An Otaku with 1 Quickness, 8 Intelligence, and 8 Willpower has 8 Combat Pool to throw around. You need one of the relatively rarer combat-pool-denying situations (though not all that rare).

Also remember that it earns them high stats at chargen (when it's cheap) and you can hit Body 3 for 10 karma post-chargen.

~J

...that's pretty much what I did with some of my Otaku's Karma, basically raised each physical attribute by 1 then did it again the next time around for Body & Quickness. She ended up with 3,2,4*,8,8,8 for attributes, Combat pool of 10, and Meat World Reaction of 6, but still only 1d6 initiative. Of course she did have the Edge that allowed a character without initiative enhancements to apply the rule of 6 on initiative rolls. Came in pretty handy several times, mostly to save her little butt (can't remember the name, something like "Lightning Reflexes" I think).

[* included 1 level of Muscle Toner. That's the one nice thing about Otaku over TMs, they didn't suffer loss to their matrix abilities from implant augmentations.]

I don't know about a 'crippled/weak' character but I think you don't have to be Terminator/James Bond/Anita Blake/ Buffy the Vampire layer to be effective, and an average strength or intelligence or whatever does not mean you are inferior. it just means a competant player has to allow for her charatcer's abilities. It's only the newbies that require their characters be everything.

Actually, an average Intelligence does mean you are inferior—you sacrifice 1.5 points of Reaction and Combat Pool for Average Intelligence, as well as dramatically increasing the expected successes against you on social skill tests and reducing your chance of success on Perception tests. Intelligence is a badly overpowered attribute, and the only one that I can't find a character type for who it shouldn't be maximized.

~J

I'd probably play a character with a 4 Int before a 4 Will, but that may just be because over my career as a player my GM's have included more magical threats than might be the norm.

The problem is, most shadowrunners, by virtue of their vocation, all tend to be above-average people.

That said, a 4 for Intelligence is not that bad, if you are playing a non-spellcaster.

There can be valid reasons to play a Troll Tank, who may have only 5 Intelligence (though 6 is still attainable and better), but with that exception Intelligence 6 is pretty much the floor. The advantages it has for spellcasters that aren't also experienced by mundanes or summoners are negligible—it, again, contributes to Perception, Reaction, directly to every standard pool except Control Pool (and indirectly to Control Pool, what with it being Reaction), sets your TN to have social Negotiation and Leadership used against you (remembering that Negotiation is used for both bargaining and Fast Talk), and has a strong Linked Skill list (doubly so if you consider that it's half of Reaction).

~J

I used to purposely make sub optimal characters and then play them in very cautious ways. I enjoyed being able to accomplish more than the better stated characters on the team by being more strategic.

One time I played a ninja with only melee weapons and no firearms. He was seriously underpowered...I even wasted power points on the arrow catching physad power and it even came in handy one time versus a grenade. He did not use any scifi equipment. Only a ninja suit with armor which was similar to the full camo suit but with crappier conceal bonuses. No dikoted weapons. His only ranged attack was shuriken.

My whole deal that time was to try and out perform the chromed ruthenum dikoted APDS sniper rifle wielding peanut gallery. So while the rest of the party ended up discussing planning or strategy for like half an hour (you know how it is when the players talk, almost reach a resolution, then back down and start over, and nobody wants to really force one way or another through) I had my underpowered underequipped ninja sneak off and accomplish what they were talking about all on his own. This was over IRC so I could PM the GM and just work it on my own.

The truth is that I was taking a lot of risks to do this mathematically speaking. The character only had Stealth 6 to be able to accomplish his objectives and a couple bad rolls could easily result in death for his underpowered non-firearm weilding ass. But since the point of the character was to do better than everyone else I accepted those risks.

I had the satisfaction of appearing back at the group safehouse having soloed the objective and gotten what the others were still talking about how to get. It was glorious.

...sounds a bit like my baseball player character Tomoe (#48 on a roll) in a way.

Though fairly "bio-ed" (no cyber) she only had melee: Clubs (spc: Baseball Bat) and Thowing (spc Baseballs: considered an aerodynamic weapon in CC). With her "beanball" attack she was actually quite devastating and could even sent a target into physical damage.

On of the cool options was, because of her Athletics specialty (Baseball) and supplementary Knowledge skills (Fielding/Hitting mechanics), she was allowed to make an Athletics in lieu of a dodge test to hit or "field" a thrown grenade and send it back in the direction from whence it came. If she got more successes than the thrower, it went back in the general direction of the thrower, of course subject to the scatter rule. If she matched successes, it was a foul ball/errant throw & arced off on a random direction. She wouldn't get her combat pool for this in this and it did take her next combat action, but it still came in handy on occasion.

As for worst character concepts, I was thinking on making my next face Wink Martindale as an immortal elf.

Worst ones that I have seen.

A green skinned elf with horns, fangs, and a tail. Character was Hunted by Ares Arms (4 pts) and had a Dark Secret. Also the Braggart and Impulsive Flaws. Had Assault rifles 4, Unarmed Combat 2, and Stealth of 1.

Last seen not laying low with 9 boxes Physical in a High Lifestyle apartment. Other PCs tipped off Ares before building security did so he couldn’t nearly get them all killed again.

And elven catgirl with ears, claws, and a tail. Paid for a permanent Lifestyle in a B neighborhood that was largely Squatter and had Annoying Neighbors, Difficult Access, Disgruntled Service, Horrible View, Inattentive, and Underpaid Security and was Haunted. Character had Distinctive Looks, Day Job, and Hunted and player did not understand why that was a very bad combo of Flaws. Had Edged Weapons 1/3 (Katana) and Unarmed Combat 3 which he thought made him Bruce Lee. Thought he could hack a casino with not cyberdeck or programs and Computer 4.

Last seen Severely Wounded in the middle of Humanis territory after pressing on alone against something that had nearly killed the group combat monster. The other PCs did not go check what happened.

An Albino Tiger Shapeshifter Physical Magician. The tiger was a Self-Defense Pacifist who worked as a landscaper. Points were spread so thin that they were a poor Conjurer, poor Spellcaster, unimpressive at Unarmed Combat and Polearms, though they were fairly good at Throwing Weapons.

Not allowed into play until the player could explain why a tiger would be a pacifist, a shadowrunner, or worked as a gardener.

I think you're stereotyping pretty heavily. Assuming a tiger assumes human form, it will most likely be exposed to pacifist ideology, Shadowrunning, and gardening. I mean, what reason would a great ape have to be a pacifist, Shadowrunner, or gardener?

~J

So the troll cat burgalar is right out?

nah, there was a pretty scary miin/maxed concept for that one around these parts of the board *g*

Well, I think if someone is going to play a troll who steals cats the tiger gardener better watch out.

I only know SR4, but I don't see any penalties to Infiltration for being a Troll, and the high STR makes Troll actually the preferred race for hard-maxing Climb. So yeah, a troll can do just fine sneaking their way into the upstairs, grabbing the cat, and sneaking out again. They can't have quite as big a hard-max dice pool as an Elf, since Agility caps at 5(7), but that's plenty.

Unless the GM unleashes the dreaded Common Sense, bane of rules literalists everywhere.

On another note, I once played in a convention game with a GM-written set of available PCs, who were members of a veteran covert ops team, and I played the commanding officer. One of the PCs was written with the Impulsive flaw; unfortunately, that's the one I sent to cover our flank as we set up attack position, and he saw a bunch of enemies so he tossed a grenade.

One enemy soldier drops onto the grenade (choosing to die solo, than die along with his buddies), the rest open fire, we're hosed, and I cannot persuade the GM that no one with Impulsive would last more than one mission on a covert ops team.

Anyone ever tried to create Kender as a variation of SR Elf?

They also will have trouble hiding behind/inside various parts of furniture.

Twice as easy, in fact. Mmm, sig 5…

~J

just give him (the troll) exceptional agility and he maxes out at 6(9) . . i tried to find the thread with the ultimate mundane climber, but i failed miserably . . maybe someone else can do better than me though . . i think there were some 30 to 40 dice to be thrown for climbing checks *g*

In SR3 Trolls are a decent choice as well, given their ungodly high Body allowing you to pump Athletics up through the roof. However, if you even suspect that your GM might some day ask the question of "can this wall support this many hundred kilos of muscle climbing up it", you're probably better off going with a Dwarf. Bodyful, but still nice and light.

~J

if you ain't thinking of that bad joke called buildings in seemingly large parts of america, we're talking beton/stone buildings like in bigger cities . . new york for example . . such walls are build to withstand many things, let alone 200 to 300 kilo of troll

what was that proverb again?
HUMANS are Intelligent . . PEOPLE are stupid . .

This week one of the players in my group was toying with the idea of a needle-throwing afromerican activist troll ninja physical adept. For a campaign in Japan. Truly.

Fortunately another player caught him before he got to me with that -and I use the word loosely- character. He settled for an ork. I think, I still have to meet with the player.

Talk about common sense, ha.

Cheers,

Max

Someday I will be able to change my signature, and on that day, I will never suffer the aggravation of someone thinking I'm talking about SR4 ever again.

(Nothing against you personally, I've just been getting it a lot recently)

~J

i feel your pain ^^

I, on the other hand, revel in it.

I played with some creative players... And by creative I mean powergamers.

There was Beanpole - a troll sammie whose only job in life was to soak damage. He had a Body of nearly 20 and enough armor that he was shot with an Anti-Vehicle rocket and put down (well, through a wall) but not killed. He also fell from atop a stadium and soaked down to a light wound.

One player has tried to run a coca cola swilling paranoid android type that sat in a GMC Stepvan while the meat body was all 1's... Well, the Van was his character, really. He never left it. Also, he was using supplements I didn't have access to, some pretty wonky adding (sort of like Enron accounting) and just downright cheating at times to produce a "character" that was pretty absurd. He found it hilarious to have quad linked HMGs on a turret that did 30D that was undodgable. I wondered at what he possibly had in mind.

Another was a gecko shaman that was somewhere between a wannabe pornomancer, ninja, james bond woman, professional climber and gunslinger. Needless to say it was sort of like several, very different comic book strains had sex but bred a retard-bastard-man-bear-pig-chylde. We tweaked the concept a bit and she ended up really enjoying herself.

A recurrent character named "Angran" shows up in the hands of a good friend of mine. Likes to use Mind Control an awful lot, and when that fails its an Enfield AS-7. Really is sort of a case study in munchkinning. Not much more than a piece of paper with numbers on it, but the player is a really cool guy. F character A player.

- der menkey

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway

I have to say, I have a certain amount of respect for a player that can make a cheesy but legitimate character, as long as its made by the book. If nothing else, it points out places in the system where the rules are weak and might need a little house rule spackle.

One of my favorites was the old Decrease Charisma spell, or as it was known, the "Sam Coma". On the one hand, it was a bit cheesy. On the other, it punished people who used CHA as a dump stat, which at the time was pretty common. (I didn't mind because I was playing an ork sam with a CHA of 4 and Tailored Pheremones, which IIRC would have required Decrease Modified Charisma-- good lord, this was 12 years and two editions ago.)

But I can handle a little cheese if its all in good fun. Like the troll sammie who carried a bag of baseballs and a bag of grenades painted like baseballs, or the ork phys ad who did as much damage with his bow as a Panther Cannon.

i had a pretty bad GM use that spell against my troll sammy . . i had taken the bonus point in charisma . . and i rolled like a young god . . it was beautyfull to see the all high and mighty GM get pretty upset after having declared that he had found a way to stop my combat monster . . and not being able to do so with that spell ^^
granted, he pretty much wiped out the complete group . . 2 elves and a human and a dwarf with exeptional charisma . . but he could not do shit against me and my character . . never before did i have such fun . . ok, aside from when he declared chunky salsa to be stupid and i took 2 light stun wounds from 4 16M grenades *gg*