First character Options

[scarius]

hey all, i am new to the world of shadowrun but i decided to check it out by buying the anniversary corebook pdf. the game looks like lots of fun and i am really looking forward to my first run, as a gm or a player.

as stated in the topic i am posting my first character created, i have been looking at some of the sample characters that have been posted upon this forum and after a lot of reading i think that i have the creation process down. i found a spread sheet thingy which says that it was made by these forums and that is how i found you guys. so i used the spread sheet and made the following character

solider

race: human

body: 3/9
agility: 4/9
reaction: 6/9
strength: 3/9
charisma: 3/9
intuition: 4/9
logic: 3/9
willpower: 4/9
edge: 7/7

initiative: 10
initiative pass: 3
essence: 3.00

skills
athletics (group) 3
outdoors (group) 3
automatics: 4 - aussalt rifles 2
dodge: 3
first aid: 3
heavy weapons: 3
pistols: 3
throwing weapons: 2
unarmed combat: 2

knowledge skills
safe houses: 3
corporate security tactics: 4
small unit tactics: 4
corporate security: 4
military tactics: 4

language skills
english: n
japanese: 4

negative qualities
simsense vertigo: -10
SINner (standard) -5
scorched -5
sensitive neural structure -5

cyberware
wired reflexes 2

gear
knife

ares preditor
quick draw holster
5x spare clips
silencer
80x explosive rounds

ares alpha
sling
5x spare clips
250 regular ammo
1x spare clip
6x high explosive grenade launcher grenades

regular clothing
armour vest
nonconductivity
lined coat
nonconductivity
sunglasses
low light vision
flare compensation
smart link

commlink
erika elite
iris orb
analyze 2
browse 2
edit 2

4x fake licenses rating 4
2x fake sins rating 4
reppeling gloves
microwire rope
gecko tape gloves
medkit rating 4
basic doc wagon
3x months squatter

60 monies left



so tell me what you think

This post has been edited by scarius: Nov 10 2010, 02:59 PM

[Karoline]

Is that a reaction of 6(8 ) or 4(6)?

Other than that, I'd highly suggest some muscle toner to improve agility, as that is what you use to shoot people.

I'd also suggest dropping edge to 6. Those extra 25 BP aren't really worth it for a maxed edge. You'd be better off pouring that into a bunch of cyber/bio. Things like muscle toner, platelet factories, maybe dermal plating.

Oh, and get some earbuds.

[scarius]

original post edited, adding the upper quality for stats

why are earbuds good? i understand that being able to hear better is good, but why not go for a bio/cyber ear upgrade?

[Karoline]

You misunderstood (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

4(6) means that you have a natural 4, but you have a 6 with modifications from ware, in this case your wired reflexes. 6(8 ) means the same thing, natural 6 with an 8 from modifications.

I basically want to know if you spent 65 BP on your reaction or 30 BP.

And earbuds are good because they cost around 500 nuyen and no essence to get topped out. Cyber/bio costs several thousand and some essence. Still, you can get the cyber/bio if you want, but you have neither, which means at current you have no means to communicate with your teammates via your commlink. On that note, you also should grab a subvocal mic.

[Froggie]

original post edited, adding the upper quality for stats

why are earbuds good? i understand that being able to hear better is good, but why not go for a bio/cyber ear upgrade?

Communication purposes? To hear audio notifications/voice communication from your commlink.

*Edit: bleh, beaten to it.

[scarius]

ok cool, i will get the ear buds, also i put 4 into my reaction

[Fauxknight]

Oh, and get some earbuds.

He has a pair that came with his commlink.

[Hamsnibit]

I would strongly suggest that you make more use of cyber and/or bioware muscle replacement for example is cheap, mix several cyberware upgrades to enhance your attributes and gain dice pool modifier and other benefits - it will be worth your money. Make use of second hand stuff, essence is irrelevant you can replace them later with better and more efficient variants.

Also be very careful with the sinner quality! sinner in shadowrun means that every single police and corp unit, may it be a vehicle, a (more or less) flesh and blood entity and drone can recognize and identify you an sight. your dna and all biometric data is saved everywhere and you have to pay some good hackers and buy off the quality to get rid of it. If you should ever make any mistake and leave any trace - they will find you and kick your ass the next time you walk across the street.
And trust me, law enforcement is more or less omnipresent once you even enter a c-zone, its part of the setting.
At least, you should make sure you have the official licences to use your stuff or you will get busted anyway.
Another option is crawling in the slums as long as you get rid of your SIN.

Two things about your gear: which rating does your nonconductivity upgrades have?
and you might want to upgrade your weapons and comlink with skilink, its cheap and make your gear safe against hackers as long as you turn wifi off your comlink is a security weakpoint.

[Fauxknight]

commlink
erika elite
iris orb
analyze 2
browse 2
edit 2

Check out page 232 in the wireless section, when you buy an OS you can also get a common use program suite (Analyze, Browse, Command, Edit) at a discounted price. In your case the lowest end suite is the same price as the 300 you paid, you'll get the same rating 2 analyze, browse, and edit but you'll also get rating 1 command thrown in for free.

I know what your thinking, earbuds and a rating 1 common use program for free!! Its like someone just dropped 60 nuyen in front of you, thats .012 character build points you just saved...well thats what I'm here for.

[Karoline]

I would strongly suggest that you make more use of cyber and/or bioware muscle replacement for example is cheap, mix several cyberware upgrades to enhance your attributes and gain dice pool modifier and other benefits - it will be worth your money. Make use of second hand stuff, essence is irrelevant you can replace them later with better and more efficient variants.

Agreed.

Also be very careful with the sinner quality! sinner in shadowrun means that every single police and corp unit, may it be a vehicle, a (more or less) flesh and blood entity and drone can recognize and identify you an sight. your dna and all biometric data is saved everywhere and you have to pay some good hackers and buy off the quality to get rid of it. If you should ever make any mistake and leave any trace - they will find you and kick your ass the next time you walk across the street.
And trust me, law enforcement is more or less omnipresent once you even enter a c-zone, its part of the setting.
At least, you should make sure you have the official licences to use your stuff or you will get busted anyway.
Another option is crawling in the slums as long as you get rid of your SIN.

You're blowing SIN waaaaaaaaaay out of proportion. Having a SIN is only slightly worse than not having a SIN, and only in some respects. Just like the police should never know that your SINless character is SINless, the police should never know a SINners real SIN. That's what fake SINs are for. Keep in mind, it is only a 5 point quality. You're describing it like a 30 point quality.

Two things about your gear: which rating does your nonconductivity upgrades have?
and you might want to upgrade your weapons and comlink with skilink, its cheap and make your gear safe against hackers as long as you turn wifi off your comlink is a security weakpoint.

Skinlink is good. You could also just set your wireless to only go out to 1m or something. Still, I agree with skinlink, great in case someone throws up a jammer.

[Yerameyahu]

No subvocal mic. Trodes do *everything*.

[Karoline]

Yeah, but subvocal is a bit more discrete.

[Yerameyahu]

Psh.

[Inncubi]

I communicate with teammates via texting and trodes -no voice, and only need to think to input that text via the trodes- or use, when in a mission, the micro trasneiver -rating 6 if possible- for interteam communications -and a subvocal mic-. Hackers typically look for commlink signals, so it is more subtle to use the micro transeiver.

Also, with a team I trust I start training for hand-sign communications so the team can reliably go on "silent modes" and if the opposition uses little magic, mindlink (extended) is a wonderful option. Can be sustained by a spirit -drain one force off it and it can keep it for a day- so you are free to use sustaining focus for other things. Just make sure the spirit recieves some sort of favour in return, and if it becomes uncontrolled the spirit doesn't hold a huge grudge againts you -this is fluff, not a rule backed action-.

These are some ideas on the communications... and a slight derailment from the thread.

[Karoline]

I communicate with teammates via texting and trodes -no voice, and only need to think to input that text via the trodes- or use, when in a mission, the micro trasneiver -rating 6 if possible- for interteam communications -and a subvocal mic-. Hackers typically look for commlink signals, so it is more subtle to use the micro transeiver.

No, they're looking for wireless signals. If they see a new wireless signal that isn't supposed to be there, they're going to react, regardless of what is making the signal. And really, a micro transeiver isn't anything special, it is just something that puts out the wireless signal of your commlink, which, given the way the matrix works, doesn't help you any.

[Yerameyahu]

Technically, no. A micro-trans is a totally distinct 2-way voice radio, in SR4. If you use the RAW scrupulously, only *some* of the normal Matrix actions affect them, because they're not really on the Matrix. It's pretty vague, and I think most GMs would let Sniffers find them. They would also be a Peripheral Node, for all that matters.

[Inncubi]

No, they're looking for wireless signals. If they see a new wireless signal that isn't supposed to be there, they're going to react, regardless of what is making the signal. And really, a micro transeiver isn't anything special, it is just something that puts out the wireless signal of your commlink, which, given the way the matrix works, doesn't help you any.

I remember reading somewhere teh micro transeivers where more subtle than commlinks...
If I am wrong I take the convenience of using the micro-transeivers back, but I would like further explanation Karoline, since you deffinitely are more knowledgeable in the rules than I am.

Edit: Yerameyahu, can you expand on that? You posted before I finished this one...

[Karoline]

Well, didn't look them up special, and if Yera is right, they have some special rules, which seems weird, because a wireless signal is a wireless signal.

[Yerameyahu]

So, a Micro-Trans is an earbud, a subvocal mic, and a "classic short-range communication device is perfect for discreet operations." It's not a commlink and it doesn't use the Matrix. It's available with Signal 1 to 6. That's all we really know. Because it's not on the Matrix, we can maybe assume it's not a Peripheral Node (although, it's possible).

What this means is that you might be able to argue that the normal Matrix actions of Capture Wireless Signal could work, but Detect Hidden Nodes certainly can't. What's not clear is if you can Capture without having first located the device (crap!). … It's not clear how do detect them. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You *can't* Intercept Traffic, because that's for nodes.
You can't hack them, either.
You *can* Jam them.

So, AFAIK that's the RAW problem. Personally, and as house rule, I'd let Detect Hidden Node be used to detect their wireless traffic. You still couldn't Intercept or hack them, but you could detect their traffic, and listen in (probably after decryption, because they should be encrypted).

Another option is the Radio Signal Scanner. This thing is a walking contradiction, but oh well. The fluff says, "The radio signal scanner locates and locks in on radio traffic from RFID tags, wireless networks, and other transmitters, and is especially useful at capturing signals originating from nearby. The scanner can also measure a signal’s strength and pinpoint its location." Sounds great! Except the crunch is, "Treat the scanner as if it were a Sniffer program (p. 234) equal to its rating; see p. 229 for rules on detecting and intercepting wireless signals." On p229, you'll see the Sniffer is only used for Capture Signals, not locating traffic (that's Scan). *shrug.

Basically, you should be able to Sniff through the airwaves and notice traffic from Micro-Trans units (probably only while they're actually talking, so short bursts could help). Then, you could Capture and listen in. That's pretty handy, but it's peanuts compared to what you can do to an insufficiently secure commlink. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Now, *locating* wireless devices is great… unless you're trying to use SR4's rules. AFAIK, there aren't any. You can Trace a user to their origin node, which, if wireless, gives you a 50m radius. Telematics systems say they can track wireless, but not how. Ditto the Radio Signal Scanner. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Zyerne]

Simsense vertigo seems like a bad buy for a combat oriented character, you'll lose the bonus from smartlinks.

[Karoline]

There is no reason you shouldn't be able to intercept traffic from those things. Regardless of if they are part of the matrix or not, they are wireless devices sending out information. There is also no reason it shouldn't show up as a node just like any other.

Nowhere in the description does it say that it interacts with other wireless devices in any way that differs from the way that any other wireless device interacts with them.

It is basically just a subvocal mic, earbud, and highly dedicated commlink. Remember that in 2072 anything and everything that is an electronic device is a node, and everything that is a node, is (in a way) a commlink, and anything that is a commlink, can be hacked.

If you can find something in that one peragraph description that says "This doesn't interact with the matrix and wireless signals in general like every other wireless device in existance." then I'll believe that it can't be hacked or intercepted or anything else. Until then it is an electronic device that uses wireless, and so is just as susceptible to being messed with by a hacker as much as if you ran the communication through your commlink.

[Yerameyahu]

It's not a commlink at all. It's a totally separate non-Matrix radio system. It's not a node, because nodes are Matrix entities.

Not all electronics are nodes. Just 99% of them. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) "A device in this case is defined as any hardware with Matrix connectivity enabled, whether wired or (far more commonly) wireless."

[Karoline]

It's not a commlink at all. It's a totally separate non-Matrix radio system. It's not a node, because nodes are Matrix entities.

Not all electronics are nodes. Just 99% of them. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) "A device in this case is defined as any hardware with Matrix connectivity enabled, whether wired or (far more commonly) wireless."

Can you point out in that entry where it says it doesn't have a matrix connection? Or can you point out where in intercept traffic it says that it can only intercept matrix traffic? Thus making walkie-talkies (which is what a micro-transceiver is)the most secure systems on the planet because a hacker can't touch them.

[Fauxknight]

There is no reason you shouldn't be able to intercept traffic from those things.

Pretend its a laser communication device, now how is your commlink going to pick up the signal. A commlink is a matrix device capable of picking up matrix communication, it needs special equipment to be able to read other types of signals.

[Karoline]

Except that it isn't a laser communication device, it is a wireless (EM waves) communication device, which means that it can be picked up by intercept traffic by the very nature of how it communicates.