New Character, New to Shadowrun, Help me design a character! Options

[Sand]

Looking at the two alternatives, it seems like the adept has the benefit of a couple ludicrously high skills (Stealth seems to be favored), while the street sam has a lot more stuff but no spectacular skill rolls. How much of a difference does that make? I'd hate to find that "only" having a 6-7 in all my combat skills makes the character a third-string combat participant. (Although, that skillwire thing does look pretty tempting...)

[TinkerGnome]

True, I missed the part about pools. There are a lot of descent skills you can get on chip which would prove helpful. In fact, it's probably one of the better things you can do with the same amount of cash. It's only when you try to add in all the bells and whistles from M&M that they get truely expensive (or you try to use more than one at a time).

I'd stopped looking at them because of previous bad experiences *coughCEDcough*. They appear to be worth a second look.

In combat, you use your combat pool with most things you really want to get to work, so the difference between skills isn't too terribly great. Though through a base of 12 dice at something generally means it'll get done right the first time.

[Lilt]

If you want to be the drek at melee then the key is to roll more dice than your opponent and avoid TN penalties. Initiative bonuses don't matter as much for melee fighters as whenever someone attacks you you can kick their ass in a counterattack. As long as you roll more dice than them then you can kick their asses on their own turns. This gives adepts a slight advantage as improved ability lets them roll extra dice. They also have the option of bonding weapon foci in the future making them even more powerful.

In ranged combat, Initiative is often king. Very few adepts can challenge a sammie's Wired Reflexes 2, Smartlink, and Cyber Vision Mods. It is possible though, and if you sacrifice a point of essence (and so magic) for a bit of cyber (Smartlink, Datajack, and CyberEyes + Thermo + Low-L + Flare-Comp + Vis-Mag-3 are popular choices) then they can contest reasonably well with sammies.

[Austere Emancipa...]

I believe, with the current M&M Errata (p. 78), you could also opt for a combination such as Smartlink-2 + Enhanced Artwinkulation + Muscle Toner-1. I'm not a good min/maxer, but I think it's worth noting that Bioware is currently "half price" when considering Magic loss from 'Ware.

[Sphynx]

[gknoy]

[gknoy]

[Sphynx]

Don't forget. Unlike Mages, Adepts don't get to choose if they get a Geasa for Magic Loss. Only the GM can decide if the player gets a Geasa. In non-high-powered games, most GMs will enforce heavily that rule and not give Geasa's for Cyberware to Adepts.

Sphynx

[Herald of Verjig...]

Why do so many people misread the effects of geasa?

If you don't take a geas, you just lose that magic point.
If you do take a geas, but don't fullfil it, you don't have any geased magic points and you suffer a +1/geased magic point penalty until you do fullfil them all.
If you discard a geas, by consciously deciding to never fullfil it, you no longer have the TN penalty for not fullfilling it, but you can never initiate (and you must drop all geasa you have when using this method).

Adepts do have some different rules as Sphynx mentioned. Additionally adepts only need to worry about the geasa linked to the powers they are using or the last level of powers that are as high as possible.

[TinkerGnome]

There is a magic group stricture which says you have to take a geasa to offset magic loss. Maybe that's part of the confusion, too.

[FlakJacket]

[Herald of Verjig...]

All the geas related info is in MitS near page 31. That line is in the first paragraph or two of the section about special geas rules for adepts (after the regular rules).

[Lilt]

I'll remind you all that Geasa aren't an issue here what-so-ever as, IIRC, only the core rulebook is fair game.

[Herald of Verjig...]

It's topic drift, irrelevant in this instance but informative to others. Does Sand still have issues that need clarification/input or is this thread fair game for wild topic drift?

[Sand]

Wild topic drift is fine. :) I am going to have more questions, but I think I need to absorb all the advice and come up with some character concepts (and stats). Right now I'm exploring a skillwire-based character to see how it looks.

[TinkerGnome]

I think a critical question at this point is whether your GM intends to allow you guys to aquire stuff from other books later on or not. If he does, then this becomes relevant since we can go on and on about "get x so later you can get y". I'm finding it helpful because I need to make a Shadowrun: Missions character ;)

[Sand]

If the campaign really takes off, then other books will get added in; otherwise, no. (The main issue is that nearly all the players are new to Shadowrun, and buying/using that many books at once just seemed like a recipe for confusion.)

I'm currently working on a skillwire-based character. My conception of her is that she was the daughter of a corp exec (no one tremendously important, just someone with money) who was disgusted by the corporate exploitation she saw. She joined the military (or Lone Star, or whatever), found that that was no better, and then boosted a load of cash from her family and hit the streets. Due to the skillwire system, she often seems a bit schizo, as each chip alters her reactions somewhat: the smiling, pleasant negotiator; the gung-ho, hard core combatant; the cool and competent expert. Most people know her as somewhat ditzy, but that's just an act -- her real self is very intense and focused.

Stats at present:
Resources A, Attributes B, Skills C, Magic D, Race E (human)

Body 4
Quickness 6
Strength 2
Charisma 4
Intelligence 6
Willpower 5

Skills:
Assault Rifles / AK97 5/7
Pistols 6
Rifles 6 (possible specialization in sniper rifle)
SMGs 6
Etiquette 4
Stealth / Alertness 5/7
Knowledge / Language TBD (to include military and corp knowledge)
[note; the idea here was to get everything else on chip, this may change!]

Cyberstuff:
Skillwires (rating 6, 216 MP; enough for 2 Activesofts at once)
Smartlink (Alpha)
3x chipjack (Alpha)
Datajack (Alpha)
Knowsoft link (Alpha)
Memory 250 MP (Alpha)

Stuff:
Fichetti Security 500a, smartlinked, concealable holster
Permit for the above
AK-97, smartlinked, gas vent III, shock pads, combo scope, ultrasound
15-17 skill chips
Full camo suit (urban and forest)
Micro-transceiver thingie with encryption
Bug scanner
etc.

Lifestyles:
1 medium, 2 low, maybe more

[TinkerGnome]

[kevyn668]

Ditch two of the firearm skills. You won't need such a high level in SMG and Rifle if your primary weapons are an AK an a pistol. If you really wanna snipe, just slap a Mag 3 scope on your AK and use the "Aiming" and "Called Shot" rules.

Also, get yourself a real pistol. the Browning Max-Power is often my heavy pistol of choice. You can use the Fichetti as a back up or lose it all together. All you gonna do w/ that thig is piss some one off.

About the Firearms: I know you took a bunch to be more versitle or in case you are relieved of your weapons but you got Pistols at 6. That'll do. Trust me.

By losing those two skills you can nab 12 points! Thats more than enough to get a secondary SOS (Shadowrunner Ocupational Specialty). I'd grab a vehicle skill at four and then burn the other 8 points on either social skills (Interro, nego, or intimidation) or tech skils (electronics or electronics B/R). Then you can use your skillwires for Demo and Biotech exclusively.

I just read TG post, definitely get boosted reflexes. I perfer those to Wired most of the time. They're always on and pretty much undectable. And depending on your GM, may not cause the "knee0jerk" reaction thats caused by Wired w/o a Reflex Trigger.

[TinkerGnome]

I personally like wired better than boosted, but if you're going with high MP rating 6 skillwires, you're not exactly rich anymore.

[gknoy]

[TinkerGnome]

[Herald of Verjig...]

About speed:
Boosted 3 + a later purchase of Synaptic 2 surpasses wired 3.
If he wants to become fast, this is a very nice option that can be dealt with later in the game.

[tjn]

[Sand]

Don't know what Synaptic Accelerators are (guessing a supplement thing), so I can't rely on them. In terms of new books coming in...I'd be surprised if we saw any in the first 6 months, and not surprised if we never saw any at all. If we did, I suspect character redesigns would follow anyway.

Had forgotten all the earlier advice about initiative. Made a few changes for pass 2:

• Drop SMG and Rifle skills, replace with Biotech and Electronics (6 each)
• Switched pistol to Ares Predator to do real damage. Will probably get a permit for this but not the AR-97 (when she's using the assault rifle, she'd rather be able to leave it behind).
• Dropped skillwires to 108 MP (one active skill at a time), one chipjack, and the headware memory.
• Added 3x108 MP jukebox (total of 5 skillsofts available at a time)
• Added Alphaware Wired Reflexes II with reflex trigger. This gives Initiative of 10 +3d6, so 2 actions are guaranteed and 3 actions 50% of the time.
• Enough cash left for ~15 skill chips, which looks to cover most of the active skills I need and a few knowledges as well.

Questions:
1) Once you are loaded up with Essence-lowering items, how can you upgrade? Can you rip stuff out and replace it, or is there some mechanism for raising Essence later on?

2) Are there any non-obvious active skills that I should take? (For example, I noticed that breaking into keypads requires Electronics B/R.)

3) As indicated above, this character has a corporate and military background, so she's taking Knowledge skills like Corporate Security, Corporate Policies, Military Tactics, etc. Any good suggestions there?