Combathacker/Face, How viable is this concept? Options

[Elfenlied]

Hello all,
a new game of SR is coming up in the next couple of weeks, and I'm currently pondering different character concepts. Right now, it's a toss up between a Missile Mastery Adept (whom I can build easily enough) and a Combathacker/Rigger. Both characters would also go the face route.

Now, how do I build a proper Combathacker/Rigger? The following house-rules are in place:

• 750 Karmagen
• Attributes are <new value>*3
• WR/MbW are slightly cheaper on the essence
• the optional hacking with attributes rule is in place (hits capped a Logic)
• skills on skill groups can be specialized without breaking the group
• AR only gets 1 IP
• Free Contacts (Cha*2) and knowledge skills ((Int+Log)*3) house rules

With that in mind, what do I need to make the build work? Thus far, I've got the following:
Attributes:
Body 4
Agility 8(12)
Reaction 5(7)
Strength 4
Charisma 6
Intuition 5
Logic 4
Willpower 4
Edge 4

Ware:
Attention Coprocessor
Control Rig
Datajack
Wired Reflexes II
Touch Link
Muscle Toner 4
Synthacardium 3
Fingertip Compartment
Genetic Optimization (Agility)
Modular Obvious Lower Cyberarm: Cyberarm Gyromount, Radar Sensor 4, Customized Limb (Body 4, Agility 7, Strength 4), Commlink(Fairlight Caliban with Firewall 6, System 6)
Modular Parts: Dronehand

Qualities:
Elf
More than Metahuman
Biocompatibility (Cyberware)
Restricted Gear: Muscle Toner 4

Addiction(mild): Novacoke
Compulsive(mild): Prejudiced vs Orks
Scorched(hacker)
Signature

Skills:
Athletics (Group) 2
Gymnastics 4
Cracking (Group) 2
Electronics (Group) 2
Hardware: Maglocks 2
Firearms (Group) 2
Automatics (AR) 2
Longarms(Sniper) 2
Pistols(SA) 2
Influence (Group) 3
Con(Impersonation) 3
Etiquette(Gangs) 3
Negotiation(Barter) 3
Stealth (Group) 3
Disguise (Cosmetic) 3
Infiltration(Urban) 3
Palming(Legerdemain)3
EW: Monowhips 4
Perception(Visual) 4
Pilot Aircraft 2
Pilot Ground Craft 2
Pilot Water Craft 2

Programs:
All Common Programs 6
Spoof 6
Stealth 6
Biofeedbackfilter 6

Total Karma spent: 749

Now, I'm kinda strapped for cash. I've got 12.350 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) left, and gear isn't covered at all. Therefore, I need to cut some costs, and I've got no idea where to start. Also, is there some really essential gear for this character concept?

[Ascalaphus]

Not to be nasty, but don't you think you're a little subpar for a hacker/rigger?

Hacker and Face are difficult to combine.. they use pretty different attributes and skills. Also wanting good combat skills is a bit overgeneralization I think.

[Blade]

Face and hackers combine well. Not necessarily in the stats but in the concept: social engineering is a great help when hacking and hacking is a great way to get background information for facing.

- You can raise your Logic cheaply with the Encephalon, if you don't want the cap to get in your way.
- IIRC Response 6 commlinks (or is that rating 6 system?) aren't available at chargen with the base rules. If you use a basic Caliban, you won't be able to benefit from your rating 6 programs.
- You need Exploit if you want to hack. If you just want to Spoof, you don't need Biofeedback filters since you won't connect directly to the nodes you're hacking.
- You don't need the whole cracking group, you don't have the Attack programs needed for cyber-combat, nor do you have the Exploit program for hacking.
- Gymnastic is in the Athletic group. Are you breaking the group and, if so, does your GM accept? I take it he accepts specialization of skill inside groups.

[Ascalaphus]

Face and hackers combine well. Not necessarily in the stats but in the concept: social engineering is a great help when hacking and hacking is a great way to get background information for facing.

That's true - conceptually it combines very well. However, in terms of BP, it doesn't so so well, since you need to buy different skillsets with different Attributes.

An approach you can take here is to have one person play the face, and the other the hacker, but trained to work together. The hacker provides overwatch for the face, supplying information needed to impress people (names of children, technical expertise), and the face goes in to do social engineering. Of course, such a face would have to have a point or two in most hacker skills, to be effective "hands" for the distant hacker. And it helps if the hacker has the social awareness to know which information would be most useful.

- You can raise your Logic cheaply with the Encephalon, if you don't want the cap to get in your way.

Actually the Encephalon is bizarrely expensive, both in money and Essence. It costs 75K and 1.5 Essence to get a +2 to stuff. Since the character is for a campaign that uses Logic for hacking, I'd pick Cerebral Boosters at rating 2 instead: 20K and 0.4 Essence for the same bonus. Plus, it's harder to detect.

[Blade]

Oops, you're right I was thinking of the Cerebral Booster.

[capt.pantsless]

Are you trying to balance all three role roughly equally? As others have pointed-out you're going to be sorta underwhelming in all three categories crunch-wise, but that doesn't mean you're not going to be effective, depending on how challenging the GM wants to make things.

I'd start by cutting strength down to 3, or even a 2 - assuming you're not planning on clubbing things constantly. Focus on shooting stuff. Being viable in melee AND ranged is going to be a tough challenge.

You can probably get by with Wired 1, assuming that there's other PC's who will be more focused on combat. That'll save you a bit of cash to buy the 47 different programs you need.


Also, what does the rest of the team look like?

[Fortinbras]

While there are certainly places you can trim the fat on this character(Str, Intuition, Attention Coprocessor) you are trying to make four differnt builds. You want to make a Hacker, a Street Samurai, a Face and a Rigger. A Jack of all trades is a master of none. You can make a character that is good at all four, but she's not going to be spectacular at anything.
I would suggest focusing on 2 things. Hack/Combat or Hacker/Face or something like that. Right now you've got your hands in too many pies. Besides, when the bullets start flying, each of your builds has a particular job to do and you can't do them all at once. You can't be expected to shoot at the bad guys while hacking their commlinks and controlling drones.

Ask yourself what you want to do when the Shadowrunning goes down and build your character from there. After that, the point build will just come to you.

[Blade]

Well, actually I know some players who are able to create RAW characters (with BP or karma) who can do nearly everything with at least 12 dice in each area, without Edge.

[Ascalaphus]

But should you? 12 is pretty good, but it's not elite. You could specialize a bit more on one thing and keep oh, say, 8 dice for the rest instead. Enough to get by, not enough to compete for spotlight with whoever in the group picked that niche to specialize in.

What is the rest of the group doing? If you divide the "jobs" a bit as a party, everyone has something to be good at & time to shine. It's easier on the BP too.

[Yerameyahu]

Spectacular shouldn't really be necessary, though. A decent hacker/face/shooter is easy enough, with enough gear. Hell, the emotitoy alone…

I agree that *if* other players are handling those jobs, it's more effective to specialize a little.

[capt.pantsless]

Combathacker/Rigger

Also, are you planning on owning the various rigging vehicles? You can easily spend a fortune on cars, choppers and boats. This might be a good time to ask your GM what kind of vehicles you might be needing for the adventures they're planning, otherwise you might end-up making some very wrong assumptions about what you really need.

[Fortinbras]

You could always make her a mystic adept. Use Power Points instead of cyberware. Then you could have a Combat hacker/rigger face mage.

[Epicedion]

You've spent too much on being awesome at combat, and made a terrible hacker.

[KarmaInferno]

You could always make her a mystic adept. Use Power Points instead of cyberware. Then you could have a Combat hacker/rigger face mage.

That's pretty much what my Missions character is. Except a Pixie for the massive mental attributes.

Social skills in the 16-24 range, drone/vehicle combat 16-18, hacking in the 12-16 dice. Casting sucks but that's mostly just to throw attribute-boosting spells into foci.



-k

[Yerameyahu]

I haven't repeated recently, KarmaInferno, that I love your fresh munchkin cynicism. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[KarmaInferno]

I'm a munchkin that is just as enthusiastically into deep roleplay.

My favorite run so far was a bunch of guys in a bar, mostly talking. Never left the bar the entire time.

Which is why I always contend that deep roleplay can also be optimized up the wazoo. It's not either/or.

That said, I have been told that I don't optimize like other people do. That all my characters are weird. I prefer "different".



-k

[Doc Byte]

You could always make her a mystic adept. Use Power Points instead of cyberware. Then you could have a Combat hacker/rigger face mage.

I'd prefer the TM-face with some basic combat skills.

[Elfenlied]

Hello all,
thanks for the feedback so far. The other characters, thus far, are:

• Dwarf Sam, focused on combat but with some vehicle skills. Heavily cybered
• Troll Adept, focused on unarmed melee combat
• Undecided yet, probably mage

Another thing I should mention is that this campaign will take place in Hamburg, AGS. The DM specifically mentioned that water vehicles might be relevant. I'll post more info later, when I've got more.

[Doc Byte]

HH's shiny. Offers me an opportunity to post another member of the Alpha Crew. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[ Spoiler ]

Jennifer Isabel "Shine" von Dannenberg

Bod: 3
Agi: 3
Rea: 3
Str: 3
Cha: 5
Int: 4
Log: 4
Wil: 4

Edge: 3
Essence: 6
Res: 4

Positive qulities

Technomancer (Sourcerer)
Privileged family name

Negative qualities

SINer

Active skills

Perception 3
Dodge (ranged combat) 2(+2)
Pistols 2
Automatics 2
Unarmed Combat 2
Athletics 2
Infiltration 1
Disguise (camo) 1(+2)
Influence 3
Survival (woodland) 1(+2)
First aid (combat wounds) 1(+2)
Navigation 1
Cracking 3
Electronics 2
Compiling 2
Registering 2

Knowledge skills

Military tactics 2
Covered-ops tactics 2
Dataheavens 2
High Society (ADL) 3 (+2)
MET 2k structures 3

Languages

German (m)
English 4
Spanish 3 ('cause Italian, French, Arabic and Russian are covered by other team members)

Complex forms

Bio-feedback filter 5
Tacsoft 3
Encrypt 4
Data Bomb 3
Spoof 3
ECCM 4
Command 3
Analyze 3
Edit 2

(She's just the matrix support as there's a full-fledged hacker in the team.)

[Mäx]

Now, how do I build a proper Combathacker/Rigger?

You might wanna consider making the character a Technoshaman, that gives you a nice synergy between being a face and hacker/rigger.
You should also (IMO) ditch the high agility and other sammy stuff you spent points on and use those recources for rigger stuff and combat drones.
The second part stand for both a normal hacker and my succestion of technoshaman.

[capt.pantsless]

The other characters, thus far, are:

• Dwarf Sam, focused on combat but with some vehicle skills. Heavily cybered
• Troll Adept, focused on unarmed melee combat
• Undecided yet, probably mage

Given that list, I'd be making a HACKER/FACE/Rigger/combat

Start building the hacker/rigger/face aspect, and once that's looking functional, spend whatever you've got left on combat skills/gear/ware. With that group, just being an extra gun in the fight adds enough, you don't need to be the uber-fighter.

[Ascalaphus]

You can usually get by with only mediocre Face stats, if you can play it well. Plenty of inspirational movies available.

If you want to hack however, you need to be good. Because you won't get anywhere if you're not elite, and you're likely to get killed if you don't win. So take the Cracking and Electronics skills at 4, if not higher. Take Logic and Willpower of at least 5; take Cerebral Booster, too.

[Yerameyahu]

You don't need Logic or Willpower, psh. Just get pirated high-rating programs, and an Emotitoy for the facing.

[Fortinbras]

Hello all,
thanks for the feedback so far. The other characters, thus far, are:

• Dwarf Sam, focused on combat but with some vehicle skills. Heavily cybered
• Troll Adept, focused on unarmed melee combat
• Undecided yet, probably mage

Another thing I should mention is that this campaign will take place in Hamburg, AGS. The DM specifically mentioned that water vehicles might be relevant. I'll post more info later, when I've got more.

Your team is probably set for combat. A lot of folks get antsy at the thought of not having a lot of skills to defend yourself, but once the bullets start flying a hacker has a LOT to do. Hacking cyberware, smartguns, enemy drones, setting up tac-nets and preventing counter-hacking just off the top of my head. Combine that with the fact a great many GMs like to run system hacking in time with combat and you should be using your hacking skills way more than any fighting skills.
When the technomancer in my game began play, she started spending BP and Karma on firearms and infiltration, but quickly found that, during action sequences, she was too busy actually hacking to get much use out of it.

Tangential to that is the idea that role playing is an ensemble cast. I'll assume you are familiar with Firefly? Imagine a character that was a doctor, a mechanic, a pilot, a gunslinger, a war vet and a preacher thrown on that show. It takes away from the dynamic of storytelling.

You can make a Combat Hacker Face Mage, but unless you're the only one playing it's not going to be nearly as satisfying.

[Ascalaphus]

You don't need Logic or Willpower, psh. Just get pirated high-rating programs, and an Emotitoy for the facing.

They're using a variant of the hacking rules where Logic matters and AR is nerfed. Also, Willpower is used against Biofeedback.