So, its been a long time since I've played SR, but after some renewed interest in our group, it looks like a SR game is inevitable.

Ive got access to the BBB (ofcourse) as well as Augmentation and Arsenal for resources.

The last time I played was probably 2nd edition? Possibly a little third, so I'm trying to get reacquainted with the new rules changes.

Its looks like my character is shaping up to be the "muscle" of the group, and I always loved the Street Sam from previous gaming sessions.

Were doing the standard(I think?) 400bp, 12 availability char creation.

So, I was looking for some advice on the best/most necessary Cyberwear to function well as a Street Sam?
I perused through the boards and looked at a few other characters posted, but wasn't able to locate exactly what I was looking for there.


I was going to Focus on dealing damage with Pistols in general, seems more practical than carrying Assault rifles around? I was never one to make a statement.

Thanks for any advice you guys can supply!

Looking forward to be heading back to the Shadows!

Thanks,
Sarxs.

one or two more ini phases are a must in SR4, also skillwires have become cheap as dirt so the most usefull will probably be some high attributes and skill-wires level 3 or something like that . .

What Stahlseele said pretty much.

Synaptic Booster 2 or Wired Reflexes 2.

Skillwires, with expert system.

Reflex Recorders for the favored combat skill and your defense skill (dodge if just a shooter, gymnastics if a melee and shooter).

Attention Coprocessor is cheap and nice for adding dice to perception rolls.

Synthacardium is a cheap way to get a +3 gymnastics if using gymnastics dodge.

Tricked out eyes and ultrawideband radar sensor are nice, but can be actually done through contacts, glasses, and a handheld sensor

Bone Density or Bone lacing can be nice for extra toughness, as can Orthoskin.

Muscle toner and augmentation are also good for a cheap bonus to agility and strength.

Finally, since Arsenal, cyberlimbs can actually be kind of wicked using the customized attributes. Nothing like having an agility 9-13 arm to shoot with.

Reality though is that a sam is more defined by his IPs and skills than anything, so really the only absolutely necessary thing is a good IP enhancer.

and the absolute beauty of limbs is the fact, that as of SR4 Cyber-Armor is now officially directly stacking with anybody else instead of being averaged . . get a Torso, bulk up, put in armor and body increase and maybe one or two other little gadgets *g*

The other absolute beauty of limbs is that now, with 4 limbs and a torso, you can pretty much set your strength, body and agility to 'YES'.

Cool, Ill check out the cyberlimbs.

Thats in Arsenal right?

Oh also forgot, a lot of the genetech items are very nice, albeit a bit expensive. Genetic optimization, reakt, neo-EPO, and Sync are all good ones for sammies.

And yes, the custom attributes on cyberlimbs is from arsenal augmentation (not a clue why I said arsenal)

Cool, Thanks for the suggestions!


Ill have to snag Augmentation from the GM then and check it out.

Well, since pistols seem to be your core concept, I would suggest one initiative pass boosting piece, one damage soaking piece and one pistols skill boosting piece as your core. Assuming money is an issue I'll stick with mostly cyber.

Since you have access to Augmentation, I would suggest staring with the Lone Star SWAT suite. It's a nice basic package that allows you to upgrade as you have the cash. It's a good beginner's set that won't overwhelm you with details. It consists of:
-Wired Reflexes rating 1 [+1 reaction, +1 initiative pass...thus the initiative pass boosting 'wear]
-Plastic Bone Lacing [+1 body attribute for damage resistance tests, covering the damage soak 'wear]
-Smartlink, Flare Compensation and Thermographic Vision, covering the pistols skill boosting pieces]

This would cost you 16,875 nuyen and 2.52 essence, leaving you lots of room to improve. Alphawear will cost you 33,750 nuyen and cost you 2.02 essence. You could get it as used alphawear for the same price as basic 'wear, but at a cost of 2.4192 essence. Just say you killed a cop and got his 'wear and used his corpse to cover the costs of removal and implanting the 'wear.and voila, instant background hook.

Heh. That's the most interesting way I've ever heard of someone justifying the second hand ware. Most of the time, it's been just about being cheapskates, though one player I had who was on the run from a corp claimed he thought his corp-implanted cyber had RFID's embedded in it to track him and so cut a deal to ditch the whole setup and could only get enough in trade for it to replace it with second hand gear. Somehow my players never thought about just taking their stuff off of other people.

My advice on being affective with pistols is pretty cut and dry.

Take your pistols skill to five, specialize it in what ever type of pistol you envision the character using, buy a smartgun system, take agility to five, buy some agility enhancing cyberware or bio, get yourself an extra IP or two, and really you're good to go. That's plenty of dice for pistols without super cheese. If the game's more on the super cheese end then you can bump pistols up another point and/or agility up another point and get a reflex recorder.

Also synaptic + reaction enhancer, though very expensive, can net you a pretty nice reaction score which helps passive dodging. Passive dodging is pretty affective as a damage soak.. . even if it's not a damage soak per say it does cut down modified DV which may be the difference between a bullet doing stun or physical damage.

That's probably because of the "ew" factor. When it's bought second hand it's distant and impersonal. When you kill the guy yourself then take his stuff, even what is inside him, then you're up close and personal with the "ew."

I would go for wired reflexes 2, skillwires 3 with expert system, bone lacing , attention coprocessor, radar, tricked out eyes, then muscle toner 2, augmentation 2 and synthacardium in the bio section. You can complement it with a pistols reflex recorder if you must (but probably won't be necessary) I also love sleep regulators.

An alternative is to get MBW I and upgrade the skillwires to 3; or the swat package and upgrade the reflexes

Then you can get 2-3 interesting skillsofts, a nice gun, ammo, motorbike, armor and a sturdy commlink, there you go! =easy samurai.

For colour I would take the armorer skill or skillsoft, a gunsmith shop. a couple knowledge skills (ballistics, gun design) and start using downtime to improve my guns and cook my own apds. Demolitions is also a nice touch. (however, if you go for a demolitions skillsoft, please take the expert system!!)

Cheers!

Max

Ah! I forgot: contacts? hand held devices? Bleh! = essence is for wussies

Cheers

Max

I might be in the minority but I like throwing in mnemonic enhancers or cerebral boosters. They don't make you a better combat munchy but they do let you get some quick and easy bonuses to those non-combat things (like speaking more than one freakin language). A nice boost for the mental attribute impaired.

Full simrigs are my new favorite piece of 'ware. Granted I'd recommend a decent edit program, a bit of computer know how (not a lot but a bit), and beefed up security on your comm link if you're going to make heavy use of one.

Photographic memory and you get to relive your sexual exploits anytime you like. Granted the later may not do you much good if you never get laid.

Personally, I think a sammie has no business having less than 3 initiative passes. You definitely need wired reflexes: 2 or synaptic booster: 2 (although you won't be able to get as much other 'ware if you go synaptic, since it will wipe out 32 BP of the 50 BP you can spend on resources). After that, you need muscle toner: 2 and a reflex recorder for your pistols - you should be as good as possible at your primary weapon, and the boost from muscle toner will also help with the many other Agility-based skills. Finally, although they can be gotten as goggles or sensors, you should have cybereyes with the works and either an ultrasound or a radar sensor.

After that, everything else is more optional, but there are still plenty of things you can get - skillwires, an attention coprocessor to help with perception tests, other senseware, muscle augmentation, damage-soaking 'ware such as bone lacing or orthoskin, an internal air tank, etc. Synthcardium to boost gymnastic dodge is good, but gymnastic dodge is only really good for ranged combat, so only go that route if you have a decent close combat skill to parry with in melee.

IMO, when it comes to Wired 2 vs. Synaptic 2, go with the Wired 2.

Alphaware Wired 2 might still be 2.4 essence, but it's cheaper than level ONE of Synaptic 2.

Eventually, if you save up the staggering 160k to get Synaptic 2-you can have the wired 2 removed, get Synaptic 2 put in and have a big ol' Essence hole to stick other goodies, so it's not *that* bad. Besides, if you play with Availability, you'll be limited onto what you can stick into your body, so your remaining 3.6 essence should be enough.

Depending, I find myself, if making a sam, taking 40 to the full 50 BPs of Resources. I have gone lower, but it's not often. (but-we have no availability limit on us-so we end up be able to spend alot more than usual.). I think you would pull out with 30-35 BPs with the standard BBB chargen limit in place.

Muscle Toner and Augmentation are always good: level 2 of each is a total of .8 Essence(Bioware), +2 to Strength and Agility, and 30,000 nuyen. It's not bad.

Bone lacing wise-I think cost-effectiveness it's Aluminum(15k and 1 essence-+2 Body for damage resist, +1 impact, +2 DV unarmed), and Ceramic(1.2 essence and 22,500, +2 impact, otherwise same as Aluminum.) These are both legal at chargen too(but not legal, per se. That's where Bone Density Augmentation comes in-it's basically just as good as bone lacing, but always legal. And i mean legal as you don't need a permit. It also lets your unarmed blows deal P damage and gives bonus dice to damage resistance. But's it's 20k per level-so like most bioware, be ready to spend.) For the two lacings-Aluminum will save you a little cast and essence-Ceramic gives you that extra Impact armor-and best of all, doesn't scan on MADs.

Dermal Sheathing is pretty nice. I wouldn't put it at the top of the list; but anything that makes it easier to soak damage is cool.

You can opt for the Cybereyes/Ears or the Glasses/Contacts/Earbuds method-depending on your remaining Essence and funds. Most folks I know might get the Eyes but just use Earbuds for some minor audio enhancements.(Stuff that increases Perception Dice is your friend. But still don't forget the skill!)

Otherwise-yeah. Just read the stuff over and see what fits your guy. Going heavier firearms, heavier melee, or balanced? Maybe look into the Martial Arts and Manuvers(and yeah, the have GunK..Firefight for those gun wielders.)

Second the Synthacardium if you go Gymnastics Dodge.

Reaction Enhancers. Now, this is something thats been talked about-they aren't compatible with Wired Reflexes according to the errata-BUT, the way we run it-if you have them both(especially because so many of our characters DID before the thrice-damned eratta-i like most of it but not this), they WORK-just not together. So if someone has Wired 1 and Reaction Enhancers 3, with a natural reaction of 4-they have a reaction of 7 when it comes to, well rolling reaction, and a 5 when it comes to their initative. It works pretty nicely. (though Im still thinking of just ditching that eratta'd piece like a few others did.) Ask your GM if he's using the BBB ruling, the Eratta'd ruling, or some other ruling. (Hell, the way we play might just be legal.)

IF your GM does allow them to both be there(whether or not they work together), then I would get a couple. They are nice.

Bah, there's plenty of other stuff, too. But i need my coffee to think of more.

hover-feet < = never again having to worry about mines, pressure-plates, leaving foot-prints, getting your feet wet etc. *g*
it's basically a better version of traceless walk and gliding for the samurai ^^

Weapons will always compensate for the new technologies on the market; your mines will include atmospheric pressure sensors that detect the increased air pressure from the hover-feet and blow up. Of course there'll have to be a set of profiles for various events and it'll fuzzily match them to determine whether it ought to blow up, but ultimately it'll have some capacity to detect anybody who moves over it and will likely blow up.

Hover feet also still leave trails in any loose particulate materials due to the downthrust creating pressure that'll escape to the sides and taking some of the particulate with it. Particulate means dust, dry soil, sand, etc.

Technology always has flaws, but also gets neat advantages elsewhere.

I must be missing something about Skillwires.

Seemed like a way to get a few skills at a lowish rating using money?

Ill have to re-read. I must have missed something relevant.

Pretty much. They're really quite good.

Skillwires (3) and two Rating 3 activesofts costs 24000 . That's a whopping 5 BP, with change to spare. Compare to the 24 BP you'd need to spend on those as actual learned skills.

The BIG disadvantage is that you can't spend Edge on those skill rolls unless you also have the Skillwire Expert System, but that only lets you use Edge to re-roll. That can kind of suck, but hey, you saved 19 BP!

And you can swap those skills out on the fly if you sink a bit more cash into other chips.

-paws

You can buy skillsoft, knowsofts, mapsofts up to the rating of the Skillwire system you have installed and use that rating if you do not have the skill yourself. If you get the Expert chip driver you can use Edge in the roll to reroll any failures. Otherwise you are restricted from your edge dice.

Beaten to the punch by paws. This is what you get when posting at work. Bah!

and if the attributes that are used with the slotted skills are high enough, you can pretty reliably at least roll one or two hits . . if you really maxed out you can BUY 2 or 3 hits O.o

*punch*

I thought only Activesofts needed the skillwires to work? Is that incorrect (possibly a holdover from previous editions...)?

My understanding was that Linguasofts, Knowsofts, and Mapsofts just needed a data reader of some kind (like a commlink) to use.

-paws

yep, only skillsoft need skillwires i think . . everything else just needs sim module/DNI-Trodes or something like that

Another thing to consider regarding starting with skillwires (love em in general, btw) is that you can only spend 250k on resources w/o sweet talking your GM.

If you really, truly can't find 250k of stuff you like, then by all means, use your Gear & 'Ware budget to buy skills (ie, skillwires). I would recommend use most of that 250k getting implants that boost stats and give special abilities. 150 BPs can give you plenty of skills for a starting runner. Don't think you have to have the skills of a prime runner, just make a basic but versatile framework you can build on with experience.

For a gunslinger sammy, look at tricked out eyes & ears (mandatory. A union rep will come rip up your card if you don't. ) Then consider starting with Synaptic Boost-1 or 2. It's painfully expensive, but you will probably be going there eventually anyway. Otherwise, Wired-2 is a solid performer. If you go with Wired-2, you will have lots o cash, but only 2 essence to play with. Synaptic-2, you will have about 75K left, but 4 essence.

Add in a few levels of muscle toner, and you will be one shooty sam! Don't bother with reflex recorders until you max out your agility. Muscle toner is much cheaper, and applies to all weapons.

Note that it is only failed tests that can be re-rolled. Dice that fail on an otherwise successful test cannot be re-rolled.

so the probability for rolling glitches rises again?

Not only that, but you can't actually use Edge to 'buy off' Glitches with Skillwires. As a Glitch happens on a successful test, you are basically stuck with it.

I'm 95% sure that those multipliers are handled addively, so used alphaware has exacly the same essence cost as basic ware.

is that just me or is that somehow fundamentally wrong? x.x

You cannot "buy off" a glitch when using an activesoft anyway, since the expert system only permits rerolling. However, a glitch can occur when you fail but still get a number of hits; a critical glitch is, as I recall it, a glitch where you get no hits whatsoever. Hence you can avoid glitches by rerolling when you get a glitch, though the GM can validly state that the glitch stays anyway.

Well, technically, you don't know any better. If that skillsoft told you you needed to move your hands that way, and you did, you wouldn't realize something went wrong, probably. At least that'd be my rationalization for it.

Plus, you're getting skills at a ridiculous discount at chargen, and buying them later you get to ignore any pesky stuff like trying to find someone to actually teach you. Stands to reason there's got to be some downside.

but why do you get more problems with glitches and that stuff with something that should help you with skills you don't really possess?
with some builds it'd probably be better to just roll attribute-2 instead of utilizing skill wires x.x . .

I am quite sure that I stated that very thing earlier.

Skillwires are probably my least favorite piece of gear in Shadowrun.

The example in Augmentation pg 32 shows it as not being additive. They have used alpha muscle replacement 2 as 2 x 0.8 x 1.2 = 1.92.

Ever since I found that out, I've been bad about always taking used alpha to get the slightly lower essence cost (and higher threshold to detect by cyberware scan) at the same price as normal ware.

I am pretty sure that the example is incorrect. I distinctly recall Synner mentioning on a number of occasions that any and all multipliers for 'ware are added together before multiplying the base figure.

I love skillwires myself, always have. What I don't like about them is the potential for abuse as is showing up in this thread. Just because you can buy skills cheaply at character gen with skillwires it doesn't mean you should.

if you don't mind my asking, what the heck do *you* use skillwires for, then? because that's *exactly* what skillwires do, is let you buy skills. cheaply even.

Yeah, that's the whole point of transhumanism. 'Ware to either give you abilities you haven't "worked" for, or to give you abilities that take you beyond the range of a normal human. That said, skillwires are better for tertiary skills to make a character more well-rounded, not your bread-and-butter skills. Also note, if you choose to go the move-by-wire route, that in SR4 it includes integral skillwires.

I misconstrued a link between the two sentences, probably on account of the fact that in English a paragraph is used to group sentences based on their topic - which is generally continuous throughout. Hence the juxtaposition between the point that you can't buy off glitches and the note that glitches only occur on a successful test appeared to imply that you cannot "buy off" (as in, reroll the failed dice to avoid the roll producing a glitch result) because a Glitch only occurs on a successful roll (not necessarily true).

Hence, the assumed shared topic (which changes the reading of the entire post compared to one made of two sentences with distinct topics) lead to the construction of the understanding that the first statements truth was predicated on the second statements truth. I was proving the second statement incorrect, and therefore the first incorrect, and making a note on the usage of terminology at the same time (forgive my usage of a single paragraph for this, I made the same mistake as you).

I was merely trying to share my understanding of the situation based on a distorted understanding of the environment due to standard assumptions that did not hold true.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

The point of skillwires is so that you can take the incompetant flaw in a couple of skills yet still use 'em thanks to some nifty 'wear.

They're something rather sensible and very economically viable in the setting. Corp wageslaves load up on skillwires to get ahead by way of flexibility and they're a possible product once we get some of the problems out of the way (like the problems with implant rejection). Nothing more than writing a pattern reproducing algorithm with some adaptations based on fuzzy inputs using spatial awareness. Hell, I suspect there are programs to automate production of activesofts and entire communities dedicated to collaborating on producing the finest of a single kind of activesoft with dedicated decision tree and fuzz optimisers. There will be artists who specialise in the most amazing skillwire choreography, some will make use of random generation to create a unique performance on every run.

The scope of the inclusion of skillwires transcends almost any other facet of the SR world with its applications to life. Even awakening has a smaller impact on life for those affected. Skillwires mean that you don't have to think about something; it's an instinct, a zombie reflex without need to run through the thousand tries it takes to develop it normally. Wageslaves will get automatic loaders that will cover all non-essential tasks in their lives; why spend time controlling your body when your skillwires can run you through your execise regime without a thought whilst you think of what you're going to do with your new healthy body. Why concentrate on doing your cleanliness rituals when your skillwires can zombie you through the entire process whilst you plan your next excursion to the bar.

This is, unfortunately, too transhumanistic for Shadowrun. There's always cyberpsychosis or autism, I guess.

How would you have a higher chance? Say you have Attribute 4 and Skill 4, from skillwires. Which scenario is more likely to occur:

1) Roll w/o Skillwires, at attribute -2, so, two dice. You roll a 1 and anything else, and glitch.

2) Roll with both, at 8 dice. You roll 4 ones and anything else.

Now, I'm no Stats major or anything, but I'm pretty sure I know the answer to which one of those situations is going to come up more often.

Hint: it's #1!

Edit: While it's true that you can buy off the glitch on #1, with Edge, it's also about a million times more likely to glitch on you. In short, it's not really "safer" to try it on two dice unless you really, really absolutely cannot afford a glitch at all, AND are doing a task which you can fail at (since one two dice, you're probably gonna fail) and retry, possibly several times, AND can afford to waste an edge point on it, since chances are pretty decent you get at least one 1 on two dice.

You'd know better than I for sure, but that's kind of annoying as it breaks the excel sheet I use for builds. Ah well though.

11 in 36, in fact.

Of 36...
2 hits: 4
1 hit: 12
no hits: 9
Glitch+1: 4
Critical Glitch: 7