Newish Player Need Equipment Help For Stealth Char Options

[Glyph]

The Ruger Thunderbolt would not be a good replacement for your Colt Manhunter. It is loud and distinctive-sounding. A silenced heavy pistol is much better. The Thunderbolt might be a good replacement for your shotgun pistol, as a weapon to use when it all hits the fan, but you can still attract the wrong kind of attention with a Ruger Thunderbolt.

Personally, I would keep the shotgun pistol. Also, I would get shock lock rounds for it (they are in Cannon Companion. They have +1 power, but their main function, as ceramic slugs, is to safely shoot out things like door locks without a spray of shrapnel).

On the subject of pistols, I see that you have a shock glove, but no taser. Tasers are very effective weapons, and use the pistol skill, so I would definitely add one to your arsenal. Since this is post-char-gen, get the one from Cannon Companion that does Deadly stun.

As has been previously mentioned, adding thermal damening (also in Cannon Companion, under armor modifications) to your armor would complement your camoflage patterns well. A ruthenium sneak suit can wait until you get richer - hey, it gives you something to save up for. Sammies need cyberware, mages need foci, libraries, etc., and riggers and deckers need lots of expensive tech. Adepts have it comparatively easy. Also on the "to buy" list, get a good maglock passkey and sequencer. A lockpick gun (found in Man & Machine) is also useful, and cheap enough that you could probably afford one now.

Intiation is your friend. If you spend some points on Improved Ability for Wildcat, you should start to get better than most security guards, even the semi-elite ones. The Full Offense move is less useful for a stealth adept, but on the occasions where you surprise an opponent and can get off an unopposed attack, the extra damage helps. Another good adept power is Sixth Sense - it doesn't help with initiative, but it helps a lot with surprise tests.

[Angelone]

[Leviathan]

[Angelone]

Obviously you aren't up to snuff in your current campaign so I was suggesting something to help you out, but nevermind.

EDIT- I've been stewing over this for awhile, and I'd like to point a few things out. In YOUR first post you states you are useless in combat:
1. With your skills you aren't the best combatant. Hence the get a SMG and build up the skill. Which had been mentioned earlier.
2. Your melee skill is even with your firearms, therefore it is not secondary.
3. You are a STEALTH adept. You're not supposed to be a combat god.
4. If you want a pistol that fires bursts get a Slivergun. It fires bursts and has an integral slincer/suppressor.
5. One grade of intiation isn't going to make your problems go away. So take the hit and up some skills.
6. Almost posetive you can't get any kind of sound suppression for the Thunderbolt.

[Wounded Ronin]

The Thunderbolt is something of a Deus Ex Machina to make Lone Star grunts relatively deadly, IMO. Why else would there be this strange rule that Lone Star will harass you for having one if not to just discourage players from taking it?

In any case, the Thunderbolt is pretty powerful, but probably it's not particularly suitable for a stealth character. I'd say more, but the point has already been made by several others.

One final note about sound suppression: if you look in SR3, there's actually a table of TNs for people to hear gunshots, silenced gunshots, etc in a building. So, with a strict interpretation of the rules, sound suppression dosen't mean that your Thunderbolt would be totally silent. As a suppressed burst-fire weapon, it would still be easier to hear than a suppressed Predator based on the TNs outlined in SR3.

In fact, I think that if you want a totally silent weapon you'd need to use a longbow or shuriken or something, rather than a suppressed firearm.

[Velocity]

The Thunderbolt is also patently ridiculous for peace officers. As someone (perhaps Raygun?) pointed out on this site ages ago, no cop is going to carry a gun that only fires in burst mode: forget about firing these things in public 'cause the odds of hitting a civilian just tripled.

[Clyde]

The Thunderbolt isn't much good for a shadowrunner, either. You only get one burst per initiative pass that has a chance of hitting anything. When the brown stuff hits the fan you'll need to bring down bad guys faster than that. Grenades, SMGs or a spread weapon like the Ruger Thunderbolt are just what the doctor ordered when you've got multiple targets in mind.

Also, consider having a mage buddy bind an elemental to you for protection - you can order it to attack or cause a distraction and get on with whatever profitable activity suits your fancy. Same with having a good drone on hand.

[Vaevictis]

[Angelone]

My gripe about the planning is the rest of the team was in combat, that's based on comments about gunfire and explosions, leaving the woefully underprepared stealth adept in the hanging out to dry by alerting everyone on the ship that something was up. Now creating a destraction is sometimes a good thing, but on a ship it's not so bright as they tend to be fairly linear, and easier to lockdown then say a compound with multiple buildings. Not saying it's completely the teams fault, he should have found someplace and hunkered down for a while, but he's fairly new it'll come in time.

Stealth characters are difficult to play if you want to be a "pure" stealth type. Being unseen with all the tech and types of vision the opposition has tough. It's easier to just blast past security than sneak.

[Leviathan]

[toturi]

Advise you to smartlink the Ares Viper Slivergun, this is your stealth gun, no sense giving yourself away with a laser dot. Depending on how your GM views the Yamaha Pulsar(your taser), you might want to add a silencer to it, this weapon is when you want to take someone alive. There's no real need to SL the Morrissey Alta, it has a integral laser sight, load this with EX-EX/APDS rounds at the earliest opportunity, this weapon is your last stand weapon(when your SMG runs out of ammo).

[kobura]

Yeah, what Toturi said about the Slivergun. I think you should've opted for a dartgun/narcoject pistol. Get a couple of different types of doses too. Every stealth addy should have one! It bypasses armor and doesn't make much noise. Think Metal Gear here.

Unfortunately, you don't have shotguns as an active skill. A shotgun would be a good last ditch weapon for you. I understand your want of a little more firepower, but it seems like after you initiate, you might want to spend some karma on shotguns (maybe get it up to 4), get a Defiance T-250 (nothing fancy), get several types of rounds, shocklock, slugs, Ex-Ex. I mean, once your seen and everything's put on alert, you might as well blast your way out.

Quick question though. When you initiate, what new abilities are you going to get?

[Leviathan]

[Angelone]

That's a good one.

The Alta's a decent gun it just looks like a "melted slag of plastic" was how a shadowtalker described it. It's supposed to be a designer gun so you might be able to get it into more respectable areas than a "regular" gun.

[Leviathan]

[toturi]

A regular Alta has an integral laser sight instead of a smartlink. Remember you can get vision magnification 3 for 0.25 PPs, and vision mag is incompatible with smartlinks. The chioce is yours, I guess. Again I do not know how your GM is handling armour exactly (it does not seem that he is running it all according to canon), but if he allows you to wear that sec armour without penalties, then by all means go for it. Otherwise, you are better served with a smart goggle.

[Leviathan]

[Method]

[edit]retracted[/edit]

sorry came in late on this one... :grinbig: