Hello,

In light of what I recently found out about hacking, it appears that one could make a character that is a hacker, but also something else such as a face or covert ops style to fufill a role on a team.

Our group currently does not have the "face" or a really solid covert ops person. I am too new to the game to really understand how to combine these archtypes, so I am asking for your help.

Can you help me make a character like that? Standard 400 point build, I do not think there are any house rules so contacts and the like do cost build points.

Thank you for any help you can provide.

I have a Face/Hacker/Detective and a Black Ops/Hacker already pregened if you want to take a look at them.

It's actually quite simple. I'm sure you can do that, if you give it a little thought.

Just start somewhere...

So, what do you need for the Hacker/Face?

(A: Attributes, S: Skills, R: Resources, C: Contacts, +: good (~3-4), ++: very good (~5-6))

Hacker:
A: Logic +
A: Willpower +
S: Hacking ++ (and Electronic Warfare +, maybe Cybercombat +) or Cracking Group +
S: Electronics Group +
R: Datajack
R: Commlink ++ (Response 5)
R: Programs + to ++ (System 6, Firewall 6, all Common Use 6, most Hacking 3-6)

Face:
A: Charisma ++
S: Influence Group +

What else is good to have in general as a Shadowrunner?

A: Body +
A: Agility +
A: Reaction +
A: Intuition +
A: Edge + to ++

S: Weapon Skill (i.e. Pistols)
S: Perception
S: Infiltration
S: Pilot Ground Craft

R: Initiative Booster (i.e. Wired Reflexes)
R: Cybereyes
R: Cyberears
R: Fake SIN
R: Weapon + Ammo
R: Bike or Car

C: Fixer

Now that you have a general idea of what you might need, you can start spending BPs. First you cover your bases, the important stuff. Then you move on to the more generally useful things. Then you figure out what to do with the rest (if any) or where to cut (if too much BP spent already) to get a nice round picture. Also go through the equipment list and try to figure out what to buy.

Last but not least, the finishing touches.

Think about some fitting Knowledge Skills (check out the examples in the book and the sample characters to get an idea of what is available or applicable). Get some additional Contacts maybe. Write down a short background synopsis to get a better idea of what your character has done so far in his or her life (there's also a section in the book to help here). Write down a short description of your character, typical clothes, personality traits, quirks.

Bye
Thanee

Hacker doesn't need logic, but if you want to break and enter, you'll need it (because thats logic+hardware, when not hacking in).

Edge, on the other hand, is very important (the sam who misses just shoots again, but getting spotted on your way in is bad).

Bioware like synthacardium (which gives bonus dice to athletics) is also pretty useful .

For something a bit different make a Magic Rating 6 Adept with no cyberware who hacks using Trodes or Nanopaste Trodes. Spend 3 magic points... one for Kinesics-2 (adds to ALL social rolls) and Increased ability (Hacking) of 4 and Increased Ability (Electronic Warfare) of 4. The other 3 magic points can go into sorcery/spellcasting although spells will make it tough to buy the hacking skills, or good ole physad powers for combat ability.

Drop the kinesics and you can get some decent colorful stuff like Commanding Voice or Astral Perception and still have Increased Reflexes-1 or 2.

Increased ability can only increase a skill up to 1.5 times the original rating, so you can't get it at 4.

Here's a decker/face build from me:

Don't you guys mean Improved ability? Which can go up to the rating of a skill.

So yes and adept build is an extremly solid one in SR4 as a "splash" on a different build and as a way to give your char lots of room to grow.

So you could get Hacking group up to 4, take cracking to 6 from there then add 6 points of improved ability. That should give you the mojo to actually hack on the fly without getting caught. While you may get some dirty looks for how powergamish that build is they'll thank you when your hacking attempts get done in seconds instead of minutes.

Improved Ability used to be able to go up to the rating of a skill. Now it is half the skill rating.

My character started out as a hacker/gun dude and has become a hacker/gun beast with work being done to make him a stat face. He ends up doing most of the talking anyways, so I might as well put some dice behind it, right? Didn't even need Improved Ability, either. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), once you've got your apps at 4-6 and your skills around 5, you're still among the best out there. After you hit that point, which only takes a few runs if you play your cards right and built well, you've got a fair amount of karma and cash laying around (Especially with Unwired's release date being around 2Q 2070). The solution? Buy an Alpha and hit a sniper with a narrow burst at 200m while under fire. Maybe I'll focus on making spells next...


Oh, and Glyph: Firewall isn't limited by System or Response. Twas mentioned in the FAQ.

Missed that one. In my opinion, something like that belongs in the erratta, not the FAQ. Fortunately, it doesn't really change the stats for the character I posted, just how they're run.