So, I'm writing up a character for an online game. The rules stated BBB only, no sourcebook. Just for kicks, I decided to try for a troll. The metatype is so expensive though, that I'm not quite sure if I've made the best use of my points. Any help would be appreciated.

Quick questions:

Did you buy the Influence Group skill or each skill in the group at "1"?

What are you Incompetent with?

Also, is there anything in particular you would want? When you made the character did you find yourself wishing, Gee I wish I could find a few extra BP's for this or that. It looks OK but there is a bit of fat that could probably trimmed if you're looking for something specific.

I basically wanted a Troll that would be reasonably frightening in combat, but able to hang if/when the group has to go to a meet at a nightclub. The kind of Troll that blows her Shadowrunning money on nightclubs and blow.

Yes, I bought the influence group at 1. The Incompetent was originally going to be for Automotive Mechanics, but that's already covered by Uneducated (which is basically Incompetent for all technical skills), so I changed it to Disguise. I forgot that the program doesn't have a place to put that stuff.

Couple little things I noticed.

1) You didn't buy an OS for your comlink.
2) Take the Influence Group rather than the individual skills. It'll save you 4 BP's
3) The Datajack is probably not necessary.
4) Tailored Pheromones is probably not worth it unless you're a dedicated face, you'll be rolling 4 dice for most etiquette tests which is fair enough. You could even take the BP's you get from ditching the pheromones and bump your social skills a bit more.
5) You might want to talk something out with your GM about ditching the DocWagon contract and working out something with your Loyalty 4 Streetdoc.

These are things that I would change. The character is fairly well balanced as it is.

as i'm more of the combat monkey i would probably try to max out STR and use a Troll-Bow for ranged combat for example . . some bone lacing and bone strengthening and some light initiative and some tricked out cyber-eyes go a long way in that . .

I think you invest much points into "all kinds of large weapons". I´d personally prefer to spend nearly the same amount on Firearms 4.

Then I´d change Pilot Groundcraft and Survival to one in order to save BP for Perception 3 and Infiltration 3. Would increase playability further IMO.

Else it is a strong char, with loads of cheap (moneywise) growth potential (You are aware that your Pheromones don´t work via the matrix? Mayor detriment in our campain, yours may be different).

I was thinking of the Trollbow thing, but the reload time for arrows is way too long.

I thought standard commlinks came with a basic OS.

I did buy the Influence Group.

The datajack is there so that I don't have to fiddle with the commlink in mid-combat if we end up sharing video feeds or doing other stuff via our commlinks.

The tailored pheromones are there so that I can hang out as a backup face, or a "street" face to deal with big, nasty underworld types.

Doc Wagon > Street Doc for emergency service. The street doc is there so that when I want upgrades I don't have to worry about trusting my meat to a stranger; Doc Wagon is there to get my hoop out of the fire if I catch too many bullets in a bad neighborhood.

@Ryu: Heavy Weapons I can see for a troll though. If you can take an assault rifle, you can probably take an LMG, and to a troll they're probably pretty similar in use. The only thing you really get out of the Ares Alpha is the grenade launcher, but you can slap one on the White Knight just as easily. If it were me, I'd almost put the Automatics points in Unarmed 5, put the points that were in Unarmed into Dodge 4 and probably lose the Chrysler Nissan P-1 (22,700 is a lot of money to spend on a car you will probably lose the first time you take it on a run).

Bows are meant for sniping and toxin delivery anyways, so i see no big drawback there . . i see the biggest problem with not getting the fold up bow from Arsenal for you *g*
in an actual fire-fight, heavy automatic pistol . . sadly, thunderbolt and savalette are arsenal too i think *g*

Yeah, Heavy Weapons fit. And a Troll with an LMG will not get more attention than a troll with assault rifle. For the second skill something different is better, maybe rifles or Unarmed like Mercer suggests.

Nope!



DocWagon™ has some real limitations. I always think it's better to invest in a trusted Street Doc Contact myself.

Fair enough on the Datajack. Honestly it's probably a good idea, Datajacks don't cost much money or essence. Might actually suggest that if you're going to go for it shell out the extra and upgrade it to Beta. Doesn't really cost that much more, and having a System of 5 lets you get your hacker friend to upload some nasty black IC onto it so anyone trying to hack your PAN is in for an unpleasant surprise.

I can see where you're going with the Tailored Pheromones. Don't have the BBB in front of me so I can't remember off hand if it would be better to ditch the Pheromones and add a couple skill ranks or not but I think it might be the case. Might want to check it out.

DocWagon>Street Doc. I agree that DocWagon has its uses but I was suggesting talking to your GM about letting you pay even 80 or 90% of the docwagon cost and have your StreetDoc fill the role. Still provides similar services including hauling your ass out of the fire (here is where the rating 4 loyalty comes into play) and possibly providing plot hooks if he does so. Something along the lines of:
"Say buddy, remember a few months ago when my boys hauled you out of the Ancients territory leaking from a dozen places? I've got a bit of a problem here and was wondering if you could help me out?"

Hmm...good advice all around here. Perhaps I should trade the Automatics for Pistols? I figured some kind of concealable firearm would be nice. On the other hand, I could buy a pair of retractable spurs, dump the points in unarmed, and go to town, but I don't think I have the Strength for that (intentionally, since strength is kind of a one-trick pony in SR4).

Remove all your specalisations and by them with karma later.

I'd keep automatics just because it runs the range from concealable SMGs up, and thus is better than pistols. Consider swapping it down to 3 with no spec and going for heavy weapons 6 though.

you've got both dodge and unarmed combat - but no love for gymanstics dodge? Athletics group allows your character to flip ninja style and dodge ranged attacks, and you've got unarmed combat for closer up. Running, jumping and flipping out are all shadowrunner activities to my mind which makes em pretty handy to pick up.

Strength is good for close combat, climbing, and running. And you could buy Muscle Aug soon, as well as upgrade the Muscle Toner.

Pistols are good. My reasoning for Rifles would be Shotguns, AKA troll pistols.

Edit: Strength, not Stealth. Stupid me.

IMO trolls are only good for two things: close combat and bows. There is absolutely no point in making a regular automatics-wielding samurai who is also a troll. The reason for this is that body is a pointless stat in SR4 - well, maybe not pointless, but not that good. The DV system means that combat heavily favors attackers over defenders - even with 30 damage resistance dice, a full auto assault rifle will almost kill you. You should plan on dodging or dying, even if you're a troll.

The increased cap on troll strength, however, is truly nuts. With aluminum bone lacing, a Str 14 troll does 9P damage with his bare hands, which is more damage than most firearms. And a troll with a Str min 14 bow does 16P with his arrows, which actually exceeds a panther cannon for some reason (which might be something your GM will houserule, but still >.>). Every character ought to have guns, but if you make a troll without taking advantage of that huge strength boost, you're wasting your points. If you want to use an Ares Alpha, you may as well just be an elf or human and go all out on reaction and dodge. Never getting hit is a lot better than having high body.

I agree that strength is a one-trick pony, but trolls are also a one-trick pony, and their pony is strength. It's too bad that body is inferior to reaction and dodge, but it's the truth.

Recoil compensation.

His character already has a 5 (7) Reaction too, though, which is about as good as a human or even an elf would start out with. The optimal solution is to be good at dodging and soaking damage. If all you can do is dodge, then you will eventually get nailed by multiple attacks, wide bursts, or area attacks.

Recoil through Strength!
but because the troll-character in question does not get to benefit from ANYTHING in Arsenal, this rule is out of the equation again as soon as i am done mentioning it ^^

Doc wagon contracts are basically useless, since combat is generally decided in about 3-20 seconds. Doc wagons get there in "under ten minutes" which means your either a corpse, or your party will have healed you by then. Doc wagons also don't go into private property, so generally when you would really need it they are nowhere around. Save the 5 bp for something more important and if you feel like throwing away 25k then perhaps purchase it later.

If you look at trolls as an MMO character why do trolls excel in high strength and body? Because they are basically the tanks of a group. High amounts of soak dice with 4 edge allows a character to take quite a few hits and still be able to keep on truckin' (which makes a doc wagon contract even more useless.)

I think unarmed combat is quite a waste of bp when range weapons just seem to be better overall. I mean spending a complex action to punch someone when two rounds to the face just generally gets you so much more. It seems like if you are taking unarmed combat to block incoming attacks, don't. If you have 9 body and 18 armor odds are if they are doing 9p or 9s odds are you will pretty much soak that without batting an eye. If you want to take the skill later with the specialty it will cost you something like 10 or 12 karma when again 10 bps mean so much more.

Also I agree with removing the specialties in your character as 2 bps go so much further then 2 karma especially at character generation. I mean you could probably pick up a specialty after every session where as 10 bp can increase a stat that might take you 12+ sessions to increase by one (a body from 9 to 10 would cost 30 karma where as 10 bp will be so much more efficient.)

I take it your character has a squatter lifestyle as it was not really mentioned in your stats? Also a OS for a Meta Link is 200... basically chump change and you probably have a little bit of money you can sink into that field w/o sacrificing a bp.

Oh yeah and one last thing. Get a fully sealed suit of armor. No SR character should ever have exposed skin when going on a run. Maybe you don't want to sacrifice a bp on it, but if you are getting two suits of armor then at least make one of them sealed because contact chem's can ding a troll even one with a high body.

*nods* so we meet again Chemtech my old foe!

Extraterritorial property.

[/nitpick]

Yeah, they don't care about going through some poor schmuck property... or even small corpos.
Only the AAA (and maybe LoneStar and such law enforcement entities) will stop DocWagon from coming to save your sorry ass.

no one is going to stop doc wagon...they are just not going to cross the "border." if there's an open gate, and you happen to fall on the "inside" of that gate, you are out of luck chummer, they are gonna show up, look at you and drive home.

Er.. I didn't mean it like that...
Let me rephrase:
DocWagon will not risk going against the AAAs and THE LAW (picture a sheriff with a cigar and a shiny star badge).

P.S: Sorry about the miscommunication, english is not my native language.

the intent of your post was right I was just trying to clarify for the rest of the lurkers, in case there was any confusion as to why.
didn't mean to appear as curt or demeaning to your post or its intention.

as a sid enote I think doc wagon is more meant as a GM tool than for runners, how difficult would your piece of cake kidnapping run go when HTR doc wagon shows up to reclaim their customer? what do you do? you fight the doc and get negative rep, you let the "package" go and lose rep with your johnson...its a lose lose and an excellent story arc.

I just mean that when you generally NEED Doc Wagon I doubt they will come running, or if they come running guess what? Your already dead. If you can get extracted why call on Doc Wagon, and if you extracted you will already have other members of the team tending to you.... and if they try to loot your corpse and kill you I think Doc Wagon will also not be able to help you.... and maybe its time to join a different SR session.

There are plenty of situations where you could be in a legitimate extraction zone, but without your own transport, and/or badly injured. IMO, it's a worthy investment.

Maybe it's a good investment, but you will probably go on a few easy runs and then you can buy it w/o wasting precious BP's. Doc Wagon later is a good investment, but I doubt a GM will put you that situation where you will need it until you at least make 25-50k. Either that or just steal four cars, chop shop them and bam Doc Wagon contract.

Is there any real limit to how many visual enhancements you can put on a pair of contact lenses or goggles?

real? or RAW?
if you want real you have to specify what chain of technology you want the future to follow and provide for the next 60 years and which races happen at which interval.
if you want RAW then...um...nope.

Availability.

that's no real limit if you're willing to wait a bit and pay a bit more . . considering that those mods take up slots in weapons and cyber-eyes which both come with a now set value of capacity(slots) i think they should have a limit somehow . . .

That was the first thing that i houseruled in, clinging to the various grades of cybereyes (and the same capacity costs) for the sake of simplicity.
If anyone's interested, i can look it up, but i'm sure this has be done by several people independently.
I know that Serbitar included similar stuff in his houserule package.

The idea of contact lenses with IR, LLV, SL, US, vision enhancement and magnification and whatnot did not only sound ridiculous to me, which i would not have cared that much about, i also felt as if it would almost completely devalue other options for vision enhancements from a mechanical viewpoint.

another question . . say i get a pair of contacts with exactly one half of the availabile visibility mod options and another pair with the other half . . can two people wear one of each to get to see all visibility thingies if only with one eye? O.o

Augmentation's got penalties listed for using vision enhancements in one eye only.
So, yeah, it's possible, but i wouldn't recommend it.

You could wear fully kitted out glasses over fully kitted out contacts though (and even have cybereyes under them all). Nothing stops you from combining them.

but it's kind of cheesy, ain't it?

I too houseruled capacity for contacts, I don't remember correctly but maybe it was cap=2.
Plus, cybereyes are cheap if you are not awakened.

Back to your troll, I liked it. My suggestions:
-Lose the tailored pheromones, upgrade some social skills
-increase heavy weapons to 5 if you want (four will do perfectly fine in my game) buy a specialization for LMG's now or later on. take the white knight, add a gas vent and enjoy lots of recoil compensation.
-switch automatics for pistols and carry a concealed big P/ else switch it for longarms and use a sawed off shotgun as a troll pistol!
-keep the car, it's a nice car and not so easy to get later on -in my game at least- You can also enjoy spending some money in tuning it out with the new modification rules. You could even become the groups' "rigger"
-get the intimidation skill, you are a troll, make them notice!

Cheers! and happy gaming!

Max

edited to fix a verb

What? Wearing glasses over contacts? Not in my opinion, but even if it were, it is much less so than stuffing every conceivable modification in the contacts alone.