Hey I'm new player to shadowrun and I'm trying to make a useful character. I've got a street samurai who is a compentent hacker and I was really happy with that. Until we had our first fight. I got shown up by our gunslinger adept who did something like 18 damage in one round while I did 6. I wanted to make a character who was raised by wage slaves and rebelled by becoming a hacker and later discovered martial arts and to compensate for his crappy body he got tons of body mods and practicing every waking moment.

I guess what I'm really asking is how do I do more damage with a katana without raising my strength.

Dikote + DMSO + Cyanide.

Hang on, is Dikote featured in Arsenal? I know DMSO and Cyanide are...

- J.

SR3 or SR4?

SR4 has no Dikote. If it IS SR3, yes, Dikote.

As for SR4, Martial Arts exist to give you +DV for Blades, which can help. Reflex Recorder can give you an extra die for Blades. Are you specialized? If your strength is around 3-5(which is decent), a Katana, No-Dachi, or Combat Axe will all do pretty good damage.

And yeah, gunslinger adepts are nasty. They can show people up, indeed.

But check this out:

Blades(Pick a Specialty, I'll say Swords): 4(+2)

Agility: 5(7)
Strength: 3(5)

Reflex Recorder/Blades(+1 die)
Custom Grip on Sword(+1 die)

Pick up a couple of Blade arts with +1 DV(for +2), and get some Maneuvers like Riposte(can counterattack if you borrow next action), Finishing Blow(this is great-can follow up a successful attack with another one), and the like.

Total Swords Die Pool: 7+6+1+1=15, and if you have Reach of 1 or 2, you can throw 16-17(or use Reach to cut out their pools).
Damage(Katana, for example:) Str/2+3(6, in this case-remember strength is rounded up when it's halved), +2 from the Martial Arts, for 8P damage.

8P damage with 16 dice is no joke, and he'll be able to turn people into human sashimi fairly efficiently.

Keep in mind, this isn't even minmaxed. You could get 5(+2) blades for even more, etc.

Another thing to note is that your character is not super focused. Unlike the gunslinger adept who is (I'm assuming) focused only on shooting things in the head, your character is part street sam, part hacker. Would it be fair to ask to be just as awesome as the gunslinger and have another set of skills that the gunslinger didn't have? Other than that, lousy rolls can make a major difference in the battle. Your character may be less awesome in combat, but you are more versatile.

As for getting better in combat, I always opt for more dice, as that both increases your damage and chance to hit (though Combat Axes are nice.)

Some things people often forget are: Enhanced articulation, reflex recorders, and muscle toner, great bioware that can add a lot of dice to your rolls.

Enhanced articulation doesn't add to attacks any longer (although it still adds to many other skills).

Melee combat is less effective than ranged combat unless you are really good at it. You are only good at point blank range, you only go once while the guy with the gun shoots twice, and you are rolling against someone who gets to actively defend against you (as opposed to ranged combat, where the target only rolls Reaction unless they are using full defense). You can have a high dice pool and pump up your DV by a couple of points with the right martial arts, but you still shouldn't expect to be as good as someone using a gun. I have made some dangerous close combat adepts, but every one of them also had a good pistols skill.

There's always melee hardening on your pistols and Firefight Martial Arts

Enhanced Articulation no longer adds to attacks? Aw, MAN, when did this happen?


Seriously though, you make good points all, but let me offer some counter points.

Impact armor is almost always less than balistics armor, and sometimes it can be less a LOT. Additionally, a lot of people don't have many, or any, unarmed combat skill (instead favoring guns), so if you corner them in close combat, there isn't much they can do against you. Lastly, in my groups, our GM has (often) set us against guys with anti-bullet spells, making the melee guys superior in those situations by far.

I am NOT saying you are wrong, and usually in a firefight, the guy with the guns will do better (the go twice, can get explosive ammo, and have smartlinks). BUT in certain situations, melee can REALLY mess someone up.

Melee always messes people up when done properly. It's just difficult to get close enough to hurt them before the guy with the gun shoots them from down the hall.

Melee is great, but it's like sniping - it's a combat niche, and you'll get bored if it's all you can do.

The one area where it can shine is when you are fighting multiple opponents. If you outclass someone, odds are that your defensive dice pool is higher than his, too. A pistols adept surrounded by 10 mediocre gangers with pistols is still in trouble, but a melee master surrounded by 10 mediocre grunts will often be able to take out all of them while remaining untouched.

But a hacker with a katana, while he can get a good dice pool and boost the DV with some martial arts, is not on par with a dedicated firearms adept. I don't care if his name is Hiro Protagonist. Just no.

ROFL. That is the BEST shadowrunning name ever. That's it, my next character is gonna go by the name Hiro Protagonist . . . HP for short!

Hiro is from the novel Snow Crash... he is the archetypical katana-wielding hacker.

I'm a big fan of maximum recoil compensation on an automatic weapon, plus Ex-Ex or APDS, plus long burst/short burst combos. You can hit 12 damage only rolling a single net success.

I mean, it's worked for most militaries for at least 60 years. Why mess with a good idea for the sake of a sword?

Can you give me a page ref, as i can only find where it says it says it adds to physical skills using physical attributes

Physical skills are not Combat Skills. If you check the Skills listing(111+), you'll see the listings of Combat Skills, Magical Skills, and Physical Skills, etc. Physical Attributes are indeed the first 4, but Combat/Physical skills are separate. It confused me at the very beginning as well; in fact, it might be a decent idea if they names of the skills categories were maybe changed to be a little more obvious. It's easy for someone to take ''physical skill'' and assume it's anything that is used....ahh, physically.

Personally grips haven't been mentioned yet so, personal grips on melee weapons give you a cheap extra dice.
Calling shots for damage is often overlooked and can make differance.

Already mentioned. But it was kind of lost in the mix there, and it is worth mentioning again.

missed it the first time, guess more augmentations or optimised cyberlimbs could get a higher agility, so more dice/sucess's

Called shots have been severely nerfed from SR3 and beyond.... *sniff*

- J.

They still do give you more damage then you would roll with the dice it cost for it. If you have a really big dice-pool, it is worth it.

this is going to make people face palm but I didn't know you add your dice pool to hit to damage. I still can't find it in the book so if you could clear it up.

Please don't hate me.

also my character

Afro

Metatype : Human
Mundane

Attributes
Body: 3
Agility: 6 (9)
Reaction: 3 (
Strength: 3 (6)
Charisma: 1
Intuition: 3
Logic: 4
Willpower: 3

Edge: 6
Initiative: 11
Essence: 1.28

Knowledge Skills
English : N
Japanese : 3
Russian : 3
Elven Society : 3
Military : 3
Engineering : 3
Data Haven : 2
Street Drugs (Deepweed) : 1
Hebrew (Lingo) : 3

Active Skills
Cybercombat : 3
Electronic Warfare : 3
Hacking : 3
Blades (Swords) : 7
Automatics (Machine pistols) : 3
Dodge : 3
Climbing (Freehand) : 1
Pistols (Semi-Automatics) : 4


Positive Qualities
Codeslinger
High Pain Tolerance 3

Negative Qualities
Addiction, moderate
Allergy unc/mod

Cyberwares
Commlink (1/2)
Cybereyes Basic System (Rating 3)
Thermographic Vision
Datajack
Wired Reflexes (Rating 2)
Smartlink
Muscle Replacement (Rating 2)


Weapons
Katana
Uzi IV

Armors
Armor Clothing
Helmet (Regular)


Commlinks
AR Gloves
Biometric Reader
Attack (Rating 5)
Biofeedback Filters (Rating 4)
Data Bomb (Rating 3)
Decrypt (Rating 3)
Encrypt (Rating 5)
Spoof (Rating 4)
Stealth (Rating 5)
Blackout (Rating 4)


Contacts
Fixer (L:2 C:3)

Street Doc (L:2 C:2)

Damage inflicted is Base + Net hits. It's called the modified damage value.

Exactly. Say your katana has a base damage value of 6 (Str of 6/2=3, +3). If you get 4 net hits after your opponent has defended against the attack, then that opponent must resist 10 damage. You don't add your dice pool to damage - just the net hits you get.

Your sheet looks a bit odd - the modified Attribute values don't seem to add up. There are things like Strength and Agility being increased by 3 for muscle replacement: 2, and Reaction being increased by 5 for wired reflexes: 2.

And remember to use both hands when hitting for +1 to DV

Katana's are two handed anyway, work with a regular sword though. You could switch to a claymore or no-dashi for more damage, reach and AP.

Actually more like a one and half handed like bastardswords, but by the rules katanas qualify as a one handed weapon as it has reach 1.

Actually more like a one and half handed like bastardswords, but by the rules katanas qualify as a one handed weapon as it has reach 1.

Ok so looking at your character, I made the corrections so that the stats matched the mods you have listed. They are bolded. You have made some errors in creating him, so I will address those first. In order to have a skill above 6 you have to have the Aptitude Quality, which costs 10 build points in addition to the 4 to purchase the skill level up. Also, with your base commlink, you will be unable to utilize the vast majority of the programs you have listed to their maximum ability. You would have to spend some nuyen increasing the stats on your commlink, most notably your System and Response rating to at least a 5 to utilize your programs rated at 5 (I would go ahead and increase System and Firewall to 6 as well as Response to 5 and Signal to 3+, but that's more a critique than any rules violation).

Onto the critique.

We'll start with Attributes. I didn't do all the math, but assuming you spent the 25 build to increase Agility to a 6, I'd drop that down to a five. it is an additional Die to a number of skills you possess, but it kind of hoses you in build. Instead, have a 5(7) and later you can bank karma or use ware to make up the difference, then take those BP and add to your stats. My suggestion would be +1 Body and +1 Reaction which leave you 5 to go towards skills/nuyen. I personally do not like having a 1 in anything, but Charisma is a rather unimportant stat to your build so I'll not comment further on it. Logic is really not as useful to you as Intuition is, unless your GM is somehow housreuling hacking to be mor directly affected by your Logic. I would switch those two stats so you're not a moron, but you have a better Initiative and Perception.

Taking a look at skills, the first thing that jumps out at me is that you don't have some perception. Take the 5 points from dropping Agility and buy a level of it. The next is Blades 7. I would never do this at character Gen because it is 14 BP for one die and generally you are strapped for BP at character generation. Your concept is especially strapped because you are trying to do two things with 400 BP ratehr than specialize and focus. I would in fact drops Blades to a 5, put the 8 BP into Automatics so you have a 5 then you are as good with a Machine Pistol (which I would change the specialization to SMGs since you didn't purchase a MP, but whatever you want) as you are with a Katana, which means you are no slouch in either situation. Finally, there's the fact that as a competent hacker you have no skill in Computers. That is just not something I would do, especially since a number of programs rely on your ability in that skill. I Would completely drop the Pistols and switch it to Computers with a possible specialization in Analyze or just put the two BP into nuyen.

Final stop, gear. I've already mentioned your commlink attributes should be more like Response 5, System 6, Signal 3, Firewall 6 (without books atm so not sure on the cost of that, but you could possibly eek it out by adding a negative quality or dropping a positive one). Then you have no Analyze or Scan programs which is a huge no no. I would drop Data Bomb, as that is only so so useful and pick those two up with the cash you save, preferably both at a 5. You seem to be more specialized for Cyber Combat but you are missing two key hacker programs: Exploit and Edit. Both of those are extremely valuable and you should try and juggle the number to get them. Finally about programsas you are a more combat oriented hacker, you should pick up Armor at whatever rating you can afford, this helps you to surviv cyber combat encounters. Now, looking over the rest of your gear I would make a few changes. Firrst, the Uzi iv is prety substandard a weapon for the Street Sam, I would get an Ingrams Smartgun as it is made of awesome. You also might want to think about a back up piece in the form of a machine pistol such as the Black Skorpion. Last your Armor jumps out at me because it is fairly inadequate. A good hit from a Light pistol (I mean 3 net hits) cause you Physical Damage rather than stun. This will make combat very deaddly for you. Instead (assuming you opted for my earlier advice to increase your body by 1) wear an Armored Jacket. At 8/6 much fewer things will be damaging enough to be life threatening and those things should be met with lots of cover and potentially running away.

I kept my advice to just the Main Book since it appears that is what you have at your disposal. In doing so, you have an ok handle on the Matrix and are fairly beefy in combat (I think we're looking at 16 dice for shooting with SM and speciality and 14 dice melee). Not Min/Maxed, but definately comparable witht eh rest of your team. And oh yeah, you can hack a bit with around 8 dice, which makes you pretty versatile and a huge help to a dedicated hacker (if you are your teams only matrix presence, you will have to be really inventive to fill that gap and a lot of your Karma and Nuyen will need to be dumped there to make it).

man you are really awesome. Thank You so much. Thank You so much to everyone. You all really helped alot.