With this I am in TOTAL Agreement...

Bingo...

the multi-quote function exists for a reason. i suggest you try it out.

and regardless of whether a rocker or a tribesmen make sense as a shadowrunner, they certainly don't make sense as a 400 BP shadowrunner who would work alongside a combat hacker or a drone rigger as an equal. certainly, you could have half a dozen gangers and call them a shadowrunning group, but they also would probably not be a 400 BP group (which, notwithstanding they're not the grand high emperors of the shadows, are generally going to be reasonably experienced runners). if they were to present 320 BP characters as examples of a low power campaign, then i could certainly see including those archetypes. in a low power level, you likely don't have a rigger so much as you have a go-ganger, your 'street samurai' could be anything from a bouncer to a ganger to a tribal warrior, your hacker is probably some kid who knows a thing or two about computers, your 'covert ops specialist' is actually a cat burglar, your 'face' is a drug-dealer, and so on. in such low-powered groups, these archetypes would fit.

Generally, there are two types of "Dumpshock builds". The first type is generally an intellectual exercise, such as "How many dice can you get for social skills?" or "How many dice can you get for climbing?" or "How many armor and soak dice can you give a troll tank?" While some of these builds could actually be played, that is not their main purpose.

The second type of "Dumpshock build" is when someone posts a character for constructive criticism. Some of the advice given will wind up being min-maxing help, but usually more in the sense of building a workable character than building a munchkin. A street samurai might get told that IP-enhancements are pretty much a gimme for most combat roles, but might also get told that Charisma: 1 and no social skills is a bad idea, or that instead of three ranged skills, he might want to take first aid.


I don't think people have a problem with the archetypes being "underpowered" compared to a handmade character. None of them are optimal, but not all of them suck - some of them are quite usable. But others, while having useful skills, DO NOT fit what their supposed role is. The weapons specialist is decent at tinkering with weapons but sucks at using them. The smuggler is a decent rigger in the classic group's wheelwoman sense but lacks any real smuggling skills (unless you count driving real fast while people are shooting at her while there is contraband in her trunk). The troll bounty hunter sucks not only at bounty hunting, but just about everything else.

I also agree-they are better fit for a 320ish point game for the most part. I also think that yeah, some of them STILL need some work to fit a theme. The Bounty Hunter is indeed the worst of the lot. The Weapons Specialist, again, would be better if they were called a ''Tinkerer'' (and actually, I LIKE the idea of someone who is awesome at tinkering with weapons but only average in using them. Dunno, it's a nice touch.) I'd still probably add a few odds and ends like some light cyber(eye mods, a reflex booster, and maybe even a cerebral booster to help the Armorer and Demolitions stuff out.


and Re: taking 35 points of negative qualities is a bad thing-I dunno, I think I know a lot of people who have around this IRL. On the flipside, we don't get nearly as many positive ones to balance them out. I could probably find quite a few flaws that I have. I just ask my players if they take them, that they fit.

Also, I'd take a well-thought out, pleasant to be around Pornomancer over a 10 die pool drama queen who whines for attention at the table every five seconds and ruins fun for everyone anyday. However, I would mostly prefer to see a well-thought-out, competent and solid both mechanically and personality-wise character that makes sense for the game most of all.

Personally, I like our DS Sample Character archive. They all aren't terribly min-maxed but they were certainly solidly competent. While I myself do like to optimize a bit, I don't let it COMPLETELY dictate how a character is.

And there is NOTHING WRONG with some creative min-maxing for a character. As long as it doesn't turn into ''cheating munchkinism'', it's fine. People who run the shadows might well pick something to get good at.

(Also, on a more humorous note, think about the ''Real Life'' min-maxers out there. Tell me Stephen Hawking didn't max out his negative qualities to get those positive ones. )

To Each his own I guess...

I have always liked the idea of the rocker hanging with the competent street assassin... unfortunately, Shadowrun does not provide a good atmosphere to do so... but that does not mean that I am gonna give up trying though...

As far as Low-Powered vs. High Powered... I have seen some very high-powered characters that are still no good in a team... while the characters that are seen as incompetent (or low-powered) fit better in the team with their story and concept... it is a highly variable thing and changes from character to character, and from campaign to campaign...

Actually, it doesn't. I've been unable to use it since as long as I can remember. Try it (I tried it when making this post, I only got your post quoted!).

Seems to work just fine for me.

Anyway, I agree with Glyph. Frank Trollman's analysis of the Smuggler in the sample character archive is a good one: the archetype just isn't good at smuggling. She's a decent wheelwoman, but still won't be outflying any T-bird pilots anytime soon. Many of the sample archetypes are like this.

Odd. Broswer? I use FF3.

Who wants to run with my Stephen Hawking Bounty Hunter?
He has a few quirks and issues, but since he was built using 400 bp's, he must be perfectly competent at doing his job,right?
I can guarentee he will not outshine the other characters by stepping on their toes or areas of specialty,so he's perfectly balanced,right?
He will do everything better then that Troll BH can, with the possible exceptions of 'get shot at', 'stand around uselessly', 'soak damage', and 'waltz'.
I know I'm going to hell

I use Firefox as well. Maybe you should take this to a mod?

Hmmm... in SR4A the Smuggler archetype has: Dodge, Etiquette (Smugglers), Electronic Warfare, Gunnery, Mechanical Skill Group, Navigation, Negotiation (Bargaining), Perception, Pilot Aircraft, Pilot Ground Craft, Infiltration, and a low Pistols. She has knowledge skills in Border Patrol Tactics, Smuggler Safe Houses, and Smuggling Routes. I'm not sure what else a "smuggler" would really need. Con maybe? Disguise? Forgery? Sure, but you can't have everything off of character creation. She could probably use a smuggler contact or maybe a border patrol guard, but I'm curious what specific "smuggling" skills she's missing.


I don't mind it if it fits the character concept. What I find tiring/cliche is the fact that it seems like very build on DS needs to have "35 points of negative qualities" like its some sort of obligation for making an "optimized" build or something. When selecting qualities with just the BP gain as a mindset, the player often selects ones not that they think fit the character best, but ones that they don't think will come into play.

EDIT: Multi-quote befuddled me for a while. It works like this: click the multiquote button on EACH post that you would like to quote, then click the Add Reply button at the very bottom. Quick Reply won't work, and if you click "Quote Post" on any of them it will start a post quoting only the last one that you clicked.

From Frank Trollman's analysis:


I guess it depends on what kind of smuggler you are talking about. If you are envisioning someone more like Cowboy from Hardwired, whose "smuggling" essentially consists of driving a vehicle from Point A to Point B through hostile terrain, then the archetype is fine (not dissing Hardwired, by the way - it rocks).

Oh. That makes sense.
One other forum that I've been on that had multi-quote had it change color (to red if it was included, back to brown if not) and you could click on "quote" on any post and the others would get dragged in. It's one of those HCI things. Feedback and Simplicity. The former because I knew which posts were included and which weren't, and the second because it didn't matter how I went about causing a reply (other than "quick," if you're quoting it isn't quick).

No, I do not think the player selects the ones that they think will not come into play but the ones they think will have the least negative impact on the performance of the build, hence optimisation. 35 points of negative qualities is an integral part of optimisation since if you are skillful, you can minimise the negative effects of such qualities. In fact, for optimisation, it is useful to bear in mind the character concept is a near-Mary Sue. All of their strengths, none of their weaknesses - or at least as close as you can get.

What hacker/technomancer takes that negative quality that was...what's it called...oh, Simsense Vertigo. Or Gremlins. No hacker would take Gremlins.

Agreed, besides how would palming help in hiding a crate of machine guns from the authorities?


Which then shouldn't be worth any points imo.

Same. Using FF3 and doesn't work for me either.

- J.

First: Define Good...

Second... due to the fact that a starting character cannot start the game with a T-Bird, it is an irrelevant comparison... she works just fine as a starting smuggler... Needs some seasoning, no doubt, but will work just fine...

Yeah, and with the Infiltration skill and the Knowledge skills she's more built to avoid/outrun the border patrols than try to "sleaze" past them.

Exactly the way I see it as well...

You hate it when I define things in terms of dice pools, but 2 dice for Con certainly isn't it. As far as T-Birds go, that's what many of the border patrol guards fly, so she'll need to be able to outmaneuver them (she can't).

I've seen the starting smuggler in action up close and personal (someone was running one in the Missions games I was in) and while she could do several things, smuggling wasn't one of them. We relied on the rigger and the face to sneak contraband past border checkpoints, of which you could go through several in an hour (Denver, in case you were wondering).

I am familiar with Denver...
But again, with the knowledges (Border patrrol tactics, smuggling routes) and Active skill set (Infiltration, Hacking (Surveillance), Navigation, and EW) of the character, she should not have to Con anyone (or it should be an uncommon occurrence), she should be able to avoid (Infiltration) the opposition... at least it should be an option anyway... She should play to her strengths, not her weaknesses...

And, it is not hard to outmaneuver a T-Bird in a Land Vehicle... the sheer speeds of a T-Bird make it a very inefficient vehicle for interdiction...

Yeah I think this smuggler isn't the type to go through border security, its the type that hopes they never bump into border security. Think drug smugglers trying to avoid the coast guard not coyote hiding someone in there seat while they legally cross the border.

Her strengths, such as they are, is driving in the open and hoping she doesn't run into any serious opposition. That's fine and dandy, but what happens when you reach Point B? You need to get into places to smuggle, and she can't do that.

Also, her Infiltration and Stealth skill set (in 4.0) is nonexistent. Her only hope is to outfly/outdrive any opposition she encounters, and that's just not going to be something you can rely on.

Perhaps better phased as "No one with Gremlins would take up hacking". Its about making something that can in some sence "be believed", a youth who has school computers explode periodically, losses his homework assignments every 4-5 days etc. etc. etc. is going to fine SOMEthing else. So unless they pick up Gremlins later in life...
Suddenly though I have this rough idea for a Rigger who has Gremlins 1 or 2, a large-huge dice pool in their specialty "tech" skills so glitching (at least critically) isn't SO big a problem, but they will be dam#ed if they can get any other technology to work.

"You can make a car dance man, you some sort of a gift for tech, you should branch out, take up some hacking, mabye heavy drones?"

"No."

"Why not? We could cut out the dead weight if you could, streamline the group 'n stuff, bigger cuts for everyone."

"No."

"What the heck man?"

"All I got to say is: Don't cut off a gypsy convoy, no matter how big a hurry you are in. Ever. Their curses are mean."

I swear 90% of Awakened runners have the Sensitive System quality. It must be some sort of side effect of Magical talent...

I don't recall now if my drake had it or not, but if I did take it it wasn't because of the magic, but rather that I recalled that in 3rd Edition drakes (out of Dragons of the Sixth World) had double essence loss from cyberware, and wanted to keep that around. I don't remember if they had an innate Magic 1 or not, but I do recall that cyber/bio worked in both forms.

I actually didn't have this come up in my games - 5 or so magic characters to date, no "hozer" flaws, not sure how I'd respond to such things. On the one had its somewhere between slightly and quite lame, on the other hand if they later NEED cyberware owing to grievous injury I'd laugh all the harder.

Well, because of the fact that mages actually work well with cyber these days, it's actually a flaw, IMO.

Things like cybereyes, smartlinks, etc(if I recall, mages can only cast spells with augmented vision if it's implanted-remembering this might help), are commonplace even among mages, and these are all affected by this flaw.

Alternately, you can make 2 versions of this flaw-a -10 version and a -20 version. The first being Sensitive System as it is now, the latter the Bio-Rejection, which would leave them out of all non Delta bioware as well. I do believe in SR3, Bio-Rejection allowed you to have things as long as they were grown from your own body. I always thought Delta grade bioware was essentially that, but I could be wrong. In any case, being locked out of everything except Delta-grade Bioware is a pretty big hit.

However, I would not make these flaws worth less for magically active people-for the simple fact that mages/adept with 'ware are actually really, really good. The fact that you can mix and match cyber and bio for less Essence costs also plays in here. (For an example, I had built, for fun, a bio/cyber adept. I wanted to give him Bone Density, but it would have put him beyond 2 points of Essence loss. However, I picked up some bone lacing instead-and since he had less cyber than bio, this was halved, putting him at the 2 essence.)

As for those grevious injury replacement limbs-well, there IS a way around it-but it's it's either rather expensive-or rather gross. The former being them having to get one of their own limbs cloned(and full limbs take awhile and cost quite a bit), the latter being a secondhand natural limb. This wouldn't affect them Essence wise(again, with the flaw as RAW, not the houserule suggestion), but it might be an interesting thing with the party's mage trying to accept someone else's arm who may or may not have agreed with them taking it.

I personally have used this flaw, but I also try to keep within the ''spirit'' of it-Bioware isn't affected, but I've never given one of my characters with this bioware either. I just figured for a character thing-if they were sensitive to one thing, they might not want to take chances with the other thing, etc.

Hey, your right... No Infiltration... Not sure where that came from, but she can still roll 4 dice to try to accomplish those abilities...

She also knows where to go to drop off those items that she is smuggling (Smuggler Safe Houses), and also, sometimes hiding things in plain sight works wonders...

not only that you are crossing a border not sneaking past an armed guard. How many border crossers are freakin ninjas nowadays. Knowing where to cross so you don't bump into security is a heck of a lot more useful than infiltration, and with electronic countermeasure and hacking(security cameras) you can get past a lot of places with automated security and befuddle near by local security. And again this is security for a border, not security for a 10' by 10' hallway.

I think it should be a 0 point side effect of being awakened. But alas you get 15 points for it.

I used to be leery of this Quality, but so much has been made here in Dumpshock about the logic of mixing tech and magic if you want to be a 'serious' runner, that I figured any time I make an Awakened character who does not have implants, this would be a reason why he is 'gimped' as a runner, and to hell with those who think it is cheesy.

You can't *get* to those safe houses if you don't have Infiltration. Otherwise, you're obvious to every border guard, security drone, and sattelite that's watching the area.


An average Joe border guard is still going to have Intuition 3 and Perception 3, enough to spot her. And her hacking and EW skills aren't great enough to bypass anything other than low-grade security. She's just not a very good smuggler.

She has Infiltration in SR4A. Although it may seem dumb, you roll your Infiltration skill when trying to "drive stealthy" with your vehicle.

Observers may get a bonus to their perception, if a car is out of place. Otherwise you're trying to pick out one car over another. Which one's trying not to be seen?

Driving at 55 in a 55 zone is probably a good thing to do to be inconspicuous. No cop is going to pull over someone not speeding, unless they know something's up.

I obviously wasn't clear enough. You are crossing a border that is many, many miles long. When you know the routes you aren't rolling infiltration since there is no one to hide from. And yes her hacking skills will only get her past low grade security, you know the kind of security you can have when its covering an entire border.

In such a case, I would still ask my player to roll Infiltration. And then use the Smuggling Routes(or similar) knowledge skill to determine whether or not a guard/sensor/satellite coverage is watching there. Higher the smuggling roll, the less likely a guard would be looking. If there is really no one watching, then fine, but the Threshold for the Smuggling Route roll for that result is going to be relatively high, unless the border is a reputedly porous one.

And what happens when you reach your destination? You'll need Infiltration or Con to get into the city.

Um, why??

I never was under the impression that every city or even most citys were guarded so people could not enter freely. Sure Seattle is to some degree since its a different country/city and same with Denver but that is about it. And in the case of Seattle I'd say there are plenty of places with just relatively light automated security, Denver I don't know enough about to really comment I read the box set once when it initially came out.

With this I am in agreement...

I cannot reiterate this enough... If you do not look illegal, you WILL NOT BE Stopped... so, complying with all the laws, even if you have a smuggling compartment, is the way to go here... as has been stated, pick out the one car smuggling among the 800,000 cars on the road... real hard to do... That is why it is so successful even in our modern world...

Which a good many borders are... Just look at the Mexio/United States border... or a good number of European Union borders...

And how many SR borders are so reputed? RL =! SR.

Seattle makes it a point to describe checkpoints. Guarded cities is a staple of cyberpunk; and even then, we're talking about entering with contraband. Odds are that you'll have to cross a border checkpoint at some point, and then what do you do?

What's more, what about Denver? The face was better at smuggling than the smuggler was. And that can represent all the border checkpoints you have to go through passing from one corp's territory to another.

TJ: The multiquote function works. Please start using it before I report you to a mod for post-pumping. One-sentence useless posts don't help anyone.

The archetypes aren't for n00bs, but rather for advanced players seeking a challenge.

Or for noobs to learn what to look out for when making their own PCs since the flaws of the archetypes are so obvious once play begins.

Toturi, yours is the eminently practical view, and I prefer Wounded Ronin's high-road mysticism.

Probably a good many... you can't reliably patrol borders that are hundreds, if not thousands of miles long... it is nigh impossible...