Dumpshock Forums > KK's (new) Dedicated Character Thread

Kyoto Kid

Jun 16 2006, 03:33 AM

...well here goes.

To not belabour the point as to the purpose, I will jump right in with none other than the short one herself.

Kyoto Kid (Original starting level version. 0 Karma)

SIN: Kelly Elizabeth Rourke Status: Deceased (explained in Bio notes forthcoming)

Race : Human (0 BP) Age: 18
Ht: 4'10" Wt: 51K Hair: white worn in long braid or tied back
Physique: very athletic. Complexion: Asian

Attributes (265)

Body: 4
Agility: 5
Reaction 4 [6]
Strength: 5
Charisma: 2
Intuition: 4
Logic: 1 [yeah - thick as a brick]
Willpower: 3
Edge: 2
Magic: 6

Initiative: 10

Active Skills (126)

Athletics [SG]: 4
Blades: 6 [Swords +2]
Etiquette: 3 [Street +2]
Infiltration: 4 [Urban +2]
Perception: 2
Pistols: 4 [Revolvers +2]

Knowledge/Language Skills (15 free BP)

IN: Bushido Philosophy: 3
IN: Japanese Culture: 3
StK: Seattle Clubs: 2
IN: Old Wild West Vids: 2

Languages

English: N
Japanese: 5

Positive Qualities (+15)

Adept [+5]
Ambidextrous [+5]
Double Jointed [+5]

Negative Qualities (-35)

Mild Allergy to Meat [-10] (even affected by the smell of it cooking etc.)
Mild addiction to Greenbud [-5]
Uneducated [described as learning disability] [-20]

Contacts (House rule Char x 2 in free contact points) [18]

Sam I AM [Fixer] Connection 3/Loyalty 3
Jade Rose [Occult Investigator] Connection 3/Loyalty 5
Harper [Hacker] Connection 2/Loyalty 6

Cyber/Bio Augmentations: None

Adept Powers (6 PP total)

Attribute Boost 1
Improved Ability: Combat skills 2 [Blades]
Improved Ability: Physical Skills 2 [Gymnastics]
Improved Reflexes II
Mystic Armour 2
Improved Social Skills 1 [Etiquette]

Resources (9BP) (45,000

)

Lifestyle: Low 2, mos prepaid

Gear:

Armoured Jacket 8/6 (+Chem resistant 3 & Fire resistant 3)

Katana [Weapon Focus 2 - Bonded]
Wakasashi
Ruger Super Warhawk internal Smartlink (2)
Concealed Holster (2)
Speed loader (2)
Gel Rounds (60)

Contacts
+low light
Sport Glasses
+Image Link
+Smart Link
+Vision Enhancement III
Earbuds
+Spatial recognisor
Micro Transceiver (rating 5)
Hermes Ikon (Res 4/Sig 3)
+OS: Iris Orb (Firewall 3/Sys 3)
+Skinlink
+Sim Module
+Virtual Person
Fake SIN (rating 4)
Fake License (3) (rating 4)
Bodyguard
Blade Permit
Gun Permit
Gas Mask

Full Back Tattoo in classic Japanese Style
Cosmetic Surgery (Japanese facial features)
Formal Kimono
Assorted Clothing
Team Sterling Cyborg Radical Skateboard
Razorline Pro inline skates

Starting resources 850:nuyen:

Hope I got all the math right since she has seen a bit of action & applied some of her earned Karma.

Bio [Forthcoming]

UndeadPoet

Jun 16 2006, 07:18 AM

QUOTE

Mild Allergy to Meat [-10] (even affected by the smell of it cooking etc.)
Mild addiction to Greenbud [-5]
Uneducated [described as learning disability] [-20]

All of these are more roleplaying flaws. SR4 tried to only introduce handicaps that have an actual impact on the game.
Allergy to meat, well, with her low lifestyle chances are she will never in her life notice her allergy.
Addiction to greenbud is not much "harder" than an addiction to coffeine or nicotine, which are forbidden in the core book.
I am not sure which effect your "Uneducated"-flaw has. Learning disability? Increased karma costs for improving skills?
This flaw normally is only given to demi-humans like nagas, who are sentient but have no clue at all about the modern world.

QUOTE

Jade Rose [Occult Investigator] Connection 3/Loyalty 5
Harper [Hacker] Connection 2/Loyalty 6

Loyalty 5 and 6 is awesomely high, and for many people loyalty 6 means just 6 less GP to spend. Are you sure the connections deserve such a rating?

QUOTE

Attribute Boost 1

Wise, wise.

I noticed you do not have the unarmed combat skill. At least one or two points are not only useful in actual game, but also realistic, looking at the world-champion-class skill in swordmanship. I just can't imagine one of the world's best sword fighters to get beaten up by a few squatters without his sword.

QUOTE

Wakasashi

Not sure, but if you mean the small samurai sword, it's a Wakizashi.

QUOTE

Ruger Super Warhawk

StYlE!
It's so sad that this weapon is not even equal to a single Fubuki with shockers, even when dual-weilded with ambidexterity.
I hope you kick some ass with the hawks!

QUOTE

Cosmetic Surgery (Japanese facial features)

Ownage. Japanese poser. There are so many in germany and I am fed up with them. Noone would play one in SR, though.
Man, a round character, nice stuff. I even forgive you using a mainstream-katana, because you use it to fuck the mainstream.

Kyoto Kid

Jun 16 2006, 05:31 PM

As to the "flaws"

Negative Qualities
The Uneducated quality does come into play. For one, she needs to do a memory test a lot more often than most characters. She also is totally inept at anything remotely technical hence defaulting is not an option

The Greenbud addiction actually does come into play, particularly because of her age and appearance. (she basically looks like a 4' 10" Japanese girl of around 14 or so)

Actually the Allergy to Meat does come into play since it also covers meat by-products which a lot of the cheaper eats still use, particularly as "flavouring agents".

Contact Loyalty
Harper comes from her background story and has known Kelly for some time now. When his team split up & went their separate ways, he drifted up to Seattle to look for hie "Little K" (his nickname for her). He is effectively her "Big Brother".

As for Jade being Loyalty 5, she took Kelly in after the girl was smuggled out of the TT (Kelly was only 13 at the time), becoming the girl's "Foster Mom". This also has to do with the character being totally SINless (this is tied to her character backstory).

Unarmed Skill
Yeah, the I would have liked to take Unarmed but the points just were not there. The other thing, is that I would have had to shuffle her powers around to take a few levels of Critical Strike to get a decent DV. Also the original SR2-3 concept was a dedicated blade adept and I tried to follow the design as close as SR4 would allow. BTW thanks for the Spell Check. One thing I wish SR4 had was some more exotic type weapons. The original KK also used dual War Fans (they really detuned the ambidexterity quality).

The attribute boost still affects her DV with blades.

Guns guns guns..
I always liked the "six gun" style plus the Warhawk is one of the more nasty weapons in the book (AP -2). Sure it's noisy and you can't put any barrel mounted accessories on it, but when she pulls both out she definitely raises eyebrows. "...feelin lucky slot? I sure hope you do" And yes, she has kicked booty with them on a number of occasions. With Gel rounds it becomes "Bowling for Bad Guys".

Appearance
since she was a little girl Kelly admired the Japanese which really made life difficult for her when she still lived in the TT. So many other players do the standard poser (Elf & now Orc) so I thought let's throw a different wrinkle in. I considered interest knowledge skill in Manga which looking back, I should have given her instead of Seattle Clubs. Didn't know that Germany had such a proliferation of Japanese Posers. When I was there in the 70s the "cowboy" look was big (and Buttwiper...I mean Budweiser was the biggest selling import beer).

As to her 'Roleplay" flaws, KK follows the Bushido way very closely (as well as the "Gunslingers Code" of the old west). If she draws her Katana and doesn't get to use it, she slices her palm to make sure it draws blood. In a gunfight, she calls her opponent out.

Thanks for the comments. Unfortunately KK is past the one time character "tweak" (basically, my GM allows us modify a new character after the first play session. Kind of like a "test drive".).

X-Kalibur

Jun 16 2006, 06:27 PM

The only thing that would have worked more for me (since I've had a similar adept in the past, love the revolvers) would have been having Combet Sense over Mystic Armor. Not only from a power perspective (its alot better) but from a japanese/manga perspective where they are either dodging shots completely, or getting nailed by them (see also: Spike Spiegel). That and I feel it would fit a young girl better, especially since you don't have astral perception anyway.

Kyoto Kid

Jun 16 2006, 06:53 PM

..I considered it, but the really depowered the ability after SR2.

Besides, having a +2/+2 to all armour is really nice, especially when you got to go formal for those "special" jobs (Actioneer ensemble becomes 7/5, good enough to ward off handguns & SMGs). Kind of like having "permanent" form fit.

X-Kalibur

Jun 16 2006, 07:35 PM

QUOTE (Kyoto Kid)

..I considered it, but the really depowered the ability after SR2.

Besides, having a +2/+2 to all armour is really nice, especially when you got to go formal for those "special" jobs (Actioneer ensemble becomes 7/5, good enough to ward off handguns & SMGs). Kind of like having "permanent" form fit.

I disagree with it being depowered. You roll an addition ratingxD6 with your reaction to dodge any attack (which also lowers net successes if you don't dodge outright, meaning you have less to resist) as opposed to simply gaining an additional ratingxD6 for the resistance. Combat sense does not directly add to your reaction, so it is unaffected by the attribute max.

LS rolls to shoot you, you currently roll 6D6 to avoid. its about an even roll. Provided he gets the same or greater hits than you, you are hit and now resisting the base damage of his gun + any ammo mods + net success mods with your body + appropriate armor. If you're a troll or an ork, not such a big deal, you likely have a huge body score. Anything else however is probably better off not getting shot altogether.

Kyoto Kid

Jun 16 2006, 09:12 PM

QUOTE (X-Kalibur)

QUOTE (Kyoto Kid @ Jun 16 2006, 01:53 PM)

..I considered it, but the really depowered the ability after SR2.

Besides, having a +2/+2 to all armour is really nice, especially when you got to go formal for those "special" jobs (Actioneer ensemble becomes 7/5, good enough to ward off handguns & SMGs). Kind of like having "permanent" form fit.

I disagree with it being depowered. You roll an addition ratingxD6 with your reaction to dodge any attack (which also lowers net successes if you don't dodge outright, meaning you have less to resist) as opposed to simply gaining an additional ratingxD6 for the resistance. Combat sense does not directly add to your reaction, so it is unaffected by the attribute max.

LS rolls to shoot you, you currently roll 6D6 to avoid. its about an even roll. Provided he gets the same or greater hits than you, you are hit and now resisting the base damage of his gun + any ammo mods + net success mods with your body + appropriate armor. If you're a troll or an ork, not such a big deal, you likely have a huge body score. Anything else however is probably better off not getting shot altogether.

..good point since the SR1 - 3 version of the character did have it (Mystic armour wasn't quite as useful as it is in Ver. 4 for it only affected Impact rating)

The depowering part for me comes from the loss of the Combat Pool which Combat Sense also affected in previous versions. KK uses the Gymnastic Dodge option which gives her a pretty decent pool to roll. Yeah it takes an IP but with a total of 3 passes she still has enough actions left over. In a mundane to mundane (& I kind of classify Adepts here since they cannot use counterspelling) fight she has held her own pretty well.

If I had the chance to redo her again however, I would be more likely to juggle points and take the High Pain Tolerance quality (level 2). Hurricane Hannah has this & it rocks pretty well.

It is against combat & manipulation spells where I'm more concerned since neither of these have a threshold any more

Lagomorph

Jun 16 2006, 09:30 PM

Nice character KK, have to agree it's a shame you didn't go with Combat Sense, it really does kick a lot of butt in SR4.

Butterblume

Jun 16 2006, 09:34 PM

QUOTE (Kyoto Kid)

Mild Allergy to Meat [-10] (even affected by the smell of it cooking etc.)

That is not as harmless as it sounds.

Someone (or KK herself) hit by ex-mun, fireball, grenade - smells like cooking meat. Got splattered by meat in a fight - you get the picture.

Kyoto Kid

Jun 16 2006, 09:38 PM

QUOTE (Butterblume)

QUOTE (Kyoto Kid)

Mild Allergy to Meat [-10] (even affected by the smell of it cooking etc.)

That is not as harmless as it sounds.

Someone (or KK herself) hit by ex-mun, fireball, grenade - smells like cooking meat. Got splattered by meat in a fight - you get the picture.

...I'm actually expecting for my GM to pull out the Meatball gun sometime soon or worse, send her on a mission that involves raiding a packing plant.

Butterblume

Jun 16 2006, 09:44 PM

I just love the idea of meat allergy ... street dog running up and licking your hand, Johnson shaking your hand after eating chicken wings, fast food junky speaking with a full mouth while eating an hamburger (when it's not soy, that is

).

UndeadPoet

Jun 16 2006, 09:53 PM

QUOTE (X-Kalibur)

Not only from a power perspective (its alot better) but from a japanese/manga perspective where they are either dodging shots completely, or getting nailed by them (see also: Spike Spiegel).

First thing: Bang.
Second thing: This is not a manga perspective, this is realism. If you get hit by a shot, you "get nailed", eh?
Third thing: Combat sense has another advantage: There are weapons that reduce your armor. There are no weapons that reduce your reaction. Well, automatic burts could, but most people want to improve damage rather than stealing dodge dice.
Fourth thing: See you, cowboy/cowgirl!

Nim

Jun 16 2006, 10:30 PM

QUOTE (UndeadPoet @ Jun 16 2006, 02:18 AM)

QUOTE

Attribute Boost 1

Wise, wise.

Given the point totals, I'm assuming that's shorthand for:

*Strength Boost 1
*Agility Boost 1
*Body Boost 1
*Reaction Boost 1

I guess the versatility is handy, but would you ever really blow the 4 simple actions required to activate all of them?

Kyoto Kid

Jun 16 2006, 10:37 PM

...KK only has it for Strength to pump her DV.

X-Kalibur

Jun 16 2006, 10:47 PM

Also, one more little comment from me, you could easily drop your magic a point for 25 more BP to spend on skills which are sorely lacking.

Nim

Jun 16 2006, 10:47 PM

QUOTE (Kyoto Kid)

...KK only has it for Strength to pump her DV.

Okay, then. So:

0.25: Attribute Boost 1 (Strength)
0.50: Improved Ability: Combat skills [Blades]
0.25: Improved Ability: Physical Skills [Gymnastics]
3.00: Improved Reflexes II
1.00: Mystic Armour 2
0.25: Improved Social Skills 1 [Etiquette]

By my math, that comes out to 5.25 PP of powers. Did I miss something? Do you maybe have 2 levels of Improved Ability in Blades and Gymnastics, instead of 1?

fool

Jun 16 2006, 11:02 PM

One advantage to the mystic armor over the combat sense it that it improves your chances of not having to deal with phy7sical damage (versus stun), which our group is finding to be rather nasty. I believe it also impacts your knock down.
A raid on a meat factory I like that mwahahahaha

I defintiely agrree that magic one point lower and more skills would have been a better choice.
Logic 1 is a real bummer.
The way that uneducated is functioning is that it is the flaw that means all tech skills are off limits/cost outrageous amounts to improve.

Kyoto Kid

Jun 16 2006, 11:30 PM

QUOTE (Nim)

QUOTE (Kyoto Kid @ Jun 16 2006, 05:37 PM)

...KK only has it for Strength to pump her DV.

Okay, then. So:

0.25: Attribute Boost 1 (Strength)
0.50: Improved Ability: Combat skills [Blades]
0.25: Improved Ability: Physical Skills [Gymnastics]
3.00: Improved Reflexes II
1.00: Mystic Armour 2
0.25: Improved Social Skills 1 [Etiquette]

By my math, that comes out to 5.25 PP of powers. Did I miss something? Do you maybe have 2 levels of Improved Ability in Blades and Gymnastics, instead of 1?

...Thanks for catching that. She does have 2 levels in both improved abilitites.

...error corrected on character.

Kyoto Kid

Jun 17 2006, 02:16 AM

QUOTE (fool)

A raid on a meat factory I like that mwahahahaha

"...oh ick, how gross! I think I'm gonna hurl...."

KK

Kyoto Kid

Jun 17 2006, 02:30 AM

QUOTE (X-Kalibur)

Also, one more little comment from me, you could easily drop your magic a point for 25 more BP to spend on skills which are sorely lacking.

...originally, she had a magic of 5 at initial chargen but seeing the Karma cost for Initiation + & rasing MA I decided to spend the BPs to bump it up to 6 instead.

Since she is already an active character, it would be difficult to justify dropping her MA at this point. If I was able to, the power that would most likely be sacrificed is one level of her Improved Reflexes. Her Mystic Armour has saved her butt several times, & the improved ability powers have also seriously affected the outcome of several encounters.

In the SR1 - 3 version, KK only had Improved Reflexes I, but the old counterattack rule helped to offset this a bit. In fact, she was fairly dangerous to take a swing at because of her skill rating alone (Katana [specialised] at rating 10 with a weapon focus 3). Add a couple of dice from her combat pool and she usually could tag her opponent if not stage the damage up.

In SR4 melee. I've discovered it is most definitely an advantage to have as many IPs as you can get.

Kyoto Kid

Jul 7 2006, 09:19 PM

..thanks for the input,

I have thought over some of the points made and were I able to go back & re-engineer her (she is now in active play), I would give her a Magic of 5 (sacrificing the Improved combat 2 power since she already has a pretty good DP with her skill & weapon focus) and pick up more useful skills/abilities instead, such as either unarmed combat, adding one pt to her Willpower attribute, or taking two levels of the increased pain tolerance quality (she of course could never take the adept power then).

I still am reluctant to switch points around for Combat sense since it inly adds 1 die per level. (In SR3 it let you apply a percentage of your Combat Pool in surprise tests based on level of the power. Then she had a potential for 17 dice in surprise situations.)

KK's real bane so far has not been so much taking damage from mundane attacks as it has been damage from spells.

Next Up: The Spirit Hunter Dr Zanzibar.