Hello!

A couple of friends and I have decided to play Shadowrun (4). Everyone else in our group has decided to base their character off a pre-made, but pick and choose some points they'd rather have elsewhere. I, as always, wanted to do something different so I decided to make a character. Here is what I've come up with so far:

(Using 400 BP rule)

Basic Premise: A stealth, melee, adept. The key is to use adept powers like Killing Hands and Critical Strike to deal damage and using Infiltration more as a defensive power.

Stats: (200 BP)
Human
Body: 3
Agility: 5
Reaction: 5
Strength: 2
Charisma: 4
Intuition: 4
Logic: 2
Willpower: 3
Edge: 3
Magic: 5

Skills: (102 BP)
Athletics Group: 3
Unarmed Combat: 4
Dodge: 3
Perception: 2
Climbing: 2
Infiltration: 4
Shadowing: 3

Adept Power:
Critical Strike: 3
Killing Hands: 3
Rapid Healing: 3
Great Leap: 2
Combat Sense: 2

Qualities:
Quick Healer (10 BP)
Weak Immune System (-5 BP)
Astral Beacon (-5 BP)

'Ware (Leaves me with 4.92 Essence):
Reaction Enhancer: 2, Standard, (0.6 Ess)
Muscle Toner: 2, Standard, (0.4 Ess)
Cat's Eyes: Alpha (0.08 Ess)
Enhanced Articulation: Standard (0.3 Ess)

So, is this guy going to be at all playable? Can I even end up doing what I'm talking about? I haven't been able to fully understand how spell casting works for an Adept; am I subject to the same drain rules? I've managed to fit all of this into 400 BP, with the only issue being that because of my Cyber/Bioware my essence is lowered and I can't get as many or as high ranking in the Adept Powers I've chosen.

Ultimately, would I be better off just using a premade character for our first game? I think I'd end up enjoying the game more if I made my own guy, but if I'm just going to be dying/standing around all the time I'd rather just copy and paste.

Any and all feedback would be great. Thanks too much!

Right off the top, I'd say your Strength is way too low. You're only doing 4P, about equal to a light pistol. Raise it to 3 or 5.

As an adept, you won't be able to cast spells; you need to be a mystic adept to do that, and that's pretty much for advanced players to mess around with. I wouldn't go there if I were new.

With 4.92 essence, your max magic can only be 4. By the strict rules, you lose a point of magic every time you lose a full point of essence, rounded up. So, in your case, if you bought your Magic to 5, it'd be dropped to 4 for the first point of Essence, and 3 for the .08 essence remaining. So, it behooves you to get rid of 0.08 essence worth of cyber.

To help with this, you don't need to use your 200 BP allocation for attributes on Magic or Edge. You can raise those separately. Skill-wise, raise your Unarmed to 5, and specialize in Martial Arts.

The pre-mades are good to get your feet wet, but are not put together particularly well. The covert ops specialist, in particular, is not a very good character. So let's look at your guy:


The problem with cyberware and bioware for an awakened character is that it reduces their Magic rating. And it's one thing to lose a point of Magic for a point of goodies, but you're losing 2 points of Magic, because of that last, dinky 0.08 Essense loss! You would be better off not getting the cat's eyes. For one thing, buying low-light vision as an adept power only costs 0.25 power points.

Climbing is one of the skills in the athletics skill group, so you don't have to buy it separately - you already have it. You can use gymnastics (also part of your athletics skill group) for full defense dodge against ranged attacks (normal ranged dodge only uses Reaction, no skill), and you can use unarmed combat to block melee attacks. So you don't really need the dodge skill, either.

Honestly, sneaking and hitting people can only get you so far. You need some kind of ranged attack, such as pistols.

For an adept, you must spend 5 BP to buy the adept positive quality.

Killing hands doesn't come in levels. You buy it for 0.5 power points.

I'm not sure how effective he would be. It depends on how well you can use his sneaking ability. For normal combat, people with multiple initiative passes tend to be the ones who hog the spotlight. Rolling 9 dice and doing a base damage of 4, he will be able to knock out an average security guard, but usually not quite in one shot. And he will have a hard time against anyone tougher.

losing essence lowers the max for your magic for score, so having lost 1.08 essence, your magic max would be 4

So you know, you miscalculated your Essence loss. You should have 4.62 remaining.

.6 + .4 = 1
1 + .3 + .08 = 1.38
6 - 1.38 - 4.62

You should probably find a way to get at least one more initiative pass. One more pass will give you twice as many actions which means you will do twice as much damage. As an adept wired reflexes is probably too essence heavy so you either need to use your PP or get that really expensive bioware(synaptic booster I think, I don't have my book handy). You can also rely on drugs to get your IPs, but that comes with it's own problems.

As a general rule, anyone who wants to be effective in combat needs at least 2 IPs, and anyone who wants to make combat a focus of their character needs 3. 4 is nice if you can get it, but it's quite difficult at creation. Characters with 1 IP usually are characters who focus on out of combat utility(faces, hackers, util-a-mages) during combat they typically spend their actions running for cover and let the faster people take out the enemies.

No, he figured it out correctly. The cyberware is less Essense, so its cost (the 0.6) gets halved.

Ah, sorry. Didn't see that part - my mind just added the numbers without my permission.

Bad brain!

If it was raw switching here, I would say:

Switch a point of Reaction to Body. Armored Jackets are nice.

Switch a point of Charisma to Strength.

The Enhanced Articulation is just not quite as good as it used to be. Unless you want more Athletics and Stealth dice. But ditch Enhanced Articulation and the Cats Eyes, get reaction enhancer 1, and 2 levels of muscle augmentation. Reaction 6 is still nice. Now, you're without a second pass here...but, since you're playing a more ''surprise'' guy, then it could just work out for you. This will work out out to 5.05 essence(.8 from the bioware, .3 of Reaction Enhancers halved to .15.) This also gives you more power points to play with(Magic 6 down to 5.) Your current collection costs 3.5, giving you 1.5 points left. Mystic Armor is always nice. Improved Stealth if you want your character to be really stealthy.

Learn to love the Martial Arts rules. Get 1-2 levels of it and you can boost your DV, or get more dice for surprise attacks, or blocking. They are in the Arsenal book. Martial Arts cost 5 BPs/level with Positive Qualities.

With Gymnastics Dodge, you don't need regular Dodge, and yes, you don't need Climbing, as it's part of the group. I would split those points between Etiquette 2-3, and Unarmed Combat and Infiltration specialization(ok, I know specializing under BP isn't the most ''optimal''...but I still do it), and you'd still have a few points to maybe buy one ranged skill at a low rating, or, if you use the Martial Arts rules...for maneuvers, which are wonderful.

Hardliner gloves work fine with killing hands, and give you another +1 to your Unarmed DV.

Erm...that's all I can think of for now. Honestly, this isn't bad at all for a first crack at a character. Just a few things could help you out, though. (and yes, in this current build, your magic is 4, not 5.)

Thanks for the feedback guys, really helped me to retune some things.

I dropped the Cyber/Bioware that I had in favor of using my Adept skills to increase what I was looking for. Improved Reflexes ends up being about the same as Wired Reflexes (2 Essence per rank VS 2 Magic Points per rank) and I grabbed Enhanced Perception (2 ranks in that).

I hadn't realized that Strength increases the damage done by melee attacks, though I had suspected it. I've increased that to 5 and dropped Charisma and Int down to 3 points each. I grabbed Pistols skill 3/6 as well as increasing unarmed to 5 and putting 3 points into Martial Arts spec. Because I had some extra points I picked up 2 points in Assensing (It kind of fits with the theme and no one else on the team can see magic, figure it might be somewhat handy).

Looks more like this now:

Stats: (200 BP)
Human
Body: 3
Agility: 5
Reaction: 4
Strength: 5
Charisma: 3
Intuition: 3
Logic: 2
Willpower: 3
Edge: 3
Magic: 5

Skills: (108 BP)
Athletics Group: 3
Unarmed Combat: 5 (Spec +3 Martial Arts)
Perception: 2
Infiltration: 4
Shadowing: 3
Assensing: 2
Pistols: 3
*Removed* Dodge: 3
*Removed* Climbing: 2

Adept Power:
Critical Strike: 2
Killing Hands: 1
Rapid Healing: 2
Great Leap: 2
Combat Sense: 1
Improved Reflexes: 1
Enhanced Perception: 2

Qualities:
Quick Healer (10 BP)
Weak Immune System (-5 BP)
Astral Beacon (-5 BP)

I've still got 10 points left (Already bought gear). I was thinking something like Thrown Weapons/ Locksmithing, or logic based Computers/Data Search/Demolitions type stuff. Another way to go would be to drop another point in Magic and increase the skills I already have, or buy some of those nifty 'Increase Skill/attribute' powers. Still toying with all of those ideas.

Thanks again for all the help so far. I think I've already improved my character a fair amount; at least in terms of giving him useful abilities.

Well, Specializing adds 2 dice to the skill, is all it does; you don't pick the level of the specialization. So 20 BP gets you Unarmed Combat 5, and 2 more BP gets you Unarmed(Martial Arts): 5(+2).

Improved Reflexes are good. Very, very good. But...if there is one thing I tell people, is that make sure you absolutely want them. They are expensive. 2 adept points can buy a LOT. But combat characters do well with another pass. It's just a rather expensive way to do it.

Perhaps move 6 BP from the pistols, making it 1+2(Semi-automatics), and taking Etiquette(street, corporate, magical, or whatnot) 1+2. Having an Etiquette skill, or at least some kind of social skill to fall back on, is important.

Increase Attribute powers...well, Boost is nice, but the Improved Physical attribute, in the book, is one of the most overcost powers in the game. Personally, I houseruled it at my table to be half that cost, but not all tables do that, so assume it's 1 BP/level. It's really rather broken...in an underpowered way...the way it is now.

If you go the ''more skills'' route with the extra BP:

Your Logic is only 2, so you wouldn't be able to get a lot out of your Logic skills. I mean, you COULD, if you pumped them up, but those 10 points might be better toward something else, like another point of Edge, or you could leave the Pistols 3 and get a 2(+2) Etiquette skill. You see your guy as perceptive...why not get him an extra point or two of Perception?

If you go the magic increasing route instead:

It would cost you 25 Bps to increase your Magic to 6, btw. It's usually seen as good to do(with an adept), but your attributes look pretty keen as is, and I can't really think of how to scratch out the other 15.

Oh yeah...Assensing. It's in my knowledge you need Astral Perception for that. So you could ditch that, actually. This would give you 8 more BPs, for 18. Take back a BP(If you pay 3 for the specialization...did you?), for 19, lower Pistols to 1(+2) to get 6 more, for 25 BP, and you could get your magic to 6. You're still without an Etiquette skill, though.

You could lower Shadowing to 2 and take Etiquette 1, if you wanted.

Again, just some pointers.

Humans make fairly good adepts, or anything really, but I have a question for you, are you chosing human as the default choice, or because you want to be human? Because all of the other Metahuman choices can enhance your physical traits.

One thing I noticed about Adepts is you have to specialise, meaning choose one area of ability, like combat, stealth, social, and concentrate on raising this and only this field with magic. Otherwise you will suck compared to other characters. Also, the best thing about adepts is to get a ridiculous high dicepool real quick and you did not do that for any of you skills. Might want to rethink that guy.

Your magic is 3 not 5. If you dip below 1 point of essence loss it drops it an extra point no matter how close to the edge you are. If you lose 1.01 essence your magic drops by 2 not by 1 for RAW. I would get rid of great leap for the adept power. Increase your str by at least one. Personally I would say to go troll or orc and get human looking if you plan to go orc to help free up some bp and up your stats.

Troll unarmed combatants are insane...as are Ork. I think you might want to do one of those with or without Human-Looking if it fits your concept. Drop the Cat Eyes, and you'll have 4 magic not 3 as you do now. You'll have a net gain of .75 power points since, as previously stated, you can buy night vision with .25.

Also, you can get Eyemods in glasses and contacts. No need to chop out your eyes just for some gadgets.

Assensing is useless unless you take that 1 point in astral perception. My suggestion is don't do it. Remove assensing as a skill and that will free up 8 bp. I would not take the quality quick healer, or rapid healing. Power points are precious so be careful with them. There are some cooler things you could get then something that only works during your downtime, in which case why bother. I would take out great leap as well.

Roll up a troll if you are going to raise your strength to 5. For the same 40 bp you just spent you could spend the 40 on being a troll and a 5 body and a 5 strength + you would gain thermal vision as a bonus. It would free up 20 bp that you just spend on body and although you would need to spend 10 of that to boost your edge up by one it would mean that you have 10 bp extra to do what you want.

Here is a build I've used:

Critical Strike 4 (1 PP)
Killing Hands (.5 PP)
Imp Reflexes 2 (3 PP)
Attribute Boost Agility 1 (.25 PP)
Attribute Boost Body 1 (.25 PP)
Improved Ability (Unarmed Combat) 2 (1 PP)

6 PP and lots of fun stuff. The Att Boosts alone make a good character. There really isn't any stealthy Adept powers AFAIK, so use your Adept powers for fighting.
This group of powers gives you: +4 DV, Physical Damage, ability to boost stats as needed, +2 IP and +2 Reaction, and +2 Unarmed Combat.

I don't really see the point in taking cyberware or bioware for an Awakened character, it just makes your Magic worse. Even .001 essence reduces your Magic by 1. Why not just take some nifty Adept powers?

Another thing I cannot stress enough, specialize. Its +2 dice on any test involving that skill. Specialize all skills, if you can. Instead of the Enhanced Perception Adept power, take 2 BP and specialize your Perception skill.

Another important rule to remember: You can either have one skill at 6, or two at 5 in chargen, the rest must be at 4 or lower. Always have either one 6 or two 5's. You cannot specialize skill groups, but that can be done after you have some Karma.

Also, for more of a pool, buy a focus. You can get a weapon focus 2 at chargen for only 20,000 (10R availability). It is worth it, believe me.

I'm not saying your character is bad for your first one, its actually pretty good, but having pointers from someone with some experience is always nice. I know I appreciated it.

Improved Ability: (Stealth skill) works pretty well. You can get a super-sneaky-ninja type with enough of that.

I haven't had time to re-tweak my character with all the recent feedback, but it's totally helpful. At least I (mostly) understand this character as opposed to the Technomancer I started with.

Thanks so much everyone!

The plan is to play a game next week sometime, so I'm sure I'll come running back here if I screw up. Heh.