Starting a new game with some friends playing on Fantasy Grounds. They have played SR1 and SR2 but I mostly played D&D2nd, etc. We are going with SR4 and are building characters, and I need some advice. There are just so many choices...lol.

The main thing, is it even efficient to have a skill of 1 in a couple of skills, or is it pretty much just a bit better than defaulting? Or should I use those points towards my primary skills?

No firm background yet, but leaning towards him being a former covert agent for UCAS, betrayed, and left for dead on a mission.

No holds barred, and this is my first ever character created in the SR universe. The BP totals are covered by those pesky links that excel created when I made the page, but they are 400. We are using SR4 RAW.

Thanks in advance:

EDIT: NEW VERSION IN ANOTHER POST BELOW
Singe Char Sheet

Hopefully that works...
Singe

Putting just 1 in a skill you actually plan to use is, in some ways, the *most* efficient points.

You go from defaulting (attr-1) to skilled (attr+1). So you basically get 2 dice for 4 bp. Only thing better is specialization!

On a quick glance, I don't see anything wrong with the character.

I don't see anything particularly exciting about him either, though.

I'd definitely look at some of the adept powers like Glide - stuff that isn't replicated.

Currently, being an adept (5 points) with 6 magic (65 points) is really getting you very little that being a mundane wouldn't get you easier.

I remade the character as a mundane, with gear and ware. Right now, he has 45 bp left, and 3.45 essence by taking Wired Reflexes 2 (Alpha) (replaces Combat sense and Impr. Ref), Muscle toner 1 (Agi +1), and Reflex Recorder (Infiltration).

Those 45 points can buy a lot of stuff (30 of them can go to gear if needed) that makes you better than the adept would be.

Well, since you have 3 skills from the stealth group, you might want to use the skill group for them, to level 2. With the extra 4 BP, raise etiquette to 2.

I would drop the magical agility boost and pick up Glide instead, to allow you to leave to move over liquids without leaving a trace.

As for the question of skills at level one, depends on which optional rules you are using. There is one that limits your successes to twice your skill rank, and as always, defaulting to an attribute only allows one success to count.
My game currently uses that rule.


Your SINner negative quality should only give you a 10 bonus if you have a criminal record. So, in your history, you might want to add that they not only left you for dead, but framed you for a slew of crimes (kinda hard to defend your reputation when you are dead).

Most locks are maglocks, not today's mechanical locks. I would add the hardware skill.

Strength 4 is the same as strength 3 for combat damage. If you want that extra die for athletics, add it to the skill.

You used 25 BP to bump your magic from 5 to 6, and all you got was some extra senses you can get for less than 1000 in gear and a boost to your skill of 1 in perception. Drop your magic to 5, buy the glasses/contacts, and boost your skill to save about 20 BP.

As per the errata you can have rating 4 SINs and licences at chargen.

I didn't see a vehicle or lifestyle selected.

Having your criminal SIN "assumed deceased" seems like a copout and a cheesy way to get extra BP. Run it by your GM, but I wouldn't allow it.

If you spent 10 BP on edge, it should be 3, not 2, for a human.

The "assumed deceased" is part of the background that if they found out I was alive, they would of course want me dead...the reasoning I guess would be based on the knowledge I have, or them framing me, which would work too.

The total Edge for this character is 3...I only spent 10 bp to bring the base to 2, but the Level and Modified columns reflect the actual values..

Thanks so far, I'll look into Glide and getting back that point from the Sense enhancements to use on something else, or dropping the magic to 5. Not sure which would be better, although I can think of a few other adept abilities that would be useful.

The reason he is so bland, is that our GM wants us to be relatively average and not min/maxed. What would make him more special, would I go for different adept abilities, or better weapon/hand skills?

Well, if you drop your senses,

powers that you could get instead is facial sculpt 4. That will allow you to change you face around, to look like what ever you want.
If you drop a couple of other powers, you could also get melanin control (change you skin color) and voice control (change you voice).
If you do take the stealth group, you get disguise, which stacks with facial sculpt.

If you don't take new powers, you could take 2 ranks in skill group influence, and get back the point(s) you spent in etiquette.

If you're going adept, I'd pick up Wall Running, Glide and Traceless Walk.

That's far from min-maxed, but you now have a character that can move places a normal human cannot, and is hard to track doing it.

Now, you have a flavor, and a schtick. 3-D mastery is also pretty nice. Also multi-tasking.

Were I building the character:

I'd drop magic down to 5.

I'd then purchase Muscle Toner 1 (+1 agi) and Synaptic Boosters 1 (+1 Rea, +1 IP) - those cost 88k and .7 essence. Pick up a rating 2 cyber eye with Flare Comp, Vision Mag, Thermo, and vision enhancement 3, and your essence is still 5.15.

Reaction enhancers 1 convenietly takes you total essence to precisely 5, if you want to do that, but you'd need to shave off 1 bp, or pick up a few more neg. quals.

You've picked up 3.75 (or 4.25 with RE) points of adept powers for 1 "point" plus the bp to buy it. At that point, you have 4 pp to spend on adept powers.

Personally, I'd get the enhancers, pick up a 5 bp neg qual, and spend the 4 remaining to add +1 to perception or infiltration.

Now you have only Traceless Walk, Cloak 1 and infiltration/perception 1. You have 2.5 left. Melanin Control (.5), Facial Sculpt 2 (.5), Wall Running (1) and Gliding (1) fill that out for me.

Course, I'd add another 10 bp of neg quals and use that to buy stats or specializations too.

Attribute boost is a better buy than increased attribute. For the 1 point you spent raising your agilty could raise all four of your physical stats by 2.

for .25 PP a rating, you roll rating +magic. So at rating 1, you will roll 7 dice. Each hit gives you 1 point of boost and 2 rounds of duration. You can spend edge on this roll. When it is over, you must resist stun damage equal to the rating, in our example it is 1, with body+willpower. I am sure you can get 1 hit on that test. There is no action to use the boost (not even free), no limit on how often you can do it, and no cool down period.

That's RAW, of course.

I've got an xml Shadowrun character sheet for Fantasy grounds if you want it... it's mostly just a copy of the BBB char sheet.

Boost Attribute = DBZ powerup... you just dont get the cool aura effect unless you are being looked at from astral, then you have it.
/sarcasm

Knowledge skills: Corporate and Megacorporate Sec. are pretty redundant. Take the former as general term.

Do you really need the blades? One close-quarters skill should be sufficient. The extra damage is hardly worth it. Replace blades by dodge, it will come in handy.

Improved physical attribute should not be bought. Magic points are more important than attribute points. And indeed do not buy the last point at chargen. Costs to much. I´d say the same about cloak, as it is very specific and doesn´t increase your chances of evading detection enough. Consider that you´ll be facing at least three successes from the enemy mage, and you´ll see that you will need spell defence dice anyway.

I also found Attribute Boost a bit better than Increased Attribute. I actually have been considering houseruling the boost lower cost in my games, i know its been done before.

But with the RAW, Attribute Boost is great. I played an Adept with it...had Attribute Boost lv. 1 on both Agility and Strength. In the RAW, you roll Boost Level + Magic and add the hits...its boosted by that number. With 7 dice, you usually nail a couple of hits each time. There is Drain, but it's not so bad at low levels. Higher level, more dice to roll, better chance at getting hits, of course. And lasting for Hits x2 Combat Turns, its long enough to count.

I like the character. Having a Blades and Unarmed skill isnt so bad. Backups are always nice, as is the ability to use Reach. Besides, without Killing Hands, sometimes, while killing shouldnt be the first option, having something that means buisness(that deals P damage) is good to have sometimes...

I really like the detail you gave on the Contact sheet...it adds a lot of flavor.

Only things i can think of, if there is any chance to scratch a few points for a Dodge skill, it would be handy. Getting that Stealth Group and saving 4 BP will give you a 1 dodge at least. For further twinking, maybe specialize in a type of blade to save 2 and specialize in a kind of Dodging. Or drop blades to 3 and get the dodge of 2.

And i agree...even having a 1 or 2 in a skill is good. I wouldn't put it for a characters primary skills...but for other things they are able to do, its great to flesh them out.

You don't really need Dodge when you have Gymnastics and a Melee Skill.

Ok, next revision. I made the Cyber/Adept changes, as well as hardware and got some lock cracking gear.

The only other change I think I would make is to get Stealth Group 2/4 and then I would have 4 more points to put into something else...is it worth it to do that and suffer the loss of a point in Infiltration?

Thanks for the input so far.

Singe Rev 3

Just noticed a bug with that awesome excel character generator. Your essence is supposed to be a hard cap to your magic attribute, not a reduction of your magic attribute. You bought 5 points in magic, but it only gave you 4. You should have another power point worth of adept abilities to spend.

That's not a bug. Losing essence decreases both the hard cap and the actual rating.

Attribute boost is so awesome that I've houserules it in my own games (big surprise, huh?) I say that the max boost you can get from it is your rating in the boost attribute power. Extra hits count for duration but not for increase in the attribute. That way there's actually a damn reason to get it above level 1.

I'm glad you took my suggestion and took away the sight powers to drop your magic rating, but you forgot to get the gear to replace it. You should be able to fit all of your vision mods except ultrasound into a combo of glasses and contacts (which you can wear at once). I'd keep the ultrasound glasses so you can switch them out when needed though.

You also still haven't changed your SIN upto rating 4. Like I said before, the errata changed the availability.

You might want to get rid of your blandness quality with your nifty morphing powers. It just seems unnecessary and redundant.

Your program doesn't recognize it, but your essence is actually 5.15 because the cost of your cyberware is halved with as much bioware as you have.

ok, thanks, i never realized that... Good thing I know now

Shadowdragon, I put the eye enhancements in Cyber. I guess I could pull those out to another pair of glasses, get a little essence back, and get another adept ability...but I don't think it is enough. The Cybereye is only costing .15 effectively...which is where you thought I had 5.15 left most likely.

The eye is 0.3 under Cyberparts, the Reaction Enhancer is 0.3, and the total for the Bioware is 0.7...halving the Cyber, I get 1 Essence lost.

I also forgot to change out Megacorporate security with something else. How are those played in the game? I understand the geology example in the SR4 Core, but what about a knowledge of Heavy Weapons, for example? Would that just mean that my character could ID heavy weapons on a shelf, but not use them? That's what I assume anyways, but I don't really see the point.

I like the idea about dropping Bland, didn't think about that.

Charon, effectively dropping the last magic point, I got back 25 BPs, compare this character with my first revision in the first post, and you will definately see the power difference with more abilities...which was a fair tradeoff to me.

Finally, what about the Stealth Skill Group...should I go 2/4 in there? I would get 4BP to use on a skill, but I would lose the 3/6 in Infiltration...of course, I would like Disguise. Also, our GM has agreed to let us use the House Rule on the sheet for Contacts...so basically after I factor that in, I'll have 4 more BPs for a skill...any suggestions for those last two? Should I bump Pistols to 4/6 and Blades to 5/6, or max Blades or Unarmed to 6/6?

Thanks again, this is helping alot. Now i'm helping another groupmate out with his character, and of course, trying to get some work done.

Singe

Well, if your going to be dropping blandness,
take stealth at 3,
leaving you with 4 BP, plus the 4 BP from your contact house rule.

Drop Etiquette, take the Influence group at 1, leaving you with 2 BP for either a knowledge, language or more gear.

Opps didn't notice cyber was split up in two pages.