I've been running Shadowrun though many editions and I've yet to have a player break a character at generation (before the release of 4th). After extremely long campaigns...yes. So if you've got a broken guy lets see him in detail. Shadowrun 3 only.

...gotta hit the archives, but had a couple "out of the "box uber-runners in my time as GM. Give me a little time to hunt them down...er... up.

Not seen you in a while KK. Good to see you're still about!

re: OP, I've seen some pretty obscene stuff out of the box in SR3, but whether they're game breaking or not, I don't know.

Aye, same here. To be honest, I don't know what you'd consider gamebreaking, out of the box stuff.

I did see a few in my time, and make a few when i was bored. But again, I don't know if you'd consider them gamebreaking.

in my experience as a gm characters are only as broken as the gm lets them be. ive only seen characters be game breaking when the gm cant keep up. ive had several powerful characters in my games and ive never considered them game breaking.

now im sure my baroque will be considered game breaking by your standards. especially because i doubt you have the baroque in your shadowrun.

BEHOLD. The Coffin Man

coffinman
baroque


body 4
strength 6 (10)
quickness6(14)
charisma 2
intelligence3
willpower3
reaction
magic6
essence 6
distortion8

adept powers
increased aim 6
improved heavyweapons6
nervestrike
mysticarmor1

baroques
movebywire 4 (7 essence)
increased aim6 (1.5 essence)
claymore str+3s (1.5 essence)
muscle augmentation 4(1.6 essence)
muscletoner 4(1.6 essence)
minigun 7s 15 shots(3.25 essence)
100 bullets (.5 essence)
optical magnification3(.2essence)

That one is not game breaking, that one is RULES BREAKING.

As for Game Breaking, these are SR4 only:
I think you wanna look up the ultimate mundane climber, a Troll that rolls 40 to 45 Dice on Climbing checks.
Or the Pornomancer, 40 to 55 dice in seduction or something like that.
Then there's Mr.Lucky and the Long-Shot-Rules and general uses/abuses of Edge.
There was some sort of Metal-Storm-Character around. 4 or 6 Arms and could do Long Bursts from modded SMG's with every arm with a dicepool of 15 to 20 . . all at once . .
Posession Based Summonners with Bloodzilla or a Succubus.
Or Brick, the Armor-Troll. 40 to 50 dice for soaking Damage.
Troll Throwing Adepts able to throw Babies through armored Police-Cars.
Or the Skill-Monster who can have every single skill in the Book after only 2 Days of in Game time for about 10% of the usual Price.
My personal Built, an adaption of the BrickTroll. Surged Centaur. 6 Arms, 4 Legs, Head and Torso, all cyber-Limbs, with Skimmer Discs, full Armor Potential that would make some LAV's proud. Also, Cyber-Zombie so pretty evil Attribute Limits and the ability to kick Spirit-Butt too. I call him Binky. But he's not as per the Rules. Well, unless you allow Cybermancy of that Magnitude.

I'll have to Dig up the Sr3 Starting Character with 30 dice in close Combat.

what rules did i break? in my setting and games that character is legal. unless i missed something.

This isnt totally maxed out, but I dont have an hour to polish it.

Troll Bow Adept (can throw 20 dice with a weapon with the same power as a panther cannon in near slience)

Str 10 (12)
Qui 5
Int 4
Will 5

Projective Weapons (Bow) 5/7

Ranger-X bow for str 14 (18M)
+ Ex explosive arrowhead (20m)

Imp Bow 5
Imp Physical att (above race mod) 2
Imp Sense: Vis Mag 3
Living Focus (to be used with enhanced aim or imp reflexes)

*edit*
Enhanced articulation
Suprathyriod Gland
And toss in some combat drugs.

WAY WAY over the starting avil limit. Never mind the cash limit, and build point limit. And what the heck is enhanced aim cyberware? Or increased aim adept skills?
And what, no smart link and ranger finder?

Quick thoughts:
I think you're a bit off with the amount of dice he'll be rolling. (skill 7 + Imp Bow of 5 + Enhanced Articulation 1 = 13).
Also how's a str 12 (total) using a str 14 bow?

**edit**
Living Focus? What is that and where is it?

he has no cyberware or bioware. all of that stuff under the heading baroques are baroque powers. he is a third edition priority character. he actually has no money spent on him. baroque cannot take any ware. but they can mimic it with baroque powers. enhanced aim is an adept power that lowers the target number to hit with ranged weapons.

When you're making up your own rules, you can't consider a character game breaking.

Baroque? what is this and where can I find it in the books so I can read up on it?
Also Distortion?

Combat pool

suprathyroid gland and the combat drugs

SotA '64 pg 67


And there is no way in the 9 hells that anything relating to move by wire 4 is starting legal. Not a chance. I call shanagins.

right you are my good man. and seeing as i allow such monstrocities in my games i generally dont consider anything game breaking because it doesnt break my game.



the baroque are of my design. distortion is a baroque stat similar to magic or resonance that checks and limits baroque powers.

the baroque are fun to fool around with or even if you are very serious they still add a lot to the game. they also make great recurring badguys. i have been using them for almost a year now and have had no problems. like i said before, the game only breaks as much as the gm lets it. how do the rest of you define game breaking? to me its disrupting the flow of the game.

That would explain the Str increase enough to fit the bow thanks, as would the combat pool though I wasn't looking at that since it's available for a lot of stuff in combat and could be used on just about anything.

As for SotA 64 didn't even think of that book since I've been busy brushing up on my early SR world history (campaign I've just started is set 2050). I'll have to read up on it and see just how nasty it is.

I'm pretty much the same. As long as we're having fun and enjoying it, it's a good game. We enjoy 3rd ed (and don't seem to have the problems I've seen others complain about). We tried SR 4 and just couldn't get past the mechanics enough to enjoy it. Maybe 4th is too simple, after all we're all HackMaster fans as well (though we enjoy WFRP too so maybe not).

here is my first presentation of the rules. there is enough here to run baroque in your games but its out of date. if anyone is actually interested ill write up my more recent version.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=23194&hl

Yeah, for the most part, if you stay in the rules (we pretty exclusively play SR2, but 3 is the same) there isn't really any way to make anything game-breaking. We generally leave Availability to GM discretion, though we try not to start with anything stupid. And unless a GM is using House Rules or allowing things like Insect Shamans and Vampires, everything is generally pretty balanced. Sure, you can Have a HVAR with no recoil on Full Auto if you remember to but the under-barrel weight (or tie on a rock). And sure you can roll 10 dice to attack and do 10D base damage easily,

and that's not even trying. You can do it better with 'ware (Isn't that the motto of Shadowrun?), but it's not really important. The point is, Your Troll with 10 strength and 12 Body Probably has a Willpower or Intelligence of 2 (or even 1...) So, Jim the corp Minimum Wage mage, can snap off a Mana Bolt or a Chaos spell to disable him without breaking a sweat. So in short, breaking isn't really what the game does. You can bend it there and back again, but unless you add silly things, like house rules that are not in the spirit of Awakened Cyberpunk, it's a pretty solid system.

That's why we play Shadowrun (well, that and because the world is cool). Thanks FASA! =D

The starting broken character in SR3 is the magician who has 5 or 6 maximum force elementals bound to him. Although probably not strictly "starting" character (there might be a limit to how many and what force spirits you can begin with? can't rem), as soon as the game starts (or once he has a bit of cash), he can summon up his spirits. There is almost no foe for early campaign who can handle fighting off 6 max force elementals. Guns are useless, they manifest inside and neutralise vehicles, a couple of adepts might put up a quick fight but will go down, and enemy mages don't have enough mojo to take on so many magical foes at once. These elementals are of course in addition to the rest of the team, who are mercilessly targetting the foe's magic users. So that's my two cents. A elemental summoner can be broken (just about) "out of the box". And yes, I've had it happen in my own game. His name was Apu, yes Indian, yes modelled after the simpsons character. (in simpsons voice) "Hello Mr Johnson. Mr name is Apu. I do the magics. Thank you come again." This quickly lead to a houserule on spirit summoning. At least in SR4, you have the -2 dice penalty (optional rule) per spirit for each bound spirit rule, and it is more difficult (I think) to bind a powerful spirit in the first place. Also, as already posted above, trolls with bows and dikote arrows doing more damage than a panther assault cannon... What were they smokin'? Thankfully fixed in SR4 (bow strength cap, reduced twice, started at 12 I think then errata'd to 8, or something).

Comabt Character
Built using 126 points in SR3 Points-System

Edges:
Ambidexterity 3 (6BP)
Aptitude Clubs (4BP)
Bonus Attribute Body(2BP)
Bonus Attribute Inteli(2BP)
Bonus Attribute Qckn(2BP)
Sum: 16 BP

Flaws:
Bad Karma (-5BP)
Cursed Karma (-6BP)
Allergy Uncommon and severe Citrus Fruit (-4BP)
Cortex Bomb Area (-6BP)
Combat Monster (-1BP)
Sum: -22BP

MK1:
Dwarf: 5BP
Magic Ki-Mage 30BP
24 Attribute Points 48BP
18 Skill Points 18BP
650k Nuyen 25BP

Attributes A/E/R:
Body: 4/5/6
Strength: 4/4/6
Quickness: 4/5/5
Charisma: 3/3/3
Intewlligence: 4/5/5
Willpower: 5/5/6
Sums: 24/27/31
Legend:
A: Attribute Points
E: Edge Points
R: Race Points
Attributes under R are relevant for Skill-Purchase

Magic: 6(3)
Essence: 6
Reaction: 5
Initiative: 5+1d6
Combatpool: 8
Spell Pool: 4

Skills/Level/Cost
Arnis De Mano/3/3BP
- Body Contact/2BP
- Body Contact (Clubs)/2BP
Clubs:/6/6BP
Sorcery(Spelldefense)2(4)/3BP
Etiquette(Street) 1(3)/2BP
Sum: 18BP

Ki-Powers:
Magical Talent(volountary geas) Level 3 cost 2,25 Power Points
Improved Ability Clubs(volountary geas) Level 6 cost 2,25 Power Points
Counterstrike (volountary geas) 1,5 Power Points
Sums: 6 Power Points used
Hint: Magical Talent Level 3 means 18 Spell-Points

Gear: Sai for 110 Yen
Weapon Focus (Sai) Force 6 for 640.110 Nuyen
Rapid Transit Jump Heavy for 550 Nuyen
Helmet for 55 Nuyen
forearm Guards for 275
FFBA Full for 2200 Nuyen
Actioneer Longcoat for 1650 Nuyen
Lower Lifestyle 5 Months for 5000 Nuyen
Sums: 649,950 Nuyen
Hint: Focus is bound with the 18 Spell Points from Magical Talent

Armor:
Ballistic 5
Impact Ranged 7
Impact Close 8

Attackdice for "Main-Stick"
Skill: Main Hand 6 Off Hand 3 Sum: 9
Weapon-Focus: Main Hand 6 Off Hand 3 Sum: 9
Improved Ability: Main Hand 6 Off Hand 3 Sum: 9
Sums up to: 18 / 9 / 27
Exception:
Disarmattempt against Close Combat Weapons with reach 1 or 0
Sai main Hand: 2 Off Hand: 1 Sum: 3
Sums up to: 20 / 10 / 30

Defencedice for "Main-stick"
As Attack Main Hand 18 Off Hand 9 Sum: 27
Counterstrike Main Hand 4 Off Hand 2 Sum: 6
Sums up to 22 / 11 / 33
Exception:
Disarmattempt against close combar weapons with reach 1 or 0
Sai main hand2 off hand 1 Sum: 3
Sums up to 24 / 12 / 36
All Combat Actions with "Main-Stick" against Base target Number of 3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

While not a hard and fast rule, 22 is a bit much, and makes him not really at the level of a starting character as he's made with much higher build points. Also:

You chase the guy into a local grocery store. He runs down the Produce Isle (A successful perception check tells you this is isle 3). As you round the corner, a store guard tackles you. Since it was unexpected, you stumble backwards and break the Grapefruit stand. You're now covered in parts of grapefruit and juice. You have 30 seconds to clean yourself off before you die.

Personally, I LOLed at the MBW4

- J.

Mark 2:

126 BP
5 BP Dwarf
30BP Ki-Mage
40BP 20 Attribute Points
21BP 21 Skill Points
30BP 1 Million nuyen

Attributes: A / E / R / B
Body: 3 / 4 / 5 / 5
Strength: 4 / 4 / 6 / 6
Quickness: 3 / 4 / 4 / 5
Charisma: 3 / 3 / 3 / 3
Intelligence: 2 / 3 / 3 / 5
Willpower: 5 / 5 / 6 / 6
Sums to: 20 / 23 / 27 / 30
Legend:
A = Attribute
E = Edges
R = Race
B = Bioware
Hint: Numbers in Collumn B are relevant for buying Skills

Magic 6[4]
Essence: 5,05
Reaction: 5
Initiative: 5+1d6
Combat Pool: 8
Task-Pool for intelligence Stuff: 1

Implants:
Enhanced Artwinculation BioI: 0,6 and 40k Nuyen
Cerebral Booster Level 2: BioI: 0,8 and 110k Nuyen
Muscle Toner Level 1: BioI: 0,4 and 25k Nuyen
Reflexrecorder (Sai) BioI: 0,1 and 10k Nuyen
Sums up to BioI of 1,9 and 185k Nuyen
Hint: Magic Loss due to Bioware: 0,95=1

Skills:
Arnis De Mano Level 3 Cost 3BP
- Body Contact Cost 2BP
- Body Contact(clubs) Cost 2BP
Clubs Level 6 Cost 6 BP
Clubs B/R Level 1 Cost 1BP
Sorcery(SpellDefense) 2(4) Cost 3BP
Stealth(Sneaking) 1(3) Cost 2BP
Etiquette(Street) 1(3) Cost 2BP
Sums up to 21 BP used for Skills

Ki-Powers:
Magical Talent(volountary Geas) Level 6 Cost 4,5 Power Points
Improved Ability Clubs (volountary Geas) Level 4 Cost 1,5 Power-Points
Sums up to 6 Power Points used
hint: Magical Talent Level 6 means 36 Spell Points of which 12 Points are used like this:
1. 3 Points for Joining Magical Group(the two standard connections)
2. 9 Points for Group Initiation with Ordeal OATH
Learned Metatech: Attunement(Item)
The Won Power-Point goes into:
Counter Strike (volountary Geas) Level 2 for 0,75 Power-Points
Improved Sense: flash Compensation for 0,25 Power-Points
And that is again one used Power-Point

Hint: Because of his Implants, the Mark 2 has a Magic Loss of 1 Point and his preferred Magical Talent is allready used with Geas, he can't compensate the Magical Loss with a Geas.
He can't usef Magical Talent worth at least 1 Power Point, which is TWO levels.
This Means he has an effective Magical Talent of 4 instead of 6.
He still has 24 Spell-Points to be used as needed.

Gear:
Sai for 110 Nuyen
Weaponfocus Level 6 for 640,110 Nuyen
Rapid Transit Jump Heavy for 550 Nuyen
Helmet for 55 Nuyen
forearm Guards for 275 Nuyen
FFBA Full for 2200 Nuyen
Actioneer Longcoat for 1650 Nuyen
Dikote for Sai NOT FOCUS for 4000 Nuyen
Ruthenium-Polymere for his Clothes for 80,000 Nuyen
Should suffice for Coat,Suit, Shoes, Mask and Helmet.
12 Image Scanners for Ruthenium for 60,000 Nuyen
20 Exchange Batteries for Ruthenium for 1,000 Nuyen
Middle Lifestyle 5 months for 25,000 Nuyen
Sums up to 814,950
Spent Nuyen 999,950

hint: The Weapons Focus is bound by the 18 Spellpoints of Magical Talent.
The Left Over 6 Points are used to attune himself to the Focus. Used Objct Resistance of 6 for inbetween of Hand Made Blade(5) and modern Katana(7).
The Weapon-Focus is held in the Off-Hand so the +1 Power of Dikote can apply to the usual Sai. No Effect on how you get your Bonuses for Ambidexterity

Attackdice for "Main.stick"
Skill: 6 Main Hand 6 Off Hand 3 Sum 9
Weapon Focus: Main Hand 6 Off Hand 3 Sum 9
Improved Ability: Main Hand 4 Off Hand 2 Sum 6
Improved Artwinculation: Main Hand 1 - Sum 1
Reflexrecorder: Main Hand 1 - Sum 1
Sums up to 18 / 8 / 26

Exception:
Disarming Attempt against Close Combat Weapon with Reach 1 or 0
Sai Main Hand 2 Off Hand 1 Sum 3
Sums up to 20 / 9 / 29
Hint: one COULD Argue that Artwinculation and Recorder also work on off-hand, but this Breakdown is working with worst case scenario.

Defense Dice for "Main.stick"
Like Attack: Main Hand 18 Off Hand 8 Sum 26
Counter Strike Main Hand 2 Off Hand 1 Sum 3
Sums up to 20 / 9 / 29

Exception:
Disarming Attempt against Close Combat Weapon with Reach 1 or 0.
Sai Main Hand 2 Off Hand 1 Sum 3
Sums up tp 22 / 10 / 32

All Close Combat with Chosen Stick are done with base target number of 2

Atlas Shrugged.
It's like the other Uber Builts.
AND I JUST TRANSLATED THESE BUILTS!
I HAVE NOT DONE THEM MYSELF!

One thing about SR3 was that spellcasting characters were significantly more powerful. You had spells like Force: 6 manabolt with a fetish modifier, where your base TN to soak Drain was a 2. Your target number was the victim's Willpower, and if you got no net successes, the spell fizzled. But - even an albino gnome with exceptional Willpower was at a disadvantage.

First, you could cast it at D damage, meaning even one net hit was an instant kill. Then, you could pile on the dice - +3 from, say, the Dragonslayer totem, 6 more from a manabolt focus (although SR3 didn't limit you to only one focus, so you could have conceivably even more dice), and 3 spell pool dice (saving the rest for Drain), added to sorcery: 6, and that's 18 dice. Far from the maximum, too. Against most enemies, you can cast that spell at M damage, and still stage it up enough to kill them, usually soaking Drain completely, too.

Magical characters tend to be less durable than sammies, but one advantage they have is that, unlike sammies, they usually only need to spend Combat Pool defensively, instead of splitting it between attacking and dodging.

The elemental attack pack has already been mentioned (supplement if with watchers to get that friends in melee bonus in most astral engagements).


I'm not sure they were gamebreaking, though. While more powerful than their SR4 counterparts, they were still vulnerable to mundane attacks and opposition from similarly tricked-out spellslingers. SR3 and SR4 both have that oft-quoted "eggshells with hammers" thing - there are a lot of one-shot takedowns possible, but it is very easy to die.

Re: Mages being less durable:

Under SR3 rules, Power Foci added directly to the Magic score. Now, while cyberware took more Essence, and Bioware lowered magic as long as it was in(it acted as a ''damper'' to magic in SR3; it didn't totally remove it, but it lowered it as you wore it. One surgery later and the Bio could be gone and the magic back to normal), the Power Focus could easily gain back the magic.

As a Sorcerer(Priority B), with Resources A(1,000,000), and Attributes C(24 points, which is very solid; without Summoning you couild drop Charisma a bit too and have some impressive stats), you could load down your mage with about 4 essence of ware, use a bunch of resources for more Force points(which were used to buy spells), take the spells Exclusive to reduce cost(so a Force 5 spell cost only 3 points to purchase), or Fetish to reduce cost(1 point off the price), and THEN get yourself a force 4 Focus...bam, Magic 6, tons of spells, and as much Ware as a sam.

Also remember, SR3 took out grounding. This was SR2 and back only.

In fact, the biggest combat monster I ever built was a mage. And also the best physical fighter in the party. I also retired him after one play because he was actually too boring to play he was that powerful. (His combat skills were insane too, he dealt enough unarmed damage to remove heads. Oh yeah, those old Unarmed/Melee rules where the defender could actually turn the attack around were in play, too...)

Adepts could be pretty nasty in SR3 as well. Not as bad as 1, but I'd say a traditional physad was nastier in SR3 than SR4, but that's just me.

PhysAds are completely Nasty, because they can go so over the top so damn easy in SR3.
Skill 6, easy enough.
Improved Skill 6, easy enough,
Combat Pool 6, easy enough.
Bam, 18 Dice allready. Then do something to get your Target Number down and you simply don't fucking need more dice.
Because in SR3, NOTHING detracts from the dice you chose to use. Meaning you cann ALLWAYS use these loads of Dice.
If you can get Target number to 2 or 3 you are pretty much good to go. And with TN of 2, if you can do that, you are so
more or less guaranteed your 10 to 15 Successes too . . Now take a weak ass Human Adept with that in close combat.
STR1 Means 1light Stun. let us say out of 18 there are 14 successes . .
2 go from light to medium,
2 go from medium to sewere,
2 go from sewere to deadly.
that's 6 of those 14 successes used up.
leaving you with 8 successes.
dunno if it was +1PN for every success ABOVE Deadly Damage, or if it was for every TWO successes.
but still, a STR1 Human would have AT LEAST 6D Damage output from his fingertips.
If every single Success above deadly damage means +1PN you get up to 9D Damage bare handed.
Without ANY kind of negative side to this. Now imagine someone STARTING with STR10 for example.
You are more or less guaranteed to hit your target with that many dice.
And most every Target you hit with those dice is more or less guaranteed to just keel over like that.
And you can Exchange the Close Combat for . . Assault Rifles for example O.o
Or Shotguns with Burst Fire. . 13D BASE DAMAGE. Even Big Critters will find it hard to resist that.

Possession based tradition mages (ab)using Troll Street Samurai party members as vessels would come pretty darn close. I think a well built karmagen free spirit would too.

- J.

I personally don't think this stuff is broken. It IS very specialized, to be good at one thing. (Everyone chooses combat....) But well, if you're 18dice physical adept attacks a security guard with 2 points of hardened armor... he just laughs at you and then slaps you. And again, a good Chaos spell brings those 4's (or 2's) you need up to 6's or 8's That means you're going to be getting about 3 successes. And well, a random guy from the street can soak 2M... In specific situations where everything goes as planned, these are pretty good characters. But since you're planning to use your whole combat pool to attack, you can get killed by soneone else if you can't soak it

If you are going up against Hardened armor, you don't use close Combat.
If you are facing Spellslingers, you don't use close Combat.
If you face close Combat Spirits for example, you slice and dice them with this.
And don't forget, at least with the only 18 Dice Adept, you can switch out close combat for ANYTHING ELSE.
Including things like Vehicles, Computers and other such sillyness. Only reason why there's no Pornomancer in SR3 is the single fact, that combat pool is NOT useable in social combat.

Any PC build that has a dice pool 4+ greater then any other PC can possibly create an imbalance.

Especially in a System where NOTHING has an Influence on your Dice-Pool-Size.
Only the Number of Successes is important. Even if you have a Target-Number of 30(Equivalent to -30 Dice on your test in SR4), with 30 Dice you CAN reach that one . . Even if it is pretty improbable. While in SR4, when not playing something horribly twinked, you are looking at negative dice pool Numbers. Lucky/Long Shot is your best Guess.

I think raised target numbers are alot more realistic, personally. if you have a target number of 30, you're going to miss. But you could get lucky and accidentally get it. If you're counting... TN 30 is about 1/7776. That's how the old system works in general, target numbers go up exponentially (kind of).
6 = 1/6
12 = 1/36
18 = 1/216
24 = 1/1296
and so on.

As such, if you raise a target number just from 4 to 10, you change the probablity from 50% to 8.3%. So yes, if you're rolling 14 dice, you will probably get a success, But that's not much different from lowering a dice pool from 10 to 4.

The Beauty of the System with automatic exploding 6's:
Allmost every single time i actually DO get to play . .
I Manage to roll one Dice up to 30 or 40 ^^

lol, oh wow. Well, yeah, it's possible. We usually don't get that high, but 20's are probably seen every session. Then again, we probably do roll at least a few hundred dice per session, so I guess that's expected.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not totally disagreeing with the point. I was just saying that there are ways to stop it. I played an Adept with Missile Mastery that used playing cards as his primary weapon. I could do damage on the same level (after they soak a few levels of it) as people with guns, and sometimes more. But, whenever we ran into hardened armor, or a vehicle, or a spirit, that kind of attack was completely useless. he was doing 2or3L and had 14 dice (before combat pool, which I always saved to soak damage if necessary) to attack so, generally I had 6-8 successes or 3D(or D+a fake level) damage. But well, almost everyone can get 2 3's, so that dropped it immediately down. He was really good, most of the time. I ended up having to take a weapon focus to deal with spirits (sometimes we didn't have a a mage).

One could also argue that a sammy with 3d6+12 initiative (i'm sure it's possible) could easily take out that adept before he has a chance to do much. So, the question is this. Who's better? Someone who can attack 4 times (times two bullets per action) every turn with 6 dice, or someone who can attack 1-2 times per turn with 14 dice.

In SR3, Less Attacks with more Oomph are better.
Because EVERYBODY AND THEIR GRANDMA can have 5 Points Ballistic/Impact Armor.
And thus even Heavy Pistols or Shotguns are not all that bad, if you have 3 to 4 body.
More Power-Niveau is allways better than more Damage Level.
I'd take 12M above 10S Damage all the time.

Staging up was easy. But SR3 had some imbalances(Dikote, which was a must-have essentially), and how some things were *that much* obviously better than others. Screw the unarmed physad with killing hands-meet the Polearm Physad. Sure, he had the disadvantage of having a large weapon, but...sheesh.

But then give him Polearms(Choice) 5(7), Improved Skill + something, and the fact a polearm had 2 Reach. Polearms did Str+3S damage. Dikote made this Str+4D. Then make it a weapon focus. This guy didn't even have to be Superman. A 6 Strength human had a 10D, +2 reach weapon. Make it a weapon focus for + whatever more dice. Really, this guy could literally just slice vehicles in two. His base dice with it at 5(7), 4 levels of Improved Ability and a Rating 5 Weapon Focus was 16. He didn't even touch his combat pool yet. HIs base TN to hit, if he used the Reach for his advantage, was 2(he could always fail on a 1. A 1 was always a failure-a TN couldn't be reduced below 2.)

I also recall the rule that once it went to D, each 2 successes staged up the damage 1 point.

Oh yeah, if he won a defensive roll, he got to counter-attack. Get ready to soak what was likely going to be 13+D damage. That could be used against spirits and hardened armor, thanks to the focus/dikote. (Yeah, Dikote was stupidly good.)

Yeah, Favourite Character Design of mine.
Strength maxed out Troll. 15 or 16.
Pole-Arm with Dikote. 20D Damage. Reach of 3.
Unarmed Damage due to Plastic Bone-Lace 18M Stun.
Ranger-X-Bow for Str14, Ex-Ex-Tips.
Reach of 950 or 1000m 20M Damage.
Unholy, i know.
But it can get worse.
Troll with STR of 16,
Two Cyber-Implant-Weapons with Dikote.
Meaning 16+4M Damage with one and 24M Damage with Both hands.
Could rend every larger Critter.
If you wanna be REALLY Mean, you add in Poison Sacks with GammaScopolamine for another 10D Stun Damage which is resisted only with Body.
Presto, Mucho Damage over Range and in Close-Combat.
Silent but Deadly. Like a Troll-Fart.
Int of 4, Quickness of 8,
Meaning a Combat Pool of 10,
Skills Pole-Arm(Pig-Sticker) 5/7
Projectile Weapons(Ranger-X) 5/7
Unarmed/(Fist or Kick) 5/7
Cyber-Implant-Combat/(Chosen one) 5/7
Improved Artwinculation.
4 Skills with 8 Dice+Combat Pool and in Close Combat modified by Reach.
And in Long Range Combat Modified by Image Magnification Level3 and then Laser-Pointer for -1
Target Number of 3.
If you really wanna twink, try to get aptitude for one of those by your GM.
Nothing really too Game-Breaking.
Custom Built Weapons were worse.
Burst Fire Capable Sniper-Rifle.
Or Shotguns with 10s/13D Damage with Slugs.
Or Heavy Pistols with 10/13S Damage.

Since I was the person who made these characters (and didn't get credit from Stahlseele here ) I'd like to comment on this a bit (regardless of the fact that just as with the pornomancer or the climbing troll in SR4 both were merely proof of concept):

1. Just as with aptitudes on combat skills, you already noted that the sentence you quoted is merely a recommendation.
2. Said recommendation is already altered (if not invalidated) by the rule description and its option on page 16 of the Companion:
   
   Players can purchase Edges and Flaws in the same manner using the the point-based character creation system. Optionally a gamemaster may allow players to spend or gain Building Points when selecting Edges and Flaws. In this case, a player can spend Building points to buy Edges or increase the number of Build Points he has availible by the point value of any Flaws he takes. For example, a player who takes the Flaw of Blind (-6 points) can add 6 Building Points to his allowance. We recommend allowing no more than 6 Building Points to be gained or spent in that manner.
   
   Both versions of the Phys-Ad of the Magician's Way (really only needed for legally bonding the used weapon focus in either build at chargen and to provide some options for later on developement) do fit that recommendation, since they do not gain more than a net number of 6 Build Points- resulting in a build with 126 instead of mere 120 (which is the actual value by RAW instead of the mentioned and very commonly used 123 average of archetypes) ... which is totally fine with that second recommendation. I could have left out that recommendation if wanted, since the only real hard capped thing concering Edges and Flaws is the number of Edges and Flaws: 5 of either type
3. This recommendation finally went overboard at the point when the makers introduced the 8 point edge value for max level ambidexterity

Oh and as far as credits go: Both charatcers are based on the ideas of IIRC Dr. Funkenstein from this board, who originally presented me with the possibilty for bonding a force 6 weapon focus on a Phys-Ad at chargen.

Hey, i said i only translated! i forgot to look up the name of the poster x.x . . i'm sorry, my bad ._.
*grumbles* damn copy right creeping into character design now <.<
Right now, i ain't even sure why i posted these in here.. Personally, i don't think they are game breaking.
ANYONE with a good gun and a half way decend skill/combat pool(so really, most other characters) can deal with him just fine.
I just thought it impressing/depressing to see such numbers in SR3 Terms too . .

...thanks. Been caught up in the whole 3D CG thing. Creating a lot of cool pics as well as learning modelling and creating textures. Also spending time on several of of the related forums. Currently there is a cyber art challenge on the DAZ site which I already entered one pic in and am working on another.

Here's the first entry, If you've played the TCG, you know the character (one of my fave "contacts").


Shopping Cart Lady

Just a minor nitpick here: After Errata on bioware it caused normal Magic Loss based on BI / 2 that was added to Essence Loss before calculating final Magic Loss. And BioIndex didn't go away when removing bioware just as essence wasn't recovered once the ware was out ...

The errata actually made bioware better for mages, though. You could get a mix of the two and only lose one point of Magic, rather than losing one point of Magic, then taking another point of "virtual" Magic loss that couldn't be geased away.

One other thing about mages - spells above Force: 6 were relatively rare, so mostly, a Magic of over 6 didn't do you much good. Once you had a few grades of initiation, you could cram in a ton of cyberware and bioware, and not really feel much of a difference, power-wise.

Yeah, (not in a starting character but,) in game if I'm playing a spellcaster, I almost always end up taking spells over force 6. Force 12 mana bolts and the like. And I did once play a cybered out mage for a magic rating of 1. If I can find his character sheet, I'll post him on here. He wasn't 'game breaking', but he summoned elementals, and used mostly a bunch of 'Slay X' spells at force 6. So yeah sure, everything he cast through back physical drain, but I calculated it well enough that he didn't ever actually take drain anyway (2S isn't that hard to deal with). I think he was a sniper too. I didn't get to play him enough, but I was going to start anchoring spells to bullets =D

Ofc the errata made Bioware better for mages. That's what the fluff around bioware always said, but actually wasn't backed up by the original rule of ungeasable seperate virtual magic loss.
So what the errata did, was merely making bioware to what it already was supposed to be: Less invasive for the Awakened