I'm putting together a Shadowrun fan sourcebook (Corporate Download: Sister Princess), and need a little a help on something.

What's the highest "starting" attributes in Strength and Body that a Troll can get? Legally that is: I like keeping things clean.

My best so far is using the Physical Adept powers to make Body 18 and Strength 16. However, I'm not much of a min/max type person; and I don't own every SR book there is (but I'm working on it).

Just making a "Physical Dreadnought" type character for the adventure module part of it.

If I'm not mistaken, a starting character can't have an attribute rating higher than their Racial Modified Limit, which, for a Troll's Body and Strength are 17 and 15, respectively. And this is excluding whatever cyberware, bioware or magical powers they own or are endowed with, the former two of which must adhere to the starting rules of an availability of 8 or less.

Those are the rules, how to min-max it, I have no clue. I don't have the patience to figure that one out.

Lessee... I dunno about Body, but you can get Strength pretty darn high. Max (10), Bonus Attr + Exceptional Attr (11, 17 racmax), MuscleAug-4 Cult (bio 1.2, 15), geasa'd Improved Physical Attribute: Strength-5 (4 PP geasa'd to 3, 20).
That's 20 Strength right there, unless there's some rule actually stating that a starting character cannot have Attrs over the Racial Maximum. You could get geasa'd Attribute Boost: Strength-5 too (1 PP) so that if you manage to roll a 10 on 5 dice, you'd get Strength 25 for a while.
Then add some Nitro and you're at 27.

That might not be legal, I don't know, but I think it's right.

Body-wise, I don't know what would be the best combo.

Normal Troll Strength RML = 10
Normal Troll Body RML = 11

With Exceptional Attribute Edges (SRComp) + Troll
Racial Attribute Maximum Str = 17
Racial Attribute Maximum Body = 18

With Exceptional Attribute Edges + Cyclops(troll metavariant)
RAM Str = 20
RAM Bod = 18

Cyclops + Exceptional Attribute + Attribute Boost
Str = 26

Oops. ImpPhysAttr checks against RacialModLimit for the double costs, not RacialMax.

Ignore the above post then.

And if you want to be strictly canon, I think you wouldn't get EssRed either? So the best you can do is something like MuscleAug4Cult + SuprathyroidCult + DermalSheath-2 Alpha + PlasticLacingAlpha + geasa'd ImpPhysAttrBody-2 and geasa'd ImpPhysAttrStr-2 Bonus/Exc Cyclops.

12+1+4+1+2 = 20 Str
11+1+3+1+2 = 18 Body

That work out?

That still leaves you 0.355 Essence/0.71 Bio for something, but I couldn't think of anything useful. Maybe Synaptic-1 + MuscleToner1Cult, so he can start with at least 7 Quickness, 8 if want to give him Bonus/Exceptional for Quickness too, and +1d6 init, +1 Reaction.

...though you can get close. 12 + 1(bonus/exceptional) + 6 (geasa'd ImpPhysAttrStr-6), and then the geasa'd AttrBoostStr-6 for 25. And then you'd have 6 dice against 10 to get it to work, so you'd have a decent chance of making it work, too. The Drain is still 13S.

And the best Body you could get then would be , I think, 12 + 1 Boost.

Thanks for the input and help guys. I won't forget to give credit in the material.

Willpower 11 Albino Ghoul Gnome mages... I guess that's the reason why I never really even read the Attr Edge rules. If that is true, you can get higher and cheaper with the above B18/S20 Cyclops above as well.

But that would certainly allow the 26 Str. It would still be really bad for the Body of the dude. You're right about the Boost Magic test TN too, it would "only" be 7. 66% chance of getting it to work for 1 CT. W00t.

Lessee again...

Bonus Body + Bonus/Exceptional Strength, all the same ware, ImpPhysAttrStr-1 (geasa'd) and ImpPhysAttrBod-2 (geasa'd):
13+1+4+1+1 = 20 Str
11+1+3+1+2 = 18 Body
There's 0.75 PPs left for AttrBoostStr-3. Magic test (3 dice vs TN 7, 42% chance for 1CT) to 23 Str. Add Nitro, 25 Str. Proceed to whack a PC with 27M Stun/13M Physical.

Of course, instead of Synaptic-1, you could get him dual Dikoted Spurs. With the Boost and Nitro, that's 38S Physical. I think that's even better than THE WALLHACKER!!!!1112

A dragon wouldn't stand a chance. 38S Physical -> A Western Dragon has 15 Body against a TN of 30, for an average of 0 successes. A dragon does have an edge in Reach (2 higher than the Cyclops) and higher Combat Pool, but even if the average Western Dragon put all his/her CP into it, s/he wouldn't stage that down a single DL on average (27 dice vs TN 30, 0.34% chance for one or more successes).

Even a Western Great would be in deep shit if this guy actually managed to land a blow: 25 Body + 18 CP, 12 Armor, 43 dice against 26, 2.7% chance for one or more successes.

Of course, the 26Str Boosted cyclops could get to 28 with Nitro, 43S Physical. And when the Dragon hits back, 5 points of Body won't help the guy much. On the other hand, the difference between 38S and 43S only matters when you're hunting APCs and tanks. 38S can destroy a LAV-103 Striker or a Mobmaster, but 43S can destroy an Aztech Lobo LAV. I can't remember how Hull and Bulwark work, but I guess it's possible for these guys to sink ships too.

Add in Armor, Physical Barrier, loads of things Anchored so it would fry the fragger fast... (Detect Enemies in a large radius with an appropriate spell in a smaller radius, for instance).

GDs aren't stupid. They'd just fly up and Flamethrower him anyway.

I wasn't considering what would actually happen, just the theoretical melee... Any old sammie with a Barret M121 can take this guy out easy.

GDs could have magic that doesn't really stick to any rules, so I won't go into that. A regular Dragon, however, is unlikely to have anything bigger than Armor-12. A Physical Barrier won't help much, because this guy will tear right through it. And to actually be of significant use in soaking that kind of damage, you'd need an Armor-20 spell at least. Even then, the average Western Dragon would be looking at 10S Physical with Body 15 + 11CP, with a decent chance (~50%, or something like that) of actually staging the DL down by one level. W00t.

Y'all forgot something. Since he's a cyclops, he's not going to do much range.

And since he's not going to be shooting anyone, I'll ghoul him.

Racial Modified Limit is 14.

Racial Maximum Strength is 21.

Boosted is 28.

Damage is [(28+x)*1.5]S where x is Str increases from temporary boosts like Kamikaze and Adrenal Pump.

Therefore base damage is 42S. With boosts from Kamikaze and Adrenal Pump, 48S Have fun and sweet dreams.

Won't work out so well. Ghoul has -1 Magic Rating, so you couldn't get over 26 with Boost anyway (Racial Max + 5). Will allow a permanent 21 Strength, however, and a Body at least 3 higher.

Maybe Sphynx or Glyph or someone can give us the best possible Str+Body combo. I just don't know the rules well enough to keep this going.

You could always make the thing go full vamp.

Yes... Surprised Sphynx hasn't jumped in and shown us all up.

Edit: Phaeton: Dzoo-Noo-Qua do not have Improved Physical Attributes, so it would only get a +7 Str and couldn't access any 'ware as it would just kind of spit the stuff back out.

Remember, though:

Tanka: But it'd be MUCH harder to conventionally kill in its natural state. And isn't that the point of munchkinry/ism/ery/whatever?

Austere: Ah, aye...Right-o, omae. Forgot about that little bit...

EDIT: ...*notices how many threads have his name as the last person having posted in that thread* WHOOOO!!!

Well, considering, as AE said... You can't start as a Vampire or equivalent (Ghouls aside)...

That case is moot.

Sheesh, how did I miss that. Yeah, it does indeed say that "if GM permits it", and in this situation the GM will permit anything that makes the guy more powerful.

It does partly pre-empt the DermalSheath-3 + TitaniumLacing idea I had ealier, however, because of Essence5 and doubled Essence loss from cyberware. Still, the +2 Body gives it a slight advantage.

But, like I said, I won't even try to figure out what the resulting Str and Body are, because (as should be obvious by now) I don't know the rules all that well.

Don't forget the +1 running modifier. Now he can really close into melee range faster.

Yep. And bioware isn't penalized, so there's still Suprathyroid+MuscleToner+Artwinkulation+Synaptic to consider. And maybe just DermalSheath3Alpha+PlasticLacingAlpha.