Making a character for a PbP game and wanted to try a Former Company Man, my favorite template for SR1, something that made me buy the game. But what is he? The conversion with 1 skill in everything did little for me. A company will send guards or Shadowrunners if it needs heavy combat done. A Company man is going to do possibly violent work inside or between companies. An inspector or auditor who can assess a situation and terminate employees in a variety of ways if it calls for it. So, not a heavily-cybered monster with an assault rifle and rocket launcher. Someone who can be pleasant... some strong face elements with subtle combat skills, pistols and unarmed. Mostly bioware, as that doesn't stand out as much. Gear isn't completed yet and may free up some points at the end. I took the max of 50 BP just in case. So, comments?

Former Company Man

Race: Human.

Body 4 (5)
Agility 5 (7)
Reaction 4 (6)
Strength 3 (5)
Charisma 4
Int. 3
Logic 2
Will 3
200 bp

Edge 2
Essence 3.62

Positive Qualities
Guts 5 BP
First Impression 5 BP

Active Skills:
20 Pistols 5
20 Unarmed Combat 5
40 Influence Group 4
16 Infiltration 4
16 Perception 4
6 Computer (Commlink) 1 (3)
14 Dodge (Ranged) 3 (5)

Knowledge Skills 15 points
Accounting 2
Corporate Politics 5
(more)

English Native
German 2
Japanese 2

Resources 50 BP

Bioware
Bone Density Aug. 1 20K
Synaptic Booster 2 160K
Muscle Augmentation & Muscle Toner 2 30K
Tailored Pheremones 1 15K

Cyberware
Smartlink Eyemod .08 2000
Datajack Alpha .08 1000

Bio Essence cost 2.3 Cyber Essence cost .16 Total Essence cost 2.38

228K implant costs
2x Walther Sekura Kompakt Smartgun version 1200
3x Concealable Holster 225
Morriesy Elan Smartgun 900
Shock Glove 200


Form-Fitting Body Armor half-suit (4/1) +Non-conductivity 6 2100
With either:
Lined Coat (6/4) with fire resistance 6 1300 (total armor 10/5)
Or
Auctioneer Business Clothing 5/3 1,500 (total armor 9/4)

Contacts 8 BP
Mr. Johnson 2/2
Fixer 2/2

A well-rounded character build - I like that! He won't be the most compentent guy in any field, but a competent jack-of-all-trades.

I would rate it...playable. Enough stuff to start with but he is anyway lacking some very important skills. Automatic weapons are missing as well as the athletics skill group. Don´t forget that you can use gymnastics to doge. This would be more usefull and saves BP. Maybe you could switch a point from charisma to logic and swap from the whole influence group to a lower amount AND intimidation?

Automatics is more useful but in terms of legal weaponry and keeping it in line with the concept I think Pistols works just fine.

- J.

You can survive quite well without either IMO. Automatics lack the subtlety he's going for in the build at the very least. I can see an argument for Athletics but for a Face/secondary combatant I think he's perfectly serviceable.

Like i said he´s playable, but automatics are the first weapon of choice if it really comes to a serious combat. You should never forget that even assaultrifles belong to this skill so lacking it, is more than risky. With a pistol you shoot about 50m, that is quite a limitation. Not mentioned the low damage (no bursts) etc. I wouldn´t start without it if i want to live along to enhance the char with additional skills.

Sure. We all want our characters to survive, but to me it is more fun to play with a story character that follows a certain concept. Instead of having a way out of every situation you may have to become creative if you are going to get out alive. This character is nice and balanced. It follows the concept by being the "socialy acceptabe" agent and not sticking out in the corporate world. If he used an autmatic weapon in his work it would not give it the sublety that his clients need.

He's not bad KnightSaber. I enjoy conceptual characters over Min/Maxing. Put it this way, wouldn't mind having this character as a PC in a brand new campaign.

Thanks for all the comments! A tag like I had in mind for him (Stolen from Lando Calrissian) is "People who carry heavier weapons (than pistols) tend to think with them instead of their brains."

SMGs and assault rifles can be handy, but are quite hard to bring into a lot of place. The pistol you have with you kills people a lot better than the assault rifle you had to leave in the car. The Elan would have a concealability penalty of -7 (-4 for holdout pistol, -2 for lined coat, -1 for concealed holster). It's MAD resistant too, so you could take it almost anywhere.

Not having Intimidation was an oversight, so I adjusted the skills a bit. Having some Athletics skills would be handy, but there are only so many points to go around and it's not a primary focus. He can talk his way to the elevator instead of climbing up the shaft.

Active Skills:
20 Pistols 5
20 Unarmed Combat 5
40 Influence Group 4
16 Infiltration 4
10 Perception (Visual) 2 (4)
6 Computer (Commlink) 1 (3)
14 Dodge (Ranged) 3 (5)
14 Intimidate (Mental) 3 (5)

So that brings him to 400 BP exactly, taking all 50 BP for gear. I was thinking about taking Longarms as an Incompetent, but Automatics would be more limiting and in line with his philosophy. That would provide 5 more points for Contacts.

On first blush I like the character. Personally I would recommend taking agility from 5/7 down to 4/6 and bringing logic up to 3. A below average logic score would make it difficult for the character to really engage in a think first, shoot second engagement. I would also suggest some skillwires. They are not out of place and would drastically add to the versatility of the character. Even if you do not start off with any skillsofts the option later is worth the cost, in my opinion.

Good job overall. I would probably play the archetype with only a few personal tweaks.

Not particularly smart or intuitive either. In fact he is only as intuitive as a corp sec guard(p275 SR4) and as dumb as a street ganger(p275 SR4). Sure, I'd probably allow "creative" solutions as a GM, but I would also be reluctant to award any RP karma either.

Hmmm, could always shift the muscle bioware to be +3 Agility +1 Strength to raise up natural Logic. It'd be pretty cheap and easy to upgrade the 'ware later.

I usually have a hard time justifying skillwires... if it's something you need to do, you should learn it yourself, and at above 3, no? But there are a lot of things that this character could do with them. Athletics and vehicle skills come to mind. Of course, there is no money left for them... The Resources total is around 244K right now and there's not enough fat to trim to get the wires, much less any softs (As this character is being built under 4A rules).

Ah, the good old company man. Glad to see that this concept is still around.

As far as the skillwires are concerned, go for it.
They do so much for any mundane jack of all trades concept, they are practically a must.
And the fit very well conceptually, as skillwires are so deeply entrenched in 2070's corporate culture.

Okay, here's a thought. Since you have plenty of essence maybe you should drop the synaptic booster and go for wired 2 alphaware. That would give you plenty more money to play with, and with a proper forged background they shouldn't raise too many eyebrows. If you really want to stay bio then drop the booster to lvl 1. Sure you lose a pass and a die to dodge, but this character should be able to make that up by making the battlefield work for him. Remember as a former company man you should think first and shoot later.

[double post thanks to crappy internet connection]

Oh, and if you feel that your company man isn't smart or charismatic enough, there's convenient ways around that, such as Cerebral Boosters and Biosculpting, both of which are certainly very common forms of bioware among the corporate elite (and, incidentally, much cheaper BP-wise than pumping up your stats directly).

I'd go for the alpha-grade Wired Reflexes and load up on some of those, probably along with a sleep regulator (the ideal lifestyle implant for any corporate man IMHO).

Of course, Synaptic Accelerators are more inconspicious, but depending on the line of work, Wired Reflexes might be the preferred alternative, as they are much cheaper (remember, it was the corp that payed for at least a part of this character's 'ware, so monetary considerations may be an issue).
Depends on wether you want your character to be a former corporate assasin/secret agent or a more regular guy.

Updated version! Skillwires were more affordable than I thought, so they went it (but no skillsofts). Logic has been raised by one thanks to moving the muscle enhancements around, strength dropped by one as a result. Cash is tight... I had to lower the lifestyle to Low and he doesn't have a lot of extraneous gear. I looked more carefully at Gymnastics... it works well for dodging if you don't have any other relevant skills. This character has a high Unarmed Combat skill, so he can use that to avoid being hit in close combat and only needs to dodge at range. In that case, Dodge with the Ranged speciality is more economical. Putting aside the value of gymnastics for its own sake, of course. A typical mage or ranged combat character would benefit from Gymnastics though.

Former Company Man

Race: Human

Body 4 (5)
Agility 4 (7)
Reaction 4 (6)
Strength 3 (4)
Charisma 4
Int. 3
Logic 3
Will 3
Attributes 200 BP

Edge 2
Essence 3.32

Positive Qualities 10 BP
Guts 5 BP
First Impression 5 BP

Active Skills: 132 BP
20 Pistols 5
20 Unarmed Combat 5
40 Influence Group 4
16 Infiltration 4
16 Perception 4
6 Computer (Commlink) 1 (3)
14 Dodge (Ranged) 3 (5)

Knowledge Skills 18 points
Accounting 2
Corp Politics 5
(more)

Resources 50 BP

Bioware
Bone Density Aug. 1 .3 ess 20K
Synaptic Booster 2 Ess. 1 160K
Muscle Augmentation 1 7K
Muscle Toner 3 .8 24K
Tailored Pheremones 1.2 15K

Cyberware
Smartlink Eyemod .08 2000
Datajack Alpha .08 1000
Skillwires [3] .6 6000

Bio Essence cost 2.3 Cyber Essence cost .76 Total Essence cost 2.68

235K implant costs

Walther Sekura Kompakt Smartgun version 600
10 clips standard ammo 190
Ares Predator IV 350
6 clips standard ammo 210
3x Concealable Holster 225
Morrisey Elan Smartgun 900
2 clips 20 rounds standard ammo 50
Shock Glove 200
Glasses w/ low light, flare comp., image link 200

Form-Fitting Body Armor half-suit (4/1) +Non-conductivity 6 2100
With either:
Lined Coat (6/4) with fire resistance 6 1300 (total armor 10/5)
Or
Auctioneer Business Clothing 5/3 1,500 (total armor 9/4)

Novatech Airware w/ Mangadyne Deva OS 2050

Fake SIN (4) 4000

1 month Low Lifestyle 1000

125 left

Contacts 8 BP
Mr. Johnson 2/2
Fixer 2/2

-I would seriously consider dropping the Synaptic Accelerators a rank and picking up two Skillsofts at Rating 3, which will give you 20k more to spend on cyber/bio - you can actually get a lot for that amount.

-You can't get Muscle Toner 3 without the Restricted Gear quality. Furthermore, Muscle Toner 3 comes in at .6 essence, not .8. Frees up 8k more.

-Not sure when a Computer specialization in "commlink" would ever come into play. What rolls would it apply to?

-For the cost of just your Smartlink eyemod, you can go the whole shebang and pick up Cybereyes, which will end up being cheaper essence wise than picking up Alphaware cyber. Cybereyes are common enough to go unremarkable.

-Do you have Augmentation? The Attention Coprocessor seems like a necessity for any ex-Corp type.

- Have you considered getting a cyberarm? They're fully legal, so having an obvious one isn't that bad. Cyberguns are invisible to MAD scanners according to the book, and they are equippable with a silencer. For some reason, they have absurd availability requirements, but they are very cheap - the cyber heavy pistol is only 3.2k, can go past MAD scanners, and comes with a smartlink, so you could always pick one up in game (or talk to your GM) Since you plan on using one handed weapons anyway, tricking out your cyberarm's agility is a cheap way get a good ranged combat dicepool.

-Bone Density Augmentation raises your Body for damage resistance purposes only. I'm not sure it's worth it 20k. Plus, a cyberlimb does physical damage, and increases your physical condition monitor by 1, and can increase your strength and agility for cheap.

-Palming is useful for smuggling guns in and for things out of a facility.

You should take some of that 125 bp left over and buy up your edge. You can spend a point of edge to get another initiative pass, or do anything pretty well. I highly recommend you softmax it.

Solid. I like this much more than the Rating 1 everything build.

My only suggestion involves Skills. I strongly suggest Intimidation and Shadowing.

Maybe some Skillwires?