Been toying around with this idea lately. Using Cyber Implanted weapons/armor/etc, what is the most effective a Street Sam can get without any gear or weapons aside from what is implanted.

Getting soak pool and health boxes to respectable levels seems easy enough, and the cyber weapons are alright (though you take a pretty big hit due to how much cyber guns cost in capacity). I've been fiddling with a few different builds to optimize this concept with little success, so I figured I'd come ask Dumpshock if they had any thoughts on the matter.

Well, if you're going to be naked, you might as well be really naked. Go for the full-body chameleon coating and all the stealth options, and be an infiltrator par excellence. Less a street samurai than cybernetic ninja, your advantage is that you don't give your enemies the opportunity to fight you. You get in, get the job done, and get out with a minimum of fighting, and what fighting you have to do, you do with your bare hands, bone-laced skeleton, and martial arts techniques. The Way of the Snapped Neck is your friend here.

Also, being a great infiltrator means that getting your first gun and body armor and all that is just one guard waylaid, discretely murdered, and dragged into the bathroom cubicle.

We're off to a decent start ShadowDragon. What you've sugguested doesn't sound like a heck of a lot of ware either, so the CyberAdept option is fairly open.

Way of the Snapped Neck indeed.

Effective at what? Therein lies the question. As everything has to be implanted, you may have to make some choices.

Considering he's naked, I'd make sure he's got cold weather adaptation for the winter. And a knowsoft on public indecency laws might be handy too. Some pheromones would not be out of place either.

Cold-weather adaptation might not be a bad idea, but I think that public indecency laws are the least of the laws he's about to break. Unless he's a she and is doing this naked Shadowrun in Dubai or somewhere, then that might just rank above breaking & entering and murder.

Naked as it's used here generally means no weapons and minimal equipment, not literally nude.

Yes, but if you're going to be that naked already, you might as well go ahead and strip down all the way and get to benefit from a chameleon coating of skin, since you're not gonna be able to bring your ruthenium-coated armor.

Besides, you can start the Legend of Sodomy Joe, stealth master of surprise!







-k

Yes, unarmored clothing is fine. I think it should be minimal however. If you're going to spend all that money on chrome you might as well show it off right?

As many cyberlimbs as possible, a loin cloth to cover the indecency laws, and a luchadore mask. Perhaps a wrestling onesie for the ladies.

The mask is the most essential part of your ensemble as it covers your ultimate shame... your unaugmented skull (stupid things are worthless).

Using this set up you should be able to manage 18+ to soak and respectable dice pools for spurs, guns, or whatever else you've implanted. Maybe enough cash and essence left over for 2 whole initiative passes. If that doesn't sound like enough to get the job done then I pity your poor GM for having to twink out NPCs and Prime Runners rather than letting the poor bloke use the ones listed in the core books.

So an invisible approach isn't the only right answer.

By UmaroVI

So, we have a Greco-Roman Solid Snake and a cybered up Luchadore... Anything else funny in the works?

You know I never said it had to be combat capable, just capable.

I guess a cybered out Pornomancer could potentially be more effective naked.



oh, I see that might have already been covered.

This is an excellent idea, if I do say so myself.

An alternate way to go (and some explanation):

Cyberguns are Not Very Good. The reason is that they eat up capacity like whoa and also take Exotic Weapon to use. Because of this, I would be inclined to use melee instead. Optimized Cyberlimbs give you a stacking bonus to melee - with two Nightengale Feet of Fury legs and two Ultimate Champion arms, you can testicle-kick people with +4 dice. I'd probably go with a heavily cybered troll - 2 arms, 2 legs, torso, Synaptic 1, pick up Martial Arts for another +3 Unarmed DV, Kick Attack, and blammo. No armor hurts, but you can get a bunch of cyber-armor so this character is hurt a lot less.

Fanatical Tir Ghosts exfiltrate the country on the mere rumor that this man is in town. Battle-hardened Red Samurai throw down their monokatanas and run screaming at his approach. Grown men shriek like little girls and leap from overpasses to escape, while children go completely insane, dress in black robes, and mob the nearest adult to sacrifice them to the Unholy One.

The girls do flock to him, though...

If you build it right you can still end up with 10 armor during character creation and plenty of slots left over afterwards. I'd personally save myself the slots from the optimized limbs to use on other neat things later down the road (More Armor for instance).

Best starting "naked" character I made while fiddling with this last night was a Human with 8bod, 8agi, 8str, 10P spur attacks with 16 dice to hit, 10 Armor (18 soak), 2 IP (Synaptic Booster). Enough cash and essence left over for another piece of Bioware, two if you crammed in some cheap stuff: Trauma Dampner, Platelette Factories, Tailored Pheremones, Toxin Extractor etc. Lots of good options. This "base" template leaves you with a fair bit of capacity left over for more Armor after a couple runs as well.

This build also had a LOT of flexibility when it came to skill and attribute points. I had over 45k when I was done and you have a lot of attribute and skill points left over after building this base shell. Could have a very respectable secondary specialization. I ended up with Tailored Pheremones and some respectable social skills (I said respectable, not Pornomancer-Game-Breaking).

I also fiddled around with a sub-build using the Cyber Machine Pistol. Takes Restricted Gear 3 at character creation (torso, Gun, and depending on how the stats fall the arm it is contained in could also end up above 12), and yes it requires its own Exotic Weapon Proficiency, but in this case I didn't mind as it was the only ranged option. Something to suppress with or fire while you're closing the gap is worth the points given the circumstances imo.

ofc, I did all of this with Karma build system since that is what we use. I might give this a shot with BP and see if something similar is possible.

Edit: Yes I did this with a Human and not a Troll. I enjoy Trolls but actually prefer almost anything but for "tanking" jobs like this one eventually implies. As far as I'm concerned you don't want to put yourself in the line of fire with a character that is too heavy for the rest of the team to drag out of there. Just my opinion, had a nasty experience.

While true, rules kludges exist to make them decent. Cyberweapons are explicitly prevented from taking Accessories, but arsenal goes to lengths to show that Accessories are Not Mods.
The Underbarrel Weapon Mod can be used to mimic a 'real' gun build into the shitty cybergun stats.

I'm not sure about the exotic weapon bit - are you sure that's not just for exotic weapons in unusual locations, from the exotic melee description? The melee table shows that you can use Blades OR exotic melee weapons, for example.

Hell I don't think anyone knows for sure. Not just about this, but about anything else in 4th ed. Any rule that isn't poorly written goes out of its way to directly contradict another decently written rule.

Having said that Exotic Ranged Weapon is the only skill which lists Cyber-Implant Guns as an example, whereas Automatics clearly only applies to "personal firearms larger than a pistol, capable of autofire, but with a shorter barrel than a long arm." Apparently "larger than a pistol, capable of autofire, and shorter than your forearm" doesn't cut it.

So apparently a classification of weapon so uncomplicated that all you have to do is point the weapon and spray bullets is in a completely different league from a classification of weapon where all you have to do is point and spray bullets. Pointing your finger and mentally wanting that area to explode with bullets and loud noises is such an insanely complicated action that it requires years of practice and the same level of technical expertise afforded to laser weapons.

Phoenix fucking Wright is a martial master who's intense pointing training put him in the same league as those pointy helmet dudes that fire the Death Star.

Actually, he's much more intensely-trained. The Death Star's superlaser is, technically speaking, a vehicular weapon, and so it only requires Heavy Weapon Proficiency feat to fire without nonproficiency penalty. In theory, every grunt who humps a rocket launcher could sit down behind the controls and bullseye a planet. (Not that planets are particularly difficult targets to hit, so perhaps I should say 'could sit down behind the controls and bullseye a frigate.')


[e]This works in reverse, too, so breaking into the superlaser control room to get your murderboner on is an exceedingly bad idea, because every last one of those dudes is likely packing a grenade launcher.

The Heavy Weapons skill is the poster child category for why Cyber Implant Guns ought to fall under their respective categories.

Machine Pistol? Different if you shove it in your arm. Completely different.

Can you fire a missile (pointing directly at a target, perhaps fiddling with a guidance system)? Then clearly you can fire grenades (angled upward to account for gravity and lack of an on board propulsion system or any guidance).

And of course both of those weapons, which fire one explosive projectile at a time, are so amazingly similar to heavy automatic weaponry that they should share a category.

What? An Assault cannon the size of a Volkswagon? Pff, sure you can handle it. If you've fired one pistol sized grenade launcher you've fired them all right? Practically the same thing.

Then after all of this, this magical catch-all weapons group which apparently handles everything from Gauss Cannons to vehicle mounted can openers, they exile Flame Throwers to the Exotic Ranged Weapon proficiency. Lighting things on fire is definitely a special skill which deserves its own category and not just the national past-time of every adolescent boy who hasn't yet discovered masturbation. Backpacks full of lighter fluid are serious business and require real precision to hit a mansized target at 4 meters with a 10 meter wide gout of boiling-hot-overcompensation.

Oh, and Machine Pistols? Totally different if you shove it in your arm, Bro. Totally.

Sadly, yes.

Wanna make the implant guns a bit better?
Who says it has to be a run of the mill gun?
Why not get a burst-fire capable shotgun ?
You may want to use one using clips, not internal magazine.
And an external port for attaching a new/larger clip.
Same goes for the heavy pistol too. And then load up with stick and shock ammo.
Reach. Punch. Stopping Power. Less-Lethal too.

Or implanted laser or sound or micro wave beam rifle . .
Or for those really suicidal crazy bastards: implanted flame-thrower . .

Um.

I may or may not have had a character with a mouth-mounted flamethrower.




-k

mouth mounted is too mainstream.
air-tank with flamer-fuel in the chest, hose with pilot light through the arm into the finger(s) of one hand.
i can do magic too!

Flamethrower in your cyberpenis.

This is another reason the Underbarrel Mod method is awesome: they use their normal skill.
For example, to properly utilize an ares alpha, you need both Heavy Weapons and Automatics. (i for one thing there should be a training/maneuver that lets you use the parent guns skill), but that same ruling lets you get around cyber-implant gun skill too.

This does terrifying things if you count the guy who has sixty-two cyberpenii mounted to his arms and legs (and, presumably, a regular penis, mounted in the usual place.)

Personally, I would house rule that cyberguns only require the exotic ranged weapon skill if they are mounted in an unusual location (mouth, cyberleg, etc.). Guns that fire as an extension of the arm should be treated as normal guns of whatever type. I mean come on, the nail gun modular cyberlimb plug-in uses the pistols skill, and the projectile spur uses the throwing weapons skill.

I don't know how I missed this, but triple the exasperation from my last rant.

I now wholeheartedly believe cyberguns requiring Exotic Ranged Weapon skill regardless of placement is just a symptom of the serious case of poorlywrittenrulesitis already plaguing parts of this game.


Going through Augmentation's listing of cyberweapons:

Eyedart, Oral Slasher, Oral Gun, Oral Dart. All of these explicitly mention requiring Exotic Weapon skills.

There are more weapon listings which do not mention needing Exotic Weapon skill: Projectile Spur (specifically mentions throwing skill), Squirtgun, Taser, Dartgun.

Is this a sudden break in uniformity of layout for an entire section, or hinting at a proper ruling that we never got from SR4(A)? I think the latter.

My reasonable analysis on the subject: All weapons which are placed in awkward positions explicitly go out of their way to mention they require the Exotic Weapon skill appropriate to their type. In a section of the SR4 corebook it goes out of its way to explicitly mention requiring Exotic Weapon skill for awkwardly placed melee weapons. The only mention in SR4 of cyberguns at all is under Exotic Ranged Skill. Why? Otherwise under Longarms it would have to say "Cyberimplant Shotguns," under Automatics, "Cyberimplant Automatics," under Pistol "Cyberimplant pistols," and under grenade launchers (I mean the Heavy Weapon superskillgroup) "cyberimplant grenade launchers."

I would sooner assume that Editors (which already did a piss poor job) are paid by the word and printers paid by the page and that rules that made sense were cut because of this rather than Cyberguns requiring Exotic Ranged Weapon regardless of placement because that was the reasonable thing to do.

Making Cyberguns use their appropriate weapon skill rather than requiring ERW strikes me as so reasonable that I wouldn't even consider it a "House Rule" so much as the "House Errata" that Catalyst hasn't bothered to give us.


If anyone doesn't buy in to this, just let me know before you run a game for me (unlikely, but not impossible). Instead of getting a cool cyberimplant weapon I'll just be forced to adapt to eye-twitch-inducing RAW from poorly written rules. I'll fall back on Heavy Weapons 6 and an Ingram White-Knight with underbarrel Grenade Launcher. Your fault, you did it to yourself really.

In fairness, no one would ever get a cyberweapon anyway. They're huge and cruddy. The earlier suggestions about fixing *that* are much more important.

I somehow don't think there is enough cream in the world if it burns when that guy pees.

Get enough Wired Reflexes/Move By Wire to go first. Get the usual gunbunny sammy mods. Get enough stealth to get to melee range before the start of combat, and on your first action rip the gun out of someone else's holster/hands.

There you go.

4 capacity for a 4P Machine Pistol isn't that bad. You can have Human maxed stats, the Machine Pistol, and ammo port in a base obvious arm. Takes just Bulk 2 to get all of that and a spur in one fully functional weapon arm. This is 1 point of essence and some chump change lost for an arm which is capable of 8-11P in close combat and has nifty autofire options while closing the distance. Lose out on Armor, but armor is hardly difficult to come across in SR4.

Split up the spur and the machine pistol and you have two arms, both which have room for a couple points of armor in them.

If you play at a table that hasn't removed or house-ruled Stick n Shock and drug rounds then there is absolutely no reason to say this is a "sub par" weapon system. 4 Capacity is hardly anything, the base damage code of the weapon is entirely moot, and it beats the hell out of an ankle holstered hold out any day of the week as a backup. What else are you going to do with that 4 capacity? Take your Armor from 30-something to 30-something+2? Hardly necessary.

Yeah the Heavy Pistol and Submachine Gun (6 and 10 capacity respectively) are a bit much to stuff in a decent cyberarm loadout, but I'd be willing to stand by the Machine Pistol as one of the best back-up weapons available in the game.

The Cyber Machine Pistol really is an outlier though, so much so that I can't help but think they accidentally made it decent.



All of this of course comes down to your personal GM and "table-culture." The individual little quirks of your respective games. I've been in a game with MAD sensors abound and you wouldn't have caught me dead with most forms of Cyber, let alone Cyber that is capable of maiming someone. I've also been in another game with severe cop and corp crackdown on Felony-Grade weaponry and very little MAD sensors so I'd have taken that cyber Machine Pistol over a Panther XXL or Machine Gun any day of the week. So the usefulness of anything in any game can vary greatly depending on who is running the game.

It's just that there are some many fun things you could put in the limbs instead; opportunity cost. It's so easy to just carry the weapons. Cyber weapons are sub-par compared to all the other options. I'm definitely using that capacity for other things.

It does depend. It depends on whether a MP is good or not at your table, S&S, all of that, yes. On the balance, I just find many other choices to be better. This thread says 'naked', and I do find that one newbie mistake with cyber is the urge to implant anything you can. 'Regular gear' versions of everything are almost always better (if not in pure stats, then in cost/Essence cost/opportunity cost).

(Edit: This whole post sounds a little combative I think. It isn't meant to. I'm just trying to illustrate my point and am genuinely curious about whether or not I am missing something so intensely important to stuff into a limb that it invalidates being perpetually armed with a weapon that is decent enough to be your primary means of long ranged defense in 90% of situations while being only Restricted).

Well Yerameyahu, maybe I'm just missing the big picture here. On a maxed out cyber arm for a human you have 6 capacity left. With second-hand Alphaware you can even accomplish that same 6 capacity left over during standard character creation without having to resort to the Restricted Gear quality and a Cyber Torso (so maybe Restricted Gear 2 if you have any plans for the Torso). If you leave the Body at the same level as your character's base you have even more Capacity and Availability than that to play around with.

What exactly is worth throwing in those slots? I'd argue that in this specific case ('Naked' and all) the Machine Pistol to give you a ranged attack is one of the best options available for a 'fighter' type character rather than the literally naked sneaky type.

So this special case aside even, what else is worth that capacity? Armor? Does any Street Samurai worth his salt really need more Armor? As I said, Armor stacking in this game is pretty ridiculous already so that's entirely unnecessary.

Again, maybe I'm missing the big picture here, or maybe I'm missing a supplement or two, but I'm looking through what I have available and am having a hard time understanding what else you'd stuff in there. Grapple Gun? Grip Feet? Climbing Claws? Breast Implants? A Scanner? Go-Go Gadget Arms?

Admittedly a Gyromount is pretty awesome if you aren't one of those guys who can only get a murder-boner on by exclusively using expensive heavily modified weapons, but that Gyromount is actually a felony offense (the Machine Pistol can be licensed) so...

Of course the Human has it the best, a Troll with max stats in the arm only has 3 capacity (vs 6) or 8 capacity keeping the body at the character's level (vs 9). Not to mention most of the other races require a cybertorso to max their stats.

So, really, what am I missing here? Not just for my benefit, but for everyones. You talk about a noobie mistake of cramming crap in to cyber arms willy-nilly and mention better options, this is exactly the kind of thread to educate those noobies and talk about those better options.

(Although, again, I'm with you on all of the other cyberguns. Pretty much every other option takes up too much room or does too little).

I'm going to go ahead and point out that if you're planning on taking Cyberlimbs, Restricted Gear is awesome. raising the limit from availability 12 to 20 gives you a TON more space

If you're min-maxing, a cybertorso CAN be worth it, because it lets you take all the important stat mods on super-cheap Enhancements instead of expensive Customizations. Suddenly you don't have to worry about Customized cyberlimbs, just bulk mod everything and throw an Agility Enhancement 7 for 1750 nuyen after gameplay begins.

I've recently been looking at after-play samurais, and as it turns out, there's quite a few ways to load up on discounts. Gold or Platinum docwagon extended care discounts can pretty easily be extended to include ware surgery recovery - especially in extreme cases involving brain or heart surgery (cerebral boosters, synthcardiums, etc).

i think my current project is to put together samurai-face, and I could use some help with it. because, lets face it, the person going into the meet to do the talking should also have the ability to ass kick their way out of it when it turns bad.

Now that I think I can help with, I just made a similar character myself. I can throw together a skeleton fairly quick if you can tell me the creation rules, restrictions, and average dice pools to be competitive at your table.

Well, I can definitely do both at a table that doesn't expect 20+ dice to be good at anything.

Edit: In fact I think I'll try to throw together a skeleton using 400bp of a 4limb+torso replacement character with necessary skills and the ability to perform a combatant Street Sam role 'naked' at most tables. If I have time I'll identify how many BPs and Nuyen are left over and come up with a PACKS-like system of additional places for the character to go.

I'd probably be going Elf for synergy, in the 11-16 range. My group tends to play Old Karmagen Within Reason, but I'd probably do 400bp as a challenge to see how far it goes.

I'm undecided on bio vs cyber. I recently found some awesome tricks that make the 'betaware at start' samurai possible by just having enough money left to go for it with starting money, after character creation.

This is my submission for a Character skeleton for a 'naked' Street Sam to kick maximum ass without resorting to being actually naked and invisable. The "Pink Mohawk" of this challenge. Feel free to use this with typical armor/weapon loadouts if you are the kind of person who isn't very much fun.

BP 400
Creation Rules followed:
5 in one skill or 4 in two skills, rest are < 3
Shadowrun Missions base character creation rules
This character was intentionally made under pretty harsh character creation rules as to make it as flexible as possible.



Introducing Milan Four-Seasons

Daughter of some rich corporate hotel-shmuck, Milan has never has always been a "bad girl" and source of trouble in the family. Being a rich girl who gets wasted and endangers the lives of innocent bystanders behind the wheel of a car is so 2012, Milan prefers to be a rich girl who gets wasted and endangers the lives of innocent bystanders by Shadowrunning for kicks.

Loaded for cash she bought as much of a cyber replacement as possible (except her beautiful face, which she covers with a Luchadore mask during runs) and has earned herself a reputation as quite the hell cat among young runners. Her father has recently cut her out of the will and out of high-society life, which has left her outside of his protective nest should the authorities come a-knockin'. Using the last of her contacts and money she carves out a new life in a ramshackle appartment with bare minimum transportation and licenses under the guise of Security Consultant Alotta Flechetta.


Tactics:
if(targetRange = melee){
stabSomething();
}else{
chargeTarget();
shootTarget();
}
//end of line

Qualities:
Born Rich
Restricted Gear 2 (Cyber Torso and Cyber Machine Pistol)

Attributes:
B:4 (EIGHT)
A:1 (7) -- (8 for melee attacks or shooting)
S:1 (EIGHT) stupid smileys
R:5 (6)
C:2
I:3
L:2
W:5
E:3
(Covered the most important bases for defense on a character like this. Will for spells and Body for pathogens/toxins/drugs)

Initiative: 8 (9)
Initiative Passes: 1 (2)

Essence: .25 (.8 with Biocompatibility: Cyberware. I highly recommend adding this quality).

Physical Condition Track: 17
Stun Condition track: 11

Armor: 9/9 (butt naked. 17 dice to soak. butt naked).

Gear:
Low Lifestyle
Thundercloud Contrail
Fake License (Cyber Machine Pistol) - 4
Fake License (Synaptic Booster) - 4
4 Fake License (Enhanced Agility) - 4
5 Fake License (Enhanced Body) - 4
5 Fake License (Enhanced Strength) - 4
Fake License (Driver's License)
Fake ID (Alotta Flechetta)
Stylish Wrestling onesie
Stylish Luchadore Mask

'Ware
Cyberware:
Obvious Full Right Cyberarm (1 capacity remaining)
Custom: B: 5 S: 6 A: 6
Enhanced: B:3 S: 2 A: 2
Armor 1
Machine Pistol
External Clip Port

Obvious Full Left Cyberarm (1 capacity remaining)
Custom: B: 5 S: 6 A: 6
Enhanced: B:3 S: 2 A: 2
Armor 2
Spur - Ceramic Parts 1

Obvious Full Right Cyberleg (9 capacity remaining)
Custom: B: 5 S: 6 A: 6
Enhanced: B:3 S: 2 A: 2
Armor 2

Obvious Full Left Cyberleg (9 capacity remaining)
Custom: B: 5 S: 6 A: 6
Enhanced: B:3 S: 2 A: 2
Armor 2

Obvious Cybertorso (2 capacity remaining)
Custom: B: 6 S: 6 A: 5
Enhanced: B:2 S: 2
Armor 2

Bioware:
Synaptic Booster 1

Skills:
Athletics Group 2 (10 Dicepool for most actions)
Blades 4 (12 Dicepool)

Automatics 4 (12 Dicepool. 14 if you can access the smartlink. This is taken if your GM is not a dick)
or
Exotic Ranged Weapon: Cybergun 4 (12 Dicepool. 14 with smartlink eye stuff. This is taken if your GM is a dick).

Knowledge Skills
Security Design 3 (keeping up appearances and important to a runner anyway)



This leaves you with 46,000 , 108 BP to spend (50 can be spent on Attributes, 15 on Qualities), 35 BP to gain through negative qualities of your choice, and however many contacts/knowledges you have leftover when you're done tinkering with everything else. This is also a character who has all of the necessary licensing to walk into a place that cybered up and raise eyebrows instead of alarms. Machine Pistol is licensed, the spur is ceramic (who makes a spur a felony while automatic weapons require licenses? What kind of world is this?). Also ask your GM about licensing for the Cyberwear enchancements, Chummer recommended a "per cyberlimb" basis, but that seems pretty wonky. Could free you up a couple grand.

I highly recommend:
Some method of interacting with the Machine Pistol's smartlink. I didn't include it incase someone wants to "cheat" with contacts/goggles/glasses
Biocompatibility: Cyberware
Ars Cybernetica or equivalent with +1 Blade DV. Take as many times as you see fit.
Upping relevant combat skills if your GM isn't stingy
Dodge or Gymnastics

Possible "Plug ins":
Half Assed Face: Tailored Pheremones, increase Charisma, purchase Social Skills and maybe Emotisoft/toy. Without the Empathy software you can still hit 10+ dice with absolute bare minimum effort.

Half Assed Decker: 46000 isn't a lot, but it can get you good enough programs to accomplish a "smash and grab" very easily. Increase Logic and related skills with BPs.

Half Assed Rigger: Yeah I'm not sure if I can recommend this really, but hypothetically you might have enough cash for absolute bare minimum drone support. In this case I'd recommend cybereyes with an Eye Laser Designator system, flying drones (You're going to be hard pressed to have enough cash to lug drones with you, but 6 hr op time will get them across seattle from base assuming they aren't seen) that you arm with whatever you can pull off. You wont rig in to anything unless things are absolutely dire and will instead let their rudimentary Pilots figure it out themselves, direct them with your eye laserbeams if necessary (Standing orders to shoot what I designate, if nothing designated shoot what is shooting at me or defend yourselves). It is a really half-assed way to go but half-assed air support is still pretty awesome. You're not going to win the Spider of the year award or anything, but being a Street Sam who can essentially call in his own bombing runs (strafing runs from an Air Drone with MGL-12 Grenade Launcher) isn't too shabby. Tacnets are expensive, perhaps prohibitively, but they are an option for this play style as well. Why more Street Sams don't eventually branch into this in a game community that is notoriously short on Riggers is beyond me.

Absolute Combat Monster: Take Biocompatibility: Cyberware. This gives you 45,000 , .8 essence, and just a hair under 100bp to become as vicious as you want to be. Platelette Factories, Reflex Recorders, Trauma Dampners. You don't have a lot of money/essence to screw around with but you still have lots of options to add more oomph. Skills can go straight in to shooting or infiltrating or whatever else makes you a battlefield threat.

Disclaimer: About the Rigger thing. There are 3 books which have Rigger and Drone related rules. Out of these three books there are a total of about 7 or 8 pages of rules pertaining to Riggers, and half of them contradict eachother. Rigger rules are also where the notorious SR4A pg 245 ISSUING COMMANDS paragraph decides it doesn't want to provide any useful information so it references you to itself instead (p 245).

So whether this will work or not depends on what your GM thinks of Pilot intelligence, what he thinks the Command program will let you get away with, and most importantly how sane he is. Whether the rules allow it or not (which is kind of murky at best) letting a Street Samurai lead his own little fireteam of Dobermans and LEBD-1s is pretty ludicrous, so only do it if you promise to never do anything more gamebreaking like: Summon a Force 5+ Spirit, use Stick n Shock in anything but a Shotgun, or build a character around Possession. Pinky swear okay?

OK 11-16 range is about the general "power level" we can expect at my tables too. So I think we're about on the same page.

I don't know what "Old Karmagen" is, just what Karmagen is in my Chummer program.

What I posted will work. Use the leftover points to jack up your Charisma to 5 or 6, get your social skills and whatever else up with the remaining points. Without Empathy Softs I had my version of this character (who was not 'naked' and used nuyen and karma on silly things like Heavy Weapons skill and Ingram White Knights with underbarrel Grenade Launchers) still got social rolls to 10-11 on a lark. Just pheremones 2 and plinking at social skills. You could easily get it higher if you dedicate that cash and skills to it. Using Karmagen also lets you snag Specializations for cheap which I recommend you do. I'd have included them above but the OCD folk start yelling about efficiency if you do it in BP chargen.

It isn't a Pink-Mohawk game, or mirrorshades. Kind of in-between. I still like to keep some sort of "Plan C," and that's the White Knight... or 6 pounds of explosives. You know, something to save for a really rainy day.

As to Bio vs Cyber, that's like saying you aren't sure if you like Blondes or Asians when you could clearly be inviting both to your bedroom. Don't limit yourself, they're better together.

Go William Wallace, be 7 feet tall, shoot lightning bolts from your eyes and fireballs from your arse. No I just have to figure out how to model the lightning bolts without magic.

Tesla gloves. No one says you *have* to wear them on your hands...


~R~

You forgot to list Synaptic Booster under gear, but you do have a license for it.

You have some odd choices about what stats to enhance on which limbs. You don't need 8 strength on the arm with the machine pistol, but you sure do want 9 agility. The arm with the spur DOES need the strength (and you want an odd, not even, amount). Not leaving enough space for Armor 4 (which is super cheap and available with pay from your first run) is shooting yourself in the foot. You're also overvaluing your averaged BODY. You could spend, say, 10 capacity getting +2 body in each slot for +2 to damage resistance...or spend it getting 5 armor total for +5.

Why is that machine pistol totally unmodded? If you're going to go to all that trouble to get it, at least cough up for mods!

Chainsaw, I'm saying that 'naked' isn't a realistic condition, so I wouldn't take it into account. Unless the GM is actively messing with you, or you're a mage (for sensors), it always a better idea to *not* implant a given thing. Yes, I would take "Grapple Gun? Grip Feet? Climbing Claws? A Scanner? Go-Go Gadget Arms?" before a cybergun. I'm not sure why you already have 30 armor, but assuming you didn't, armor is another decent option (no Encumbrance). That's a case where the cyber version of something actually *is* better than the gear version. Guns aren't (neither are sensors, commlinks, etc.).

Good catch on the Synaptic Booster, pretty hilarious I forgot to post it, but I had just gotten finished with a copy paste spree for the limbs.

You're talking some pretty serious min-maxy stuff on a character that is already borderline too much for some tables AND just a skeleton. I thought that much was clear. You have 1 cap to add the odd number str or bump up agi on each respective arm.

I disagree that I am overvaluing averaged Body. Averaged Body is still soak dice, cheaper than armor, and while it doesn't have the ability to reduce Phys to Stun it is used in enough other dice rolls on a "full body"basis to make it worthwhile. No one is going to half you Body, "pierce" your body, Called shot around it, etc. Body is the most important soak dice you have (not just average, but a few dice for the sack of meat inside this metal puppet too).

Same with Strength. Nothing "needs" strength except the off hand, if you're being a real munchkin go for it. However I play in games with enough Indiana Jones sort of running, jumping, lifting, etc that full body values for Str is important (Body as well for Soaking since you get them at 2 to 1 to armor). If your games don't require these sorts of things then they frankly don't sound like very much fun.

You already have the armor to convert a base hit from almost any weapon in the game to stun, and then 17 dice left over to deal with it. Naked. How much more do you really need? See, this is why people think that SR4 is a "deadly game," it's not. However, because people pack on so much Armor that everything is either a bunch of stun or one-hit-kill levels of physical it gives the feeling of "jeez, everything was fine but then I way overkill died, lame". You don't need that much armor in a game, and having it only makes things worse for everyone at your table due to the natural Escalation of Force which will occur.

Additionally, Armor 4 is still Availability 20. How much of that are you really going to get your hands on before you get the cash to flat out Alphaware upgrade a limb? This depends a lot on how much money you get at a table, but without fudging you already have plenty of room in both legs and only 60 grand before you can upgrade an arm. Or do assume that in the same week you can get a single rating 20 item that you can automatically get a dozen more, just fell off the truck in one huge crate? Hell, I'll take a squad's worth of Panther Cannons then, this one at a time stuff is for the birds.

And I didn't mod the Machine Pistol because, for a character skeleton, it didn't need to be modded. Different people prioritize different things, although I guess I could at least specify that I would stuff it full of recoil comp personally.

Point is that this is a character skeleton that (once I throw the Synaptic Boosters on, oops) will stand up to all but the most munchkiny situations, can already throw 12 dice with purposefully low combat scores, soaks damage with 17 dice and converts damage with a value of 9, is capable of walking around with the licenses available, will stand up to an adventurey kind of campaign where "silly" things like full body STR scores matter, and still has a lot of room left over for customization. It will get a player over the initial alpha ware hump where they can then have the experience to tailor it themselves (and they may very well have not found a use for full body Body/Strength scores).

Don't get me wrong Umaro, I've lurked for a while and you seem like a cool dude who has gone out of his way to help new players, but at this point I think we might be playing entirely different games. It happens, it's the nature of Table Top RPGs.



I do, concede the point on Armor. I also concede that particularly Cyberarmor is one of the most versatile sources for it in the game. I don't think you need that much of it, and that having 16+ before adding armor is creating the Escalation of Force situation which causes poor little hackers to get one shot killed when they're caught in a blast meant to just bruise you. That sort of Superman-Situation is entirely unnecessary, and this character can still get more than enough armor. While 'naked.' We haven't even started wearing any, but that's an option.

Or maybe I just don't know what kind of crazy cocaine and WAR! addled Shadowrun games you're playing. What works for me might not work for you, but if you take a solid look at this character and hold it up against the kinds of characters most people actually play the game with rather than just talk about playing the game with, then it is a skeleton which accomplishes plenty and has lots of room for flexibility.

Armor 4 is actually pretty easy to get. It also only costs 1200Y which is less than 1 month low lifestyle. Even in a fairly bad possible case (extended test buying hits and -1 per "roll"), you only need a negotiation pool of 14 to find it and the whole process will take 20 days or roughly three weeks. That should be quite possible for a face to reach especially since you can buy extra dice for 300Y per die.

Even if you buy all 5 pieces of Armor 4 at once, that's only 6000Y and still takes 2 days per pass or the same amount of time. I guess you could say you can't buy things in lots, but that's really odd in cases like ammo (it'll take 5 days to find 100 regular bullets). If your connection 4 book standards fixer friend finds this set for you, it's only 7200Y (20% finders fee) which is maybe 1-2 runs worth of pay. If your pay is any worse than that, you should have been a mage or just steal cars.

Worth noting, you can pick this up via SURGE if you want to save 5 points.