I've read someone that described Dikote as a staple item in previous editions of SR, implying that there are no staple items in SR4. Obviously though there are many.

What do you consider Shadowrun staples ? Let's look at the whole picture though ; staple skills, spells, items, 'ware, whatever.

Here's a few I've thought of

Commlink (obviously), fitted with Firewall 4 at least (6 when possible, and a must-have with hackers, along with a good IC fitted with Analyze/Black Hammer)
Survival knife ! GPS + small hidden compartment + all-purpose tool + wacky flashlight, all in one !
Gecko tape gloves ! Essential if you don't want to spend the BP to get climbing / athletics
Muscle toner / augmentation for the essence-wary physical adept, along with synaptic boosters
Improved reflexes spell
Platelet factories for any combat-oriented PC
SOCIAL SKILLS
Skillwires rating 3 for any Street samurai
Vehicle. Any vehicle.
Fake SIN rating 4, plus 2 other rating 2 spares.
Perception. Always. Rating 3 minimum, with spec.
Dodge (Ranged) + Melee weapon skill. Every runner that has the slightest chance of being on the frontline needs a melee weapon skill, if only at 1 with spec.
Oculars. Either cybereyes, or well-equipped sensors. WITH ULTRASOUND VISION.
Cyberears or audio enhancers.
Smartgun systems for every combat-oriented runner.

That's all I can think of for now. What do you think you can add ?

Armor

And no, not everyone needs a melee skill, at least not in SR4. In fact, the inability to perform in melee is about the only reason to bother taking Dodge over Gymnastics at all. If you're even remotely strapped for points it's honestly one of the first things that should go. I'd also take a Firewall 3 over a Firewall 4 to avoid inflation, since a single die isn't enough to justify the premium (I often spend all my nuyen). I tend to go with the all or nothing approach to software-- If you're not the hacker you're likely to be dependent on other people for real matrix security, so don't pay the premium just to go from 3 to 4. Spend that nuyen on something more useful, like buying a drone or a decent Agent.

I vote chem seal. When I don't have mine I'm as worried about random knock gas as Number Six. Also if it's your that kind of table the rating 2 power focus at chargen

A micro-lighter, not a flashlight.
But the blade can glow for a couple of hours.

Or was that what you were talking about?
But I don't think that's near as efficient as an actual flashlight...

why would you need staples in shadowrun? everything is paperless with commlinks.

A ranged weapon option.

I found this out the hardway. My first character was a ridiculous Ork Adept with a Dikoted Katana (SR3). I absolutely butchered anything I got close too. Something on the order of 10D damage? It was stupid powerful. So our GM put a bunch of mooks with rifles and scopes across a chasm. The only bridge was 100m away from them, and the bridge was 75m across. I had no way of shooting. It sucked a lot.

A good concealable weapon. You can't carry that sword everywhere, why even try?

Yeah, I actually forgot about the micro-lighter.

you go to your room and you think about what you did.

That's totally what I thought when I read the title. I figured the thing would be that the staples are Dikoted.

Trauma Dampers

Oh my god they are good for mages. Pain editor is argueably better, but hey, the dampers are at char gen.

It shouldn't even take that kind of GM fuck-you-ing (seriously, a chasm, a far-off bridge, and a bunch of bad guys with scoped high-powered rifles? What are the odds of those hoops needing to be jumped through in your average 'run?) to make a Shadowrunner realize he needs to be able to do more than punch, kick, and stab people. At no point in your Shadowrunning career before that had you ever faced anyone on a catwalk above you, someone with an initiative that beat yours and a pistol while you had none, etc, etc, etc? Seriously?

About the ranged weapon. A good GM of course will throw some curveballs at the party-but he or she will also keep in mind the party makeup, and what you excel at. If a party happens to be very non combatant and the GM 'throws them off' by having them _forced_ into a fight between KE and a gang, that's not cool. If the party is looking like it MIGHT end up in a fight between KE and a gang, but they have a full chance to bail out, that's fine. If they purposefully get in this situation, well.. .

If someone is a ranged specialist with no melee options, screwing them by sending large groups of melee after them that would scare Joe Sam isn't cool either. Sending a few guys after him is smart, naturally, but don't single out that character and pick on them over the REST of the party for their choices. Characters have advantages and disadvantages, and sometimes the disadvantages come up, but only a bully exploits them to THAT degree of the bridge with the high-powered scopes. wtf? The catwalk example is believable. I make sure with my melee character they utilize tactics, they do have a couple throwing knives and flash-bangs flaskpaks on them(does wonders for leveling the playing field if you're a bruiser), and plays buddy system with a ranged person. I know my guy's weaknesses and im sure he does too.

The player with no ranged skills, sure, should be disadvantaged sometimes but don't cripple them because of their choices. I know the game is more gun-based but I don't like the idea of a gun skill being that 'must have' since we've been talking about not liking must-haves too much. I've played melee characters to good extent before because our GM actually tailored adventures to our party and we were careful to take on things we knew we could handle.

Sorry for the rant, but IMO there's a difference between 'characters showing their weaknesses sometimes'' and ''exploiting them unfairly in dumb situations just because'' and it gets me kind of pissy to see the latter.

THAT being said, staples?

Commlink. Yeah, i think this wins the award for ''most needed item.''
One social skill. Really, anything...well, ok so you can go without Instruction. I'd say any one of Negotiations, Con, or Etiquette.
Perception. At least 1 point in it. The more the merrier, natch.
Dodge OR Melee Skill + Gymnastics.
A weapon of sorts. Yeah, i do believe having SOME kind of weapon is a staple. Even if its a set of shock gloves, a holdout, or a simple knife.
That being said, a knife or the survival knife. Just because your character has a giant sword or axe he decapitates people with doesn't mean he might not need a utility knife.
Personally, I like medkits and a GPS as well.
Music chips. Your character can be bored sometimes.
Armor.
A good fake SIN.
A chemsuit, even if you use it to keep the rain off.
Contacts and Earbuds(at least), with some vision/audio modifications. VE and AE level 2-3 is a bonus.

I disagree with 'needing' extra initative passes. Yeah, ive played several character successfully with 1 IP. And combat characters, I might add. Successfully, ill say again. And they did well on top of it. A few of my guys are walking proof you do NOT NEED multiple IPs to survive combat or even do well. Im not sure what style everyone else plays, but when i read that combat characters with 1 IP might as well just curl up and die i really, really, get puzzled. Maybe in SR1-2 when the Sam with Wired 3 and the Smartlink went about 12 times before the next guy it was better, but in 3 or 4? Sure they're nice, but there are many other options available.

As for combat characters and ware, i'd say just some muscle toner is the only necessary one, being that every combat skill is linked to Agility. Smartguns for the firearm loving runner is also up there.

Im not sure what else. ive played and had fun with everything from a ganger with an armor jacket, lead pipe, and double-barreled sawed off to a Grammaton Cleric wannabe to people with really crappy physical stats who survived just fine. All games differ, IMO.

But yeah, the commlink.

Commlink
Fake SIN
Some kind of pistol
Stim patches

Meta Link with fake SIN to dispose if necesary
Medkit somewhere

'Ware
Muscle toner and maybe muscle augmentation
Cybereyes or vision accessories if essence-minded

Skills
Perception!
Dodge (+2 ranged) or gymnastics
Etiquette or Negotiation 1+
Infiltration and Shadowing 1+

without derailing too much: Ofc you won't need more than 1 IP if you are doing stealth runs, where you only have to take out a few guards/drones. Those fights will be over after the initial attack anyway. If you are into serious fighting however, every extra initiative pass may mean one less ganger/corpsec guy/insect spirit will be standing for the next round to attack you.
In addition to speed up (in game, not at the table unfortunatly) fights, there will be less incomming fire on you and your group. And you want that.

Did you miss the part about it being my FIRST Shadowrun character? As in, I had never played before that guy. It was like our.. third run, maybe? The GM was teaching me a lesson.

And no, no one ever beat my init before that. I was averaging at a 30something.

But seriously. 1st character. Like.. 5th session. I was a newbie

No need to ! Because there's one in the SURVIVAL KNIFE !! What a wonderful gadget.

If only it had a towel....

Don't forget to bring a towel...
South Park, you see. It even invades the 2070s.

On a side note, I'm gonna have to say a good quality medkit. Those things can mean the difference between life and death.

Unless they're making a Hitchhiker's Guide reference, which predates South Park by a fair margin, to put it mildly.

Probably a HHG, yeah. They had some pretty advanced towel technology, although Towlie is more advanced (though far less useful) -- I mean, he's an AI, isn't he?

...gas mask
...autopicker
...ration bars
...water purification tabs
...medikit 6 (with one set extra supplies)
...Non Conductive armour treatment (min 3)
...Choco Tarts™.

Autopicker ? Guess it depends of the frequency of regular keylocks in your GM's universe... I don't think I've seen one in any of mine's games..

(Yes the towel was a HHG reference, although I liked this South Park episode too)

Back to topic, I'm surprised nobody cited the glue sprayer yet.

In Shadowrun, Staples's Easy Button is wireless.

...but Lofwyr has the only one left.

Oh god yes, glue sprayer is probably my favorite piece of random gear .

There's just so much you can do with it.

Task Spirit

I'd also like to point out that it's insane to think that everyone would be superfast. If the default is 3 initiative passes, then well it's you making the same characters too often. Oh, and just to point out, I play 2e and am perfectly fine with only going once per round. I made a character with no 'ware or magic who was just a guy who was pretty good. He had 5 or 6 +1d6 initiative. He was faster than an average guy, but sure he didn't go 4-5 times per round. And if the opponents don't know where you are, they can go as fast as they want and you can still shoot them in the back of the head while they're running around in circles.

Sorry, I get annoyed slightly by people saying "everyone must _____" anything. Also, I play characters who use non-dikoted swords sometimes too

Anyway, I'll leave it at that.

I never said that everyone HAD to have extra IP's... I just consider :
1-The improved reflexes spell VERY useful for mages
2-The synaptic booster a VERY nice touch for combat-oriented physical adept who wanted to augment without losing too much essence. IE, the synaptic booster is better for him than wired reflexes.

If I really thought extra IPs were a must-have, I'd just have said "Extra IPs for Everybody !", or "Wired Reflexes are a must !". I don't use extra iniative passes all the time... In quentra's "Old World Charm" game, I play a Face who doesn't have them.

EDIT : Chibu, if you get annoyed when people say that you must have "something", maybe you should stay out of threads that are specifically about Must-Have's...

Alternately, you could choose not to whine when you create a thread about 'must haves', complete with an inane list of crap, and then someone calls you on one or two of the items.

Yeah I guess you're right. Sorry for sounding like a prick, I just wanted to explain my point about initiative. Sometimes my english writing skills aren't up to par, so it doesn't come out the way I want it to.

I always go with the Firewall 6. Sure as hell expensive, but I always figure that Paranoia is a Good Thing™ to have for a 'Runner. It's available at character gen, can always run on any commlink, and doesn't cost that much more than a Rating 3 firewall.

A Troll. Not that it's necessarily a must-have, but it always seems to be there. There's so many things you can do with it too! Open locked doors, get out of picking up the tab, use as a shield, carry the rigger/hacker on it's back (when decked in), it's got a million and one uses!