Ok, heres the general idea for the build.... Infiltration/melee specialist. Emphasis on the melee. Counterattack specialist. Ready to slice and dice with just about anyone. He has 12/12 armor, unencumbered, all underneath his chameleon suit. His swords have chameleon modification on them, so they go along with the suit just fine. This gives him a hefty 18 dice pool for damage resistance, He has a meger 9DP for infiltration (11 if in an urban area), but with the -4 perception from the chameleon suit, I think he should be sufficient to get by most generic guards. No attributes below 3, so no glaring weak spot there. A couple simsense negative qualities, and a spirit bane should keep things interesting (and explains his generic crappy commlink and lack of computer skills). His initiative is pretty pathetic, (6) and no initiative enhancement. I'll explain why later. Hes got the main standpoints of skills covered. Combat skill (blades) stealth skill (infiltration), social skill (etiquette), and perception. Topped off his magic and gave him dual weapon foci to start with. The new armor stacking rules seem very wonky if any body 6 character can hit 12/12 without issue for quite cheap. (3800nuyen by my count).

Fighting idea is this. He'll draw the swords when he thinks combat is coming, since they're ruthenium polymer coated too, this doesn't actually hurt his stealth abilities in the least. He'll likely start the fights, so he'd start with a one sworded attack at 16 dice. (Leaving the other one to full parry as per two weapon style maneuver). Averaging 5 hits, he may or may not hit. If he does, he's at a base of 7P/-1AP, plus successes. So, assuming he was attacking a practice dummy or something, he could expect an average hit of 12P/-1AP. Pretty decent. Assuming he misses his first attack or something, and the guard pulls out a melee weapon of somekind, he gets to full parry with 21 dice (-4 to disarm) so 17 dice, (expecting 5 hits) and if successful, can disarm the guard, dealing his damage in the process (due to the arnis de mano advantage). (I'm gonna assume net hits increase damage here), but a base of 7P/-1AP hurts pretty good. Then, since he successfully parried, he ripostes giving up his second turn action to attack again (and utilizing his counterstrike power) and attacks at an impressive 22 dice, again with the 7P/-1AP damage. If he successfully hits the guard with that, he can give up his third turn action and finishing move to attack once more at 16 dice, again doing 7P/-1AP damage base. Lastly, should the guard (or the guards friends) live through all of that, he can repeat it the next round, choosing to full parry as an interrupt (giving up his 4th turns action, and disarm if the guard is armed), riposte (if the parry is successful) and finishing move (if the riposte successfully hits). Effectively giving him 3 melee attacks in one IP, without any initiative enhancement as long as the baddies keep swinging at him.

I would greatly appreciate any rules I've abused/broken/missed being pointed out to me, and would gladly discuss the ways maneuvers work/should work together.

Seems to work as a tech demo. For a real char I´d try to fit Athletics and Stealth as full groups (for Gymnastics(Jumping)/Climbing/Running and Disguise/Shadowing), and I´d personally pay by lowering magic to 5 (as always).

Warning: I´m not exactly a MA specialist. You might get in trouble using the Arnis-de-Mano DV bonus with blades larger than knifes. Ask the GM and all that.

Melee combat is always weaker than ranged combat. You have to get close, and once you do the enemy gets to defend with skill + attribute without having to go on full defense. It's great if you can surprise, but it's no better than surprising in ranged combat. In fact, it's worse, because ranged combat can generally kill two or more people per action phase. This character is powerful in melee, but he's not versatile enough to be worthwhile.

Very true on the ranged vs. melee points, but a focused melee adept/dodge monkey can cause a ranged specialist a whole world of hurt if he gets close. Unless you are fighting another melee specialist, the fact that optimised melee combatants can get DVs up to the 10P to 13P range (and the fact that Impact armor values tend to be lower than Ballistic) means a single net hit is likely to cause extreme death. Add Finishing Move and even a heavily armored troll is going to likely be dead in a single action phase.

I do concur however, that an optimised ranged specialist > optimised melee specialist in situations where range is a factor.

Looks interesting. I will mention that you ripped yourself off on Special Attributes: Magic 1->6 only costs 65, not 75. (40 for 1->5, 25 for 1->6). Personally, I'd trade in 4 levels of Counterstrike for Improved Reflexes 1. An extra Initiative Pass trumps 4 extra attack dice that you only get if the guy swings at you anyday, imho. For example, Counterstrike won't help you if he pulls a sidearm and shoots at you.

Okay, so I'm not going to comment on the stats--others can do that better than me. I do, however, think that many GMs would have a problem with Ruthenium Polymer-coated swords. I mean, every time you cut something, or parry a blow, you've got a very good chance of tearing/cutting the polymers. And if you didn't tear them, I should think that they'd at very least remove the damage bonus from the swords being mono-filiment, since the ruthenium is now covering the mono-edge, and so it isn't as "hyper-sharp" as it previously was.

Then again, I don't have Arsenal or Augmentation yet, so I don't know if this is specifically allowed by canon.

I'm one of those GMs

Well the katanas like those in my games not allowed
1. Monofilament Weapon focuses were discussed in Enchanting Thread last year, not allowed.
2. Ruthenium Polymer-coated swords I have issue with as a GM. Not allowed.

Any character with a more than 8 dice for the perception, or ultrawide band radar, etc will "see" you adept.

WMS

I think the multiple IP drawing has been covered enough. Since we can't get an "official" ruling on it yet, to each their own. But the combat wouldn't work that way in my group. If you don't want to spend the adept point for another initiative though, I recommend carrying doses of Jazz so that you don't have to rely on the skewed view of interrupts to be useful.

If you have an issue with the monofilament swords, make them katanas. I just get very very tired of the "katanas are better than real swords cause they're awesome!" stats.


1. Again, if you don't like monofilament foci, I'll just make them katanas instead. Big whoop.
2. Why do you have an issue with ruth polymer coated swords, but not ruth polymer coated armor that will get shot?

You can't duel wield katanas, they are two handed weapons.

generally armor is not coated, a cloak is, as any uncoated spot will stick out like a soar thumb. I don't think you can coat swords with it, I belive it is just clothes, have to check the RAW.

I think that pretty clearly says no to weapons.

As I recall from M&M, ruthineum is a coating only a few molecules thick. It doesn't tear like cloth; it takes something serious to damage it. If the sword isn't damaged, I'd imagine that the ruth isn't either. Now, you could definitely get blood on the ruthineum, and THAT would make the swords a lot more visible.

I didn't look at the character closely and I didn't notice just one IP... A combat character can't have just 1 IP. One with a lot (more than this character has) of stealth dice might be able to get away with ninja strikes, jumping out, using a monofilament garotte, and melting back into the shadows. But once you start swinging swords around the game is up, and now you're stuck effectively moving in slow motion against your wired up opponents.

@Tarantula
Why even bother with chameleon or Ruthenium, this characters infiltration skill is too weak, even with the minus dice he would be getting, he will still get "seen" by alot of npcs.

With his current infiltration skill he will not be attacking unseen alot.

WMS

As a GM I'd definitely disallow the ruthenium on the blades... sheathed? Certainly. Armor is fine. Once you get shot, however, its usefulness will seriously start degrading unless you are a dodge monkey.

Now: You could make an arguement that the swords can be successfully coated. Then I'd make the counter arguement that just about every god damn time you use it you'll be jacking up the damn coating and need to have it redone. It would be impossible to keep a good edge on them without screwing up the polymers, so you'd have to take a penalty to either the stealth value OR the damade/ap of the sword. In other words to damn much monkeying with the system to make it worthwhile. Besides, if you're doing this for ninja-strikes, just get behind them before you draw. I'm pretty sure that you can see a large dude right in front of your face even if he's polymered to hell and back just from the distortion... it ain't invisibility after all.

But then, I'm no expert. Ignore me, I never said a thing... whatever.

wait a minute... why aren't you using vibroswords? =D

reach 1 so they can be dual-wielded, damage is str/2 + 4... equal to a combat axe!

also, i'd boost his strength, personally. make it a troll, toss some kind of enhancement to strength in there (drugs, if nothing else) and you should 1-shot pretty much everything.

also, while you're at it... mix styles you can get better than +1 DV to blades if you choose multiple styles

[edit]hmmm... spike brings up a valid point =S

just for your reference, folks, multiquote works across threads =S [/edit]

Jaid: I KNOW that quoted post has nothing to do with this thread....


just sayin'...

Many bothans died to bring us that information. Thanks Jaid!

Yes, as the there's a weapon modification option for ruthenium coated weapons that does not exclude melee weapons, i could make that argument.
Also, please note that your whole argumentation is based on completely unsupported and speculative assumptions about a fictional technology.
Good luck disproving any of this without earning the title asshat GM.

Same goes for arguing against monofilament foci, as they are specifically given as an example in the errata.

I don't get the fuss about goddam melee weapons anyway.
I mean, there's people running around with semi-automatic rocket launchers, high-force spirits, CHA-based dicepools in the high 20s or drones packing friggin' Barret-121s modified for full-auto and you care about a pair of swords?

Haha. First, take a deep breath. Second, I agree. Third, ruining the ruthenuim coating on a melee weapon sounds like a really good glitch effect to me.

And yeah, I would not exclude bladed weapons from being ruthenium coated. Logic has harder sacrifices to do in the name of fun.

After taking a deep breath, i completely agree on the glitch effect idea.
For the sake of fairness, i'd make it a critical glitch effect in this case, though- as recoating the weapon (or even the ruining of the coating itself?) would also destroy the focus' enchantment.
Losing a piece of equipment as expensive as this qualifies as "critical glitch level hurtful" in my book.

But then, GM sadism varies from group tp group.

Hmmm, that is more sadistic than I intended. I agree, that would be overly hurtful. Were I the GM, I would keep it a glitch effect but allow the rutheium coating to be repaired without destroying the focus. I would prefer to do it that way as opposed to the critical glitch/destroyed focus method, because having the cloaking on the sword get fouled sounds fun and I'd like to see it happen from time to time without horribly screwing the character.

Ah you're one of those GMs.. the ones that allow Dikoted Ally Spirits... gotcha.

Actually, its a little weird: I adopt a less absolute stance than the guys that started off with the 'just say no', and I get the 'evil asshole GM rant'?

Fine, no bullet for you, all those bullets your character has that say 'heavy pistol'? Yeah, those are 44mag, your heavy pistol happens to be 45. Sorry chuck.

Dikoted™ Ally Spirits are so passé! Don't you know the latest craze is Monofilament Ally Spirits?

I just assumed the monofilament was standard at this point, reallly. Dikote is added post factory...

It was not in any way my intention to imply you are an evil asshole GM. I agree with the logic, I´d just not stop one of my players from doing that. Maybe ruthenium can be made ultra-hard and actually be used to enforce the edge? We don´t know.

Well, I do admit that aside from the fact that there IS an earlier comment about not allowing ruthenium as a weapon upgrade (by book or somesuch), that I do tend to apply hard logic whenever possible:

I can't see ruthnium polymers being that much more durable than, say, anodizing the metal (or whatever) and I've SEE that stuff wear off after less ruthless use can ramming into bodies violently (all that bone, armor, bits of metal all over the place...) much less actual, you know, fights with it. The difference being, when anodizing starts to wear off, all it does is look a little more used and you have to watch out for rust a bit more. When ruthnium polymers wear off you just lost your stealth. And I'm pretty sure really fancy paint won't hold an edge worth a damn.

That said, I don't hold my logic fetish against anyone. I view it as an artifact of the old shadowrun suplements that really did try to use as much hard science as possible to explain stuff instead of 'hand wavium and unobtanium'. Like Shadowtech, where this stuff was introduced and we could actually see really crappy pictures of what carcerands looked like at the microscopic level.

I dunno, the character seems kinda hollow. A physad who's only strength lies in defence and counter attack? Why are you trying to make him stealthy at all when you are so straightforwardly combat oriented? You reaslize you are going to be something next to useless in a fire fight. FIrst turn sure, you get all dodge, but how about when the Red Samurai strike team you are fighting against decides to spray the general area you are in with a fully automatic wide spray? Fat wad your +6 dodge dice will do you then, and without any ranged capabilities to speak of you are going to be finding yourself more out in the open then ever. I would encourage you to drop reactions down to 2 points, and leave it with the counter attack. Useless outside specialized situations.

Of course not, that was me.
Sorry Spike, i got carried away a bit.

I do understand the reasoning behind ruthenium wearing off after hard strikes, but as it's a fictional material we don't know that much about (besides some brief flavour text and the -indeed crappy- pictures from Shadowtech), it might be better not to assume restrictions not mentioned in the rules.
IMHO, there's a really good reason why they don't try to cram that much hard science into SR anymore : it tends not to make that much sense.
People come up with questions about cyberlimb power supplies and such...and we all know where this leads : more flavour text running down to "don't worry, it all works fine because of SCIENCE!"

So, when dealing with such questions, i really prefer weighing the gameplay consequences against each other.
And, frankly, from that point of view, ruthenium coated melee weapons are the last thing to worry about.

What would a brand new starting character be doing fighting a Red Samurai strike team?



Emphasis mine. As far as what to do when the crap hits the fan, drop prone, keep the stealth on, and sneak over to them. I'm pretty sure its a lot easier to sneak up on people spraying around full auto fire than it is when all is silent in the area. Not to mention that he does have 18 dice for damage soak, chances are, at the least, he won't die, just be injured and able to duck and hide in cover while his teammates help out.

So, wait, it's OK to have ruthenium polymer armored suits and dermal sheathes that protect you from damage but when it's put on a sword it's suddenly not durable enough? I understand the idea that you couldn't really coat the edge properly, but who cares if the edge of it is no longer changing color alongside everything else? Remember that a chameleon coated sword is still as easily detected as an uncoated heavy pistol, and having that edge still be visible would go a long ways toward explaining why it's still so relatively easy to detect and why your opponents can still easily see what you're doing in melee combat provided you don't get the drop on them. As far as the monofilament wire broadsword penalty goes, again, why the heck would you bother to treat the wire that serves as an edge at all? Monowire is already thin and hard to see, you'd just have to treat sword it's being mounted on without treating the wire, a task that's probably not all that hard when you have access to a facility (which is after all a prerequisite to performing the coating process to begin with). A chameleon coating doesn't have to be perfect or provide absolutely 100% coverage to do its job, after all; that much is already proven by the fact that you can keep your chameleon suit bonuses while running around with something as large as an uncoated heavy pistol. Ruthenium has never claimed to make you invisible, it's just "smart camo."

Tiny nitpick. It only takes a shop to do the modification, not a facility.

Well, Whip, to sum up nicely: Ruthenium polymers have absolutely zero protective ability in and of themselves. The bullet proof stuff you mentioned earlier? Yeah, that was bullet proof before it was invisible. As for wearing off, there are no rules governing general durability on anything so far as I know, and very few game systems include them.

Good reason too, they are a pain in the ass and no one will agree on any two points you chose to pick anyway. Besides, we've got GM's who can make nice calls.

Though someone else made an excellent point I was unaware of: Ruthenium sword is not all that invisible anyway... though given that I beleive it was comparable to a concealed heavy pistol it ain't all the visible.

I should think that a nice 'johnny on the spot' rule I would possibly employ regarding effectiveness is that after every round of melee combat (not: I stab a dude... I'm being generous here, someone parrying (you, the other guy, whomever), it loses a point of effectiveness. Not IP, full rounds (generous again).

Ditto armor: After every time you use the armor to soak damage it loses a point of effectiveness from the damage. .. eventually, even though say 90% of you is still covered, the mass of bloody holes wandering around reallly offset the camo effect.

But: Since I've yet to see players really go hog wild on Ruthenium I don't foresee this being an issue anyway. The guys that DO go stealth usually put it OVER their armor, and try not to get into fights at all.... makes wear and tear less an issue....