Think Tank - Naked Street Sam, Most effective Sam using Ware alone Options

[Chainsaw Samurai]

Been toying around with this idea lately. Using Cyber Implanted weapons/armor/etc, what is the most effective a Street Sam can get without any gear or weapons aside from what is implanted.

Getting soak pool and health boxes to respectable levels seems easy enough, and the cyber weapons are alright (though you take a pretty big hit due to how much cyber guns cost in capacity). I've been fiddling with a few different builds to optimize this concept with little success, so I figured I'd come ask Dumpshock if they had any thoughts on the matter.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

[ShadowDragon8685]

Been toying around with this idea lately. Using Cyber Implanted weapons/armor/etc, what is the most effective a Street Sam can get without any gear or weapons aside from what is implanted.

Getting soak pool and health boxes to respectable levels seems easy enough, and the cyber weapons are alright (though you take a pretty big hit due to how much cyber guns cost in capacity). I've been fiddling with a few different builds to optimize this concept with little success, so I figured I'd come ask Dumpshock if they had any thoughts on the matter.

Well, if you're going to be naked, you might as well be really naked. Go for the full-body chameleon coating and all the stealth options, and be an infiltrator par excellence. Less a street samurai than cybernetic ninja, your advantage is that you don't give your enemies the opportunity to fight you. You get in, get the job done, and get out with a minimum of fighting, and what fighting you have to do, you do with your bare hands, bone-laced skeleton, and martial arts techniques. The Way of the Snapped Neck is your friend here.

Also, being a great infiltrator means that getting your first gun and body armor and all that is just one guard waylaid, discretely murdered, and dragged into the bathroom cubicle.

[Chainsaw Samurai]

We're off to a decent start ShadowDragon. What you've sugguested doesn't sound like a heck of a lot of ware either, so the CyberAdept option is fairly open.

Way of the Snapped Neck indeed.

[Lantzer]

Been toying around with this idea lately. Using Cyber Implanted weapons/armor/etc, what is the most effective a Street Sam can get without any gear or weapons aside from what is implanted.

Effective at what? Therein lies the question. As everything has to be implanted, you may have to make some choices.

Considering he's naked, I'd make sure he's got cold weather adaptation for the winter. And a knowsoft on public indecency laws might be handy too. Some pheromones would not be out of place either.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Considering he's naked, I'd make sure he's got cold weather adaptation for the winter. And a knowsoft on public indecency laws might be handy too. Some pheromones would not be out of place either.

Cold-weather adaptation might not be a bad idea, but I think that public indecency laws are the least of the laws he's about to break. Unless he's a she and is doing this naked Shadowrun in Dubai or somewhere, then that might just rank above breaking & entering and murder.

[Angelone]

Naked as it's used here generally means no weapons and minimal equipment, not literally nude.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Naked as it's used here generally means no weapons and minimal equipment, not literally nude.

Yes, but if you're going to be that naked already, you might as well go ahead and strip down all the way and get to benefit from a chameleon coating of skin, since you're not gonna be able to bring your ruthenium-coated armor.

[KarmaInferno]

Besides, you can start the Legend of Sodomy Joe, stealth master of surprise!

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)





-k

[Chainsaw Samurai]

Naked as it's used here generally means no weapons and minimal equipment, not literally nude.

Yes, unarmored clothing is fine. I think it should be minimal however. If you're going to spend all that money on chrome you might as well show it off right?

As many cyberlimbs as possible, a loin cloth to cover the indecency laws, and a luchadore mask. Perhaps a wrestling onesie for the ladies.

The mask is the most essential part of your ensemble as it covers your ultimate shame... your unaugmented skull (stupid things are worthless).

Using this set up you should be able to manage 18+ to soak and respectable dice pools for spurs, guns, or whatever else you've implanted. Maybe enough cash and essence left over for 2 whole initiative passes. If that doesn't sound like enough to get the job done then I pity your poor GM for having to twink out NPCs and Prime Runners rather than letting the poor bloke use the ones listed in the core books.

So an invisible approach isn't the only right answer.

[Angelone]

By UmaroVI

[ShadowDragon8685]

So, we have a Greco-Roman Solid Snake and a cybered up Luchadore... Anything else funny in the works?

[Chainsaw Samurai]

So, we have a Greco-Roman Solid Snake and a cybered up Luchadore... Anything else funny in the works?

You know I never said it had to be combat capable, just capable.

I guess a cybered out Pornomancer could potentially be more effective naked.

Besides, you can start the Legend of Sodomy Joe, stealth master of surprise!

oh, I see that might have already been covered.

[UmaroVI]

By UmaroVI

This is an excellent idea, if I do say so myself.

An alternate way to go (and some explanation):

Cyberguns are Not Very Good. The reason is that they eat up capacity like whoa and also take Exotic Weapon to use. Because of this, I would be inclined to use melee instead. Optimized Cyberlimbs give you a stacking bonus to melee - with two Nightengale Feet of Fury legs and two Ultimate Champion arms, you can testicle-kick people with +4 dice. I'd probably go with a heavily cybered troll - 2 arms, 2 legs, torso, Synaptic 1, pick up Martial Arts for another +3 Unarmed DV, Kick Attack, and blammo. No armor hurts, but you can get a bunch of cyber-armor so this character is hurt a lot less.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Besides, you can start the Legend of Sodomy Joe, stealth master of surprise!

By UmaroVI

Fanatical Tir Ghosts exfiltrate the country on the mere rumor that this man is in town. Battle-hardened Red Samurai throw down their monokatanas and run screaming at his approach. Grown men shriek like little girls and leap from overpasses to escape, while children go completely insane, dress in black robes, and mob the nearest adult to sacrifice them to the Unholy One.

[Halinn]

The girls do flock to him, though...

[Chainsaw Samurai]

This is an excellent idea, if I do say so myself.

An alternate way to go (and some explanation):

Cyberguns are Not Very Good. The reason is that they eat up capacity like whoa and also take Exotic Weapon to use. Because of this, I would be inclined to use melee instead. Optimized Cyberlimbs give you a stacking bonus to melee - with two Nightengale Feet of Fury legs and two Ultimate Champion arms, you can testicle-kick people with +4 dice. I'd probably go with a heavily cybered troll - 2 arms, 2 legs, torso, Synaptic 1, pick up Martial Arts for another +3 Unarmed DV, Kick Attack, and blammo. No armor hurts, but you can get a bunch of cyber-armor so this character is hurt a lot less.

If you build it right you can still end up with 10 armor during character creation and plenty of slots left over afterwards. I'd personally save myself the slots from the optimized limbs to use on other neat things later down the road (More Armor for instance).

Best starting "naked" character I made while fiddling with this last night was a Human with 8bod, 8agi, 8str, 10P spur attacks with 16 dice to hit, 10 Armor (18 soak), 2 IP (Synaptic Booster). Enough cash and essence left over for another piece of Bioware, two if you crammed in some cheap stuff: Trauma Dampner, Platelette Factories, Tailored Pheremones, Toxin Extractor etc. Lots of good options. This "base" template leaves you with a fair bit of capacity left over for more Armor after a couple runs as well.

This build also had a LOT of flexibility when it came to skill and attribute points. I had over 45k when I was done and you have a lot of attribute and skill points left over after building this base shell. Could have a very respectable secondary specialization. I ended up with Tailored Pheremones and some respectable social skills (I said respectable, not Pornomancer-Game-Breaking).

I also fiddled around with a sub-build using the Cyber Machine Pistol. Takes Restricted Gear 3 at character creation (torso, Gun, and depending on how the stats fall the arm it is contained in could also end up above 12), and yes it requires its own Exotic Weapon Proficiency, but in this case I didn't mind as it was the only ranged option. Something to suppress with or fire while you're closing the gap is worth the points given the circumstances imo.

ofc, I did all of this with Karma build system since that is what we use. I might give this a shot with BP and see if something similar is possible.

Edit: Yes I did this with a Human and not a Troll. I enjoy Trolls but actually prefer almost anything but for "tanking" jobs like this one eventually implies. As far as I'm concerned you don't want to put yourself in the line of fire with a character that is too heavy for the rest of the team to drag out of there. Just my opinion, had a nasty experience.

[Udoshi]

Cyberguns are Not Very Good.

While true, rules kludges exist to make them decent. Cyberweapons are explicitly prevented from taking Accessories, but arsenal goes to lengths to show that Accessories are Not Mods.
The Underbarrel Weapon Mod can be used to mimic a 'real' gun build into the shitty cybergun stats.

I'm not sure about the exotic weapon bit - are you sure that's not just for exotic weapons in unusual locations, from the exotic melee description? The melee table shows that you can use Blades OR exotic melee weapons, for example.

[Chainsaw Samurai]

While true, rules kludges exist to make them decent. Cyberweapons are explicitly prevented from taking Accessories, but arsenal goes to lengths to show that Accessories are Not Mods.
The Underbarrel Weapon Mod can be used to mimic a 'real' gun build into the shitty cybergun stats.

I'm not sure about the exotic weapon bit - are you sure that's not just for exotic weapons in unusual locations, from the exotic melee description? The melee table shows that you can use Blades OR exotic melee weapons, for example.

Hell I don't think anyone knows for sure. Not just about this, but about anything else in 4th ed. Any rule that isn't poorly written goes out of its way to directly contradict another decently written rule.

Having said that Exotic Ranged Weapon is the only skill which lists Cyber-Implant Guns as an example, whereas Automatics clearly only applies to "personal firearms larger than a pistol, capable of autofire, but with a shorter barrel than a long arm." Apparently "larger than a pistol, capable of autofire, and shorter than your forearm" doesn't cut it.

So apparently a classification of weapon so uncomplicated that all you have to do is point the weapon and spray bullets is in a completely different league from a classification of weapon where all you have to do is point and spray bullets. Pointing your finger and mentally wanting that area to explode with bullets and loud noises is such an insanely complicated action that it requires years of practice and the same level of technical expertise afforded to laser weapons.

Phoenix fucking Wright is a martial master who's intense pointing training put him in the same league as those pointy helmet dudes that fire the Death Star.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Phoenix fucking Wright is a martial master who's intense pointing training put him in the same league as those pointy helmet dudes that fire the Death Star.

Actually, he's much more intensely-trained. The Death Star's superlaser is, technically speaking, a vehicular weapon, and so it only requires Heavy Weapon Proficiency feat to fire without nonproficiency penalty. In theory, every grunt who humps a rocket launcher could sit down behind the controls and bullseye a planet. (Not that planets are particularly difficult targets to hit, so perhaps I should say 'could sit down behind the controls and bullseye a frigate.')


[e]This works in reverse, too, so breaking into the superlaser control room to get your murderboner on is an exceedingly bad idea, because every last one of those dudes is likely packing a grenade launcher.

[Chainsaw Samurai]

The Heavy Weapons skill is the poster child category for why Cyber Implant Guns ought to fall under their respective categories.

Machine Pistol? Different if you shove it in your arm. Completely different.

Can you fire a missile (pointing directly at a target, perhaps fiddling with a guidance system)? Then clearly you can fire grenades (angled upward to account for gravity and lack of an on board propulsion system or any guidance).

And of course both of those weapons, which fire one explosive projectile at a time, are so amazingly similar to heavy automatic weaponry that they should share a category.

What? An Assault cannon the size of a Volkswagon? Pff, sure you can handle it. If you've fired one pistol sized grenade launcher you've fired them all right? Practically the same thing.

Then after all of this, this magical catch-all weapons group which apparently handles everything from Gauss Cannons to vehicle mounted can openers, they exile Flame Throwers to the Exotic Ranged Weapon proficiency. Lighting things on fire is definitely a special skill which deserves its own category and not just the national past-time of every adolescent boy who hasn't yet discovered masturbation. Backpacks full of lighter fluid are serious business and require real precision to hit a mansized target at 4 meters with a 10 meter wide gout of boiling-hot-overcompensation.

Oh, and Machine Pistols? Totally different if you shove it in your arm, Bro. Totally.

[UmaroVI]

I'm not sure about the exotic weapon bit - are you sure that's not just for exotic weapons in unusual locations, from the exotic melee description? The melee table shows that you can use Blades OR exotic melee weapons, for example.

Sadly, yes.

EXOTIC RANGE WEAPON (AGILITY)
Like Exotic Melee Weapon, Exotic Ranged Weapon skill must be taken
separately for each different weapon you wish to be able to use. Some
examples: lasers, gyrojet pistols, flamethrowers, cyber-implant guns.

[Stahlseele]

Wanna make the implant guns a bit better?
Who says it has to be a run of the mill gun?
Why not get a burst-fire capable shotgun ?
You may want to use one using clips, not internal magazine.
And an external port for attaching a new/larger clip.
Same goes for the heavy pistol too. And then load up with stick and shock ammo.
Reach. Punch. Stopping Power. Less-Lethal too.

Or implanted laser or sound or micro wave beam rifle . .
Or for those really suicidal crazy bastards: implanted flame-thrower . .

[KarmaInferno]

Um.

I may or may not have had a character with a mouth-mounted flamethrower.




-k

[Stahlseele]

mouth mounted is too mainstream.
air-tank with flamer-fuel in the chest, hose with pilot light through the arm into the finger(s) of one hand.
i can do magic too!

[Halinn]

Flamethrower in your cyberpenis.