OK a quick bit of intro - I've only played a little bit of SR (though I've managed a little of SR1, SR2 & SR3 over the years) but have played plenty of assorted games, the past few years a lot 3.5 D&D so I'm quite familiar with the problems you can get from trying to create a character from just reading the rules rather than playing games with those rules. My original idea was a pistolm expert who could also back up the face. My original design was just too spread out (trying to do too many things) so I've tweaked things to the following. Any advice appreciated.



Cheers

Kithran

Point 1:
I am confused about the Pistols 6 under what I assume to be Knowledge skills. I mean, yeah, you should have a Knowledge Skill of Pistols, of course, but... Why so high?

I personally think these knowledge points (or at least some; maybe half) could be spent elsewhere. Maybe even keep them related:

-Expert Gunsmiths 2 (a good fallback for finding a new gun contact, supplies or access to a shop for your own smithing.)

And you would still have a Knowledge Skill of Pistols 4

Point 2:
I added up your Adept powers and you have only spent 4.5 of your 5 power points. You have a whole 0.5 left! My gods, the things you can do! Below I list what I would consider, in order of preference from most to least:

- You could drop a level of Kinesics and pick up Astral Perception!
- Enhanced Perception II
- Improved Skill: Pistols (for a Pistols (Semi Autos): 6(+2))
- Spell Resistance
- Killing Hands


You've made no mention of the background for this guy. With his face skills and his corporate background skills and language skills we might assume he is from a Japanese corp background (which is kinda weird for an Ork, but a background could definitely explain it.) Anyway, a background story, even limited or vague could go a long way in making suggestions for skills and/or Adept powers.

With that all said, it's nice to see a build that looks "normal" and isn't tweaked to all high hell. I think this guy could definitely survive in my world. Nice job.

Vlad

As far as Gear goes:

I would suggest the character have above and byeyond anything else you purchase:

- a gunshop: 5,000Y
- a gun kit: 500Y
- a middle lifestyle: 5,000Y
- a low lifestyle (for the shop): 1,000Y
- a couple fake SINs, rating 3: 6,000Y
- a stash*: 6,775Y (not including clothes and credstick cash)


* A stash is your generic runner's insurance policy. It's composed of: a couple of your favorite handguns (two Preds 700Y) and a couple of your favorite rounds reloads, two clips per weapon (APDS 560Y) and (Gel 140Y) and a silencer (200Y); a spare disposable comlink(Sony Emperor 750Y) with a never used rating 3 fake SIN (3,000Y); a survival kit (100Y), a medkit R6 (600Y); two changes of clothes, one corp appropriate and another street appropriate (cost variable) along with a lined longcoat (700Y); cash on a certified credstick (start with half of your starting money, max at 2,000Y) And a nice black backpack large enough to stuff it all in (25Y, GM discretion) The stash should be stored someplace accessible when on the run. A terminal storage locker near the subway is good. There are many creative places. Perhaps in a wall in a rundown motel bathroom. Someplace unlikely to be found and easily enough accessed privately.


The above gear alone is a grand total of: 24,275Y or nearly 5 BP.

Vlad

sorry for the brief tangent, nice character incidentally Hate to see generic one trick ponies, the quick and easy characters tend to take the brunt of my wrath I'm afraid (not that I won't just kill a decent character if its required or unavoidable)

one of our longest lived characters currently is a troll detective who really doesn't know much about detectives aside from what he's seen in 100 year old flatscreen movies... apparently smoking drinking putting your feet onto desks and calling women dames are all quite important IIRC he occasionally defaults to his pulp noir movie skill instead of any detective skills he has

but ... doesn't unused Sin seem like a dreadful idea? Mr S. Runner's system number was created 24 years ago (fake) and was relatively active until six months ago (purchase date) and then he vanished from the global credit market for six months (no cash in or out, no purchases and no hits on the presumably networked global tracking system for sins/pans) then reappeared and started living normally.

(unless I am overstating the way Sins / tracking / profiling work in my games) that'd flag up security alerts all over the place, I essentially tax people for having multiple ID's (for keeping them active and unsuspicious) or they let them rot and use them for emergencies and then dump them.

I mean grabbing Mr S. Runners id once a month, dumping 1000 nuyen into an active account, making a few perishable purchases and either using them or dumping them on the street for the gutter life to disseminate is a fair price for an established and more secure (read average existence) SIN surely ...

I think this build is a little to strength heavy. Strength easily the worst attribute in this game. On of my favorite things about going with an orc is that you can use str as a dumb stat and still have a legit score, if only by human standards. Mechanically I'd swap out your boost str for a boost reaction. Better dodging and initive are always good things. Also you could easily aford to lower your str by 1. I'd put those 10 BP strait into gear and contacts. I couple of odd ball contacts with a lot of flavor will really help make this character stand out. I know it does't seem like it wacky contacts are actually a huge assett especially if you havea GM that rolls with the punches

I second the notion about Strength being less useful, especially for someone who focuses on guns. If you want to bump it up to 5, then you'll at least get the better Damage Value. Otehrwise I'd suggest leaving it at 3.

This'll make you pretty weedy as Orks go, but you're still as buff as a slightly above average human. On the other hand, you could just describe your character's build as lean and wiry.

Not sure how number crunchy you want to get, but... I've recently come to appreciate the awesomeness of adding a bit of bioware to and adept, so I'm going to throw this out there.

• You might be ahead to drop 1 pt of magic (losing the Ability Boosts and .5 PP unspent). That frees up 10 BP.
• Invest 5 BP in Resources (20,000).
• Buy Muscle Toner (2) for 16,000 and 0.4 Ess. That'll give you 2 extra dice for Pistols and Unarmed Combat.
• You'll have 4,000 nuyen extra and 5 BP left over.
• If you're using Arsenal, spend the 5 BP to buy level of Krav Maga or Firefight. Since you're a pistol fighter and all...
• If you're not using Arsenal, consider using those 5 BP to buy a "utility" positive quality like Ambidextrous, Friendly Face, High Pain Tolerance (1), or Human-Looking.

The downside of this is that your long-term magical prospects get a little narrower. Still, if you're not in for a long-haul campaign, then this might be a good way to buff yourself up out of the starting gate.

Anyway, just a thought. I completely understand if you want to go the purist, magic-only route.

BTW, I do like where you're going with this. I was trying to figure out what he did before running the shadows. Maybe he worked for Wuxing in a security postion? Or maybe he was a "buyer" for the corp, travelling to trade shows and such, looking for hot new-to-market and bleeding-edge concept weapons?

-paws

I wholeheartedly agree with you on the SIN use, if that is the makeup of your game. By "unused" SIN, I meant one that you have never used in anyway to compromise it. No purchases which can be linked back to you, or in anyway that would flag the Star. Keeping it active by buying the occasional meal here and there, (always in places you don't frequent), some clothes, direct payment of your attached comlink, donating to an innocuous charity, etc. is only of the good. The key thing to remember is this type of stash is not your retirement SIN and fund. It's your emergency back-up Plan C. Drek is flying... you have access to guns, ammo, meds, a comlink, clothes for a quick "disguise", a reasonable SIN if no one is looking at it too hard and CASH. With any luck at all, you can go to ground on this for a week or two or maybe even get out of Dodge.

I also believe a "stash" of the type I mentioned should be checked on occasionally, when a character is not in the middle of a run, not being tailed, etc. If it's in the bus station, stop by every few months and check the locker. If you stash it in a cheap motel, check in every few months and get that room (paying cash, of course.)

As a runner progresses (and can afford it), he should establish more than one of these located around the city. It gives him options and, if one should become compromised, there will hopefully be others.

And this doesn't need to be a logistical nightmare for the GM. It can be handled before or after a session. Maybe a couple dice rolls if the GM has stuff going on behind the scenes and a quick note in his gamebook. As a GM, pretty much if the player is making an effort, I am not gonna penalize him (or make work for me.) To me, this is good playing.

Vlad

If the fake SIN is one that is meant for emergencies, then I'd allow the SIN to be bought and stored unused. Sure the SIN might not be used for months at a time, but as long as the SIN is not associated with criminal activity, I would not have it raise any flags.

Unless there is a central clearing house for all financial transaction activities, I do not see how a time gap would raise any flags, you could always have used another account associated with this SIN. The SIN knows which accounts it has, but unless there is a central database that stores everything that your SIN is associated with, then gaps in financial histories should not raise flags. Afterall, your SIN knows that you patronised the Stuffershack today, the account you have with Bank A transfered the credit to Stuffershack, but unless the Border Patrol talks to Stuffershack or Bank A, it won't know what you had for lunch today. The taxman might need to know what accounts you have, but if those accounts are offshore, do those offshore banks need to disclose your account details to the IRS?

I would rationalise it as the higher the Rating of the fake SIN, the more countermeasures it would have to deal with such discrepancies.

Another thing I noticed:

Ork Face/Pistoleer does not have a Stealth skill! IMO, all Runners need some stealth. I would carve a few points out somewhere and get some.

For cheap, try:

Infiltration(Urban): 1(+2)

It would only cost 6 BP (You could lower your Strength Attribute by 1 to pay for it as Paws wisely suggested) and, since it goes against your Reaction 5, you would be tossing 6(+2) dice.

You will be effectively trading in one die you will be using rarely (in this case really only for 1 point of damage code for melee, and occasional heavy lifting) for, get this, A Whole New Skill! One you need and at which you can toss upwards of 8 dice under most circumstances.

Don;t forget those 4 extra BP we freed up! You can boost two more skills by two dice, at least some of the time, by getting a couple more specializations. Don't forget those specializations stay there as you build your character up with more points later on. Specializations are a Runner's best friend.

My Suggestion for using the remaining 4 BP:
Dodge(Melee): 4(+2)
This is always a personal favorite of mine since you are boosting the one that DOESN'T get doubled in application of Full Defense.

Perception(Visual): 4(+2)
Sight is the most commonly used sense. Most of your perception rolls are going to be based off what you see. A close runner-up is your hearing.

What a bargain! For one die/point (that your character will likely never miss) you are getting 8 dice in sneaking around and 2 more dice in your Melee Dodge and 2 more dice in many of your Perception rolls.


YOUR CHARACTER's STATS (with my Changes)

Vlad

Cheers for the advice so far - here's a revised version of my character:


As to the various comments made:

Pistols knowledge skill - this was meant to represent the true gun geek - able to discuss the relative merits of just about any pistol, useless trivia about them, tell you the differences between the november 2069 Ares Predator IV with the March 2070 Ares Predator IV etc, minor overlap on other firearms (e.g. knowing that the caliber for a given pistol was chosen for compatability with a given submachine gun etc). I've dropped this a couple of points as I've realised I needed to up the languages to make sure I could make full use of my influence skills when speaking japanese or chinese.

Background - I'd forgotten about the Japanese attitude to metahumans, also I don't think a former (salaried as opposed to contracter) position with a megacorp works for a runner who doesn't have the SINner quality. As a result I've tweaked the knowledge japanese culture (corporate) to triad culture

Strength - I've taken on board the comments about strength being less important so I've dropped strength by 1 and also changed attribute boost to reaction rather than strength

Gear - I know I can't wear all the armour at the same time, I'm trying to have some flexability - e.g. actioneer for business meeting, actioneer + ffba for more risky meeting where still need to look like a business meeting for reason of face etc, ffba + armoured jacket when running etc. The duplicate weapons in ceramic and non-ceramic versions are for being able to stay armed whilst still surrendering something when scanned. Plan a similar thing with electronic gear - using skinlink to communicate with gear I actually want to use, whilst other gear is just a decoy.

Kithran

I don't know why I keep coming back to this character. Maybe it's becasue it's the basic kind of build I like to make? Actually, I think it's because he doesn't have a background, per se, and I keep placing transparencies over him, seeing how I would play him.

Anyway, without knowing the soul of this guy, have you considered being a SINner?
It would gain you an extra 5 BP (or you could drop one of your allergies) and give the guy a "front."

Make him a full blown gunsmith. Only do "legit" work (say for cops, licensed bodyguards and the like.) It would let you maintain a shop without having to try and hide it and give you access to all sorts of things. Sure, he would have to pay for licensing, but no one's to know how much ammo he blows through on the range "testing", or that weapon that was "damaged" and disposed of that actually had the numbers filed off and is in his own private collection. It's also a great way to launder at least some of his running money. There could even be the rare "robbery" (completely videotaped) where some of your disguised runner pals make off with some goodies that you want to get into play in the shadows. I would be hesitant, however to do much in the way of fencing stolen items. That way lies getting busted. All transactions should be properly documented to avoid any nasty visits from his Lonestar buddies.


With his face skills he can surely schmooze some cops into frequenting his business for his wonderful police force discounts (and therefore be willing to look the other way occasionally when he needs them to, when they can.) A great way to build contacts. If it's a private business, he can set his own hours and therefore be able to "run" when he needs to. The key thing to get your GM to probably go for this is to assure him you don't want to play Merchants and Bankers: you don't care if hte shop is turning much of a profit or if it's even running a bit in the red. A simple dice roll once a month to see if it's paying for all his Middle Lifestyle is enough. Work out something like a simple range of 1D6 with 1 = losing 1,000 nuyen this month and 6 = making a 1,000.

A possible background explaining most of hisskills would be:

"A former Lonestar cop that was hired away by some Jap Corp, to be a weapon tech liason for Lonestar. Make the guy 35, so he has 15 years or so total experience. Now he's retired for some reason and is supplementing his pension from early retirement with this little gunsmithing shop. His reason for running the shadows??? Your call.

Vlad

The main reason for the lack of a background is I don't know if I'll get to play him or not. I'm currently playing in a D&D3.5 game which will probably be finished in a month or two (one or two more sessions) and the gm has talked about running shadowrun next. As such a lot depends on what sort of game the gm wants to run and what sort of characters the rest of the players want to play - I'd dislike creating a really detailled background that I then have to throw away. I'd expect to be able to keep the majority of what I've come up with here no matter what happens (well unless the gm decides he wants to run a game with us having 200bp characters or something

Kithran

Minor nitpick: Infiltration links to Agility.

But since his Agility is 5 anyway, it would be the same.

*thunks forehead* It was a typo/brainfart. Really, that's what I meant.

Vlad