When I make characters I tend to be clueless and miss out on interactions between different things. Can anyone see any issues wth this character?

Pura Brighten

[30] Race: Elf
[200] Attributes:



B A R S C I L W

4 5[9] 3[4] 3[5] 7 3 3 3



[20] Special Attributes:

EDG ESS M Init IP

3 3.84 0 7 1[2]



[10] Qualities:

[10] Biocompatability [Bioware]

[10] Erased (Older Brother is a Prime Hacker)

[5] Restricted Gear (Muscle Toner)

[5] Arnis De Mano (+1DV with Blades)

[5] Latent Awakening

[-5] SINer

[-5] Incompetent (Archery)

[-5] Sensitive Neural Structure

[-10] In Debt x2 (15,000 owed 10% monthly interest)



[90] Skills:

[40] Influence Skill Group 4

[Con, Etiquette, Leadership, Negotiation]

[08] Perception 2 +3(Audio or Visual)

[04] Infiltration 1

[20] Athletics Skill Group 2 +2(Synthacardium)

[Climbing, Gymnastics, Running, Swimming]

[10] Blades 2 [Swords]

[08] Pistols 2



[00] Knowledge Skills: [18 Free]

[00] English N

[05] Sperethiel 5

[03] Business 3

[04] Local Area Knowledge (Seattle) 4

[03] Meta-human Pop. Culture 3

[03] Fantasy Trids 3



[50] Gear Resources: ¥165 / ¥58,500 - 1,200 reserved for starting Nuyen

Katana [7P, -1 AP, Reach 1, Personalized Grip, ¥1,100]

Ares Predator [5P, -1 AP, 15 Clip, Personalized Grip, Skinlink, ¥500]

Ares Predator [5P, -1 AP, 15 Clip, Personalized Grip, Skinlink, ¥500]

100 Regular Rounds [¥200]

100 Gel Rounds [+2 DV, +2 AP, Stun, ¥300]

Spare Clips x2 [¥10]

Silencer [¥200]

Concealable Holster [¥75]

Medium Life-Style, 1 month [¥3,850] (Perfect Roommate: Sam, edge of the Elven District)

Emoti-toy Rating 6 [A tiny western dragon, physical embodiment of her Agent]

Fake Sin Rating 4 (Tamalyn Chase)[¥4,000]

Fake Licenses x5, Rating 4 [¥2,000]



Commlink [Custom Commlink] [38,300]

*[Response 6, Signal 6, System 6, Firewall 6, Common Use 6 (All Ergonomic), Pilot Rating 6 (Personality Software)]

Commlink Accessories [ Skinlink, Simrig, Subvocal Mic] [1,100]

Commlink [Meta Link w/Vector Xim OS, Common Use 1] [650]



Armor: [8/6]

Armor Jacket (8B/6I) [¥900]



Bioware: 2.0 * .9 = 1.8 / 150,000

Synaptic Boosters 1 [.5 E - 80,000]

Muscle Augmentation 2 [.4 E – 14,000]

Muscle Toner 4 [.8 E – 32,000]

Clean Metabolism [.1 E – 2,500]

Synthacardium 2 [.2 E – 20,000]

Silky Skin [0 E – 1,500]



Cyberware: .72 = .36 / 41,500

Cyber Eyes Rating 4 [.5 E – 20,500 - Alpha]

(Low-Light Vision, Flare Comp, Smartlink, Thermographic Vision, Vision Enhancer-3, Vision Magnification)

Cyber Ears Rating 2 [.3 E – 20,000 - Alpha]

(Audio Enhancement 3, Damper, Select Sound Filter 4)Contacts: [14 Free = Cha x 2]

Samkin Brighten (Connection 4, Loyalty 6)
Sam is Pura’s older brother, and a very experienced hacker. He built her Commlink for her and was the one who loaded it out with all of the programs. After he moved out of the house Sam moved into shadow work against the wishes of the Brighten parents. Older by 5 years than his sister, Sam handled everything after their parents death in the car crash and saw to it that Pura was given all of the treatments that she needed to be returned to health. After she got out of the hospital Pura moved in with Sam and has been learning the shadows from him. Sam is part of a regular running team. Sam is also the source of the disappearance of all unwanted information about Pura on the Matrix (and Himself). He is very protective of his younger sister.

Fin Morelli Fixer (Connection 3, Loyalty 1)
Fin is one of Sam’s fixers that he introduced Pura to so that she could start getting some work in the shadows. Fin works out of a bar in Renton.

History:
Pura and her brother Sam were raised in Seattle’s Elven District in downtown Seattle by their parent’s executives in a small corp. that did business moving freight between Seattle and the two Elven nations, with many trips taken to both nations. All of the travel gave Pura an interest in what she thought of as traditionally Elven pursuits, sword play, archery (though she has no talent for it), and she and an insatiable appetite for fantasy trids.

Six months ago while going out to dinner the family’s car was hit by a speeding truck, killing Pura’s parents and putting her into critical condition, damaging the majority of her organs and putting her into a coma. Pura’s older brother Sam used up the family’s finances putting her back together with a mix of Cyber and Bioware, replacing her damaged eyes and ears with high quality replacements. As a shadow runner Sam knew that a 17 year old Pura with no money left would need a way to make a living, so he borrowed some money to add in ability enhancing ware while they were already doing surgery on Pura.

After the surgeries to stabilize her, to repair her injured body, and to enhance her abilities Pura left the hospital in incredible shape and moved in with Sam in his condo on the edge of the Elven district. Her body was in incredible shape, the kind of shape that only 185,000¥, and even the scars from the surgery and crash had been removed thanks to a silky skin treatment. Over the course of the next few weeks Sam helped her adjust to the radical changes to her strength and agility as well as the increased sensory input. He also helped introduce her to the shadows, putting her into touch with one of his fixers to hook her up with some of the gear she would need to make a go of it.

Well, didn't seem to forget any skills. Dodge, perception, a couple combat skills, speciality skills in Influence.

I'm a pretty lean GM, but I don't think I'd let Incompetent: Archery wash. You should pick something you might use, at least, if you take this.

You could get rid of Muscle Augmentation 4. For a character who is not always in the front lines, a 7 strength is not needed. Unless it's really really part of the character(then I'd think the natural would be higher), 3(5) is PLENTY. This is coming from someone who usually does not dump that stat, but if you get muscle augmentation 4, you get it for a really good reason. This will save the 5 BP, too, that you could ditch the Incompetence for. (Ok, then again, a 9 agility from a car accident might be a bit much, as well. Judging by your skills and natural attributes favoring a Face, a 7, again, is plenty.) This would free up a few more BP.

Or, use that money you save from ditching a couple levels of Augmentation/toner(trust me, recovery from a car crash, you wouldn't need that much so it would still fit in just fine with the backstory), you could look into Pheremones, which would make her Face abilities even more awesome.

Just some tips, really. I myself have loaded characters down with the muscle stuff before, but only if they are primary combat types. It looks like some of that would go to waste and could indeed be better spent on other things.

It's kind of hard to do that. Incompetent, as written, is pretty much a flaw that means you never even might use it. You can't have the skill, you can't default to it. Just can't use it at all.

But I agree, it's better to take a real flaw that'll impact your character and just ignore Incompetent completely.

Well, the idea was that her brother had them use the highest rating stuff when they were fixing her up, and I do intend for her to improve and use her sword skills pretty heavily. I am shooting for a rating 2 synaptic accelerator when she can afford it, but that'll probably be it when it comes to implants in play, and 3 IPs should be enough to stand up with most opponents.

The reasoning behind the Incompetence Archery is that she is a fan of it, she wants to be able to do it, and pushes herself to do it but she'll never be able to even though she spends hours practicing it. She thinks of it as part of what an elf should be (given her love of fantasy trids).

I can see how it fits in the background...but it's up to your GM, in the end. the Dr. is right; you can't even use it at all. But the problem is, I could, essentially, make a character Incompetent in Artisan: Sketching. He always wanted to do sketching, but he can't for the life of him. Even though it's in the background-most GMs would not let that wash, as it's points for something that does not affect the character in game. Sensitive Neural Structure affects your character, due to her high-end commlink(Im guessing she likes to use it. I think it affects, anyway.) SINner affects anyone who wants to stay down low. An Incompetence should both A. Work in as a story, and B. actually be a detriment in game, IMO.

Now, a good example of an Incompetence that CAN fit a character and still be a detriment is Incompetent: Unarmed Combat. Before you laugh at the idea, a character whom, say, feels 250% at home with their sword, axe, knives, or whatever, and are utterly paranoid about being caught without a weapon. If they get disarmed, they would rather grab the first thing on the street(a tire iron, a broken bottle or anything), than be caught bare handed. Hell, even pistol-whipping or just using ANYTHING(this character might even have a skill in some kind of improvised weapon they developed.) That, IMO, would be an example of an incompetence. Be careful though, as some can be out and out killer(Perception comes to mind. That's just broken in the OTHER direction.)

As for the max level...you could, for example, take a level of Arnis De Mano(a blade-oriented martial art), for +1 DV to Blades, for 5 BP.(that's all blades across the board.) Ditch Restricted gear, ditch 2 levels of Augmentation, the +1 DV you lose from str going to 5 gets made up for by Arnis de Mano(and you could even pick manuevers later on if you don't see her as training too much yet. Or even with a skill of 2+2, having a manuever or two is not out of the question.) This way, you'd also save 14,000 nuyen for other things,(someone who is healing might have well had some sort of Platelet Factories or something put in to help out-which are good in an of themselves) still have good stats, and not lose any DV on the blades.

again , just my donated nuyen. That is what char critique threads are about, anyway. I know I've put up plenty of characters for critique in my time.

I might be thinking about it from the wrong direction, but when I think of getting the max level of an expensive bit of cyber, these people are making this decision because they know they want/need it for their job...I'm trying to figure why a sibling would want to overload them with stuff they weren't really trained to use before. I'd think they'd end up getting things for them like said healing things(platelets, symbiotes, and the like.)

EDIT: Please don't think I'm trying to take the proverbial piss out of you, because I'm not; the character otherwise, except for the few little things I mentioned, looks quite good overall.

I think there is a bit of a difference between incompetence in a combat skill and incompetence in an artisan skill, but I do agree it is a little iffy, it was mostly a character point since even just defaulting she'd be pretty good at it, I was also going to play it up and make her defensive about it given that she has a sword and wears leather armor its something that might come up. I'll think about switching it to something a little more significant though.

As far as what her brother would load her up with, I was looking at it from the filter that he is a high level hacker with a lot of time in the shadows and he is putting her in a position to be a runner. She was already a natural athlete and pretty skilled with a sword, and giving her more strength makes the most out of that. But its a good point, I see her sword fighting/ melee fighting a lot.

Body and defense increasing things would be good, then, as well. Especially things to help her in melee, if you are looking at her like that.

In melee, you will need more Dodge...so maybe a Synthacardium. Each level adds 1 to her Gymnastics Dodge roll..and trust me, playing a melee specialist(i play them a lot in this game), you will need it. Right now, she throws only 4 dice to dodge ranged on non full defense(and 5 on full defense.) With 4 Body(which is good, don't worry), it's still going to be rough for her. With Synthacardium, she would have 7 dice on full ranged defense(if you could figure it out, I would even go for level 3. It might be rough to get that nuyen, though.)

If you ditched Muscle Augmentation 4 down to 2, and could scratch out 6,000 more nuyen(if he is thinking of her survivability, it could well be good-not to mention it strengthens the heart muscles which could be something with her healing thing), you could for the same Essence cost get Synthacardium level 2.


The reason why I pick the Strength augmentation is because it's the one score you can easily make up the DV for with a swordfighting martial art. a 5 strength is still excellent, and Synthacardium: 2 would add more to her survivability-AND it adds +2 to ALL of her Athletics scores(Strength only adds to 2 of them). So she'd still be rolling the same amount for her Strength athletics(5+1+2), and even 2 more for her Agility based ones(9+1+2), and with one level of Arnis de Mano, she would have +1 DV for all of her blades, so she wouldn't lose any DV.

Again, just suggestions to increase survivability. Doing an extra DV of damage is nice but when you get injured trying to close that, it's difficult. Her gun will help her, but if you want her in the front, that personally is the way I'd go.

EDIT: Noticed again she has Dodge: Ranged. If you put those 10 BPs into Athletics Group, she'd have Athletics 2, and you could just use Gymnastics Dodge full time. She would still, if you use the Synthacardium method, roll the same dice(and she could get even more dice to dodge/parry in melee, too. Synthacardium does not affect the Dodge skill...only Gymnastics Dodge. It basically works the same way, only used the Gymnastics skill instead.)

Right now, she's Ranged dodge of 4(full defense). With Synthacardium and Athletics Group 2 instead, she'd be the same(and have better athletics overall, since you saw that with the character.) Melee, it's regular Reaction + Dodge or Base Melee Skill(same), if she had Athletics 2 with Synthacardium 2, she would have 2 more dice there without full defense(Reaction + Athletics 2 + Synthacardium.)

Hope that wasn't too confusing. I sometimes forget not everyone catches the Gymnastics Dodge thing. I can clarify it more if you need.

Just a small thing what I noticed earlier on my own char that caused me to make changes style-wise



I don't think it looks too cool to have the hood and some padded mittens when one tries to look not too suspicious. It works well with a full body armor, but without a helmet, it would just look silly. I don't know how much would it reduce the armor value if you take those parts off from the armor. I went for the half-model myself

Thanks for all the help Elfenrir. I think I'll take the advice on the Muscle Aug - Synthacardium switch. Until you explained it I didn't really get the Dodge/Gymnastics thing, but that makes sense too. I upped the Athletics Group as a whole instead since that makes more sense for a high school athlete than dodge. I just ditched some ammo, and the leather armor/FFBA since I still had 2k nuyen unspent.

The reason I didn't pick up the Pheramones in the first place is that they're illegal, not a terribly huge thing to a shadow runner, but all the rest of her ware is completely legal, and its kind of hard to explain away an illegal implant.

No problem at all. I'm a big melee fan myself, and I'll never forget the first melee adept I made in SR4.

I juiced up all of his damage dealing abilities(my mind was still in the SR3 mindset. It was a little...different then.) He ended up facing off against a Gunslinger Adept. The Adept had fought a partner's spirit...and was at NINE boxes of physical damage, with all the modifiers.

He shot my guy, who didn't have much dodging ability(actually he had 4 reaction and 1 Athletics. Luckily he managed to absorb some...) and still took 4 boxes of physical damage. From a man who was one box from death and had a - a lot die pool.

I learned to love Gymnastics Dodge after that. Had he had been healthy, my poor Adept would have been full of holes.

I might even drop Charisma by one point and up her Reaction one more to help with that, unless you really see her as super-charismatic. This would give her five dice ranged dodge, and with Athletics 2 and Synthacardium 2, she'd be at 9 Full Defense. In melee, she'd be 2 dice better than with a dodge of 2.

I usually pick a starting point with the damage depending on the character, and after I take care of the defensive aspect(especially for melee, which can have trouble closing in sometimes unless they are SuperStealth and get the drop often), I'll see if I can poke the damage up a bit more. But as I learned, all the DV in the world won't help if you're swiss cheese before you get there.

As a rule of thumb, I usually play it by stats. If I'm running around a 4 body with no other damage-soaking stuff(dermal armor, bone lacing, bone density, etc), I usually like to have at least a 9 die pool on full ranged defense, and melee you get more(since you roll Reaction + Dodge/Gymnastics + Melee skill, and any applicable Parry specialization, for full, and regular is Reaction + either weapon skill/parry or athletics.) Bigger body(orks and trolls, for example), you can sometimes get away with less...but keep in mind, guns still hurt them a lot, too.

Also, if you want some more armor, check out the PPP. Forearm and shin guards with vitals protectors are cheap and give a little boost to armor. With a 4 Body, you can wear an armor jacket and the shin/forearm guards with no minus, and have 8/8 armor.

Yea, I added the shin and fore arm guards. 8/8 doesn't seem too bad for armor. Wouldn't mind some military armor or custom fit armor (3 x body), but 8/8 sounds like it would be ok.

Switiching over to synthacardium also freed up some essence. She's at 3.84, and I don't see her going under 3 at all, she might improve what she has, but definitely no new cyber and probably only a rating 2 synaptic booster (or alpha rating 3 if she gets rich). She isn't really a fan of cyber, the thought of metal being put into her body is a little distressing, but cloning and growing new natural ones would take too long and she has adjusted to all the new sensory inputs at this point.