Ok, due to recent threads hounding those of us who don't do our best to NOT play characters with good numbers, I wanted to hear from any/everyone their all time favorite min-maxxed character. Not the one with the best background, not the one with the best moment, but the one that people just go... wow, that was a really cool idea for a min-max.

Personally, my favorite is the character known as Vision in our game. Elven Mouse Shamanic Adept with 6 levels of Magic Ability Geasa'd to Exclusive. The other 1.5 points were spent on sensory enhancements.

Personally, my favorite cheese thing to do? Make an ork, a dwarf, or a ghoul - or even a human, really. Give him Muscle augmentation 4 (3 if human, because the racial max is 9). Then give him aluminum bone lacing.

And a high hand-to-hand skill.

(14M with a punch? Yowza.)

My favorite munch tactic is taking an adept of the magical way, geasing all of his powers, and giving him the old Ryan Mercury-style background; he just thinks he's a regular adept, and doesn't know that he can cast spells and conjure yet. Geas everything with a talisman or similar kind of geas to effectively get 8 power points to play with, then take:

Magical Ability: 3 (to get 18 spell points)
Improved Ability/Edged Weapons: 6
Counterstrike: 4

Edges: Ambidexterity (6-point) and Bonus Attribute/Strength (your best bet is a dwarf, giving you a starting Strength of 9).

Skills: Pentjak Silat of at least 4, to buy Close Combat and Close Combat/Edged Weapons, and Edged Weapons: 6

Take Resources: A or spend at least 25 points on Resources (obviously, this concept only works with the point build or Sum-To-Ten systems). Buy a Force: 6 Reach: 0 Weapon Focus, a Katar, and dikote it. This gives you a damage code of (Str +4)M - 13M if it's the aforementioned dwarf (with the dice you'll be slinging, the increase to Power is worth more than an increase in Damage Code, so the Katar gets the nod over the Cougar Fineblade and the Kris). Use your 18 spell points to bond it.

You now roll 27 dice when attacking in combat, and 33 dice when counterattacking, and you ignore Reach.

It's an ugly, very limited character, but interesting as a pure number-crunching exercise.


There's one munch that I've never understood, and that's the albino gnome sorcerer with Bonus Attribute/Willpower. It's the albino part I don't get. With just the Bonus Attribute, you can have 9 Willpower, which is good for most circumstances. So why, to raise it just one point, to 10, do you take a condition that gives you +1 TN in so many circumstances (even a night owl has to do things during daylight sometimes), and on top of this 3-point Flaw, requires you to take yet another Flaw? It is really, really not worth it.

So the only good min-max people can do is combat?

I expected to hear more 'cool' type characters here... any non-combat exceptional min-max characters that just impressed the hell out of you?

Sphynx

I made a character and never got to play him because I never get to actually play. I threw him into the game as an NPC though, but it was a long time ago so I only vaguely remember the details.

He was a skilled rigger and car thief. It didn't take much to make him an excellent car thief, and that ability was of tremendous help as a rigger. He could, for example, go to the airport/bus station/whatever to steal a vehicle, add a rigger box, and return the vehicle before its owner returned. In that way he had a constant collection of dormant drones at his disposal spread all over Seattle, for helping with getaways and transportation and such during a run. This also made for a nice side-business of giving people emergency rides around town (oops, da Boss got drunk and killed his girlfriend, we're his goons and need something with a big trunk on 5th street ASAP). He was also well equipped to strip and sell stolen vehicles to subsidize the cost of the rigger boxes and keep himself comfortable.

Off the top of my head, he had:

Cybereyes with image link (and always the best maps), laser microphone (for recording voice activated entries from a distance), and a tool laser. A synth cyberhand or forearm (can't remember) held all of the necessary hotwiring tools and a shock hand for surprise use in a handshake or while passing ID to a cop or something. It might've held his RCD too, I don't really remember. A high charisma and negotiations skill for talking/bribing his way past cops who might pull him over and for fence negotiations, with tailored pheremones and the Connected edge for extra oomph. A VCR 2 and vehicle empathy for rigging goodness, and a vehicle shop. High electronics, B/R, and vehicle skills were all standard for a rigger anyway, and so his skill point expenditure was not really affected by his side activities. I also threw in a moderate demo skill in case he had a need to plant carbombs, since he already had vehicle entry down pat.

Making him a highly effective car thief was wonderfully complementary to his effectiveness as a rigger, and cost very little in terms of chargen resources. The personality and history of the character was fun too, albeit as an NPC.

-I often reread posts I wrote while high and find mistakes, so please disregard them tonight in the name of better living through chemicals.

Heh. Actually, I have a fun one that I created as a pure non-combat character. Note, this is NOT a starting character; she was built with about 350 build points.

Background: Jessica LeVeau was born without legs to a pair of low-salary wage-slaves. All her life, her only dream was to run. When her parents both died in an industrial accident, the lawsuit settlement provided her with enough money to purchase all the biotechnology and cybernetics she could ever want. So she did.

A Synthcardium, suprathyroid, muscle toner/4, and a pair of Kid Stealth legs later, she finally discovered what she'd been missing all her life - and wanted more. She's since purchased gene therapy treatments, hydraulic jacks, and an assortment of other boosters.

Race: Night One (w/Exceptional Quickness and Bonus Quickness)
B:2(3)
Q:15(19)
S:2
W:6
I:3
C:5
R:9+1D6
Essence: 5.60
Cyberware:
Cybertorso
2 Kid Stealth legs w/19 Quickness (Beta, +19 Reduced Essence Surgery Options)
2 Hydraulic Jack/5
Bio Index: 4.95
Bioware:
Synthcardium/2 (Cultured)
Suprathyroid Gland (Cultured)
Muscle Toner/4 (Cultured)
Adrenal Pump/2 (Cultured)
Reflex Recorder: Athletics/Running (Cultured)
Phenotypic Alteration: +1 Quickness

Skill: Athletics (5) / Running (7)

Running speed: Qx5 = 95 meters/phase, plus 5x any Athletics successes.

That's a base of 114 kph, or just over 70 miles an hour. At max (13 successes on her Athletics/Running roll), she can do 192 kph (120 mph). How's THAT for min-max?

Created a MinMax character called 'the Grin'

Human-looking Ork with the following:

Exceptional Strength, Bonus Strength, Aptitude(Athletics), Adrenaline Surge

Adrenal Pump 2, Muscle Augmentation 2, Muscle Toner 2, Suprathyroid Gland, Synthacardium 2, Pain Editor

Fangs, Cermaic Bonelacing, Titanium teeth with strengthened jaw attachments

He had Strength 13 (17 with adrenal pump) and did 20Mstun with his punches when the adrenal pump was active.
Athletics 6(8 ) with Lifting 8(10)

We house-ruled the combination Adrenal Pump/Adrenal Surge to mrean that whenever he activated his adrenaline surge, the pump kicked in - of course, it didn't shut down until the surge lifted either...nasty effects after long fights.

He liked biting things - both people and other items, and did 14L with his bite - 18L when the pump was active.

My favorite was an ork mercenary... But the min/max is actually non-combat. And it's more of a Min than a Max.

Obvious Cyberskull
Bad Rep (Sociopathic Freak) 4
Ugly & Doesn't Care
Uncouth

That's a grand total of +11 to all nonaggressive CHA-linked TNs, +12 if the other person is female.

The "Sociopathic Freak" bit is due to the fact that he uses an assault rifle loaded with Glazer rounds, and finds using it on people entertaining, whether or not he had any real reason to.

Le Poulpe: A maxed out Techwiz...

Exceptionnal attribute Int + cerebral Booster 2 Enhancd articulations + Encephalon + Microscopic Vision + Aptitude "Electronics".

So the guy trow 10 dices with TN# -3 in electronic tests, and -2 for electronics B/R

"- Hurry Up, open that door!!!
- Click "

In Leoric's example - The 10 dice come from skill of 6, 1 more die from enhanced articulation, 1 point of Task Pool from Cerebral Booster: 2, and 2 points of Task Pool from Encephalon: 2. The TN bonuses are -1TN from the Aptitude and -2TN from the microscopic vision. You could probably get even more dice if you took the appropriate background skills for complementary dice.

I did something similar for a healing specialist - the microscopic vision, aptitude, no bioware but specialized in First Aid, has the Medicine background skill at 6, and has a Savior Advanced Medkit (which gives another -1TN). So the character would roll 7 dice, plus 12 complementary skill dice (6 for the medicine skill and 6 from the medkit), all at -4TN. Your best friend when you get injured!

I prefer both combos to the CED, because I would rather have the -1TN from the Aptitude than a few extra dice. The CED is still good for being versatile in many skills - 12 dice for a variety of social and technical skills is extremely useful. It presents some logical problems to me, though - like how they can get someone's skill of 6 chipped into a skillsoft, then you slot it through a CED: 6, and suddenly you're rolling twice as many dice as the person they got the skill from in the first place.

The problem with CEDs is easily fixed, but I'm not going to go into it all over again.

my personal favorite is making a char with a high SUT skill. free initiative! for best results, grab an aptitude while you're at it.

oooo...now there'd be an interesting min-max idea... Small Unit Tactics w/Aptitude, add adept powers to boost starting initiative and combat pool and once you are an initiate grade 2, you get Centering for Small Unit Tactics. Then depending on the situation you can choose between getting shitloads of bonuses to reaction, or combat pool (if you run with that alternate rule, of course)

Concept works with cyber too, but then you should get a Tactical computer for best effect (and they are such essence pits...)

Good point about the muscle toner being natural quickness... I would agree that you should be able to stack that with some other cyber items, but if the character completely lacked legs in the first place (or had them cybernetically replaced) the natural augmentation would (or should, I may be wrong) be irrelivent. Still though, I have to say it's an incredibly cool character either way, and I emphasize the character part, because it's a great concept.

Well, the reason it works is that the cyberlegs' Quickness needs something to base off of. Yes, she didn't have legs to begin with - but the rest of her body is used to a certain speed, and the legs can only go a certain amount over that speed (+4, to be exact, according to M&M). Since Muscle Toner increases that base speed, it increases the baseline that the legs can work with, hence boosting her natural Quickness to 15 lets her purchase cyberlegs with Quickness 19 (although she still has to pay for all 15 points of Quickness Increase).

I was going to rant against this, but the pro side suddenly made sense.

Urgh. I'm going to be thinking about this all night.

Almost makes me glad I don't have a life.

-Siege

Ok, I'm in agreement now. If the cyber legs aren't added on top of bio it would work (that's if all of the leg speed is actually coming from the legs), and it makes sense that the muscle toner would allow her to run faster since abs and other muscles are an important part of running.

The problem comes from the wording: base

If we accept that muscle augment upgrades the "base", then we have to accept that the standard "normal" for the legs is also different.

On a related note, does anyone else remember a regulation limiting enhancements to 1/2 the racial max?

Humans could only get a max of +3 in this case. (6/2 = +3 max)

Idle curiousity.

-Siege

I was under the impression that Cyber was unable to take you beyond your racial maximum. I believe the same goes for Bio as well.... At least in so far as Physical stats went.


Really not 100% sure.

Bioware runs up against the Racial Maximum and can't go above it since it's treated as natural but cyberware certainly can.

And don't forget, the Bioware cap is a suggestion in the FAQ, not a canon ruling.

Sphynx

So, if I understand this:

Max rating: 9 with either lots of karma or bioware
Max rating 10 with cyberware

Assuming human base of 6.

-Siege

Also don't forget, Siege, that only your Natural attribute counts towards alot of things, so although Cyber will surpass Bio, it won't perform one of the most important reasons to take Bio, cheaper skill costs due to higher natural attributes.

Sphynx

[edit] Stupid two page threads [/edit]

Although bioware cannot push an attribute above racial maximum, and cyberware can't (unless it's in a cyberlimb) increase an attribute by more than 4, there are combinations of the two that can raise attributes higher.

Suprathyroid Gland + Muscle Replacement 4, for instance, can raise Quickness and Strength to 11 for a human starting with 6 in both Attributes.

Personally, I allow Cultured bioware to increase the Attribute Maximums (but NOT the RML), but that's more of a house rule than anything.

I always thought that bio could take your stats pasted race max but not attribute max. To get past attribute max you need the cyber.

Or is this another thing i've unintentionally house ruled??

I think my favourite min-max is plaing a full mage.

That's all you need.

You want more?

Shaman with charisma 6 (12 including +6 from force 6 increace charisma spell) using a summoned force 6 spirit with the movement power and a force 6 levitation spell cast on himself.

That's a speed of 129.6km/hour (6*6*6 m/round = 36M/second).

The above becomes easier if you can get a higher force increace charisma spell (thus your charisma can be 4-5 making the TN for the spell easier) and becomes faster as your magic rating increaces.

My house rule on Bioware and Adept Power attribute increases is that they act as a natural increase in absolutely every way. Meaning, they're effectively a new racial mod. A human with Cat's Eyes, Tailored Pheromones 2, and Muscle Toner 1 is functionally identical to an unmodified elf.

While this does let you exceed your racial limits/maximums, it also increases the karma cost for future modifications.

Cyber, on the other hand, just adds a number to the attribute.

...though I just realized I never really applied this to the Adept increased attribute power.

My understanding of Bioware is that it cannot take you beyond your racial max for any stat. Where Cyberware can.

Well the way i do it is the way in the book, its natural.

read pg 77 M&M Natural or Augmented