Hi

What most deadly character you could create with, say, 500 BP and 300 Karma? For example mage, adept, or some mundane character? And is even possible to budil mundane character like this?

Thanks for answers.

EDIT: deadly is not only way. I'm looking even more for cool characters.

Think outside the box....

-Yakuza Clan Boss
-Prime Fixer who is owed many "favours"
-Highly initiated Mage, Shaman, Adept who is also head of their own group with at least 10 or more members
-Tooled up Troll street sam who is running his/her own Merc company
-Senior Government Bureaucrat running a Black department

Let you imagination run

one important point, is that there is a flat 50 bp limit on resources, regardless of BP total. so you have finite gear and cyber/bio.

so the question becomes, if you go for 'deadly', how much extra cash do you have for upgrades? what class (alpha, beta)?

of course, if you want a mage or adept, then gear is less important. but for a mundane, the upgrades will make or break the characters effectiveness.

I would say cybereyes and ears with all the options, and a datajack (maybe a commlink), about 0.8 essence. then you get a lot of bioware. Bone density 4, muscle tone and augmentation, orthoskin, synaptic booster, and so on. overall, you can get about 5.5 essence worth of bioware safely. the cultured stuff is expensive, but worth it. and think of what it does- +4 body, +3 agility/strength, +3 react, +3 initive passes, +3 logic, +3/+3 armor, extra dice for a couple skill groups like firearms and close combat... suddenly bioware is a lot more usefull than mere karma.

consider, for example... some poor troll that was a 'test subject' for the latest and best bioware. so he escapes... and tries to survive despite the numerous 'side effects' of the experimental bioware (annoying stuff thats too weak to have a game mechanic, just adds to the overall feel of the character... odd body odor, pimples, stuff like that).

If you honestly expect to have BP and Karma to design a character, then you should take advantage of the difference engine. Some things cost more or less than other things in Karma relative to BPs. Buying a value from low to high costs less Karma than buying two values from medium to high. A lot less Karma.

Here's the cost efficiency of various things in Karma/BP:

Attributes 5-6: 139% (18 Karma/25 BP)
Attributes 1-6: 108% (60 Karma/65 BP)
Attributes 3-6: 100% (45 Karma/45 BP)
Specializations: 100% (2 Karma/2 BP)
Skills 0-4: 73% (22 Karma/16 BP)
Spells: 60% (5 Karma/3 BP)
Skills 0-6: 55% (44 Karma/ 24 BP)
Positive Qualities: 50% (10 Karma/5 BP)
Skills 4-6: 36% (22 Karma/8 BP)
Skills 5-6: 33% (12 Karma/4 BP)
Skills 6-7: 29% (28 Karma/8 BP)
Complex Forms 0-6: 27% (22 Karma/6 BP)

OK, what does that mean? It means that if you have Aptitude you want to start with your seven, because it is totally inefficient to buy it up to seven later. It means that you want to start with as many of the positive qualities as you are going to ever want. It means that you want to start with one skill as high as it will go (I reccomend a skill that is not in a skill group like Perception) rather than multiple skills at 5. It means that an attribute should start at 5 or 1. It means that you should buy as many points of skills as you can.

Remember, skills are inefficient and expensive. However, skills are more overpriced with karma than they are with BP, so try to get as many of them as you can with BP rather than Karma.

If you are a technomancer, it is of absolute necessity that you purchase all of your Complex Forms, at Rating 6, at character generation. You'll want to have a starting Logic of 5 (or 6 if you have Exceptional Attribute), and get 10 Complex Forms at 6 (or 12 if you have Exceptional Attribute). That is a requirement if you have Karma to spend as well.

-Frank

Thanks for the breakdown Frank Trollman. I believe a character should be able to choose their higher-than-four attribute(s) and specializations AFTER skill group selection. It's only fair. Also, perhaps you overlooked that spells also cost money after character creation, not just 5 Karma (or perhaps not ).

As for the sickest character:

Human Magician 15 BP
Aptitude (Spellcasting) and Focused Qualities 20 BP

ALL ONES IN PHYSICAL AND MENTAL ATTRIBUTES

Magic 5 - 40 BP
Edge 5 - 40 BP

Spellcasting 7 - 32 BP
Negotiation 4 - 16 BP

SPEND SICK BP ON ANY SKILLS YOU WANT. I MEAN HUNDREDS OF BP. Max them all out at 4. Heck, maybe you can even get stuff like escape artist.

Spend your six free knowledge skill points on anything you want, but no more.

You get up to 14 spells at 3 BP each. Get sick ones.

You can bond with foci at a deep discount, but level is severely limited. Wait until you can find higher level stuff with the possible exception of a level 3 Combat Counterspelling Focus. For 15,000 + 3 BP (6 total BP) it's quite a purchase.

Get very wimpy gear. Spend 1 BP on Gear and only spend 3800 on gear. Get a high lifestyle for 2 BP (10,000 ) and check to see how much free starting money 1200 gets you!

Spend that sick karma initiating and quickening all the increase attribute and reflex spells. You will have them all at 9. Spend the rest getting more sick spells and more initiation, knowledge skills, active skills and specializations. Be careful how you do this. With your attributes all at 9, even skills at level 1 should serve you quite well. Pump up things like counterspelling, dodge, perception, and stuff your character uses often like stealth or first aid.

More sick karma can make detections spells permanent, and can bond sweet foci. The ultimate might be a high-level power focus. That is a cheap way to add dice to all your magic stuff. Only 8 Karma per level.

This character is cool because he was experimented on by a megacorp and left for dead in a sewer.

As for a cool character that uses some synergy, how about an Elf Face/Conjurer.

Max out Charisma. Get Exceptional Attribute to get it to 9. Magically enhance it to 13.

Get all the social skills and conjuring skills. You excel in all of them. You will have BP left over so get some sorcery and combat skills, too. Maybe go overboard on contacts.

just something to add....

300 karma/10= 30 street cred, or 10 public awareness!
this should be 'karl kombat mage' level skill. a household word, with trid characters based off of him.

* Human (0 BP)
* Default crappy attributes of all 1's except Edge (0 BP)
* Spend your 300 karma to get some decent attributes and skills, maxed Demolitions and Logic is required (300 KP)
* 250k nuyen of maxed body armor and high-powered explosives; you will need about 64 suits of the armor (50BP) <I haven't priced this, but I bet there's money left over for armored vehicles and the like>
* 64 Connections 1/Loyalty 6 Contacts who think your gimpy ass is their god (448 BP)
* 2 BP to spare.

Outfit your troops with thrown explosives and proceed to own.

Oh, I forgot about Negative Qualities. Go be Infirm and stuff, get yourself another 5 followers.

EDIT: And combat drugs. Must have drugs.

Take Lowfyr and Ghostwalker as Loyalty 6 contacts.

If you want really scary, take the Teachdaire approach from Prime Runners in SR2. The guy had scary amounts of delta-grade cyberware, plus was an initiate physad, so he had enough levels of intiation to offset his magic loss due to the ware and still buy a decent amount of powers. Not sure how it works in SR4 yet, but get enough bio/cyber to turn yourself into a soul-less killing machine then, initiate yourself until your magic level is on par with a dragon, then split the magic between physad abilities and spellcasting/conjuring and you're good to go. Way to overpowered for PCs in my opinion, but great for end of campaign villains.

I've been really unimpressed with Mystic Adepts in every edition. Physical Mages were a joke in SR3, but even the SR4 Mystic Adept really isn't the "best of both worlds" aspect that people seem to think. Your spellcasting and conjuring are down several dice, and that really hurts.

If you have 3 points of Adept Powers, you're down 3 Magic dice, and that means that on average you can summon spirits that have three less force and get teh same number of services. It means that on average your spells can be successfully countered with three less dice.

Sure, in SR4 you can cast spells and summon spirits at full force. And that's a massive improvement over previous editions. But your high-end spells don't actually work against enemies with counterspelling. Your high-end spirits do not even show up. Being a Mystic Adept in SR4 involves a lot of recasting and resummoning to try to get spells and spirits up and running, and that means that most of your spells simply don't work in a time-critical manner.

That's not the best of both worlds. Not by a long shot.

-Frank

It's kinda peculiar in SR4 how magic loss/initiation works. IIRC you can Initiate until you drop your essense below 1. At that point you can no longer Initiate, and you'd lose any Initiate Grades that hadn't yet been utilized for increasing your Magic. But you'd still be awakened with a Magic that was equal to your Initiate Grade.

Incidentally if you built the character with Magic (6) you'd have to burn nearly all of that karma (34+40+46+52+58+64=294 karma) just to regain that Magic (6). (EDIT: Assuming that you add that last bit of 'ware that drops you below 1 essense after you bring yourself up to Magic 7.)

But with the increased cost for Deltaware (x10 now) you certainly wouldn't be buying much with normal starting character cash.

DO NOT DIS THA BARD!!!

sorry, bards are probably my favorite class in d&d and I had to say it. Actually I thing teched adepts work, its about finding what you get for each point of magic. Personally attribute boosts not worth it from magic but great from bioware.

thats my tuppence

adept Hacker
use BPs and karma to get all relavent computer skill groups up to 6 except for one skill (hacking) at 7)

begin with a straight 5s and program it up to 6s

use adept powers to add 6 (or 7) extra dive to all computing skills

get specializations in appropriate skill sets... for example exploit as the spec for hacking
and get the 10 point codeslinger edge for using exploit to crack accounts open



you are then throwing 24 dice at breaking into a system, and 18-20 dice in almost all areas of computer

you get security access in 1 turn on average on a rating 5 or less system and with a point of edge can get admin in one turn on a 7 or less system (reroll failures using edge)


fastjack on the other hand is doing no better than 14-18 dice at computing tasks

uh reread the adept powers, that one gives itself a different cap from the modified skill caps section

..without removing the original one, indeed.

then why does it have it's own cap of doubling the skill rating?

Here. Make sure to slog through the 3 pages as the whole of the relavent conversation is wound in among the rest the thread.

Okay I agree that it SHOULD be limited to the midified skill rating.. only that in the RAW it sdays it does not modify the skill only provide bonus dice to roll... and then sets it;s own cap which is greater than the modified skill cap

I know of the fact that a similar cap existed in SR3

but until they errata it the cap is where it is... even with all that a starting hackadept could start with hacking at 10 dice and all other computer stuff at 6 dice... still maing him better than fastjack

oh and if you go the way of ALL major NPCs suddenly become adepts... well I guess they did say it would end up more like exalted

Hmm... How about the following example of "most deadly?"

Elf Magician w/ Charisma 8, Willpower 5, Summoning 6, Binding 7 (aptitude), both with specializations in Fire Spirits. Mentor Spirit (Fire Bringer). A magic rating of 6. A decent edge score. A well-connected talismonger contact. And an Improve Charisma spell.

We'll be reasonably conservative in going over the availability (a charisma 8 elf can get a lot of successes in tests to find gear) and stick with force 4 foci.

Force 4 Power Focus, Force 4 sustaining focus (health spells).

Since you'll have to raise one of the skills from 4 to 6 after chargen, and bind your foci, you have to spend 66 karma. That leaves you with ~234. Initiate You'll hit magic 11, with a few karma to spare.

Cast your improve charisma spell until you get 4 hits. This brings Charisma to 12.

For summoning Fire Elementals, you get 25 dice. For binding, this is 26. Summon a dozen!! force 11 fire elementals, and bind them. Use edge if necessary; most times it won't be. You'll likely have a very high number of services. Their stats will be

Bod 12, Agi 13, Rea 33 (or 14, if you are sane), Str 9, C, I, L, W, Edg 11. They will have skills at rating 11. Thus, they can use their 11 DV ranged attack with 24 dice to hit -- about the equivalent of 40 dice if they use edge. And, of course, their hardened armor will make them almost invincible.

If you're feeling adventurous, or have edge left over, summon some of them at higher force, and risk physical damage. Adding 5 edge to your binding test gives you even odds against a force 18 fire elemental for the binding test.

And one in the chamber -- don't forget to summon one spirit (unbound) no more than 8 hours before the encounter, to bring your total elementals to a baker's dozen.

I'd give this summoned army equal odds against the army of mindless grenade tossers. If edge was used to grab a force 18 or two, I'd even give it decent odds against loyalty six Lofwyr. Unless, of course, someone dispells the charisma spell, and turns 1/3 of the spirits loose...

It's worth noting that force 11 spirits aren't out of the realm of possibility for starting characters, either...

I'm not using grenades, silly. Foam.

EDIT, Fun Facts Follow:

166 kg of Rating 15 foam explosives would cost 249k nuyen.

Assuming a mere 3 hits on the Logic+Demolitions test, that brings the DV of the whole wad (if it was set off all at once) to 18 x 12.88 = 231 DV. Circular blast formula says the total radius of effect is about 116 meters.

If I wanted to split up the foam among the 71 zealots, they'd each get 2.33 kg. Assuming 3 hits on the Demo test again, that's an approximate 27 DV per toadie.

I think I'd put the foam into chest-mounted shaped charges and tell them to hug the targets if they can (to get the half-armor trick). If not, at least die facing their victims.

dress them in black Lycra
give them white face paint
Claymore Mimes

Ow.

I think you just did Essence damage with that.

EDIT: Crap, now he's got me picturing them wielding cream pies made of explosive foam.

Ah, the brokenness of Foam. That does turn the battle back to your favor, but it's not un-winnable. The elementals have the advantage of range, and can "unmanifest" with a held action to escape a blast. It'd be an interesting and extremely destructive battle.

That said, Foam is totally broken.

1 kilo of Commercial Explosives will do 3 DV. doubled against barriers it's on, it MIGHT break a moderate door.
9 kilos (about 20 lbs, picture a hefty bag of sand) would do 9 DV. An entire 20 lb bag of explosives laying on the chest of a normal human, set off... probably won't kill him.

1 kilo of rating 15 foam will do 15 DV. Doubled against barriers, 1 kilo will absolutely destroy a steel beam, and will most likely bring the steel re-enforced concrete pilars of modern highrises down buckling. Needless to say, it will also kill a person, whereas the "sack - o - boom" would not.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want 20 lbs of even the most primitve explosive (Black Powder) set on my chest. Presumably, corps of the 2070's can out-produce the ancient chinese, so this value seems quite low to me.

On the other end, I shudder to think at the power that must be contained in a 1kg package of foam that could take out a multilane suspension bridge. I think that has to be well into the "nu-clear" (to quote the US pres.) range of output, and that little won't even begin a cascading reaction (assuming plutonium or the like).

Yeah, commercial explosives have always been a little (read: a lot) wonky in Shadowrun. I remember doing math in some previous edition, and coming up with the fact it took more than 2 kilos of basic C-4 (or whatever) in order for an explosion to break through whatever sturdy glass jar you carried the C-4 (or whatever) in.

Something's wrong with that.