Skills you just gotta have, .. to survive the shadows Options

[golden1]

ok. I'm wondering. what skills do most people deem necessary, nay VITAL to the continued existance of a character?

i'm not talking combat skills. you can get by quite happily without those. (infact for my group, it's a general rule of thumb that if you had to fie off a round, then the run could have gone better.)

I'm not talking about skills for a particular type of character. sure, it's a given that the hacker will have hacky type skills, the sams will have shooty type skills, and riggers will have drivy type skills.

i'm talking about skills that every character should have to a greater or lesser extent, regardless of what they actually do for a living.

i was gonna start off by recommending dodge. But then i realised that i'd already disqualified it, on the grounds that this isn't about combat. Frankly, though i'm gonna say that anyone who doesn't have a few points in dodge is probably not going to survive the first combat they run into... so i'm giving it a "must have" point. i know the general idea is to avoid combat, but sometime combat just happens.


ergo, i'm going to nominate "perception". Frankly in any given situation, it just pays to be that little bit more aware of whats going on around you. I know there was much to be said for "zen and the art of shadowrunning", but personally, i like to have as many of the facts as possible, at my disposal.

Any more takers?

(FYI, i'm pre-generating a bunch of characters for a pickup "this is Shadowrun 4, whadda-ya-think" game, and i'm all out of character ideas)

[FrankTrollman]

Actually, if you have Gymnastics and Unarmed Combat, there's no need to ever have a Dodge Skill. There is literally never a time in your life when your Dodge skill is going to be added to your defense pool.

The only skill that really everyone needs to have is Perception, although life without Infiltration and Ettiquette is both short and lame.

-Frank

[Gutz]

I agree on perception and I am going to have to give ettiquette a vote too. The only other one I would keep in mind is negotiation. A lot of people really don't think about that. I would find it crucial to any Shadowrunner since the first thing you do on most runs is negotiate the deal. A must for Runners IMHO.

[blakkie]

'Runner Rule #5 : Unless you are THE whiz negotiator on the team, keep your $#%* mouth shut when meeting Mr. Johnson.

'Runner Corollary #54 : If keeping your mouth shut during a meet is beyond your capabilities, or simply not enough to keep you from screwing up the meet then don't show up at all.


That said sometimes a little social skill is an ok emergency tool, but i'd go with Con instead. If social interaction isn't your primary expertise then when you are pressed into it you are likely in a Fast Talking situation.

[booklord]

As a GM I frown upon characters with no social skill whatsoever. Its not so much like it is really needed. ( The character with the best negotiation should do the talking ) But unless the character's background completely warrant it they have to have some ettiquette skill. Furthermore most characters specialize it so they'll be decent at a particular type of ettiquette. It works out well as it gives almost every player a chance to stretch their social muscle.

[Kagetenshi]

Booklord: you have clearly never worked anywhere, gone to school anywhere, or interacted with any meaningful number of people. I'm very close to starting to demand justification any time I see a point of Etiquette on a character sheet.

Edit since tone doesn't carry through text: the first half was in jest, the second half partly so.

~J

[Siege]

It's an old argument.

The other side of the fence: people can get along pretty well without social skills.

But you'd better be pretty good (skilled, rich or otherwise valuable) for people to overlook your lack of social graces.

-Siege

[Doomclown]

It's up to the GM to make social skills as important as combat skills. A group that spends all its time slaughtering gangers won't need social skills any more than a party of socialites and dilletantes need combat skills. IMO, SR4 does not make it particularly difficult to accomplish whatever balance you might desire, although there is certainly a bias toward combat (it's a rough-and-tumble setting).

[Spookymonster]

[hahnsoo]

[apple]

You can use it for full defense ... same use as dodge.

SYL

[Crusher Bob]

Dodge is better in close combat:

CC full defense is Reaction + Dodge + Dodge or
Reaction + Dodge + CC skill

Gymnastic Dodge is just
Reaction + Gymnastics

You can probably cover almost all circumstances with full parry and gymnastic dodge, though, having someone shooting at you and someone trying to hit you in the same pass seems a low occurance combination.

[Spookymonster]

Interesting... Gymnastics is nearly identical to Dodge in combat, yet also provides a benefit to jumping, as well as several other cat burgular-type feats. Definitely a worthy alternative.

[OSUMacbeth]

Am I the only one who thinks the books is saying you add the gymnastics dice *to* your reaction + dodge dice? Full defense automatically uses dodge+reaction, the book merely says you can add your gymnastics dice, right? Otherwise, this makes no sense, because why take dodge?

OSUMacbeth

[Siege]

That's a very good question - combining Dodge + Gymnastics + etc. is just obscene and I wouldn't subscribe to it.

Someone else suggested that Gymnastics has a more limited application whereas Dodge applies more generally.

I think. Maybe?

-Siege

[OSUMacbeth]

Yes, it is obscene....for all of *one* action, after which you're a sitting duck while all the npcs take turns aiming + long bursting you while you realize you just lost your next turn. Seriously, if you dodge, you're boned unless your team can cover your lapse. I view dodge as strictly a last-ditch defense to be used when you may very well die if you fail. My roomate and I recently took on a team of renraku red samurai who learned the hard way that when you dodge, you're safer for an attack or two, but in no time you're almost certainly in even worse trouble. Considering that it costs you an entire action of being a sitting duck, I in no way think that dodge+reaction+gymnastics would be overpowered. Add that to the fact that you get worse at dodging for each attack you dodge, and, well...it's not pretty. Let's just say that.

EDIT: And then there's wide bursts, and the wonder of dual-wielding pistols, doubling the rate at which characters lose dice to dodge with.

OSUMacbeth

[Siege]

S'why you dodge for cover.

As a rule, bullets will always move faster than you do.

-Siege

[evil1i]

[OSUMacbeth]

Actually that p151 quote makes it pretty clear. You're adding your gymnastics dice to the dice pool created by rolling whatever it was you needed to roll normally.

OSUMacbeth

[FrankTrollman]

Here's the skinny:

In Ranged Combat you roll your Reaction for Defense.
In Close Combat you roll your Reaction and your Dodge or your Unarmed Combat (whichever is higher) for Defense.

Now, this means that if you plan to spend most of your time shooting people in combat, unarmed combat and dodge are pretty much the same. The difference is only seen when go Full Defense, where you have three options:

* Add Unarmed Combat to your defense rolls in melee.
* Add Dodge to your Defense rolls in melee and ranged combat.
* Add Gymnastics to your Defense rolls in melee and ranged combat.

So let's say that you're in the situation where you have a Dodge skill of 6 and a Reaction of 5:

At Range you roll 5 dice.
In melee you roll 11 dice.

When on Full Defense:
At Range you roll 11 dice.
In melee you roll 17 dice.

Now, let's look at this situation when you have a Gymnastics of 6 and an Unarmed Combat of 4:

At Range you roll 5 dice.
In melee you roll 9 dice.

And at Full Defense:

At Range you roll 11 dice.
In melee you roll 15 dice.

---

So it isn't that Dodge doesn't do anything that Gymnastics doesn't do - it's that unless you raise your Dodge past 4 you literally can't see anything that it does over just having Gymnastics and Unarmed Combat.

So if you don't take Dodge as one of the one or two skills that you start play with above 4, there's really no reason to have it at all. You have a gymnastics skill, so if you were going to buy Dodge up you'd just buy Unarmed Combat instead. The only thing that having a dodge skill o 1-4 does is add to your defense rolls in melee - but it does so instead of unarmed combat, and unarmed combat has other uses.

-Frank

[Spider]

Also, don't forget to specialize in dodge (ranged) for only 2BP. That give you a good +2 dices against range attack and it make your dodge skill remain at the level you just put it. That give you some extra dice against ranged attack when your in complete defense and allow you to dodge more efficiently for a longer period...

[Spookymonster]

But if you're not planning on buying Unarmed Combat (e.g., non-combat magician, rigger, or hacker), Dodge has a (slight) edge over Gymnastics, even if it isn't as versatile.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Dodge allows Specialisation on Ranged Combat - thats usually 2 Dice more for 2 Karma.

[Magnus Jakobsson]

On Full Defense the books says:

Full Dodge: "...may be
used against both ranged and melee attacks."

Full Parry: "...may not be used against
ranged attacks."

Gymnastics Dodge: "...against
either ranged or melee attacks."

Does this mean that you have to choose one type of attacks to dodge with Gymnastics Dodge?

Although a bit strange, this would make Full Dodge worthwhile in situations where you are both being shot at and beaten at the same time...

In all other situations I agree that the Dodge skill seems redundant if you have both Unarmed Combat and Gymnastics.

[Critias]