Hi everybody,

I've got a player coming in that's wanting to make a badass wheelman. He's going for a street-racer type and wants a quote, "Chulo Rice Burner type of car". Now I've helped players make what I think are successfull drone riggers but how can I differentiate our wheel man from the droner rigger? What are some good builds for both this (admittedly brief) character description and any other kind of wheel man. Are there multiple types? What's the best augmentations to roll with? How would one make an adept wheelman or is that possible? My player's a newbie and probably is relying on me to provide content for him to pick, I want to make sure that I have a good array of options at his disposal so I don't do him a disservice or have him take too much thunder out of our existant drone rigger.

Here was somet things I was thinking for the above character.
Pilot Ground Craft 6 (specialization in cars)
Gunnery 4
Mechanics (Ground Craft) 4
Hardware 3 or 4
Simrig
Reaction Enhancers
Wired Reflexes (Maybe)
P: More than Metahuman
P Gearhead
P: Juryrigger
Eurocar Westwind, engine speed and accel mods, concealed armor 20, concealed fixed weapon mount with an Ares LMG rolling Ex-Ex.

This is all that's coming to mind given the above description off the top of my head. What do you guys think? What are good ways to characterize a wheel man vis a vis skills from a drone rigger? What are some different builds for different kinds of wheelmen. Thanks again.

Some changes and additions to above are in bold. In addition there is "Control Rig Booster" nanoware that adds dice as well as a "Simsense Booster" that adds an extra pass in full VR. I'd probably suggest skillwires just 'cause they rock [and are a cheap way to get skills that would be helpful 1% of the timeand a mnemonic enhancer because, well... it rocks too. A rigger cocoon with a Ward on it and a vehicle with a ward on it is helpful. The rigger cocoon's best advantage being a spirit can't materialize inside the cocoon since its too small for the spirit+rigger.

The "Control Rig Booster" nanoware requires a nanohive so a cyberhand/cyberfoot to hold it is a good idea. Another option is the positive quality for the experimental nanoware that can be changed every few hours inside said Nanohive.

Lastly, the Computer skill is super useful to riggers. the biggest vulnerability to a rigger (other than antiwireless paint) is a hacker intruding on the rigger's PAN/TAN and Computer skill + Analyze program are used to detect an intruder in the matrix. While the vehicle can use a trodenet to interface with the drones are another story. I'd suggest getting the electronics group and electronic warfare skills then with karma specializing Computer in (Analyze). There is also a mod for commlinks that specializes the commlink in a certain program. I'd get the commlink specialized in Analyze. It wont prevent TM's from getting in but it'll make it darn hard for them to hide forever. If you can find the hacker and engage it then your hacker and drone rigger (and/or Agents) can cybercombat the intruder as an incentive for it to leave. Nothing says "dont intrude, enemy hacker!" like multiple patrolling characters...

EDIT: A LMG with EX-Ex is really great for suppressive fire but it is also really common weapon for a drone rigger. A single big gun with the positive quality that allows a Avail 20 item can differentiate them a bit. After all nothing says "FOOM!" like a panther or later on a gauss cannon that halves the enemy armor. FOOM!

Control Rig Booster and Simsense Booster are incompatible.

A good wheelman should be able to aquire ground vehicles and do simple mod's to them for short term use. I'd add either a junyard owner or a performance supply store owner as a contact for getting stuff on the cheap.

Overall, I'd say the wheelman is going to be more an actual driver and less of a rigger. I'd do everything possible NOT to give him a simrig or decker implants based on your description. I'd try and stick w/ some bioware, and maybe a little cyber for the eyes and ears. More or less, make him a top flight driver/badass who's not going to be in competition w/ the riggers for their role. Once you've gone down the rigger route... he's less of a badass as he's more reliant on his toys. If you go down the street sam/adept route w/ top flight vehicle skills and qualities... he's got a good role for himself when he's not in his wheels.


Juryrigger, and gearhead are great positive qualities to be looking at as you have. Another one you might consider is sense of direction... if it fits the character (otherwise he can get the same thing w/ technology, I think there's a [1] capacity piece of cyber which does it as well).


I'd look for things which increase his reaction attribute and reaction speed (more IP's == more maneuvers in faster succession). (such as synaptic boosters and reaction enhancers, reflex records). I'd avoid anything going down the route of a control rig... once you've gone down that route to the dark side, you're a rigger and can never come back. (think of the pilot in Serenity, or the one driver in Gunsmith Cats)


Too bad, you can't use technical adept on vehicle skills. That'd be a nice way to differentiate the two.

If going for adept... probably look at something like multi-tasking so he can drive in AR w/o worrying about spam zones, and IC'ly can split his attention bigtime w/o penalty (between driving and something else). Maybe turn a racing bike into an item attunement.

Chance has a good idea on contacts there... you might even take the in-debt negative quality and owe him money from the last time he fixed your toy.

The Move-by-Wire, rating 2, from Augmentation would help vehicle skills, since it adds 4 to Reaction, even though it is a bit expensive essence-wise. It has a high availability, but that's what the Positive Quality, Restricted Gear is for. It also includes a skillwire.

Gunnery 6 is better than vehicles 6, because you're going to spend lots of time using drones, but not all the time in a car.

Before making a wheelman sit down with your GM and talk about how they run their world

Some GMs will just send Barney Fife and Cletus after your team in patrol cars, and then it's just some good old fun for a wheelman.

On the other hand some GMs will realize that the oposition can use areal drones, gridguide cameras, a fuller police car response (that keeps their distance), some spirits, and in a pinch isn't afraid to call in the Metroplex Guard if too many people are getting gunned down. And then it's just hard on a good 'ol boy. So you have to be part hacker and have a network of spots (such as a warded garage) that you can use to ditch persuit.

I would also say go with the Move-By-Wire. What GYJormungand didn't remember... MBW adds 1 to your dodge skill for each level you get. This helps with Evasive Driving (page 161 of BBB):



For a wheel man, I would go with MBW 2, Gene Optimization (Reaction), Reaction Enhancer level 2, cybereyes with Vision enhancement 3 (and other goodies to taste), and an Attention Coprocessor 3. Yes this will be EXPENSIVE (164,250 plus any other eye mods), but you can easily max out Reaction without too much Attribute BP cost.

I've been toying around with a Vehicular Adept / Smuggler concept w at the least the folowing:

Race: Pixie (sounds a bit off but it works)

PQ: Exceptional Attribute (Reaction)

PQ: Gentic Heritage ( Genetic Optimization: Reaction) Depending on how your GM work this Quality this may or may not drop your maximum Magic Rating because according to the RAW you start with one genetic modification for free, but says says nothing about the essence cost being ignored or not.



PQ: Adept


Adept Powers

Improved Ability: Pilot Groundcraft 1pt
Improved Ability: Pilot Aircraft 1pt

(take both the skills at five and this will effectively make them both 6 (9) skills since Improved abillity allows you to exceed normal skill level up to 1.5 times skill maximum)

Improved Physical Attribute: Reaction 1pt - 4 Pts.

(This depends on how much you really want more points for Attributes because you could do either Reaction 10 for 70 BP and IPA: R 1pt or Reaction 10 for 30 BP and IPA: R 4pts.)

now just need to wait for enough Karma to initiate and 100k for the Deltaware Control Rig

*edit* cut erroneous quote about vehicle skills being conspiciously absent from improved ability list... since changed in errata (cheers)


Also you have improved ability completely wrong... it only allows you to go 50% over your current skill points... so if you only have 5 ranks in the skill.. you can only add 2 points to the skill. And again, only if it's on that list above. So 5 ranks means, 2 ranks max improved ability for 7 dice.

From the 4th version of the SR4 Core Rulebook errata ...



Your other point about the Power's limitations is spot-on though. You cannot increase the skill level by more than half of your current Skill rating (rounded down), whether that be by Improved Ability or Reflex Recorder.

Thanks a ton for the correction Fortune!!!

I have a hacking adept whose gunnery & pilot anthro skills will thank you graciously for that.

That moves the goalpost from 16 dice to 19 potential on the white knight LMG.... Gun6(9), Command(6), LaserSight(1), Tracers(3)... (if you're limited to a complex action to fire, might as well go full auto w/ the tracers which notedly don't stack w/ smartlink but do stack w/ a laser sight).

My pleasure.

My approach tends to be to buy really high rating pilots....

This allows the "driver" to worry about important things like avoiding traffic, intercepting police reports and shooting.

Why is everyone down on wired reflexes verysus psynaptic boosters? Isn't part of the benifit of cyberware that it can be upgraded and changed where bioware can't? What's the benifit of one over the other such that synaptic boosters are a no brainer; or am I misunderstanding this.

Bioware can be upgraded in the same manner as Cyberware.

Wired Reflexes don't leave much room for other augmentations. Consider just Normal Grade Rating 2 Wired Reflexes uses up half your Essence, whereas the equivalent Bioware augmentation only uses one sixth of your total potential.

Good point, Where does it say bioware can be upgraded? It was my understanding that, that was the major reason to get one over the other besides availability and cost.

Actually, it isn't upgradeable by the rules. Most people stick by you need to outright buy a new version of either bio or cyber. You might be able to get a good deal selling the old cyber to someone as secondhand used. It's a Gm by GM thing... some let people upgrade, others make them replace the old w/ a new and give a refund for a portion of the value of the old.

You have a stock cyberlimb... what do you do... you lop it off and replace it with an alphaware custom limb to upgrade it. Then fill that cyber essence whole w/ something else.


The big advantage of Move By Wire is it's 2x rating in reaction boost, and it includes built in skillwires. But for rating 2 it's costly at 3 essence, for 3IP's. (not so bad as you can spend edge for a 4th pass when you really need it, how often does combat go to a 4th pass?! really). Also for a wheelman, dodge skill is used for vehicular dodge, so it's also a +1 boost to dodge skill per rating.

So: MbW2 at 18R avail... is roughly the equivalent of Wired Ref2, Reaction Enhancers2, Skillwires4, Dodge reflex recorder (2)... all for 3 essence (compared to 3 essence for Wired2 alone). Every single one of those boosts is relevant to a driver I'll point out. All for a bargain price of 85k + 5BP limited availability. Or 170k for alpha (cutting the essence down to 2.4 from 3.0). (37BP)

Bioware on the other hand costs more, but is more essence friendly and using a mix of bio and cyber will cost you less essence.

So if you went Synaptic2 (1.0b), Reaction Enhancers 2 (.6c), Skillwires 4 (.8c), Reflex Recorder - dodge (.1b).
You'd have everything except only +1 dodge instead of +2. But now do the math... 198k if nothing is alpha. 1.4 cyber, and 1.1 bio essence, for a total of 1.95 essence (full cyber + half bio) w/ no alpha upgrades. (40BP)

So you see it's not clearly better, but by going cyber + bio... you can do the upgrade piecemeal in gameplay... you can pay for individual parts upgraded or not, and in the end you're still more essence friendly. You can install some parts at chargen, and some parts later when beta or deltaware is available as well. (reaction enhancers are cheap at only 10k per rating... so the x4 or x10 is pretty cheap... same goes for delta, beta skillwires). Also you might not want skillwires or the entire package. For example.. if you buy reaction up to 6 w/ karma... then you only need 3 points of enhancement to get to the max of 9... but MbW gives you +4 as does the above package.

I think I'm going to go with this one, it'll save him a good chunk of money and allow his diversit at build. I'm going to go with floating essence prolly, so the essence lost can be filled up later with other kit. It'll also give him enough starting cred a tricked out car and other gear. What's a good build for a eurocar westwind? I was thinking, concealed armor 20, thuderstruck gauss rifle on an improved fixed weapon mount, smart tires, engine modifications, an ejector seat. I'm open to more suggestions.

Hence my statement that, according to canon, Bioware is upgraded in the same manner as Cyberware. Be that not at all, or only partially, or without limit, the rules make no distinction between the two as far as upgrading goes.

Honestly I'd trick out the car in game. It's actually a lot of fun to do it that way. Also shopping is a great way to explore the game world. Also having to get an item from a some guru/or black laboratory makes it feel totally sweat while keeping the numbers in check

Okay, then going that route... You've spent 5BP on Limited Availability positive quality, leaving you with 30 left. 20 of those were spoken for. So that's 10 left. I have no clue what 'floating essence' is, first time hearing that term. I have an image in my head of a Bean Bandit or Hiro Protagonist type street sam here. (look at the bean bandit entry under gunsmith cats on wiki if you're not familiar).

You've bought no bioware. But you have 2.4 essence (assuming alpha) worth of bio to get at half essence cost! You can utilize the skillwires to use oddball or other skills you might be interested in. You can use your skillwires to round out skills you're not overly worried about edging or glitching like say 'lockpick'.

Genetic optimization reaction, would knock you up to 7 reaction max (and allow you to make use of all 4 points of reaction enhancement from MbW2 eventually). You could do that later in gameplay. That's the only piece of bioware essence I can think of that you'll probably be interested in and you can buy that later after chargen. (start with 5(9) softmaxed reaction, buy the genetic... then you can knock yourself to 7(11) by spending karma to go from 5->6->7 later in gameplay).

There's a lot of other bio you could definately think about down the road. (platelet factories, pain editor or trauma damper, reflex recorders, muscle toner, enhanced articulation, synthacardium...) and get it at half essence cost. Genewipe and Adapsin also come to mind for genetic mods (if you start w/ rating 1 pure vanilla MbW on the cheap out of chargen, get the higher rating in gameplay later the adapsin makes sense... as does the biocompatibility (cyber) quality). But most of that comes from you and deciding... what stuff looks cool to me, what way do I want to RP this guy, and what would interest him. How does he like to spend his money (on more self-improvement or on more vehicular toys... a bit of both... living the high life... hanging w/ the go gangers?).

Again I have an image in my head of a top flight driver in my head who's also a street sam. With that high reaction you have some top flight defensive ability and should be quite formiddable w/ a pistol/smg/or sword in your hand.


Car mods...
Chameleon Coating (1slot errata): You don't have to use it to go invisible (though that's really usefull w/ a good infiltration and shadowing skill), but you can use it to change the cars appearance with just a little bit of use of editing software.
Gridlink override (1+1 slots for gridlink + the override): ability to go full speed w/o raising gridlink alarms... good thing ™
Manual Control Override (1): you don't want some decker stealing your wheels from under you now do you? What self respecting old school motorist wouldn't want this! You're not trying to build a decker so w/o the cybercombat skills and the like...
Concealed Armor (2): nuff said

Nice stuff....
Enhanced Image Screens(1): spoof the interior image to outsiders... though keep in mind that people normally can't view into vehicles anyhow (read the section where it describes vehicles as all having polarized windows to keep people from looking inside and targetting spells).
Improved Sensor Array: easy way to upgrade your car to rating 6 sensor rating! and lots of space for all kinds of sensor upgrades

Something like a fixed forward machine gun w/ underbarrel grenade launcher or minigun under the hood would give you a chance to really showcase your driving skills as you intentionally spin out and hit the target w/ gunfire form a concealed weapon mount. Thinking of that "Full Auto" game on the Xbox here... my friends would give me a hard time for not being able to control the weapons turret w/ the mini stick well while driving... but I compensated by intentionally drifting w/ the handbrake to point my nose in most any direction and shooting while driving.

Best of luck.

Sorry, but limited to 10, but still good

Also knowing what sensors are in a vehicle, and at what rating can come in handy, for when you want to use radar to look into the building, or the camera to record etc.


Max,
Dunedin, NZ

Okay, I was wrong on the armor bit, if that's the case does armor stack with already existant armor since one doesn't take up slots? How do they interact?

Don't forget the morphing license plate. It's a great compliment to a chameleon paint job.

To better fit the "Chulo Ricer" theme, you may find a better use of your money going to the Hyundai Shin-Hyung out of Arsenal (pg109) vs the Eurotrash Westwind. It's description pretty much pegs the theme your player is going for and it's only $17k. Plus it has 4 additional modification slots for 14 total. You can tweak it to your hearts content and have something similar, if not better than the Westwind and it's a lot cheaper to upgrade. Acceleration and handling is where it really counts when it comes to chases. Sure you may have to dump a lot of money to get top end speed to that of the westwind, but let's be real who the hell has enough room on city streets or even the highways to get a car to maximum speed? In the end it's not necessarily who has the fastest car in a straight line , it's who can take the corners and come out at a higher speed. This fact is why the old JC Mini Cooper would often trounce Z/28's, Cobras and Chargers in the old Trans Am circuit races.

Also that Westwind wouldn't last 5 minutes in the barrens without it being stripped to the frame and left on blocks.

Nope.



But 10 Armor concealed is still pretty good, and maybe he needs a second car for times when he is going to go somewhere where he is needing more than that level of protection, but the second car having more armor, and not being concealed will just stick out a little more.

Don't forget to also throw Passenger Protection incase he crashes, and some levels of Personal Armor (Arsenal 141) for the Passengers.

You may also wish to throw in a few Gun Ports (Arsenal 137) for your passengers to fire from safety with their own personal weapons.


Max,
Dunedin, NZ

Also remember the Arsenal errata.

As soon as your armor exceeds your Body rating... reduce speed and acceleration by 20%. So if you have a body of 8... the best armor you can get is 8 regular plus 8 smart on top of it. Or you could go with 8 concealed. At this point you might start looking at added personal armor. This also makes me wonder if we strip/reduce the armor off a drone (many drones armor exceeds their body)... do we get a 20% increase in speed and acceleration.....


Now you'll have to describe what the term 'cholo ricer' means... never heard that one.


Also characterwise... if you do go with modding your pimped out ride during gameplay rather than just starting with it. You face the very real problem that your wheels might be in the shop mid-mod when you need them (this is good for roleplay, and a good reason to have a high skill for short repair/upgrade times even if you can make the repair w/ time on an extended test) and you may find yourself using stolen cars and such when you can't use your pimped ride (good thing, not a bad thing).

Don't forget that having an armor rating (concealed or standard) above the vehicles Body Rating reduces the acceleration and top speed by 20% (rounded up). You would need both Engine Customizations (eating up 4 slots in addition to the armor slot(s)) to off set the lost performance. {Edit: Beaten by 2 minutes}
Concealed armor on the Eurocar or Hyundai (and most cars other than subcompacts) would not be a problem, but standard armor at 11 and above would be.

You could drop about 61,600 (13BP) for a Hyundai Shin-Hyung with the following specs:
Handling +2
Accel 30/65
Speed 195
Pilot 2
Body 10
Armor 10 (Concealed)
Sensor 1
Mods - Chameleon Coating, Manual Override (DbW), Oil Slick Sprayer, Road Strip Ejector, Engine Customization (Speed), Turbocharger 2 (book lists you can get this up to 4 times), Concealed Armor 10
Remaining Slots - 4
Toss in the morphing license plate, spoof chip, and run-flat tires for another 2,500 (64,100 total) and the cost of any desired road strips (200 or 2k each depending on type)

This has better acceleration but lower top speed than the Westwind (+10/+5, -55 respectively) and lacks the integrated anti-theft, crash protection, and a little handling (+2 instead of +3), but costs over 20k less even after 44k in modifications. If you're looking to squeek the most out of your 400 BP at generation, this can save you 12 BP from a similarly modded Westwind. (This all assumes you can buy the Turbocharger at 2 without having to pay for the 'charger 1 seperately. If not, it's an extra 11k/3BP)

The player for whom I'm making this is a Mexican guy originally from Mexico City DF and he finds the whole American Mexican gangsta thing. Latinos born in this country tend to be very culturally different than Mexicans born in Mexico (at least so I have observed and my buddy agrees with me). Now I say this not to flame Mexican Americans or Native Mexicans or whatever I'm just saying this is benchmark around which my friend wants to make his character. He wants to make the "chulo" Latino Gangsta with the pimped out street racer or "rice burner" type car. Think Nissan Skylines and the like. I agree with going with Shin-Hyun, I went with that car (to stay under cost limit) and modded it with turbocharacgers, concealed armor (I fixed it from earlier having no realized my ignorance with vehicle armor rules), a reinforced weapon mount with an autocannon, smart tires, engine customization for acceleration and speed, gridlink override, autospoofer, morphing license plate, and probably more I don't have the sheet handy. I might add personal protection for my buddy's character given the new armor rules, I'll have to give it a once over.

Also the best movie to see lots and lots of different kids of "ricers" is Tokyo Drift. I know, I know its awful but there's lots of pretty cars.