We're kicking this thing off. Slacker, phlapjack77, Thanee, Dakka Fiend and Mach_Ten are our players.

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This thread is for character discussion and building. Welcome to a democracy. I want each of you to post with one or more ideas (preferably two or three) about what role or concept you want to play. Also if there is a role that you are /not/ interested in, feel free to mention that as well.

I would like for everyone to use the Chummer for their character. Max avail is 12. No “F” class gear. Use Karma build, 750 points. I will /probably/ allocate some additional Karma points/cash to spend during “training”. I will have each of you save your character and email it to me: blackbox543@gmail.com

Here’s what we do not need: Hacker. Rigger.

Here is what we do need: Infantry types, a mage (combat or diverse), and a hybrid (if possible)

I also need a team leader. Any of you leader types in RL or want to play one?

Here is a very important note: Your characters are not just all randomly selected to be part of a shadowrun team, as is typical with most games. In this game, the recruiters have been looking for specific types of people, so they have looked at hundreds of individuals, rejected most, and taken a few. You are those few.

Characters will need to have some overlapping expertise.

I need two characters who have at least 2 skill in Pilot Ground Craft.
I need two medics, whether magical or not.

Everyone should have one or two points in each of the following: First Aid, Climbing, Infiltration, Navigation, Survival, Swimming, Unarmed Combat, Etiquette, Perception, Pistols, Dodge, Automatics (if you come up short, don't fret. I'll probably throw a few extra karma in for PMC training)

It will be useful if one or two have points in: Longarms, Locksmith, Leadership, Instruction, Shadowing, Heavy Weapons, Tracking, Demolitions, Negotiation, Gunnery

I do not want any pure melee characters. Its fine to be awesome at melee, as long as you can also shoot a rifle or pistol (or cast spells)

You may take positive and negative qualities, but I will be a nazi about this, and will reject those that do not seem appropriate or do not fit with the game. Remember that your character has been recruited and tested for suitability by a company. So they’ll be weeding out most of the nut jobs, addicts, pacifists and so forth.

Will absolutely be using Composure and such from the War! book. (WIL + CHA)

I do not want to see weapons generated from scratch - I’ve seen this abused in the past. Use weaponry in the books. Accessories and such are fine, but if it seems to get out of hand I will have to lock it down.

Items, weapons, spells generally allowed from: SR4 main book, of course, Arsenal, War!, Runner’s Companion, Street Magic, Augmentation. (I may nix things from the expansion books if they don’t work for my game)

Don't worry about contacts. You don't need any. Also don't buy any vehicles.

I strongly encourage you to take Spanish as a knowledge skill.

edit: In the chummer under Tools > Options > House Rules, there is an option for "Karma Build: Free Knowledge Skills Like BP Build" Check it. Enjoy.

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So go for it. Talk about what you /want/ to play, but try to be flexible, in case we end up with 3 physical adepts or something. Ask questions if you got 'em.

My first idea is a mystic adept that is mainly geared towards avoiding injury and protecting those around him. He's good on his own defense, but he also has significant counterspelling abilities to protect the team from magic.
I noticed that nobody mentioned in the original thread that they wanted to play a full on mage. Do we think the team needs a robust mage character? As it stands not I wasn't planning on taking a whole bunch of spells so that I could let most of my Magic points go to adept powers to let him maintain a significant combat ability.

Since we're all part of some kind of paramilitary organization, is there going to be some kind of standard equipment loadout we should take? For instance, should we bother buying weapons / armor, or will they be supplied?

I nominate Mach_Ten as team lead, since he's the one who mentioned he has actual military experience. Apologies if others also have military exp...

First concept: Infantry/Comms. Can always keep a signal between the team, provide battlefield visibility, possibly deny the enemy visibility and comms.
Second concept: Infantry/Hardware/Computer. Not a hacker, more like he can get doors open and knows enough about computers to operate a facility's systems. Like Hudson from Aliens.
Third concept: Infiltrator/Demolitions. The first guy in to a hot zone, with sneakiness and silent options for close-up missions.

buy gear normally. There will be additional opportunity - of course - to purchase more stuff, but do go ahead and get some weapons/armor etc.

Cool. Thanks for the info.

Another one - will there be much (any?) of the game that takes place when the characters aren't on a mission? If the game is mostly mission-oriented, many qualites wouldn't really make sense. For instance, having something like the Negative Quality: Dependent.

The characters will be transported to an exotic land for their contracting work.

Like I wrote in the other other thread, first concept would be Heavy Weapons/Demolitions/Mechanic guy. Was thinking HW primary, Demo and Mechanic second.

Second: Survivalist, Geography geek, Linguist; Basically your local guide to everywhere if you don't have a local you can trust. Secondary could be anything left over, say hot-shot driver/pilot/captain. Might wanna go Adept for a few points, depending on how much Magic we already got in the group.

Third: Generalist. Karmagen's pretty kind to that sort of characters and a universal back up can't hurt. Could work as leader who assigns his specialists the important jobs and then takes whatever's left over. Hey, it's not a democracy if there's just one candidate.

Thanks for the vote

just to expand, my military career went as far as making the tea from a big urn in the armoury.

the closest I came to actual combat was trying to bargain with my Alsatian guard dog while patrolling the fence in Kosovo (he wanted to chase down a particularly nasty looking hedgehog ! who he spotted half a klick away, and I thought he was chasing down a local ... Loved that dog)

so I'm fine to play leader .. as long as you expect to be making lots of tea .... and scones ! and foot massages

That aside .. Characters. (All non-Magical) options:

I need to think more .. seems my ideas are similar in concept to Phlapjack

I like this idea! Take adept and the Linguist quality...

If you don't use it, maybe I'll steal it

@phlapjack77: Sure, why not. Melanin Control and a point in Facial Sculpt would be nice too, should be enough to blend in almost everywhere (when you're the only human among trolls, you're SOL).

@Mach_Ten: Wish I had had a dog. All I got was my weekly allotment of half a day's worth of paperwork. So i see your tea and raise you one set of hand-carved duty rosters.

Yeah you got me ... 6 months in a hell hole and nothing but admin and paperwork ... I think I'd have gone slightly crazy ...
but it did remind me of the game I played to death out there (yes, I shipped my PC in my luxury package instead of any other home comforts) .. can you guess from the lyrics ?

War!
Never been so much fun!
War!
Never been so much fuuuun!
War!
Never been so much fun!
War!
Never been so much fuuuun!

Go to your brother
Kill him with your gun
Leave him dying in his uniform
Dying in the sun

Bah I hate you. Now I'll have to try and get it to run in Wine or some other emulator!

Seconded!


As mentioned in the other thread, my character concept would be awakened scout/sniper.

I think Slacker mentioned Mystic Adept.

So, we are still lacking a full Mage... I could certainly fill that role (i.e. Mage (more the diverse type) / Sniper). A Mystic Adept (with emphasis on the Mage side) could also work, of course.


Oh, and what do you mean with "hybrid"? A mage with cyberware?

Bye
Thanee

P.S. Never used Chummer, as I prefer to do things by hand... but I will take a look.

Let's see...

Pilot Ground Craft - Probably (if points suffice, but it is something I generally like to have; it's pretty weird not to be able to drive a car, after all)
Magical Medic - Check
Basic Training - Check (glad we are using Karma Generation, which makes it much easier to pick up a bunch of low-level skills) -- not a big fan of Dodge, tho, as it's fairly useless as a skill
Longarms - Check
Shadowing - Check
Heavy Weapons - Probably (for those Anti-Material Rifles, aka Assault Cannon - the reaaally big sniper rifles )
Tracking - Check

Planning on taking... at least 1-2 Ranks, key skills higher, of course.

Athletics Group
Conjuring Group
Firearms Group (with extra Ranks in Longarms) -- and there's a question here, already. Can we break up Skill Groups during character generation (i.e. take Firearms Group to 3 and raise Longarms to 5)?
Outdoors Group
Sorcery Group
Stealth Group

Heavy Weapons
Unarmed Combat
Diving
Parachuting
Pilot Groundcraft
Pilot Aircraft (maybe just a Rank to know the basics)
Etiquette
Leadership (maybe, depends a bit on our rank structure, but I was thinking about having some military rank from a military past, like Lieutenant, so I could make a fine second-in-command -- I do not have actual RL military experience, though, but should know enough about it still)
Assensing
Perception
Armorer
First Aid

We'll see how much of this I can actually afford.

Bye
Thanee

Restricted Gear Quality for higher AV Ratings ok?

And no "F" rules out a lot of stuff that is extremely fitting... like sniper rifles, silencers, a number of assault rifles, many ammo types, standard grenades, grenade launchers, heavy weapons, many explosives, military-grade armor (though that is probably ok, as it is AV 16+ also).

You might want to rethink that restriction (maybe a case-by-case decision is better here)!

Bye
Thanee

At the time I wanted to have two spellcasters on the team, but I think one should suffice. By hybrid I meant someone who tried to cover spells and other skill groups.

I think we should be fine with one mage.

I'm going this route because your characters will be 'fresh off the boat' in the respect that they've just been recruited. So the gear that you're choosing during chargen is exactly the same as any other SR game, because this is the gear that they're picking up in Seattle or wherever they're from. There will be plenty of chance to pick up heavier equipment.

You can buy F gear in normal chargen, though.

Huh, I thought I read that you couldn't. Very well! F rated stuff is available

Yeah, Shadowrunners like forbidden stuff a lot, too.

What you cannot do, is get it licensed... so it is nothing you should carry around in the city.

Bye
Thanee

If Slacker is going the Mystic Adept route, he will also have some minor spellcasting for sure.

Bye
Thanee

My current thoughts for background are like this, please let me know if that is ok/fitting.

Tatjana Ivanova, call sign "Nova", is an ex-military with a couple years of experience. Being awakened, her talents were quite valuable and so she was quickly drawn into an officer career.
Her unit didn't like being led by the "witch woman" and therefore took every opportunity to make her look bad.
One such incident escalated quite badly and evolved into a firefight between her and her squad. She turned herself invisible and killed two in the resulting shooting before security forces bravely broke them up and thus probably saved her life.
Everyone involved was thrown into a cell for a month while investigations were run. Since the guys from her unit testified (falsely) against her, she was discharged dishonorably. She wasn't accused for murder, though, since that couldn't be proven and was written off as an accident.
As a trained killer, she could have taken a good job in the corporate world, but that wasn't what she wanted.
In the coming year, she ended up with some rather shady contacts who got her into the mercenary business. This way, she also gained some information that she had been looking for.
A good year after her discharge, the remaining members of her squad were all killed in action. Her involvement in these killings was suspected but could never be proven.
A few months later, Tatjana signed up with a private military contractor, hoping for a bit more stability in her life.

Qualities:

Magician or Mystic Adept 10-15 BP
Mentor Spirit (maybe) 0-5 BP
Black Market Pipeline (weapons) 10 BP
Hawk Eye 5 BP
Restricted Gear (maybe getting a light military-grade armor, if that is acceptable, and/or possibly a heavy weapon) 0-10 BP

SINner 5 BP
Bad Rep 5 BP
Poor Self Control (Compulsive; constantly checks her equipment and cleans her weapons) 5 BP
Poor Self Control (Vindictive) 10 BP
Records on File (UCAS Military) 10 BP

Bye
Thanee

This all looks fine to me.

In the chummer under Tools > Options > House Rules, there is an option for "Karma Build: Free Knowledge Skills Like BP Build"

Check that, it'll give you free knowledge skills. You're welcome

Okay so far my ideas are :

1) "pointy Eared Bastard" Former Quarter Master Sergeant, Elf,
"you want all the best toys ? I can get them, for a price!. "
"you think you can take me ? you ain't getting paid to THINK sunshine, now frag off!"
Bio engineered to be Agile and highly proficient in dual SMG's

2) Orc-gineer .. slightly deaf from overuse of explosives, Orc Cyber SAM former Grunt.
"Can you put an under barrel grenade launcher on a grenade launcher ?! ... if you need to ask then you is a pussy boy!"
What's the worst that can happen ? I lost an arm in the last explosion, but I gots dis shiny new one right here !

I'm leaning in favour of (1) but anything can be fun

The team leader will get a few perks, since he/she is assumed to have been in the field for a little bit. Mach_Ten, are you playing team lead, or is it still up in the air?

lets go for it ... I seem to have been, in good military tradition, volounteered

Alrighty.

Four of you (excluding the team leader) are former runners or former military etc - but are freshly recruited by a PMC company. Once you've done all of your chargen, add 20 Karma points. You are shipped off to a "boot camp" for 4-6 weeks to brush up on combat skills, tactics, navigation, and other things that will be useful in the field. Please use these to be sure that you've got at least a point or two in some of the skills that I listed earlier in this thread. If you have questions, ask 'em. Also, you get a signing bonus of 5,000 nuyen. You can buy anything you like with it up to 14 Availability. Technically, this is considered POST-CHARGEN, make sense? So you can use your "starting nuyen" to add to that 5k.

Team leader, you are assumed to have been working for the PMC for a short time. You've been in the field. That field experience nets you 25 Karma to add stuff to your character. You also have 8k nuyen to spend, and may buy things up to 18 Avail. Remember that this is considered post-chargen, so use starting nuyen to add to that amount if you wish. edit: Team leader gets field experience 25 karma. AND 20 karma for boot camp, just like the others.


If anyone wishes to SELL any equipment purchased in chargen, and use that nuyen to buy higher availability gear during "training", you can sell gear for 1/2 its purchase price. Bear with me - this may seem odd to you ("Why can't I just save all that cash and buy the higher avail stuff??"), it is intended to simulate that you have access to more weaponry once you are part of the PMC.

---

Here are those super-handy skills that everyone should have again: First Aid, Climbing, Infiltration, Navigation, Survival, Swimming, Unarmed Combat, Etiquette, Perception,

And here's my list that the group needs at least a couple of people to have: Longarms, Locksmith, Leadership, Instruction, Shadowing, Heavy Weapons, Tracking, Demolitions, Negotiation, Gunnery (more to the point, the group should have someone capable of sniping, and someone capable of handling light/medium/heavy machineguns and shoulder fired missiles and such)

Coolio,

Pointy Eared Bastard it is !

I will attempt to cover off :

Leadership, Instruction, Shadowing, Negotiation and LMG/SMG

I believe we have our Sniper, there was interest in heavy gunner / missile support so that's HMG and such potentially with an engineering background unless I'm mistaken

That leaves "Mediiiiiic!" full on Mage if necessary and additional support.

the team is starting to take shape

Team leader, note my edit in my last post about Karma bonus.

My mystic adept is going to have mostly healing based spells, though i won't have as large a dice pool as a full Magician.

My char concept for EW specialist is heavy on Logic, so going the Medic route is a good option. Will also have other Logic-linked skills like Armorer, Hardware, etc.

Are Battle Rifles allowed? I don't have the War! sourcebook, but using Chummer they look pretty good

Congratulations on your new job, Mach_Ten. Now, where's our tea at, Sir?

Right now I'm leaning heavily towards the survivalist/geek/linguist
Bob twenty-something (real name still tbd):
born into a well-off corp family
knack for langauges
interest in different cultures
loves the great outdoors
-> studies anthropology, wants to do field studies
does extreme sports, gets more and more extreme, starts getting implants
hooks up with eco-terrorists
almost arrested after bungled attack
-> leaves crazy amateurs & drops out of college, likes the action but wants to work with pros

As for the build, so far I'm thinking:
Some augmentations (prolly too much to reasonably add Adept)
Linguist
Sense of Direction
College Education, depending on how many Academic Skills I end up taking
SINner
high Outdoors
high Althletics
good Stealth
good First Aid

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If HW/Demo/Mech remains lacking, I'll make that char instead, though. Prolly gonna be a heavily augmented Orc.

Yes battle rifles are fine.

I do suggest trying to get more than one weapon, though you can always do so later.

Different missions might call of different types of weaponry, and since you are contractors you'll be expected to procure your own weaponry.

10-4

Nice! That is a house rule I also use.

Bye
Thanee

Are we still missing mage support? I know Slacker will be a mystic adept, Thanee also maybe to augment the sniping...but do we need a "full" mage?

I'll work up a mage concept if we do.

Let's roll call.
--
Slacker is currently looking at a mystic adept, some spells, some adepty stuff, some assault rifle stuff.

Dakka Fiend is doing a survival/geography/linguist. He sent me his chummer file but I have not had a chance to eyeball it yet.

Thanee appears to be doing a mystic adept as well?

Mach_Ten is going "pointy eared bastard" sergeant type.

phlapjack77 has mentioned doing an electronics warfare specialist possiblyl with some medic stuff.
--

Miss anything?

So Slacker has some spells, and I think Thanee has some spells. This might be enough. Might it be too little? Eh, possibly, but shadowrun is a game about having too few resources sometimes.

I encourage everyone to continue sharing their ideas for characters, and if we want, I can setup a dropbox with chummer files and/or htm/pdf character files. The better you are a coordinated team, the better you'll fare.

Looking good so far, folks.

Might be missing a heavy weapon specialist? I think I can squeeze that in to my character, it's just one skill

*edit*

We seem to be missing this ability...

Just bananas

Let's do this. In order to coordinate, when folks have them ready, give us a summary of your skills. I'll aggregate it and then we can see where we might be coming up short.

Thanee and Slacker, I'm totally down with you two discussing your spell selections to try to have good overlap.

Quick work-in-progress look:

Either that or full mage... not entirely sure, yet.

But either way, the emphasis will be on the spellcasting part with a well-rounded spell selection, so it should be ok.



I only have a "skill wishlist" so far (see above: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?s=&a...&p=1208756).

I will probably have a more detailed list by tomorrow, when I have started to add up Karma totals.

Bye
Thanee

I'm at work currently but a quick rundown of SGT. HAMMER off the top of my head. (so not 100% accurate etc.)

I really would like some input from you all .. the focus is in shooting first Negotiating after and some support/survival skills for a rainy day




Former Sergeant Banark Hammerson, is not what you would at a first glance mistake for military prime meat.
For starters he's an Elf, and as such probably some kind of rabbit food munching pansy, not a lean mean killing machine.
This would usually be the last mistake you'd make, but you are new to the team so we're not going to kill you for that .. this one time!

He's six and a half feet of wiry muscle, not overly strong looking but don't even think about brawling,
in the time it takes that thought to form there's an SMG up your left nostril ready to make room for that head-gear you never wanted !

more at home in Military fatigues, he seems relaxed in formal business attire and networks with corporate types and street gangs equally effectively, always seeming to get the best deal out of the worst negotiating situation.

He hasn't always been so lucky though, at the worst of times Lady Luck has thrown him many a curve ball to confound him.

Sgt. Hammer has been PMC for 2 years or so, following a not so glorious career with Pueblo Corporate Council Special Forces. after a failed job thanks to a partial stitch up and some botched intel, the Boss recruited him along with a few others.
The pay is better and he holds no loyalty to those who set his team up

Sgt. Hammer took his leave of Pueblo and settled here, eventually working up to his current team lead.

When on operations he believes in the 7 P's (Prior Prep and Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance!) but also that not even the best plan survives first contact, so always have a Plan B .. preferably a PLAN C,D and E just for those days when the 'fit hits the shan'
his gear is always immaculate and ready to go at a moments notice.

His team gets his absolute loyalty and he defends them to the end, especially after having already been burned.

And here's my combat linguist atm:



As for guns and armor, he's currently got a holdout, a machine pistol, an SMG and half FFBA + leather jacket.

Guess I'll have him buy a bigger gun and Camos from his boot camp cash.

Of the nice-to-have-in-the-group skills, he currently has:
Leadership 1
Instruction 1
Shadowing 3
Tracking 4
Negotiation 1

As for boot camp Karma, I was thinking half for appropriate Knowledge Skills, half adding/shoring up something from the wish list.

Comments, Suggestions?

Awesome ! .. I love the fact we have a "Daniel from Stargate" type character .. someone to pacify the locals (without me having to Pacify the locals

don't forget to get your 21 free Knowledge skills as above,

use Karma for your improvement, I'd say, we should have a fair amount of the bases covered without throwing points away without strengthening your toon.

and I'm wondering on cash as to what to get,

I may just keep a team slush fund for emergencies

unless some says 8000Y will get you this "Awesome" piece of kit that we will all benefit from having ??

I still (having not played SR4) need advice on pimping my char out ( especially on best uses of Bioware / cyber ... or even going adept instead ?

Well, for shooting a very good cost-gain ratio is gained by getting your main Agility via cyberlimb (esp. a lower arm cyber-replacement with custom attributes and some extra Agility and some Armor for good measure). As an added bonus it gives you that badass cyber look.

Bye
Thanee

Heh, forgot to copy-paste the Knowledge Skills. Mostly langauge and academic.
Hmm, Daniel, isn't that the one who died more often than the rest of the team combined?

Yeah Daniel was an attention whoring language geek who got the girl and saved the world .... big deal Kurt Russel was way more badass


my knowledge skills have gone into languages and into underworld / corporate security etc. I intend to know a little bit before we get backstabbed

I quickly remembered that "Points in a skill" is not a direct reflection of number of dice, since of course the attribute contributes.

Once everyone sends me a draft of their chummer I'll put our aggregate up. Looks like we're covering things pretty good though so far.

My ettiquette is high .. we covered off "Banana Balancing" at posh finishing school ! so think we're good.