: 6 (9)
Reaction: 3 ((IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)
Strength: 3 (6)
Charisma: 1
Intuition: 3
Logic: 4
Willpower: 3

Edge: 6
Initiative: 11
Essence: 1.28

Knowledge Skills
English : N
Japanese : 3
Russian : 3
Elven Society : 3
Military : 3
Engineering : 3
Data Haven : 2
Street Drugs (Deepweed) : 1
Hebrew (Lingo) : 3

Active Skills
Cybercombat : 3
Electronic Warfare : 3
Hacking : 3
Blades (Swords) : 7
Automatics (Machine pistols) : 3
Dodge : 3
Climbing (Freehand) : 1
Pistols (Semi-Automatics) : 4


Positive Qualities
Codeslinger
High Pain Tolerance 3

Negative Qualities
Addiction, moderate
Allergy unc/mod

Cyberwares
Commlink (1/2)
Cybereyes Basic System (Rating 3)
Thermographic Vision
Datajack
Wired Reflexes (Rating 2)
Smartlink
Muscle Replacement (Rating 2)


Weapons
Katana
Uzi IV

Armors
Armor Clothing
Helmet (Regular)


Commlinks
AR Gloves
Biometric Reader
Attack (Rating 5)
Biofeedback Filters (Rating 4)
Data Bomb (Rating 3)
Decrypt (Rating 3)
Encrypt (Rating 5)
Spoof (Rating 4)
Stealth (Rating 5)
Blackout (Rating 4)


Contacts
Fixer (L:2 C:3)

Street Doc (L:2 C:2)

[Draco18s]

Damage inflicted is Base + Net hits. It's called the modified damage value.

[Glyph]

Exactly. Say your katana has a base damage value of 6 (Str of 6/2=3, +3). If you get 4 net hits after your opponent has defended against the attack, then that opponent must resist 10 damage. You don't add your dice pool to damage - just the net hits you get.

Your sheet looks a bit odd - the modified Attribute values don't seem to add up. There are things like Strength and Agility being increased by 3 for muscle replacement: 2, and Reaction being increased by 5 for wired reflexes: 2.

[Mäx]

Damage(Katana, for example:) Str/2+3(6, in this case-remember strength is rounded up when it's halved), +2 from the Martial Arts, for 8P damage.

And remember to use both hands when hitting for +1 to DV

[hack and slasher]

Katana's are two handed anyway, work with a regular sword though. You could switch to a claymore or no-dashi for more damage, reach and AP.

[Mäx]

Katana's are two handed anyway, work with a regular sword though.

Actually more like a one and half handed like bastardswords, but by the rules katanas qualify as a one handed weapon as it has reach 1.