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Rad
I've been playing various RPGs for many years, but I'm still new to shadowrun. One differance I've noticed about the characters in SR4 is that they seem to be created with little room left for advancement in their primary abilities.

Mages are an exception, with initiation allowing them to raise magic pretty much indefinitely, but most mundane builds I see--including the sample characters--are pretty close to the maximum in their primary stats and skills right out of chargen.

For example, the street samurai on page 101 of the BBB (kudos to whoever arranged that, by the way) has his Agility, Automatics, and Unarmed Combat all at one point shy of their natural maximums--and he's already got some 'ware boosting those dicepools as well.

There's still some room for improvment through better equiptment, but it seems to me karma isn't going to make this guy much better at shooting or beating things up than he already is. Maybe +4 dice total, which averages out to a little more than 1 additional hit on tests?

That's another question I have. It seems like even with a thouroughly maxed-out dicepool, the total number of hits you're likely to get are obscenely low. A starting character with a skill and attribute of 5 is going to roll 10 dice, averaging a little more than 3 hits. Even at the upper limit, an average of 5-6 hits seems about all you can hope for, without spending edge. Considering how many things in SR4 are opposed tests dependent on net hits for the result, I have a hard time seeing how you can accomplish much of anything unless your opponent either rolls poorly or is seriously outclassed.

Since I'm going to be starting my first game soon, I wanted to get some input from more experienced players about how character design and advancement works in SR4. Is it normal to be "the best of the best" right out of the can and improve through gear and diversification rather than continuing to boost your primary abilities? Or do characters just not live that long in shadowrun? The rules seem to make improving your character through karma a much slower process than other rpgs, and the combat system is incredibly lethal, so are shadowrun characters just not expected to live long enough to get more than one or two bumps to their attributes/skills?

More importaintly, if I try to play a character who isn't a horribly min/maxed specialist (by other RPG's standards) is he going to get his hoop kicked and/or be absolutely useless compared to everyone else in the game? At what point does a character's dicepool hit the "you shouldn't be trying to do this" range?

For a system that claims to have no character classes, it sure seems hard to design anything other than a dedicated "hacker", "rigger", "face" or "ass-kicker" and maintain decent dicepools--though I guess that preserves the desperate, bleeding-edge feel of the game. ie: You've got to do one thing, and do it better than anybody else--you ain't got time for other interests.
Aiolos Turin
Me and my group tried to fight off against a bigger group of equally skilled goons. Me and my nephew have a campaign going and were facing off 2v4 equally skilled opponents. We learned quickly the reality of combat.
Straight up face-to-face, when 2 people are facing a group of 4, all having about the same power (or even the 2 being more powerful) the 4 is almost indefinitely going to win, even if one of the 2 characters kicks the crap out of the 4 goons.
Likewise, when returning to finish the job, using ambush tactics slaughtered the 4 incredibly easily. Ambush, called shots, dice pool modifiers.

The Lesson: Dice Modifiers. Dice Modifiers. Dice Modifiers.

Take melee combat for example.
Lets say both characters only have 4 dice. 4v4 Opposed test.
Player 1 Charges at Player 2, +2 dice (now 6v4) that is a big difference. An average of 2 hits vs an average of 1 1/3 hit. Two dice make a huge difference.

Another Lesson: Knockdown. It's so easy, it's like checkers!

All it takes to knock down is to do damage equal to their body.
What happens in melee when one player is knocked down? It's so easy! A simple knockdown and 4v4 dicepools change drastically.
Player 1 knocks down Player 2- then on the next round- rather with quick/lucky initiative or Player 2's inability to stand up (Willpower+Body (2) Failure! Two hits is hard to get sometimes!), Player 1 attacks in melee Player 2, who is knocked down prone.
4v4 dice opposed test.
Opponent Prone +3 dice. 7v4.
Defender prone -2. Now 7v2.

Just for the sole fact the attacker is in melee with a prone defender, It's +3 dice for attacker, -2 for defender, changing 4v4 to 7v2. Insane!!! All it takes to do damage is 1 net hit.
In fact, if the Attacker also has a weapon with 2 reach, he can apply a -2 modifier to the defender, reducing the defenders dice to 0, causing it to be a success test instead of a opposed test- and one of 7 dice. Do a call shot of 4DV -4 dice, and you have 3 dice (1 hit average) which results in your melee weapon DV + 4 DV + 1 nethit. An average melee weapon of Str/2 + 2 and average str of 3, results in 4DV + 4DV + 1 net hit = 9 DV. This will do significant damage, and with the wound modifiers that are sure to follow, the opponent is totally screwed. Even if you only land 6DV, if the situation doesnt change, that will give the attacker 9v0 next round, instead of 7v0.

My point is that dice pool modifiers, situations, and using one's brain is incredibly big. That even if it destroys your dice to only 1 die roll- it can still help immensely when facing down a troll with 5 agility and 5 firearm skill. 1 hit is a big deal, but so is 1 dice...but at the same time sometimes it doesn't matter. Even 3 dice doesn't guarantee that big of a success. One player can roll 3 dice and get 2 hits, and another roll 6 dice and get 0- it is not that uncommon to have this happen.

Ive had over half the battles in my shadowruns turn out to be the 6 dicepool character having 0 hits, while the 3 dice character gets 2 hits, and since even 1 hit is a huge deal- you suddenly learn you arent all-powerful just because you min-max. In fact, even if I had a highly skilled 5/5 player with first initiative against only 2 typical 3/3 goons, the goons have an incredibly high chance of winning just because they outnumber him 2:1 and the PC isn't smart enough to use smart tactics. Shadowrun definitely takes some combat experience to learn that cover is incredibly vital, knockdown, prone, and modifiers are a huge deal. Melee combat is wicked because of the crazy modifiers, and the fact it takes a complex action- so with only one IP- if you're knocked down you lose your entire combat turn bc it takes a simple action to get up, and a wasted simple action because you cant run (interception- you'd get hit and probably die) nor can you attack (requires complex action). Even if you're prone and decide to pull out a weapon and fire in melee- it is very dangerous. The melee attacker gets +3/-2 against you because you failed to get up, and you suffer a -3 for being in melee trying to shoot your gun. If you miss that first shot instead of getting up, you're screwed.

Most important things, mainly Opposed Tests, require no more than 1 net hit. Any extra is just icing on the cake. That single 1 extra hit can mean the difference between inflicting -1 or -2 wound modifiers, which results in a spiral of downhill dicepool modifiers that quickly add up to destroy a player's otherwise high dicepool. One hit is a lot, as even with 9 dice you only get 3 hits on average- but 3 hits is A LOT. That can turn a DV from 4 to 7. That can be just enough to provide enough damage to knock down your opponent or send him to the negative wound modifiers. This results in modifiers up your opponent's butt, destroying his dicepool to nothing in no-time at all. But having a high dicepool, even if the opponent has a low dice pool, doesnt mean much. The modifiers really stack up fast. Even if you're wounded -3 from 4 to 1 dice, if they only have 3 reaction and suffer -3 bc of modifiers or if you choose to fire BF/FA with recoil compensation, they cant even defend. One single hit can send them to the graveyard with a bullet in their brain. My nephew was fighting 1v2, and was rolling high- and almost knocked one of the two goons unconscious- but it only took one successful hit to knock him down, and it being 2v1, even with him having kicked one goon's butt to -3 dice, the modifiers alone made it nearly impossible for him to win the fight. So all his glorious successes for half the battle was ended with just ONE net hit.

I noticed that 400 pts is insanely low for a real character. Even if you dont have any high stats or skills, just having a lot of skills drains those BP too quickly. The starting characters? Severely gimped in a ton of ways. No social skills or contacts? You're screwed. Shadowrun is a massively social game. Low Logic? Your character wont have the intelligence to realize "Robbing the gun store with a knife" is a bad idea. Low Charisma? It's way too easy for NPC's to convince your character to do something stupid. You have 6 etiquette and firearms? That wont help you get the vital information you need. No shadowing or infiltration? Everyone will know you followed them.

Realistically, atleast IMO, to be a good Shadowrunner, you should possess atleast 1 in almost every skill. Your stats will beef these up so you atleast have 4 dice, which is enough to even tango with the elite 10 dicepool players. Even 1 skill pt in Intimidation can be a huge deal- even if a 1 intimidate 3 charisma (4 dice) is trying to intimidate a 5 charisma 5 intimidation vampire. You dont have that 1 pt and you default at -1 modifier, shrinking what could have been 4 dicepool to only 2 dice. Stack the modifiers in your favor, and you can really do well.

A good GM should show players that min-maxing doesn't fly in a realistic RPG. It's far better to have 4 agility and 4 charisma than to have 6 agility and 2 charisma. Sure you might get +2 dice in shooting people, but you're really going to suffer in social situations, which happen more often than combat. And it's not very fun to have one character be "The Face", charm everyone over, and when combat comes around you get shot up with negative dice modifiers, turning your "ass-kicker" into an "ass-sucker" who, because he's only good at combat, just ONE faillure can make him worthless to the team, while the Face with more of a variety of skills (Combat and Social) hogs all the glory.

You have 6 agility and 6 longarms and 6 heavy weapons? Congratulations! Anytime you're unable to carry around an assault cannon (which is 99% of the time), YOU SUCK! biggrin.gif


Have some palming- even if only for the sole purpose of concealing your shotgun behind your Lined Coat successfully- and that can mean the difference between having a heavy weapon in a pistol firefight or not. In most gun fights, just like in real life, pistols are crap compared to a real weapon like a rifle or smg. Check out the pistol ranges. Anything beyond 5 meters, and you suffer a -1 range modifier. Want to use your smartlink or vision magnification to zoom in and negate the -1, -2, or -3 range modifier? That takes up a simple action- one that could have been used to fire your gun a second time.
Rad
Hmm, thanks alot for all the advice.

I've always preferred more rounded characters, since I myself have a wide range of interests and skills. But like you said, it's very hard to make a well-rounded (ie: not hamstrung) character with only 400bp--I was getting worried that the builds I'm making wouldn't hold up, since they generally sacrifice excellence in one area for competence in many.

I'll just have to play them smart, and fight dirty. Good. I'm not a die-hard strategist, but I always like getting vicious when I have to. Comes from studying martial arts IRL: You don't fight fair if you want to survive.

I'd still appreciate any input other people have on the subject. Part of the reason I'm in such a spot is that I'm joining a group one session late, and everybody else already picked combat monster characters, leaving me stuck with the role of hacker and face. Being good at both of those is hard enough, but I'll be dammed if I'm going to be a combat liability.

But smart and brutal? I can play that.

At the moment I'm looking at an ork adept with exceptional charisma--largely a modification of the Face from the BBB. I figure I can use adept powers to shore up weaknesses in his combat and social abilities, and rely on kickass gear and agents to compensate for his less-than-uber matrix-fu.

He won't be the top dog in any of these areas, but he'll be okay, so if I play him smarter and dirtier than the NPC's, he should do alright. I'm hedging my bets by focusing on survivability, expecting him to get messed up but pull through and come back stronger once I can dump some karma on him. Basically, if my plans work out, he'll be the little push that turns the tide before being overwhelmed--but lives to do it all again next tuesday.

I should probably give him more edge. biggrin.gif
noonesshowmonkey
I am not really sure why there are two posts titled this... but whatever.

Luckily for you a Hacker can be built with very little character investment outside of cash given the standard rules for hacking. If you invest enough nuyen in your commlink and programs you should be able to do enough of the nitty gritty hacking to be useful in that capacity. Being a face, well, having enough social skills to get by, can just boil down to the Influence group bought at 4 or so matched with a 5 charisma and pheremones / specializations bought later.

In my experience among new players one of the most overlooked aspects of character design is that of contacts. By choosing the right contacts and investing your BP wisely in them you can compensate for a lot of the poorer aspects of a character. If you you want a face that specializes in interrogation but not negotiating the best price on gear, get a high level Fence contact. If your hacker only knows how to break into a node for a quick smash and grab but knows very little about software design then get a super-nerdy hacker type to give you advice on network or software design and assist you on legwork. If your group really needs a medic but can't afford the build points grab a high level street doc or invest in a Doc Wagon contract or maybe both. Contacts are one of the best methods of making up for the weaknesses of a character.

As far as your group mates being combat monsters *yawn*. If your GM pushes the game towards any kind of social encounter (and let me tell you, 85% of the game is generally social and legwork based) you will be doing a lot more than the rest of your players who have hand grenades shoved up their anus waiting for the chance to murmaider some poor corp guards and end up on the evening news.

Generally speaking if you can pick up 10-14 dice to set to a task at chargen you are just fine. Thats more than enough to ensure that you should be very good at that task if the GM is scaling the difficulty level in parity with the system (3 - 3 being a base attribute / skill etc.). 12 dice is twice as good as ye civilianne.
De Badd Ass
QUOTE (Rad @ Jul 28 2008, 08:13 PM) *
Hmm, thanks alot for all the advice.

...me stuck with the role of hacker and face. Being good at both of those is hard enough, but I'll be dammed if I'm going to be a combat liability.


Make your Hacker / Face a TROLL. No matter how bad he sucks at combat, he won't be a liability. No matter how bad he sucks at hacking, who's going to say anything? The only one he has to impress is himself.

An intimidating face... why not?
Rad
Yeah, but the way trolls suck at charisma, and how much they cost--orks are the answer for a cheap strength/body boost. If I didn't need this guy to have a personality, I'd go troll all the way.

About the double post--sorry. The wifi spot I'm using has been acting weird, must have glitched it.

I'm definitely using contacts with this guy. He may not be the baddest hacker or fighter--but he knows a couple guys who might have claim to that title. If he's got to cut them in to bail his ass out, so be it.

I'm mainly going for "surprise asskick" here. He's a human-looking Orc, and with his stats looks more pretty boy than bad ass. The idea is, people won't peg him as a fighter or a hacker off the bat--just a face, and not a great one. Underestimating him that way gives him an advantage.
masterofm
Are they just pure combat monkeys? What other sub skills do they have?

Have you considered picking up demo as a skill to "hold your own?" It's amazing what some C4 will do to anything or anyone if set up properly. Also it will tie into your logic, which you will need for hacking. I recommend buying your logic up to 4 and maybe getting cerebral boosters 2 (and maybe get 3 later.) That will push your logic up to 6 w/o having to pay hefty BP and give some more fleshing out of your character. Like the first person to reply said 1st strike is crucial in SR. Everyone is generally running around with very large hammers breaking very fragile eggs. Demo is pretty handy to cause distractions, kill people, destroy walls or buildings (and you don't really need it all that high.)

The other thing you could really look into for your character that I would really recommend is to also try being a rigger as well. As a hacker you are kind of half way there towards rigging and allows you to protect them fairly well from being hacked. Also they work as a nice debuff on an enemies dodge pool. Their programs are not too pricey, and in the end the more money you get the more flexible you can become in combat. Tricking your drones out with grenade launchers? Sniper rifles? Ingram White Knights? Armor piercing rounds? The sky is the limit. It will also let you tie more skills into your logic stat instead of your physical stats, since it seems your team has enough of that.
Rad
Well, part of it is finding a character I want to play. I'd rather not have the team fall flat on it's face just because nobody wanted to play one--but I'm not going to sacrifice my fun just to cover for them.

Honestly, I'd rather not even approach the SR4 hacking rules my first time out, considering what I've heard of them, and taking an indirect route to combat just doesn't do it for me. I don't want a character who has to run and hide while the big boys play--or worse, wait in the van like a five year old.

I do have a character that uses explosives--a pyromaniac mystic adept who runs a demolition business as a cover--but that just wasn't the route I wanted to go here.

The direction I seem to be headed in is a sort of "street face", with some hand to hand and pistol skills from his gritty upbringing, and a little bit of tech savy gleaned from more experience hackers. He's probably going to rely mainly on gear/agents/contacts for the hacking, until he gets a chance to polish his skills some more. The trouble is figuring out how to balance those three areas and maintain some degree of effectiveness. Obviously he's going to have to try harder/smarter/meaner and stack up those modifiers to get an edge.
Ryu
Play an ork with an ethnic background not present in the group so far. Judging from my group, hispanic will be a good choice. Call it a very weak form of a network of contacts.

One tour of duty in the military can provide most of the skills you might want / can get at 400 BP. Your one attempt at getting your own ass of the street, after previously being some kind of mini-fixer. Now you are back (unhonourable discharge?)

Look at Firearms 2 / Influence 4 / Electronics 3 / Stealth 2 / Athletics 1 / Outdoors 1 as a base, and consider starting with less than 200 BP in attributes. Cracking is notably absent, because at low levels of hacking you can use a mook instead. Bio-muscles and synthacardium are anyones friend; Martial Arts I (your choice, Sweep and Throw as Maneuvers) might be interesting, too.

Ork: 20 BP, Attributes 170+, Skills 130+, Ressources 50... should be workable. Interested in doing a complete build?
sunnyside
A note on all this. As a GM I essentially require all my players to make characters that are useful.

- In the legwork/planning stage
- During a run, but not in combat
- In combat
- And they have to have some stealth/infiltrate

They can be better or worse in some of the four as opposed to the others. But I don't like having players who can't operate in one. It means they go inactive in that part of the game and that's never a good thing. The absolute worst being having a pure combat guy because they'll screw up the others plans and efforts to get into fights.

Anyway I rather like SR4 for making it much easier to do this.

i.e. Cracking 4 Electronics 4 and basicallyer everything a hacker needs at rating 5 is about 100 BP.

Leaving 335 BP(presuming negative flaws), to build, say, a decent street sammy.

Ditto riggers with a VCR being an el cheapo add on instead of being pricey and essence heavy. Drones are also on the cheap and very usable tactically indoors these days.

As for your specific character for only ~20 BP you can have a very solid "Hacker in a box" going where you simply have a rating 5 agent do all the hacking for you. There are balancing downsides of this.

1. Your agents abilities will drop in lower rated nodes.
2. They are vulnerable to being spoofed.
3. If hosting the agent off your comlink (for portability), it can use one less program than if you were hacking yourself.
4. Using this that and the other you'd at least eventually be throwing more die.

But none of those are dealbreakers. So just go with that for now.

That leaves plenty of room to be a face that's also good in a fight.



Mäx
QUOTE (Aiolos Turin @ Jul 29 2008, 02:10 AM) *
You have 6 agility and 6 longarms and 6 heavy weapons? Congratulations! Anytime you're unable to carry around an assault cannon (which is 99% of the time), YOU SUCK! biggrin.gif

wobble.gif
WTF are you talking about, you do know that longarms also covers things like Sawed off shotguns witch you can carry with you most of the time.
Rad
Okay, I'm going to post the build as I have it now. It's definitely not finished, and I'm not happy some things about it, but I'm too tired to finish polishing so I'll let you guys take a crack at it while I get some sleep...

NAME: AKA: Rei
RACE: Ork [20]

-ATTRIBUTES- [210]

BODY: 4 [00]
AGILITY: 3 [20]
REACTION: 4 [30]
STRENGTH: 3 [00]
CHARISMA: 4 [30]
INTUITION: 5 [40]
LOGIC: 4 [30]
WILLPOWER: 4 [30]

MAGIC: 2 [10]
EDGE: 3 [20]

Essence: 6
Initiative: 9
Initiative Passes: 1
Physical Damage Track: 10
Stun Damage Track: 10

-ACTIVE SKILLS- [126]

Athletics Skill Group 1 [10]
Dodge 3 [12]
(Ranged Combat) +2 [02]
Electronics Skill Group 1 [10]
Influence Skill Group 4 [40]
Intimidation 4 [16]
Perception 3 [12]
Pistols 2 [08]
(Light Pistols) +2 [02]
Unarmed Combat 3 [12]
(Parrying) +2 [02]

-KNOWLEDGE SKILLS- (27 Free) [0]

Skill ?

-LANGUAGE SKILLS-

Primary N

-QUALITIES- [+10]

Adept [+05]
Exceptional Attribute (Charisma) [+20]
First Impression [+05]
Human Looking [+05]

Addiction, Combat, Mild [-05]
Allergy, Pollen, Mild [-05]
Sensitive System [-15]

-ADEPT POWERS-

Counterstrike .5
Quick Draw .5

-GEAR- (50,000Â¥) [10]

Low Lifestyle (1 Month) 000,000Â¥

Yamaha Sakura Fubiki 2,000Â¥
Smartgun System 400Â¥

0Â¥ Remaining

Starting Nuyen: Xd6 x 0Â¥

-CONTACTS- [24]

Fixer (Connection 4/Loyalty 2)
Mr. Johnson (Connection 3/Loyalty 2)
Hacker (Connection 2/Loyalty 2)
Pit Fighter (Connection 2/Loyalty 3)
Weaponsmith (Connection 2/Loyalty 2)


----------------

The last three contacts are supposed to be personal freinds/aquaintances of various sorts. By which I mean they're people he met non-professionally, who happen to have skills/professions that could be useful to him in the shadows. He's hesitant to lean on them too much, hence the low loyalty. (ie: They're pals, but asking for professional help is stretching the normal bounds of their relationship a bit.)

The money is almost definitely not enough. The character's supposed to be pretty broke, (especially for a face) but the eqiptment and progams he'll need will probably require more cash from somewhere.

The "pollen" allergy is uncommon because it requires a whole lot to set it off, ie: he's fine in urban environments, but stick him in the middle of a field or a big greenhouse and he starts sneezing.

Human Looking quality is important to the character. Also the focus on intuiton over logic, even though that's bad for a tech-guy.

The general feel of this guy is he's from a lower social class than the BBB face--or at least shows his origins more. Tends to be charming and intellectual--but with a primal side and a love of combat that pops up and derails him from time to time. Can be downright viscious when he has to be, because that's how he grew up, and suprisingly tough given his exterior and personality.
sunnyside
Well first thing I think in trying to make the char shoehorning in the adept thing isn't working so well for you. However I think you stated that you don't want to go down the easier wares path. Also the Orc thing isn't really doing you any favors once you pay for exceptional charisma and human looking.

Some advice to tighten and rearange.

1. Ditch the specializations. Not that specs are bad. Just they're cheaper to buy with in game karma, and you could probably pick them up after your first session or two.

+6 BP

2. Fill up on flaws. As above see if there isn't something fun you could add that your GM might like. I dunno. Southern code (speak with an accent, have to protect the ladies even when it isn't smart, maybe throw in some bigotries that coudl be a problem). Or just pick something.

+10

3. Drop dodge. Use gymnastics from the athletics group since you have it already

+12

4. Johnson is kinda redundant. Evaluate how useful that is.
+5

5. Your char really isn't that techy. Have the rest of the team and you pitch together for a decent hacker in a box system to use on runs. Or pay to have the hacker come along. If you'd rather go techy cnsider instead dropping the adpet bit. Anyway if you go this way drop logic by 2 and drop electronics group

+30

So now you're at 63 BP left over.

I'd suggest.
-softmax agility
-softmax magic (even after the errata I like the stat boost powers, cheap and if you expect a situation you can buff up your agility nicely, and/or something else, there's a lot you can do with that)
-take pistols, perception, and unarmed up to 4 (or stealth group 1, very useful, just stack the modifiers or boost your stat before trying something)
-5,000 extra in cash, I'd get some runner basics. Basic armor, comlink, taser, that sort of thing.
Ryu
With all the sacrifices you are already making (no implants, minimal magic), you really should go heavily into skills. Edge is a toss-up - you will need it due to low pools, but it is not the best of investments if you are lacking in primary attributes.

RACE: Ork [20]

ATTRIBUTES- [180]
[10]BODY: 5
[10]AGILITY: 2
[30]REACTION: 4
[20]STRENGTH: 5
[20]CHARISMA: 3
[40]INTUITION: 5
[10]LOGIC: 2
[30]WILLPOWER: 4
[00]MAGIC: 1
[10]EDGE: 2

-ACTIVE SKILLS- [158]

[30] Group: Athletics 3
[10] Group: Electronics 1
[40] Group: Influence 4
[18] Intimidation 4 (mental +2)
[20] Perception 5
[18] Pistols 4 (semi-auto +2)
[22] Unarmed Combat 5 (martial arts +2)

-QUALITIES- [balanced]
[+05] Adept
[+05] First Impression
[+05] Human Looking
[+10] Martial Arts 2

[-05] Addiction, Combat, Mild
[-05] Allergy, Pollen, Mild
[-15] Sensitive System

-ADEPT POWERS-
Combat Sense 1 .5
Quick Draw .5

-GEAR- (50,000Â¥) [10]
-CONTACTS- [24]
Martial Arts Maneuvers: [8]

Logic gains you little unless you are using the optional logic+skill matrix rules, more so with an electronics skill of 1. Higher strength is useful for athletics and close combat. Due to the mechanics of SR4, starting without magic, augmentations and skill is a bit suicidal in a group of combat monsters. You are getting a long-term option (magic) and a net gain of 10 BP out of the promise not to use implants. Ever. If you want to go that route, consider where you will end with 4 additional points of magic, and make that a solid position. You will have to accept that the next 100-200 karma points will go into attributes.
BullZeye
I really like the way SR actually has the character creation and character improvement during game. You can create a real pro right from the start, but there's still some room for advancement. Especially mages and technomancers have lots of ways to make the char better with karma where mundanes have more limited possibilities. One of the players in my group makes the chars so that attributes are selected so that those that she needs right from the start are high while those that aren't that important are low. With karma it's easy to raise attributes when they are low enough even after few sessions.

One thing that still puzzles me is that why people prefer making those "Jack of all trades" characters or have skills that are linked with their weak attributes. A hacker with high mental stats and high points in athletics makes to me not much sense. Low mental attribute combat troll having high skillpoints in logic and charisma linked skills is odd bird, too. Knowledge skills are a handy way to make the char more broadband, same as contacts, but what's the point investing points to all kinds of skills? Of course for mages and technomancers, skillsofts aren't an option but for the rest, it's an easy way to compensate. Not everyone can infiltrate or talk to people. That's the reason to form a group, isn't it? With a group with not much overlapping abilities, the combined skill level is usually much higher. Problem on this is the fact that then only few (or just one) character is able to pull off whatever specific task while the others are for backup but not for the action itself.

Shadowrunners are the people who go up against professionals and eat them for breakfast. One can rely on luck only up till some point so either you got to have skills or the brains to survive longer, preferably both. - But that's just my point of view smile.gif
Mäx
QUOTE (BullZeye @ Jul 29 2008, 05:04 PM) *
One thing that still puzzles me is that why people prefer making those "Jack of all trades" characters or have skills that are linked with their weak attributes. A hacker with high mental stats and high points in athletics makes to me not much sense. Low mental attribute combat troll having high skillpoints in logic and charisma linked skills is odd bird, too. Knowledge skills are a handy way to make the char more broadband, same as contacts, but what's the point investing points to all kinds of skills? Of course for mages and technomancers, skillsofts aren't an option but for the rest, it's an easy way to compensate. Not everyone can infiltrate or talk to people. That's the reason to form a group, isn't it? With a group with not much overlapping abilities, the combined skill level is usually much higher. Problem on this is the fact that then only few (or just one) character is able to pull off whatever specific task while the others are for backup but not for the action itself.


That's called making believable characters that might have realistically survived to start of the game. cyber.gif
Ryu
QUOTE (BullZeye @ Jul 29 2008, 04:04 PM) *
One thing that still puzzles me is that why people prefer making those "Jack of all trades" characters or have skills that are linked with their weak attributes. A hacker with high mental stats and high points in athletics makes to me not much sense. Low mental attribute combat troll having high skillpoints in logic and charisma linked skills is odd bird, too. Knowledge skills are a handy way to make the char more broadband, same as contacts, but what's the point investing points to all kinds of skills? Of course for mages and technomancers, skillsofts aren't an option but for the rest, it's an easy way to compensate. Not everyone can infiltrate or talk to people. That's the reason to form a group, isn't it? With a group with not much overlapping abilities, the combined skill level is usually much higher. Problem on this is the fact that then only few (or just one) character is able to pull off whatever specific task while the others are for backup but not for the action itself.


Thats also called "being able to survive until greatness is achieved".

The abilities of a group as a whole are often limited by the weakest runner, rather than provided by the best. So hyper-specialisation is a reason to divide the group while keeping it together.

Many games focus on combat (been there, done that), because everyone can do combat, but only some have the infiltration/con/athletics skills to pursue other ways around security.
BullZeye
Dang, I ment to say on the first post AND, not OR... frown.gif
The Jack of all trades is, as mentioned: "being able to survive until greatness is achieved". & "making believable characters that might have realistically survived to start of the game" But...
What's the point in the linked attribute mixes? Low charisma character with bit more points invested in cha linked skills is bit odd to me. One or so points for the sake of knowing how to barter or alike I can understand but to spend bit more I have hard time comprehending. Usually people do what their bodies and minds are capable of. A strong but dumb man might do some manual labor and a smart guy with health issues manages well as a professor for example. But sometimes there's Cha2 characters with 4 points in social group making them deacent talkers, but still uncharismatic. A character with low logic can be a really good in logic linked skills but why would he have ever spent time to learn something like it, more than basics?

Splitting the group is most often the only way to do stuff anyway. The problem, if one thinks it's a problem, is that when split, some have nothing to do while others get all the fun. Matrix and Astral are the two places where the split happens almost every time anyway.

Guess it's good thing I have to always lead the games instead of make a char for meself grinbig.gif that thing what I mentioned is the "problem" of my group. For example we got a stealth specialist who has dicepool of 6 on infiltration and shadowing, the rigger has to get out of the car and run to the door when team has to open a door without making too much noise... minor things like that, that makes me wonder about char creation biggrin.gif
masterofm
Let me change up your character a little bit if you don't mind. Ok well first off since your character only has 1 IP step one is to get some jazz. Take the Exceptional Attribute out as a quality. In the end it is really not worth it considering that you are already not using it in your starting out bp. It might also be worth taking out the athletics skill group. In the end raise your magic to five with the bp that you have freed up. Also drop the specializations as mentioned by a previous poster. Remove the Johnson from the list (the fixer is the one who sets you up with the Johnson) and change the pit fighter to something else since you have enough combat monkeys in your party. Something like maybe a cyber/bioware doc or maybe someone who sells combat drugs, because your probably going to need them. With the 11 bp you have gained sink that into nuyen.gif so you can have a point to play for cyber or bioware. With the extra 55k you could get r3 skillwires 6k, a data jack 500. Spend maybe 30-36k in activesofts to basically get your athletics skill group back (except this time with more dice,) and can take unarmed combat r3 as well. This will mean you also will have 12.5-18.5k to drop into some bioware. Also low lifestyle also costs nuyen.gif so you might want to buy at least one month of it. Drop the counter strike, or quick draw and you can add some points into your social pool with kenesics (sp?) The last suggestion is you can play around with your magic a bit, but you might want to considering using some of it to raise your IP's a bit (and the plus side is it also adds to your reaction as well w/o effecting the hardcap.)

In the end for your character I would not suggest Unarmed Combat 3. He does not seem like a power house character and with his low IPs he will get one swing and do minimal damage to the target. Try for another skill group if you want. You could either boost the electronic skill group, get a new skill with it. However the game lets you take one skill at 6 or two at five so you could actually distribute the points so that your perception is 5 and intimidation is 5, which is what I would highly recommend.


NAME: AKA: Rei
RACE: Ork [20]

-ATTRIBUTES- [210]

BODY: 4 [00]
AGILITY: 3 [20]
REACTION: 4 (6) [30]
STRENGTH: 3 [00]
CHARISMA: 4 [30]
INTUITION: 5 [40]
LOGIC: 4 [30]
WILLPOWER: 4 [30]

MAGIC: 5 (4) [50]
EDGE: 3 [20]

Essence: 5.something
Initiative: 11
Initiative Passes: 3
Physical Damage Track: 10
Stun Damage Track: 10

-ACTIVE SKILLS- [126]


Dodge 3 [12]
Electronics Skill Group 1 [10]
Influence Skill Group 4 [40]
Intimidation 5 [16]
Perception 5 [12]
Pistols 2 [08]


-KNOWLEDGE SKILLS- (27 Free) [0]

Skill ?

-LANGUAGE SKILLS-

Primary N

-QUALITIES- [+10]

Adept [+05]
First Impression [+05]
Human Looking [+05]

Addiction, Combat, Mild [-05]
Allergy, Pollen, Mild [-05]
Sensitive System [-15]

-ADEPT POWERS-

Kenesics level 2 (1)
Improved Reflexes level 2 (3)


-GEAR- (105,000Â¥) [21]

R3 skillwires 6,000 nuyen.gif
Data jack 500 nuyen.gif
-Insert bioware here- 15,500ish nuyen.gif

Active softs
R3 unarmed combat 9,000 nuyen.gif
4xR2 for athletic skills 24,000 nuyen.gif

Low Lifestyle (1 Month) 500Â¥

Yamaha Sakura Fubiki 2,000Â¥
Smartgun System 400Â¥

0Â¥ Remaining

Starting Nuyen: Xd6 x 0Â¥



-CONTACTS- [24]

Fixer (Connection 4/Loyalty 2)
Hacker (Connection 2/Loyalty 2)
Weaponsmith (Connection 2/Loyalty 2)
Extra contact (Connection 3/Loyalty 2)

This is the rough version of your character. I roughly added in the changes so that it can give you some wiggle room if you care.
ElFenrir
If I recall, though-in the other thread, he mentioned the Unarmed Combat was part of the character. in that case, I'd vote to keep it. it's always good, IMO, to have SOMETHING to fall back on, anyway. But that's just my couple nuyen.
imperialus
Just to comment on your concerns about how to advance a Street Sam. As I'm sure several people here know Street Sams are my favorite archtype but you're right they do take some effort to keep them on pace with mages and some of the other archtypes.

One of the problems I've noticed is that a lot of GM's (and pregen adventures) tend to dole out a lot more Karma than they do Nuyen. Talk to your GM about this. Solutions include simply upping the amount of money received to place it on parity with the Karma or even a Karma for Cash system (spend Karma at the racetrack or Urban Brawl bookie and your team comes out on top).

Second option is to use that Karma. Diversify. While a mage is going to pump every point of Karma into his initiation you can develop your character to cover all the bases. I had a 2nd/3rd ed troll sam who, by the time he retired could serve as the team driver, repair the car, build and repair guns, had an awesome etiquette skill for dealing with gangers and other street level contacts. He could also moonlight as a serviceable decker, and still managed to be a serious threat with his pistols.
FlashbackJon
More karma than nuyen? I must be in the wrong games... biggrin.gif
Rotbart van Dainig
QUOTE (Aiolos Turin @ Jul 29 2008, 01:10 AM) *
The starting characters? Severely gimped in a ton of ways. No social skills or contacts? You're screwed.

Of course, to make it flat out impossible for them to survive, they get the additional bonus of being Uncough... and thus not being allowed to even default.
masterofm
There are three street samies in the party. If none of them took hand to hand combat I could see it being useful, but with 1 IP shooting is always better then punching. Also if one of the activesofts is always loaded hand to hand it's basically the same thing. Right? Right? Also it was a good idea to escape the icky goo that is hacking. Let the GM NPC that. Also what books is your GM running with, all of them or just the BBB?
imperialus
QUOTE (FlashbackJon @ Jul 29 2008, 11:37 AM) *
More karma than nuyen? I must be in the wrong games... biggrin.gif

Well lets compare the nuyen-Karma ratio in Parliament of Thieves. The suggested payout is 3000 :nueyn: per runner. The suggested Karma is 3-6 depending on how successful the run is.

A mage needs a max of 18 karma to initiate for the first time. He can accomplish this in a maximum of 6 runs. Say your street sam wants to upgrade his Alpha Wired II to Beta Wired III (a perfectly reasonable step for a veteran sam). Say he can sell the Alpha II for half price, 32,000 nuyen.gif that means he still needs to come up with 268000 nuyen.gif to accomplish this. Assuming a flat rate of 3000 nuyen and 3 karma per run he would need to make 89 runs to pay for his Wired III, and that's before factoring in availability and all the other incidental things that runners just spend money on. The power increase given by initiation is certainly no worse than the power boost that upgrading from Wired II to Wired III, in fact it's better because even with the upgrade to Beta it still eats into a sams precious essence score.

Say the group already had a table level of 6 with karma scores of 250+ At 3 karma per adventure this means they would have had 83 adventures. In other words this 'prime runner' street sam still wouldn't be able to afford his wired III. If they are table level 6 the team would be getting paid 18,000 nuyen.gif. Even at this rate the Sam needs to go on 14.8 runs to afford his wired III. Even if he's getting paid the absolute maximum allowed by the adventure he still needs to do more than twice as much work for a very basic upgrade when compared to a mage who wants to initiate.
imperialus
Now to be fair that was the first adventure in a series. Typically over the course of a campaign payments go up while karma rewards stay about the same.

Lets do the same thing with Hubris and Humility (assuming table level 1): In terms of Karma you get between 1 and 4 but it is definitely on the low end (especially when the BBB suggests giving at least 5 karma out per run).

Money 80,000 divided amongst the team (assume 5 runners this means each one gets 16000)
30,000 divided for a secondary objective (6000)
5000 (for secondary objective)
5000 (for another secondary objective)

This gives us a total of 32000 nuyen.gif

At this rate the sam would need to go on 8.3 runs to accomplish his goal of buying his Wired III. This is the second most advanced run in the missions series and the sam STILL needs to do more work than it takes for the mage to initiate once. Again this also assumes that the Sam lives in a box, has a magic hat of endless ammo, never gets shot and needs to be patched up by a street doc, never needs to bribe anyone and never spends a dime other than funneling all his money into an offshore account so that he can eventually upgrade his ware.

IME 1 karma is worth about 20,000 nuyen.gif to a cash hog like a sam. Unfortunatly it's very difficult to balance this. It means that for an 'average' karma award of 5 as suggested by the BBB the team would also need to be pulling in about 100,000 each in cash. If the runners are making that kind of money it's pretty tough for them to justify continuing to work the streets if they could comfortably retire after a dozen or so runs.
Rad
Wow, big response...

Well, the GM says he has "all of them", don't know if that includes things like Unwired, which just came out. It's somewhat of a problem for me because I effectively don't know all the rules we'll be playing by, and I don't want to take 3 years scouring his books before I hop in since I'm already coming in a session late.

Apparently, this is going to be a pretty big group. According to the GM: "1 Elf katana adept, 2 weapon specialist/street sams, 2 shamans, one elf, one human, and a troll enforcer.

No hacker and no face. Things are going to end so well for them."

Obviously I may have to look at the existing characters and do some tweaking to make mine fit better, but since I'm running behind I wanted to get as close to done as I can before going in. Also because I'm impatient and don't want to spend the next session designing my character, and have to wait two weeks before I can actually play.

I'm definitely liking some of the suggestions here. The Johnson contact was a hold over from the BBB face, since I figured if the Devs thought a face needed a fixer and a Johnson contact, there must be some magical reason for it I wasn't getting. Frag it. Gone. (+5 bp)

I agree that making him an adept isn't the most BP efficient route. Actually, I would have preferred this guy wasn't awakened, but with his anti-'ware stance it seemed like a bad idea to leave him totally without augmentation options. Using drugs but feeling bad about it would have been my first choice, but again, I don't have access to those rules. I could even throw in a combat drug addiction to give him a few more BP otherwise. If counterstrike also exists as a martial arts maneuver, I'd much rather go that route, and save myself the 5bp entry fee to be an adept.

The idea for this character is basically a kid that grew up on the street. He's not a hacker, but he's grown up around data-pirates and other criminals, so he sees the advantages those skills give you, and is interested in learning them from a survival point of view. He's not very strong, but he's tough and quick and smart enough to turn the tables in his favor.

The joke of it is, he's got the body of handsome non-combatant, but the soul of a warrior. He learns how to make do with the body he's got, focusing on defense and powerful counter-attacks, and enjoys the fact that people underestimate him as "just another sissy face"--until he's slipping under their punches and dropping a shock-gloved fist into their trachea.

He shouldn't be the best fighter, or the strongest--strength doesn't matter when you're got DV 6 shock gloves--but because he doesn't have the raw strength and ability to rely on, he has to make up for it with cunning and ruthlessness. Likewise, he may not be the greatest face or hacker, but he's got an intuitive understanding of things and a talent for trying harder than people who just rely on their skills.

Basically, he's an underdog who sees skilled characters as overconfident because they know they're good. He's been living on the edge his entire life, so he knows that a guy in over his head who tries like his life depends on it (because it does) can often come out ahead of the professionals who see it as "just another day at the office."
masterofm
Just to let you know. If you go mundane, and don't take any cyber or bio you are boning yourself hardcore. Why you ask? Because when you are an adept or a mage karma makes you better (by a lot.) When you are tripped out street samie with some awesome bio and cyberware nuyen.gif makes you rock. When you are neither the karma does not take you nearly as far as a mage or adept, and the only thing money gets you is more stuff. Doesn't make you as a character rock all that much harder, but it does mean you have more stuff.... and junk... and things. At this point if you don't take either option A or option B that means that most of the party will be able to skunk you later in the game.

In the end you already have 4 combat monkeys. Let them do the fighting, but when it comes down to it if they don't have anything on the technical side of things they are totally boned. No demo means no trap removal, no hardware means no breaking and entering. Honestly I would suggest building a logic character. There are a lot of nice things you can pull with a high skill and logic stat that is pretty awesome. Was their any mention of a rigger in the group? It still seems your party is missing that. I made a rigger face once and he was pretty good... except for the fact that I couldn't play him right (the face side of it,) but on the rigger side of things he was pretty crazy. Would generally be able to outshine the troll in combat.... until the troll got a sniper rifle that did something like 12 p -5 or 6 ap. Even then the drones were generally able to kill more people. Having drones would easily 1 up the elfin samie.
xsansara
Concerning the Jack-of-all-trades discussion:
This greatly depends on the background. Most characters have not been Solo-Runners in their past live. If the char worked with a mage, why should he learn infiltration, invisibility is much better. If the character used to be a civvie, it is hard to explain any decent combat skills at all. In my experience, Jack-of-all-trades suck, because there is always someone else in the group, who can do better, thus they never get to do anything. And if they do anything anyway, they suck at it and endanger the group. The question, whether a character is a good character, is: Does the group need him/her? If you enter the group, you want to hear "Just what we needed." and not "What is it you are doing again?" A needed character will always survive.

Concerning Nuyen-Karma ratio:
I completely agree. The character advancement of Samurais is completely dependent on Nuyen, while at the same time the Adepts are living Luxury lifestyle. It just isn't fair. The rate should be 1:5000 freely exchangeable in both directions. Just that this so ugly roleplaying-wise. We usually solve that problem by doing special runs that bring in a lot of cash (to close the gap between Karma and Nuyen). Because for most runs it doesn't make sense, why they should be paid for so highly, e.g. Parliament of Thieves, It just doesn't make sense to pay 100k Nuyen (for 4 players) for a delivery job of something that is basically a courtesy. Especially, if the chars drive with the company van and use the company connections for doing their job (like my players did).

Concerning your character:
Hacker/Face is best feasible as a warez character. Booster I and some Agility-upgrade also make you strong in combat. You might run into some Nuyen problems at Chargen.
Alternatively, maybe you should consider a Technomancer. The low-cost variety relies on summoning sprites for most hacking tasks. About 100 BP for the skills and Resonance 5; no attribute requirements. That also bypasses most of the problems new players have with the Matrix rules, as the GM can just handwave the sprite's actions. Later you can buy the Electronics and Cracking group and become a "real" Technomancer.
You can also summon (and bind) huge machine sprites into drones, to make awesome fighting machines with up to 20 dice on a heavy machine gun. Rattatatata.
imperialus
QUOTE (xsansara @ Jul 29 2008, 03:09 PM) *
We usually solve that problem by doing special runs that bring in a lot of cash (to close the gap between Karma and Nuyen). Because for most runs it doesn't make sense, why they should be paid for so highly, e.g. Parliament of Thieves, It just doesn't make sense to pay 100k Nuyen (for 4 players) for a delivery job of something that is basically a courtesy. Especially, if the chars drive with the company van and use the company connections for doing their job (like my players did).


I agree, and generally do the same thing. My typical MO is to have the first few runs will typically be a bit cash poor and karma heavy. This lets PC's round out any skills they want, maybe pick up a few skillpoints in areas that turned out to be useful but weren't purchases at character creation ect. Then I give them a big payday worth comparably little karma. The end result of this run will often net the characters upwards of 100 K each. This lets the Sams feel as though they are making some progress.

The big payday typically represents a shift in fortunes. They attract a higher end clientele and start doing bigger jobs. Much higher paying jobs start coming in as a matter of course, oftentimes paying 2-3 times what they were making initially. I typically start the team out making 20-30k (including opportunities to get cash in other ways) on the initial runs which earn them 5+ karma. Then the payday will net them 3-4 karma and 100K. Then the later runs will get them 70 - 100K and get them 3-5 karma each.

Keep in mind that in the initial runs the johnson will only offer about 10K, the rest is 'found money' fancy looted cyberware (that just so happens to match what the street sam wanted to buy anyhow) and other stuff that pays. The big run will be worth about 70 to the Johnson and the later 'average' after that is around 50.
Ryu
Edit: Several answers as I was typing, not minding the PC inbetween. The post is on builds for ingame advancement:

The key to such a build is a vision of how the character will look with 20, 50, 100 karma. There is a high number of possible attribute increases for 12 karma or less.

The first priority would likely be bringing Magic, Edge and Agility up, followed by buying missing skills at rating 1 (+useful spec). This char could benefit greatly from the "power point instead of metamagic" optional rule. Four additional magic points bought the usual way will cost 42 karma. That could mean Imp. Reflexes 1, combat sense 3, quick draw, and mystic armor 2.


Samurai builds can have similar properties:
Start as an ork with Body 6, Agility 2, Reaction 2, Strength 5, Charisma 2, Intuition 5, Logic 2, Willpower 2. A typical orkish bodybuilder from the street, but with very decent street smarts, for 20+130 BP. Add in 1-2 contacts from the gym and Athletics 3 for maybe 195 BP.

If you consider that anyone who can afford it will have Muscle Augmentation, Muscle Toner, Cerebral boosters and Synthacardium, as well as Memory Augmentation, each of those at rating 2 for 85k¥, or 17 BP, improves your basic attributes to:
Body 6, Agility 4, Reaction 2, Strength 7, Charisma 2, Intuition 5, Logic 4, Willpower 2, knowledge skills +2

Now you have 188 BP to spend without touching the natural attributes, except maybe logic +2. Social pools of 6 are certainly acceptable for even a face if the rest of the team gimped on social skills, so Influence 4, Indimidation 2 (mental +2) for 50 BP are enough of an investement. 40 BP for various Martial Arts needs and 30 BP for armed skills (preferably the Firearms group) take care of combat (Full Defense=Athletics dodge). That would leave about 70(50) BP for other skills, more contacts, and more gear. Growth potential lies in the comparative lack of implants in both quality and number, and the low average attribute level.
Mäx
QUOTE (xsansara @ Jul 30 2008, 01:09 AM) *
Concerning the Jack-of-all-trades discussion:
This greatly depends on the background. Most characters have not been Solo-Runners in their past live.

No but they propably have not been running with a team, that neatly covers all needed areas except the one she cover, their past live eather.
Rad
Okay, did some reworking, also, I realize I've been too abstract and haven't gone into specifics about why I made certain decisions with the build--I blame sleep deprivation making me unorganized. A few notes:

> Ork is required, because of the 200 bp cap on attributes. Orks get 50 bp worth of attributes for 20bp, and it doesn't count against the cap. Add in human looking and exceptional charisma, and you're actually getting less for your bp than a human (who gets 10bp worth of edge for free)--but a human couldn't have those stats at chargen. Only trolls get a better deal on starting attributes/bp spent, but they wouldn't work for my purposes. Bear in mind I'm not picking stats solely to make him badass, I'm trying to make the numbers reflect the character I have in my head. I'll repeat that this charachter is not supposed to be strong. I'd give him strength 2 and charisma 5 if the rules allowed it, that would be more fitting my idea of him. The key is that he doesn't look dangerous when you meet him. An ugly guy with bulging muscles is more likely to register as a combat threat than a pretty boy with an average physique.

> Although I'd rather use martial arts than adept powers, I have to go the adept route because of the cap on positive qualities. Exceptional charisma and human looking are required, for the reasons outlined above, and that takes 25 out of 35 bp right off the bat. First impression is important mechanically and fits the idea of a character who puts on a good front but is a little less polished when you get to know him, so I'd be loathe to drop it as well. That only leaves room for one martial arts manuever, regardless of how much bp/karma you have to spend on them.

> I recognize that this character will probably never be a top notch fighter. He isn't supposed to be, and the character himself doesn't want to be. His interest is in being able to stay alive without totally relying on others, and being able to provide some support/backup in combat. I don't expect him to hold his own as a primary front-line combatant--I do expect him to not be a helpless target, and to be able to provide some help in a fight, rather than doing nothing. He knows he'll never be as good as dedicated fighters, and has great respect for them, but he's not going to sit things out when he can lend a hand and do some good.

Likewise, he's got an (unrealistic) sense of warrior pride, that makes him view ware and drugs as "cheating", and hiding behind drones as cowardly. He doesn't really have a problem with people who choose that route--but it's not for him. He likes to get in over his head, and test himself by seeing just how far he can get against an impossible obstacle. The basic pattern for this guy is, wade in, do some good, get messed up, spend some time at the street doc and do it all over again. I expect him to eventually get taken out of combat, but I'm trying to swing it so he gets a few punches in before hand, and survives to throw himself at a brick wall again.

> I thought about going the technomancer route. Originally my plan was for him to be a tough, good looking street punk who just happened to be a technomancer, but it takes too many BPs, especially with the cost of complex forms. I might revisit that idea, given the problems I'm having with the current build.

> Regarding skill specializations: While they are cheaper to advance through karma they also provide a cheap boost to skills at chargen. My focus right now is not on making a character who can advance quickly, but one who can survive long enough to advance in the first place. I'm okay with slower development and improving more through me learning the machanics and playing him better for a while.

> Definitely reworking the whole doge vs gymnastics thing. Gymnastics fits the idea of this guy better, as he relies alot on controlled movement. Was actually thinking of making him proficient in a 2070's version of moshing that basically consisted of throwing hits at each other in a club and trying to dodge it in a sort of hyper-agreesive psudo-martial-arts dance thing.

Gotta' run, will get back--keep the advice coming!
Aiolos Turin
Am I the only person who enjoys making characters whose stats/skills are based on their personality/background as opposed to "How to Roll the Most Dice- A Player's Guide to Min-Maxing."


If you make a troll with Logic of 6, but absolutely no logic skills- simply combat, street survival, and a few other similar skills- maybe your troll is a genius who never amounted to anything because he has had to live on the streets forever as a low-life ganger.

Or maybe... you have 6 in Athletics skill group, but only 2 str, 2 body, and 2 agility- maybe because your guy is a former star athlete who hit rock bottom and is now a fat blob of pizza-eating chocolate paradise.

Or you have 3 in every stat, and 2 in a few skills, but a load of contacts (and I mean a LOAD- literally! maybe 60 - 100 BP worth of contacts because you have so much left over from having such low/non-existent skills and low stats)- because your guy is the "Average Joe" of the world. Literally. He is so typical, so average, so mundane, that he is average at everything- but because of this no one dislikes him and he has tons of contacts. Maybe because once you know one person, then you know two people, then those two people tell two people, and soon the momentum equates to a ton of contacts. "You need a thug? What kind- I know atleast three from every gang, business, and corp in Seattle, Hong Kong, AND Tokyo!"

Or maybe out of the 400 BP, you only spend 300 because you want a guy who isnt very good at anything. You're not that strong, not that smart, not that good looking, not very popular, definitely not rich, and have a case of badluck. And if your teammates say "What do you offer this team? You suck!" you could simply respond, "Im here arent I? That means you're less likely to get shot at!" and everyone will welcome you. Or maybe you're the annoying younger (and crappy) brother of the 6 reaction 6 agility 6 heavy weapon 15 Body cybered up Troll.


Why would ANYONE pick a metahuman race for the stats? You pick a race because that's your character @_@

Roleplaying vs Rollplaying
sunnyside
To be clear the "special" stats of edge and magic don't count toward the 200 limit.

So while a human can't exactly reproduce those stats at chargen, they could come closer than you may think (strength 2 logic 1 and there you are). Though again I like the idea of shaving some points and softmaxing agility, and then you do need to be Orc.

I also don't think the adept thing is bad. Just support it with a nice respectable softmaxed magic attribute. There are plenty of great things even in the BBB.

-increased perception Just awsome
-astral perception see that emotion and some other useful info in coupled with increased perception. Also see though disguises. Also warding fun.
-attribute boost. Good stuff for pretty cheap. You can try multiple times (hopefully beating drain) before something important to have a nice high bonus.
-the classic skill improves and reflexes
-kinesetics
-cornucopia of enhanced senses bloodhound boy.
-voice control
-and of course combat sense. Don't get shot.


masterofm
Well... um... if you want your character that way then rock on with your bad self. Go adept though. 5 bp just to be an adept is awesome. It will also give your character growth later in the game. You have a concept and your character fits your concept.... just try to get more ips later on if you plan on punching someone in the face. Also have you completely ran this character by your GM? If he says "be more powerful then you might want to give that due consideration and maybe change the character concept around a bit.
Matsci
QUOTE (Rad @ Jul 29 2008, 10:32 PM) *
Wow, big response...

Well, the GM says he has "all of them", don't know if that includes things like Unwired, which just came out. It's somewhat of a problem for me because I effectively don't know all the rules we'll be playing by, and I don't want to take 3 years scouring his books before I hop in since I'm already coming in a session late.

Apparently, this is going to be a pretty big group. According to the GM: "1 Elf katana adept, 2 weapon specialist/street sams, 2 shamans, one elf, one human, and a troll enforcer.

No hacker and no face. Things are going to end so well for them."


I do have Unwired. Also, our Troll Enforcer may have become a Tecnomancer/Face, so that frees up any roles you want to play.
Cold-Dragon
Wow....that's a whole lot of words to read.

Putting all this aside (I have enough challenges for my brain), there's a detail near the beginning I want to bring up.

It's about the 5 dice difference you supposedly get in melee combat from your opponent being prone. Looking at the sections for attacker and defender, every trait mentioned in the tables is mentioned in their appropriate area (or else it's mentioned earlier under a particular spot, such as the penalties from the various gun methods). The one exception, at least that I see at the moment, is the attacking getting a +3 to attacking a prone target.

Now, I can understand how it's easier to beat on someone who is prone, but are they that badly off? Even if you can't move the main part of your body as easily, you have all four limbs, some rolling, movement of head, interfering with the other person's movement, etc.

Given that mistakes happen, I think that +3 bonus is a typo - a repeat reference to an old bonus applied for prone targets, but was shifted to instead be a penalty to the prone target personally (and made the traditional -2).

I dislike to think a simple act like knocking a person prone so utterly screws them. It makes much more sense (and gives a little more balance back) to ignore that +3.

Now, someone could have also mentioned this earlier, and I missed it through all the text. I'm sorry if you did, but I just felt like bringing that up for the sanity of future games. ^-^; On the plus side, reading some of this has inspired confidence in semi smaller dice pools.
masterofm
You run up and kick someone in the face. Don't see how that is a problem. They are on the ground and a bigger target. Can't really dodge all that well and if you are rolling around on the ground I don't see how you can still unload on someone without it being very very hard (combat rounds are in 3 second intervals mind you.) When being shot at I would think it is harder to shoot a prone person but right on top of someone kicking them? Two different stories.

Matsci are the other players in your game hard cheesing their characters?
sunnyside
Sort of on a side subject you may want to consider if the group is simply too big. I've run in games that large (as a player), and I can't say that I think much of them. I think most GMs consider 6 to be as large as you want to go and most prefir to run with 3-5.

I'm not saying to leave Rad out, I'm just saying that you might want to consider splitting this into two groups by flipping one player to a second GM. You could even game at the same time and sit it in the same place.

But whatever, the game still works with large groups if that's what you want to do.

xsansara
Ask the GM how he would feel about a sprite-only Technomancer. It frees up a lot of time in play.

Unfortunately, that does not work too well with the direct-damage approach. But that attitude is something I don't really get. Hackers/Faces are all about the indirect approach. Talk, don't shoot. Jam the gun, so they can't shoot. The no-cheating attitude in combat is something for min-maxxed Adepts and 0.0x Essence Cybersamurai. They feel bored otherwise. (My Adept likes to full dodge, until the enemies are out of ammo smile.gif

So the real question is: If 4 ganger hit you on your way home, what do you do?
a) Kill them all in a fair fight
b) Try to kill them and die in the process
c) Give them all your money, just that they only THINK they got your money, then bombard them with spam mails and warrants and the like
d) Become a member of the gang, if I not am already
e) Scare them until they run away

And here is the problem: Most Jack-of-all-trades end up at b) one way or another, because they lack impressive dice pools to pull off the other options.
The question is not: do I have every skill that might be useful?
it is: Can I cope/contribute to standard situations?
Ryu
- The cost of human looking and first impression are points well spend if one desires the effect. Exceptional charisma does nothing for you, because you don´t need another social die if it comes at such a price. A no strength, magic 1 adept should maybe focus on something that is not combat?

- Regarding the cap argument: ditch exceptional charisma. Buy kinesics 2, buy martial arts (+DV to cover for low strength), buy four maneuvers. Spend the 2 BP that saves elsewhere. Pretty boy does not like the weights, but the cute ladies get him into MA class every time. I think the maneuvers don´t run against the quality cap, only the MA quality itself.

- Contribution to combat for little BP says Firearms 1 instead of minor Pistols. Judging from your reported group composition, you WILL be a helpless target in combat. True combatants slaughter anything you can occasionally hit, but not damage. Honestly, the MA angle is only fixing you up so you can participate in a bar brawl. A base DV of 2, 6 dice to connect the hit, is wasting BP (from a mechanical POV).

- By all means, build the tough, good looking street punk. It´s a better base for an adept. A 2nd TM in the group would be odd, but if you want one, consider starting with an absysmal living persona. You do not particulary need your living persona stats for most tasks, the drain attribute can be choosen via a resonance stream, and if you take logic for that, only logic really needs to be high (ork, logic 4, 8 CF, resonance 6)


On the TM:
Body 6, Agility 2, Reaction 2, Strength 5, Charisma 2, Intuition 3, Logic 4, Willpower 3. 160 BP. Resonance 6 65 BP = 225 BP. 48 BP for complex forms = 273 BP. Ressources minimal, lets say 35k¥ alltogether, or 280 BP. Cracking 4, Electronics 1, Compiling 6. 354 BP. 10 BP for being a TM with paragon, 20 for contacts. 384 BP spend, no flaws taken. CFs: Spoof, Exploit, Stealth, Analyse, Armor, Attack, X, Y. Effective short-term CF ratings of 12 (support operation services, fading-less threading +2) in Spoof, Exploit, Stealth make intrusion a safe bet; the same for Attack ends cybercombat.
ElFenrir
I also vote for ditching the Exceptional Charisma. With that 20 BP, you could indeed get another Adept power point, 2 levels of said Kinesics, and have your Charisma 4...AND be rolling two extra dice for all tests. It might cost you a bit more karma to get to Charisma 5...BUT, with Kinesics, it will still make up for it. You roll Kinesics on EVERY social roll you do. Now, if the Exceptional Attribute is PURELY for character purposes...then keeping it might be alright. I think I took exceptional attribute once for that reason. IMO, it's costly...but it's better picked up for a character purpose, than it is for extra dice...in the end, it only nets you 1 or 2 at the most. Trust me, your ork is still damn charismatic with a Charisma of 4, especially when the baseline average-person everyday Charisma is a 2(not a 3 like the pasted table says. Attributes are a little lower on average in SR4.)



Rad
QUOTE (Matsci @ Jul 29 2008, 09:16 PM) *
I do have Unwired. Also, our Troll Enforcer may have become a Tecnomancer/Face, so that frees up any roles you want to play.


Well then, I may as well save myself the headache and bring out one of my other characters, lol.

I still like this guy, so I'll still work on the build and maybe use him in the game--having another hacker in the group takes some pressure off and would allow this guy to be more of a support character.

Definitely agree with people's suggestion about ditching exceptional charisma and using that BP for adept powers, I don't know why I didn't think of that sooner. (Sleep deprivation)

Aiolos Turin, read more, judge less. You've got my motivations ass-backwards, omae.

About the effectiveness of this guy in combat: The use of shock weaponry and tactics looks like it could go a long way. As long as he can hit, the opponent's instantly getting a -2 to everything regardless of any other effects, and you're throwing a damage code of 6 with armor halved. You'd have to have a strength of 12 to throw punches that hard, and you still wouldn't get the halved armor and electricity effects. Granted, hitting could be a problem with this build, but full parrying the opponent's first strike and comming back with a counterstrike goes along way towards fixing that. You only have to focus on beefing up your defensive dicepool, and any hits you get will improve your offensive pool when you counter. Combine this with the quick-draw power and the element of surprise, and you've got a pretty good electric suckerpunch.

Extra IP's are definitely needed to make the most of this tactic, I'll either go with combat drugs or use the 20bp from exeptional charisma to buy Improved Reflexes 1 instead.

In a firefight, he can use his smartlink to target from behind cover and aim his shots. Stick-n-Shock ammo brings the electricity benefits into the fray, and with the Fubiki he can have a barrel or two of different ammo for insulated targets or other special situations.

Ideally, this guy would mop up the lower-level mooks while the big boys take on the tougher opponents--preventing his teammates from getting swarmed. He could also gang up to take down enemies that much faster. Sure, the other guys could probably handle it on their own, but the sooner combat is over, the less chance there is of injury, reinforcements, or alarms. You don't want to miss your objective because you were having too much fun with the guards.

Almost done re-tweaking the build. Will post when finished.
ElFenrir
Actually...you wouldn't need a Strength of 12 to throw punches that hard. 4 levels of martial arts, say, Kickboxing(+2 DV); and a level each of 2 more(+1 DV each)....and you can do it at Strength 3. With hardliners, you can do it at Strength 2.

If you REALLY want to get silly, you can be a Strength 1 old man with hardliners(+1 DV), +5 DV from Martial Arts(+6), and +6 DV Critical Strike Adept(+12) and do 13P damage. With a 1 strength.

Martial Arts are *good*. Really good. grinbig.gif But yes, to halve armor, you would indeed need another affect, like Elemental Strike: Electric or the often-banned Elemental Strike: Sonic(which NEGATES armor.)
Rad
Of course there are other ways, I was mainly illustrating that a high strength isn't necessary for effective punches.

Still rounding out the new build with gear and knowledge skills. I added a mild addiction to tranquilizers (left over from a time when he was being medicated for "violent and aggressive tendencies") and changed the exceptional charisma into Improved Reflexes 1. Also tweaked the skills a bit and worked in Electronics 2 and Cracking 1.

Right now he's got a dicepool of 15 for full defense (gymnastics dodge or unarmed full parry), and 2 IP's. That's slightly higher than the street sam's attack dicepools, though burst/autofire can make up the difference.

One thing I'm interested in is whether shock gloves get the +2 touch attack bonus. If so he's got a dicepool of 8 for melee attacks, 10 for counterattacks coming off a parry with 1 net hit. That's almost good enough to hit the street sam, throw in some edge or situational modifiers and he's there.

[edit]

Thought about going elemental strike with this guy, but it didn't fit the character and shock gloves + quick draw are faster and cheaper from a BP standpoint. (Takes a simple action to activate elemental strike, same as readying shock gloves sans quickdraw, and only lasts (magic) minutes, whereas shock gloves stay on until you take them off or run out of charges.)

Thinking of having him learn some more mystic-type abilities from his Pit Fighter contact later in the game. (The pit fighter's an adept.)
masterofm
Honestly if you want to aim for flavor then get Berserk as an adept power considering he has a problem with rage. It's not all that bad of a skill to have either.
Rad
Oh I was looking at that one very hard. Thing is he's sort of on the fence right now, emotionally. He's spent so much time being conditioned to suppress his savage side, that he can't fully give in to it even when he wants to. The whole controlled/uncontrolled thing is still something he's working out. Once he does, I'll definitely give him Berzerk.

Mean time, the build looks like this:

NAME: AKA: Rei
RACE: Ork [20]

-ATTRIBUTES- [230]

BODY: 4 [00]
AGILITY: 3 [20]
REACTION: 4 [30]
STRENGTH: 3 [00]
CHARISMA: 4 [30]
INTUITION: 5 [40]
LOGIC: 4 [30]
WILLPOWER: 4 [30]

MAGIC: 4 [30]
EDGE: 3 [20]

Essence: 6
Initiative: 9
Initiative Passes: 1
Physical Damage Track: 10
Stun Damage Track: 10

-ACTIVE SKILLS- [136]

Cracking Skill Group 1 [10]
Electronics Skill Group 2 [20]
Gymnastics 3 [12]
(Smash Dancing) +2 [02]
Influence Skill Group 4 [40]
Intimidation 4 [16]
Perception 3 [12]
Pistols 2 [08]
(Light Pistols) +2 [02]
Unarmed Combat 3 [12]
(Parrying) +2 [02]

-KNOWLEDGE SKILLS- (27 Free) [0]

-Street/Interests-
Underground Fight Clubs 3
Street Raves 3
Data Havens 2
Local Area Knowledge 4
Japanese Action Trids 3
(Anime) +2

-Professional/Academic-
Computer Design 2
Software Design 2
Electrical Engineering 4

-Language-
English N
Japanese 3
Or'zet 2
(Swearing) +2

-QUALITIES- [-15]

Adept [+05]
First Impression [+05]
Human Looking [+05]

Addiction, Combat, Mild [-05]
Addiction, Tranquilizers, Mild [-05]
Allergy, Pollen, Mild [-05]
Sensitive System [-15]

-ADEPT POWERS- (4)

Agility Boost 1 0.25
Counterstrike 0.5
Improved Initiative 1 2.0
Kinesics 0.5
Quick Draw 0.5
Rapid Healing 1 0.25

-GEAR- (50,000Â¥) [10]

Low Lifestyle (1 Month) 2,000Â¥

Hammerli 620S 650Â¥
Silencer 200Â¥
Skinlink 50Â¥
6 Rounds SnS Ammo 48Â¥
10 Clips SnS Ammo 530Â¥
3 Clips EX-Ex Ammo 195Â¥
Concealable Holster 75Â¥

-CONTACTS- [24]

Fixer (Connection 4/Loyalty 2)
Tashi (Connection 2/Loyalty 2)
"Death Tap" (Connection 2/Loyalty 3)
Charles (Connection 2/Loyalty 2)

-------------------------

Still working on gear. Wasn't sure about that last .5 worth of adept powers. I was torn between a bunch of .25 abilities and just went with Agility Boost 1 and Rapid Healing 1. Probably would have been better to pick one or the other at 2 instead. Might switch the second addiction to "Combat Drugs", and use Jazz for the IP boost to free up more adept powers, but that would change the feel and backstory of the character a bit.

Changed the Fubiki to a Hammerli 620S, due to integral smartgun system, improved range, and the fact that it doesn't cost as much as a month's rent. I liked the Fubiki's low-recoil bursts and large ammo capacity, but this seems better and more fitting overall. Using skinlink as a poor man's cybersaftey, disabling the wireless on his smartlink and running it through the skinlink instead. If I have the nuyen, I'll skinlink all his electronics. Idea is that Rei's cavalier about physical dangers, but slightly paranoid about matrix security--partly because he knows he's weaker in that area.

Wavering between Urban Explorer Jumpsuit and Armored Jacket for the armor. Armored jacket would be smarter, but a jumpsuit sounds more like what this character would wear.

On the contacts: Tashi is a Hacker, Death Tap an Adept and former muay tai champion (when he was a kid). Rei met them both online and has sparred with Death Tap once--hasn't met Tashi in person, but bums pirated software and advice off him from time to time.

Charles is an old, crippled Adept fighter who now makes a living creating and selling weapons and armor, with a bit of talismongery thrown in. Has a shop/foundry on the edge of the sprawl, which Rei rarely visits due to his allergies. (Too much nature out there.)

If the GM allows it, I might make the armor a style-customized jumpsuit from Charles, that looks more like loose jeans and a t-shirt. Or could go with an Armored Jacket Fashion-Spelled to look like a shirt--maybe as payment for a past debt?

You see what I mean about screwing myself mechanically to stay in character now, don't you? Fashion really shouldn't be a deciding factor when choosing body armor. ohplease.gif
Ryu
According to the German street magic, the counterstrike power is not useable with Full Defense. (You might want to check that, our translators took the original as mere suggestion in some places.)

Then I´d give him Electronics 3 and no Cracking. The plan would be to have a closely supervised mook running inside your persona.
Rad
Yeah, I checked that--ran the errata too. Last line in the English version specifically says "If the adept opts to dodge or make a full defense maneuver other than parry or block, counterstrike is ineffective."

Underlining mine. Tricky wording, that's why I went over it so many times to make sure.

I like the idea of dropping cracking and giving another bump to electronics, especially since he's already going to have his hacking done by an Agent for now. Dunno if I'll go with it, either way could fit the character and both methods have their +'s and -'s.

Toying with adding the SINner negative quality to give him some extra Nuyen for gear. Dunno if I want to push it that far though. Having been a part of the system does fit Rei's backstory, but I don't know if I want an active, official SIN hanging around for this guy considering the amount of trouble he's liable to get himself into. Getting picked up in the hospital would really suck.
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