low budget but functional street sammy Options

[evilgijoe]

Here is what ive come up with for a low budget sammie,
-wired reflexes1, low cost but severely limited upgrade potential. 11,000
-muscle toner1-low cost,an extra bit of boost in a variety of skills.8,000
-attention coprocessor1-gotta notice when trouble is brewing3,000
-plastic bonelacing-extra soak to survive. being dead brings nothing to the fight.5,000
so basically 27,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif)

Thats the idea, but i feel a bit iffy on bone lacing,toner and attention coprocessor. each add something but do they add enough to justify their exsistance or drop one and bump up something else? Mainly the one im looking at is the bone lacing tbh, especially since its kinda the sams duty to take a hit or two.
Ideas, gaping holes in whats needed ect?

[Jaid]

hmmm... depends somewhat on your goals.

but one thing i'm curious about, why are you looking at a low-budget street samurai anyways? is this a street level campaign or something like that?

[evilgijoe]

we had a tpk last session so we are starting a new campaign with fresh off the street characters. my character concept is former ganger that did some legitimate security for a body shop and the doc payed in hardware. so i figured low end/budget ware fits into the concept but still enough to be useful.

[Bearclaw]

If budget is your concern, muscle replacement is a lot cheaper than toner, and boosts your STR for free.

[evilgijoe]

sweet, ty. for some reason i thought that raised str only. i usually play awakened characters with a light amount of cyber/bio to help survival.

[Neraph]

sweet, ty. for some reason i thought that raised str only. i usually play awakened characters with a light amount of cyber/bio to help survival.

Heresy.

[Jaid]

Heresy.

nah, if it's SR4 and he's an adept that's just par for the course.

[Rad]

Yeah, pre 4a the smart thing for an adept to do was to get an alpha-grade or better Move By Wire system, because the MBW would actually cost you less essence than the points you'd spend on the Improved Reflexes power.

As for cheap, if your character worked for a street doc try grabbing a bunch of second-hand cyberware. You'll take a little bit of an essence hit, but your nuyen costs will be halved and you can always get better stuff put in later when you've made some cash.

[Garvel]

If you want a good value-for-nuyen ratio at character creation, and don't care for essence cost, I would go for used ware.

Imho used wired reflexes 2 for 16,000 nuyen and used muscle toner 2 for 8,000 nuyen are almost unbeatable from this point of view (for a specialized fighter).
The other stuff is optional and depends on what you can affort.

Of course it depends if your character sees his essence as a valuable piece of his soul or as a second appendix (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Wakshaani]

I was dabbling with a Troll Street Sam earlier and while I had a tad more money (140K), that was enough for Wired Reflexes 1, Aluminum Bone Lacing, and Muscle Replacement (2).

Body 9(12), A 4(6), R 3(4), S 10(12) -- That's one scary package! Deals leathal with his bare hands (13P!), but can use a combat axe to cut cars in half. Tossed Throwing Weapons 4 on there as well, so he can throw shuriken through walls.

No idea if I'd ever get a chance to use him, but... yikes.

[Stahlseele]

@Wakshaani
That's actually a mid to low tier street sam, but on a budget, it has promise.
In a low power game, Trolls usually break the game as well as the opposition.

[Glyph]

@Wakshaani
Good build, but I think you're doing a 5th edition build for an SR4 thread.

@Stahlseele
Yeah, the trouble with low-powered games is that de-powering one thing makes another thing more attractive. Limit starting availability and resources? Players can still power up by playing metatypes that give Attribute bonuses, or by playing awakened characters. There are good rulesets for low-powered games, but they involve limiting more than just starting money or gear.

[Wakshaani]

@Wakshaani
Good build, but I think you're doing a 5th edition build for an SR4 thread.

... D'oh! You are correct sir.

[ShadowDragon8685]

we had a tpk last session so we are starting a new campaign with fresh off the street characters. my character concept is former ganger that did some legitimate security for a body shop and the doc payed in hardware. so i figured low end/budget ware fits into the concept but still enough to be useful.

Is the 'low rent Street Samurai' thing your idea, or the GM's? IE, is the GM declaring that the next go-round shall be a low-powered street game, or is it all you?

That's important, because if it's the GM, we need to know what exactly he's done to modify the chargen rules. If not, then...

Well, you need to take a reality check and cash it: Going "low-budget" in a normal game is just asking for your character to be outshone in melee by any troll (unless you are a troll, then you might just barely manage to break even with a human secondary-meele fighter,) and outshone in a gunfight by a hacker with gunbunny secondary traits.


Possible ways to offset this, however, would be to dig into alternative sources of power: Adepts aren't the only ones who can benefit from martial arts training, after all, and external equipment may be useful, even if your character has had limited opportunity to buy augs/worries/freaks out about installing augmentations.

[Neraph]

nah, if it's SR4 and he's an adept that's just par for the course.

No, you're not utilizing your resources properly if you need to get bio/cyber.

[Neraph]

EDIT: Never mind.

[Jaid]

No, you're not utilizing your resources properly if you need to get bio/cyber.

you don't *need* to.

it's just more efficient to get bio/cyber for some things in SR4.

for example, supposing you want to have 3 initiative passes. the PP cost is what, 3 points? 3.5? can't remember for sure, maybe it was even 4?

instead, you could buy a synaptic booster 2, which cost you 1 essence, and therefore effectively 1 power point. it cost you a bunch of resources, but those resources didn't come out of your magic budget, which was awesome (I'm pretty sure I recall it actually being less total BP as well).

but the really obvious ones are if you wanted to boost your attributes. with magic, you were looking at something crazy like 1 PP per attribute, doubled if you go above your racial maximum. that's just crazy talk. you could easily fit in muscle augmentation and toner for far less cost.

there are a handful of other areas too, like augmented senses; generally speaking, massively cheaper with cyberware (though of course, they were also massively cheaper with goggles and headphones, and they didn't cost *any* essence at all).

SR4 certainly didn't *require* you to pick up a few pieces of cyberware or bioware for your adept. but it certainly rewarded you for doing so.

[Stahlseele]

@Topic:
Also, you forgot the Smartlink.
SHAME ON YOU! ò,Ó;,

[Jaid]

@Topic:
Also, you forgot the Smartlink.
SHAME ON YOU! ò,Ó;,

you don't need to implant that, any more than you need to implant the enhanced senses, but yes.

[Stahlseele]

Right. Eye-Stuff. I forgot about that too <.<

[Neraph]

Yes, but you can put two points into Mage (becoming a Mystic Adept [Mystic Adept > Adept anyways]), and with those two points you can cast Increase Reflexes and a host of other spells, greatly increasing your versatility without having to resort to vulgar implants.

[Jaid]

sustained spells have their own drawbacks, primarily the fact that if you ever have to go through a ward they're going to cause you problems (and wards are not even remotely uncommon in the setting).

[Modular Man]

sustained spells have their own drawbacks, primarily the fact that if you ever have to go through a ward they're going to cause you problems (and wards are not even remotely uncommon in the setting).

While that is true, the same can be said about a chromed up street sam or adept (anybody, really) and a cyberware scanner. At least spells can be turned off and be recasted.

Back on topic: I think muscle replacement carries just the right vibe for a just-off-the-streets kind of guy. Of course, there are more essence-friendly options out there, but those are also more expensive. I almost installed some in a hacker/secondary grunt character just because I was running out of nuyen during creation (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
I'd opt for cybereyes as well. Cheap boni and they cannot be stolen (which is a viable concern in the streets). If you add in skinlink, they'll be able to communicate with likewise modified guns - or those guns just get a data cable with an skinlink adapter taped to the character's wrist. Cheap protection from those hacker gangs.
If you're going for more cost-effectiveness a ganger might like, pack a bunch of molotov cocktails for the character while you're at it. A heavily armored motorbike can also be an asset in a firefight (I'm experimenting with using one as portable cover...).

[Neraph]

A heavily armored motorbike can also be an asset in a firefight (I'm experimenting with using one as portable cover...).

Body 8 Bike with 16 armor, 6 Personal Protection, and Rigger Cocoon is 52 armor in addition to whatever you're wearing.

Vague example from my archive:

[ Spoiler ]

The Murdercycle
[8 Slot Total] Harley Davidson Scorpion [-, 12,000]
[1 Slot] Armor 16 [6R, 3,200]
[2 Slots] Personal Protection 6 [12, 12,000]
[1 Slot] Ram Plate [6R, 2,500]
[1 Slot] Rigger Adaptation [4, 2,500]
[1 Slot] Rigger Coccoon (Basic) [8, 1,500]
Av: 12R
Cost: 33,700
Notes: +29 dice to resist ramming damage.

EDIT: Math.

[KCKitsune]

nah, if it's SR4 and he's an adept that's just par for the course.

I made a medic mage with 2 points of cyber/bio. Did it kill his magic somewhat? Yes. Was he useless without his magic? No! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)