Combat Medic, Making the best of the best without magic Options

[St Guardian]

I found a forum of a Combat Medic/Mage that looked very interesting. It seem to work very well except I am not into magic as much. Simply because I have made maybe 3 characters and using one of them in a compaign that for some reason, is still alive. So what I want to do is work out a way to make a Combat Medic but using the adept ability.

The reason why is because the adept has a lot of things that make it easier to deal with combat and still have high stats for medical purposes. Also, with magic, you can't be much of a healer due to you can heal a lot more per hits.

So the question arises now, can someone help me build a decent shadowrunner that's a combat medic?

The skill groups I have is close quarters combat, Medical group, and stealth in that order. Combat a 4, medical a 3, and stealth at 2 (maybe more if I got anything left to chew with).

What species should I choose since I'm going to be a combat doctor? So I choose a vampire, elf, dwarf, ghoul, etc?

Is there attributes I should only pick up for and let the rest kind of slack?

Should I really go for adept or kind of avoid that because it will chew up my points for magic? If I should choose adept, any suggested powers I should get?

If you have example characters I can dance around/use, I would be grateful. I didn't look in the RP forum due to the fact I'm not planning to RP via forums. So please pardon me when you read this.

That's pretty much what I wanted help with. I just like being the cleric/medic because that's the one that's really satisfying. Also, the gear is something I got under wraps if you look underneath my other forum I created. I'll update the post of the list later tonight.

Love and peace,
SG

[DuctShuiTengu]

From an efficiency standpoint, don't take the Close Combat skill group. There's too much overlap in what the three skills that make it up do - the only reason why, for instance, you'd ever want to have the clubs skill when you already have blades is stun batons; and if you're taking clubs to get those, blades don't do enough extra damage to merit a second skill. Once you have either of these, unarmed is only useful if you're really worried about being caught without a weapon - but between the easily concealed options within those categories, and the wealth of improvised weapons, being unable to get a weapon is rarely a concern (on the other hand, if you're going to invest in bone lacing or the appropriate adept powers, unarmed can easily match clubs and blades for damage output).

That said, for some concepts, there's something very cool about being able to kill someone with more-or-less any weapon you get your hands on - mechanical efficiency be damned.

Adept powers... Improved Ability has the potential to be tremendously useful for your character - allowing you to eventually get those skills up to 9. If you want to go unarmed, Killing Hands and Critical Strike make a good starting point for building those up as a weapon. Combat Sense is always useful for avoiding getting shot, and Street Magic has a lot of little powers that can help if you're wanting to do Stealth.

Metatype, I'd probably go Ork. The penalty to logic is a bit annoying for a medic, but not too bad (one die difference isn't really that bad), while the bonuses to strength and body give you a good start on close combat and survivability out of the gate.

[suppenhuhn]

An adept is definitely a better healer then a mundane, here i tossed together a ghoul adept for you that works for tanamous for ample food supply.
You may want to emphasize more on the fighting, as for first aid he rolls 20 dice as is, damage not healed is then transferred via empathic healing (11 dice) and taken care of with first aid again, which is pretty munchkinish but covered by the rules. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

[ Spoiler ]

Metatype : Human

Attributes
Body: 5
Agility: 5
Reaction: 5 (6)
Strength: 8
Charisma: 1
Intuition: 3
Logic: 4
Willpower: 7

Edge: 3
Magic: 4
Initiative: 9
Essence: 5

Active Skills
Stealth Group : 3
First Aid : 6(10)
Medicine : 4
Cybertechnology : 2
Unarmed Combat (Martial Arts) : 4+2
Archery (Bows) : 1+2
Dodge (Ranged Combat) : 2+2
Assensing : 3
Astral Combat : 3
Perception : 3

Knowledge Skills
English : N
Medical Background : 5
Hospital Routes : 3
Fine Cuisine : 4
Crook Hangouts : 3
Biology : 3
Street Drugs : 1
Organlegging : 5

Powers
Berserk
Empathic Healing
Improved Ability : First Aid (Level 4)
Improved Reflexes 1

Positive Qualities
Adept (5)
Ghoul (35)

Negative Qualities
Bad Luck (20)
Sensitive System (15)

Equipment
Collapsible Bow (Rating 8 )
Lined Coat
Commlink : CMT Clip
OS : Renraku Ichi
Medkit (Rating 6)
Latex Face Mask
Fake Sin (Rating 4)
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 300 for ammo and stuff

Contacts
Tamanous Member (L:2 C:3)

/edit
magic rating was wrong, sorry xD

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

An adept is definitely a better healer then a mundane, here i tossed together a ghoul adept for you that works for tanamous for ample food supply.
You may want to emphasize more on the fighting, as for first aid he rolls 20 dice as is, damage not healed is then transferred via empathic healing (11 dice) and taken care of with first aid again, which is pretty munchkinish but covered by the rules. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

[ Spoiler ]

Metatype : Human

Attributes
Body: 5
Agility: 5
Reaction: 5 (6)
Strength: 8
Charisma: 1
Intuition: 3
Logic: 4
Willpower: 7

Edge: 3
Magic: 3 (2)
Initiative: 9
Essence: 5

Active Skills
Stealth Group : 3
First Aid : 6(10)
Medicine : 4
Cybertechnology : 2
Unarmed Combat (Martial Arts) : 4+2
Archery (Bows) : 1+2
Dodge (Ranged Combat) : 2+2
Assensing : 3
Astral Combat : 3
Perception : 3

Knowledge Skills
English : N
Medical Background : 5
Hospital Routes : 3
Fine Cuisine : 4
Crook Hangouts : 3
Biology : 3
Street Drugs : 1
Organlegging : 5

Powers
Berserk
Empathic Healing
Improved Ability : First Aid (Level 4)
Improved Reflexes 1

Positive Qualities
Adept (5)
Ghoul (35)

Negative Qualities
Bad Luck (20)
Sensitive System (15)

Equipment
Collapsible Bow (Rating 8 )
Lined Coat
Commlink : CMT Clip
OS : Renraku Ichi
Medkit (Rating 6)
Latex Face Mask
Fake Sin (Rating 4)
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) 300 for ammo and stuff

Contacts
Tamanous Member (L:2 C:3)

MAx on the First Aid Skill is 9, not 10 (Maximum Skill 6, maximum Augment of +3 for a total of 9), other than that... Nice...

[St Guardian]

The only problem with ghoul is you lose your sight immediately, if I remember right. Then you would have to get cyber eyes and that's more essence off the top. Can ghouls pretty much spread their disease just by touching someone?

Other than that, I don't find anything wrong with the character. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll take that into consideration.

Thanks for all the help thus far.

Love and peace,
SG

[Heath Robinson]

Doc Ripper is the most effective Combat Medic you can have.

It's been a while, so I'll post a slightly upgraded version. You could just use Doc Ripper wholesale, or take it as a checklist of ways to boost your First Aid DP.

[ Spoiler ]

Doc Ripper
The Medic
The healing leaves little time for the killing.

Human

B/S/A/R
2/2/3/3

L/I/W/C
8(11)/3/3/2

Edg/Ess/Mag
2/4.725/5(3)

Qualities
Aptitude (First Aid)
SURGE 2: Metagenetic Improvement (Logic), Critter Spook, Impaired Strength
Adept
Restricted Gear

Skills
First Aid 7 (10) (Combat Wounds +2)
Pistols 1 (Semi-Automatics +2)
Dodge 2 (Ranged +2)
Pilot Ground Vehicle (Wheeled +2)

Adept Powers
Improved First Aid 3
Sustenance
Nimble Fingers
Heightened Concentration
Combat Sense 1
Rapid Healing 1

Augmentations
Encephalon 1
Cerebral Booster 3*
PuSHeD
Genetic Optimisation (Logic)

Gear
Medkit 6
10 tabs of Psyche

Remaining
34 BP
2 400 Nuyen
24 BP gear allowance
5 BP Positive Quality allowance
35 BP Negative Quality allowance

Important DPs
First Aid: 11 (Logic) + 10 (First Aid) + 6 (Medkit) + 1 (PuSHeD) + 1 (Encephalon 1) + 1 (Psyche) = 30 [8 boxes]
First Aid (Combat Wounds): First Aid + 2 (Specialisation) = 32 [8+2/3 boxes]

First Aid (Realistic Conditions): First Aid - 3 Combat Environment - 3 Essence Loss = 24 [6 boxes]
First Aid (Combat Wounds, Realistic Conditions): First Aid (Combat Wounds) - 3 Combat Environment - 3 Essence Loss = 26 [6+2/3 boxes]

First Aid (Realistic Conditions, Heightened Concentration): First Aid - 3 Essence Loss = 27 [7 boxes]
First Aid (Combat Wounds, Realistic Conditions, Heightened Concentration): First Aid (Combat Wounds) - 3 Essence Loss = 29 [7+2/3 boxes]

Add-on
You can spend 40 950 nuyen (approx) to get a Dronegaggle of 8 Manservant-3s with Sensor 6 (pair of R6 Cameras a piece), a Pirated First Aid Autosoft 4, and a Pirated Tacnet 3. You order 4 of them to use Teamwork to help you, and 3 of them to act as trained assistants. You rig one of them and pop a tab of Trance. You do not rig in Hot SIM (this isn't a Matrix Test and the test has a duration measured in actual time units) and you don't get a Control Rig (This isn't a Vehicle Skill Test).

Drone Teamwork: 3 + 4 + 3 = 10 [3+1/3 hits] * 4 = 40 [13+1/3 hits - capped at 10 hits]
Bonus: 10 Teamwork + 3 Trained Assistants + 2 Psyche = +15 [+5 boxes]

There is no overkill
With the add-on you're hitting the top of your Healing cap, but each dice increases the probability of hitting the cap. By my calculations the full add-on version of Doc Ripper has an 84% chance of healing 10 boxes of Combat Wounds on the fractional Essence Street Sam in the Combat Zone when using Heightened Concentration.

You need to survive combat to actually heal people. Remember the Threshold of 2 on your First Aid checks, and the fact that you can heal Stun damage, and Drain. Always do your heala-majig before Magic gets applied.

[Blade]

A friend told me that you could get up to something like 40 dice in First Aid, but the character is a one trick poney (and can't heal more than 6 damage boxes anyway).
One of my players plays an ork combat medic in my current campaign. I don't know his exact stats but he's cybered, has a decent first aid pool, a rutheniumized combat armor and a license for a service similar to Doc Wagon so that he can actually wear it (and carry an assault rifle) without having too much trouble with the police.

[Stingray]

The only problem with ghoul is you lose your sight immediately, if I remember right. Then you would have to get cyber eyes and that's more essence off the top. Can ghouls pretty much spread their disease just by touching someone?

Other than that, I don't find anything wrong with the character. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll take that into consideration.

Thanks for all the help thus far.

Love and peace,
SG

Runner's Companion have list of qualities for Infected: Infertile Infected (p.82) (Negative quality),and no more
danger to infect others..

[Critias]

Nothing says "combat medic you can trust" like a vampire or a ghoul.

[Eugene]

Back in SR3 I did play a ghoul doctor. A lot of fun times making fellow players nervous...

[Stingray]

Back in SR3 I did play a ghoul doctor. A lot of fun times making fellow players nervous...

"Tipping your Street Doc is encouraged" but with ghoul Doc tipping is like:
Would you like to pay your tip Yen or meat? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[St Guardian]

Where do I find heightened concentration as an adept power?

[Heath Robinson]

Digital Grimoire. It's a 1 pp Adept power that allows you to spend a Complex action to ignore a single negative modifier smaller than your Magic rating.