[X] My Assistant

[CanRay]

Why would dodge be useful?

[Hida Tsuzua]

Wow. These archetypes are great. Kudos for the creativity and hard work. I was curious about two things:

1. I don't follow the calculation of the essence of the transhumanist mystic adept.
2. Why no dodge on the characters?

Thanks.

How don't you follow the calculation of the transhuman mystic?

As for the lack of dodge, the idea is that shadowrun is a very offense heavy system and combats are pretty fast. Thus you'll likely only going to see 2-3 passes and thus spending an action on full defense has a huge impact of your ability to do stuff. Also unless you're willing to spend a lot on it, active defenses aren't likely going to help too much.

More attention is paid to passive defenses like armor. A decent number of the archetypes have some sort of melee skill to help defend themselves in melee combat as well.

[czarcasm]

Wait; I think I see what my problem was with the essence calculation. I was reading too quickly and thought he had two complete cymberlimb replacements, plus bioware, and claimed a deduction of less than 2 essence.

[UmaroVI]

How don't you follow the calculation of the transhuman mystic?

As for the lack of dodge, the idea is that shadowrun is a very offense heavy system and combats are pretty fast. Thus you'll likely only going to see 2-3 passes and thus spending an action on full defense has a huge impact of your ability to do stuff. Also unless you're willing to spend a lot on it, active defenses aren't likely going to help too much.

More attention is paid to passive defenses like armor. A decent number of the archetypes have some sort of melee skill to help defend themselves in melee combat as well.

Hida Tsuzua mostly answered this, in addition, there are two more reasons. First, a lot of people have Gymnastics (often with a Synthacardium implant), which lets you Gymnastic Dodge. Combined with Unarmed, it's almost as good at dodging as Dodge and it lets you do more stuff. Second, "active-use" abilities like full defense actions tend to be not a good idea for new players; it's hard to figure out when you should and shouldn't take a full defense action (and you have to remember that it's an option), whereas passive defenses (like high Body scores, defensive 'ware, Reaction, and Combat Sense) are on all the time and thus easy to benefit from.

[whatevs]

It's a house rule, but I give the different rating medkits vastly different sizes. A Rating 1 medkit is about the size of a nice thick paperback novel. It has a small diagnostic computer, and a compartment that carries a few highly compressed bandages, a small bottle of rubbing alchohol, scissors, thread, and some asprin style painkillers. This is the average 'home' style first aid kit.

Rating 2 and 3 medkits come as a large fanny pack or large pouch that can fit onto combat webbing. They have stuff like real painkillers of the opiate variety, spray on skin, trauma patches, things like that. Its the sort of stuff you might expect a combat medic to actually cart around into the field.

Rating 4 and 5 medkits is when you start getting into autodoc territory. They are the size of a decent briefcase and weigh about 30 lbs. They contain much more extensive diagnostic equipment as well as much more effective supplies. This would be the sort of medkit that a mechanized infantry unit might keep in the AFV and pull out when needed.

The Rating 6 Medkit is man portable only in the loosest sense of the word. It is technically intended for forward aid stations on actual battlefields and weighs about 80 lbs. It's a large backpack and contains sufficant diagnostic equipment and supplies to perform emergency field surgery if necessary.

There is also a "nanite medkit" in existence that clocks in at rating 6 but is only the size of a rating 2 or 3 kit. These are top of the line SOTA pieces of tech though and priced accordingly.

This is awesome. Great idea.

[LurkerOutThere]

My group uses a similar setup. The rating 6 medkit is unwieldy duffel bag sized.

[CanRay]

The Rating 6 Medkit is man portable only in the loosest sense of the word. It is technically intended for forward aid stations on actual battlefields and weighs about 80 lbs. It's a large backpack and contains sufficant diagnostic equipment and supplies to perform emergency field surgery if necessary.

So... "Troll Portable" then. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[UmaroVI]

I recently learned that a Cyber Holdout Pistol is not a Pistol, but rather an Exotic Range Weapon. I fixed all the archetypes who used cyber-implant guns to either keep it with less dice, replace it with something else, or have the right skill. I also included more Blade weapons under the Bad Enough Trog's suggested purchases.

[Seriously Mike]

Do you, by any chance, have the "Ghost" archetype (LMG-wielding stealth character) in Chummer format? I'd like to tweak him into a sniper specializing in rifles (for long-range engagements) and handguns (for close-quarters combat).

[UmaroVI]

Sadly, no. I plan to put the archetypes into Chummer or some other format, but I need to learn how to use it first.

[Seriously Mike]

Oh well. I'll have to click it over to Chummer myself then.

[DeathEatsCurry]

Maybe this has been discussed before (Though I couldn't find it if it did), but you mention the exact price of letting the vehicle and weapon modifications be done by an NPC, but I personally couldn't find the guidelines for determining the costs anywhere... And it just so happens I'm butting heads with my GM on how much to pay for it, so I'd to shoot some guidelines at him so he doesn't overprice me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) .

Now, I realize the GM's word is final, but something's wrong when I have to pay 4000 nuyen for Personalized Grip (A 100 nuyen 10 threshold Artisan modification).

[UmaroVI]

Shadowrun Missions has rules for hiring NPCs to do modifications for you, which is what I used to calculate them. To the best of my knowledge, they are the only guidelines and of course are only for missions.

[DeathEatsCurry]

Another question (I keep em coming!)

You mention that the technomancers would benefit from a custom stream, but for both of them, what kind of custom stream would you recommend? I have no idea what makes a good sprite, though for instance the Courier sprite seems a bit, well, useless... All I know is that Machine sprites are a must. Any recommendations for what's most likely to see play?

Cheers

[UmaroVI]

Yep, the sprite types are not terribly well balanced. To make an optimized custom stream, start by picking the drain attribute you want (Intuition for the Info Savant, Charisma for the Technoshaman, Logic if you want to be a cybered technomancer, Willpower if you want to suck).

The pick sprites like this:

You really want a sprite to do fighting for you, but you don't really need more than one fight sprite. Paladin sprites bring defense (you can hide behind a pack of Registered paladin sprites forever), Fault sprites bring offense. Tank sprites are godawful.

So, Paladin OR Fault

Crack, Machine, Code, Sleuth, and Tutor sprites all offer useful, irreplaceable abilities. You can't fit all of them in, though, so you need to give up one of them. Machine and Code are really really good, rather than just good, and thus it then comes down to picking 2/3 of Sleuth, Tutor, and Crack.

Machine: Almost everyone should take this. Machine sprites can drive drones/vehicles for you and can provide passive bonuses to anyone else's stuff. Especially as a Charisma stream technomancer, you should take Machine and then have a pack of machine sprites hanging out in your team's guns if nothing else.

Code: Also a really powerful type of sprite, because they can chill out in your bionode and help you do damn near everything. Again, pretty much everyone should take this. Also info sortilege is nice.

Sleuth: Find people using Traceroute. Cyberstalking is really useful and effective. There are other ways to find people, though, this is just a good one - not the only one, and not necessarily the best in every circumstance.

Crack: Crack sprites are good for hacking nodes when you don't care about being subtle, you just want to do something and get out. A high rating Crack sprite can kick down the door, take the paydata, leave, and then the alarm will go off. If you don't care, Crack sprites are a risk-free way to get it done. If you do care, they are not good and you should do it yourself.

Tutor: Some people think that Tutor sprites + Biowires let you pull wacky shenanigans. If you can sell your GM on this combo letting you use any skill in the game any time you want then these guys are the best sprites, but if your GM has laid off the Betameth, they are useful for their ability to give people temporary skills (albeit taking extra time to use). Still broadly useful; you can use them to get noncombat skills like Armorer, First Aid, Medicine, Hardware, etc that your group otherwise lacks. Also good for Dial-A-Knowledge-Skill.

[DeathEatsCurry]

Aaand it's me again with yet another question.

This one's regarding the Info Savant's Strato-9. In the goals it advices to buy a Vanquisher Heavy Autocannon for it, but the drone itself only has a normal mount. In the rules (I think) it states somewhere normal mounts can only hold up to LMG size, you need a reinforced for anything more. Furthermore, the Vehicle Weapons entry (under which the Vanquisher falls) states you can only place them on fixed and heavy turret mounts...

Am I reading something wrong here? Or misunderstanding?

[UmaroVI]

The Strato-9's weapon mount is Reinforced, not normal.

[taeksosin]

Horrible, horrible necroing, I know. But, I thought I'd let folks know that I'm currently popping these into Chummer format and uploading them to Omae (Chummer's stuff sharer). Credit is given to UmaroVI for the work he did on them, and a link is provided back to this thread for people to look at the tactics and such. I'll post again once they're all up there.

Edit: Magical Rocker is over budget by 2 BP.

[UmaroVI]

Hey, thanks. I'd be happy to link to that in the original posts here and on the SR4A boards. I never managed to get proficient in Chummer

I will look into the Magical Rocker. Let me know if you turn any more errors up.

[taeksosin]

Spirit Medium: Good to go.
Paranormal Investigator: Good to go.
Magical Rocker: Already told you, but for the sake of having the list, over 2 BP.

Transhuman Mystic

1) Knowledge Skills: Assuming you're only using free knowledge points, in which case he has 30 to spend. You've allocated 34 points.
2) After double checking and making very sure that I have everything, I have 16 BP left over. This is including the extra 4 BP that I haven't spent on additional knowledge skills. I believe this partly comes from allocating 9 BP to focuses when the single Health Sustaining Focus only consumes 3BP to bond it. After re-reading the equipment, it looks like you mean for the Mystic to have 3 Health Sustaining foci. May want to add a 3x to that line, somewhat confusing otherwise. And, after getting that tidbit fixed, you're actually over 2 BP (402).

Burnout Combat Mage

1) Body is only weighing in at 4. ((3*2)+8+9)/5=4.6, which I assume Chummer is rounding down. I'm not positive if that's the correct ruling or not, but due to this both AGI and REA are taking a -2 from being over armored.
2) Microsensors with Radio Scanner 6 and skinlink is 200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) , not 170 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) . So currently off on costs by 30 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) .

Negotiator

1) The Ingram Smartgun X can't be equipped with an external gas-vent system since it already has one built in. SR4A PG. 322. Chummer doesn't seem to be registering the fact that I'm telling it to uninstall the Gas-Vent 2 that the gun comes with, so leaving it at the moment and gonna bug Nebular to see if that's working as intended. Otherwise, good to go.

Will either post again, or edit this post with more things as I find them.

[Hida Tsuzua]

Burnout Combat Mage

1) Body is only weighing in at 4. ((3*2)+8+9)/5=4.6, which I assume Chummer is rounding down. I'm not positive if that's the correct ruling or not, but due to this both AGI and REA are taking a -2 from being over armored.
2) Microsensors with Radio Scanner 6 and skinlink is 200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) , not 170 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) . So currently off on costs by 30 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) .

I have the Magical Rocker and Transhuman Mystic 2 BP over as well.

As for the Burnout Combat Mage, I have the legs having Body 9 and Body 10. The left leg has 3 base, 3 customized, 3 enhancement for 9. The right leg has 3 base, 4 customized, 3 enhancement for 10. That gives an average 5 body. The sensor's price needs changing.

[UmaroVI]

Magical Rocker: is indeed 2 points over. Not sure where that came from but it adds up to 402. Removed the "Urban" specialization from Infiltration and put that on the "Suggested Purchases" list.

[UmaroVI]

Transhuman Mystic: the Knowledge skills do indeed have an extra 4 points. Shuffled them a bit to fix that. You are correct about the foci and I added a "x3."

[UmaroVI]

Burnout Combat Mage: as Hida pointed out, the legs are 9/10 not 8/9.
Good catch on the sensors; took it out of Drugs (-1 betameth, -1 cram).

[UmaroVI]

Negotiator: I don't think that's correct. You are right that you cannot have both a Gas-vent mod and a Gas-vent accessory per Arsenal 148 and SR4A 322. However, per Arsenal 129, you can remove mods, so you can just remove the built-in Gas-Vent 2 and put in a Gas-Vent 3 accessory.