I am new to Shadowrun and my local group is going to start playing the game soon using SR 4e. I determined my niche in the group would be that I would make a character that took care of our need for a breaking and entering specialist (covert-ops), but I also wanted to play a character that would be a martial arts melee MASTER and that could shoot some when needed. My first attempt at this character contains a mistake that I will be fixing soon. I took a few specialties and skills that were part of a couple skill groups I had taken. I know now that this is forbidden by the game rules and can only be done when you are actually playing the game, earning karma. I will rectify this in the near future. I also was going to make this guy an adept as well at first but thought I wouldn't be able to afford the points to do so. So I would be open to another version of this character that was an adept build as well. I would be honored if anyone could help me either make this character much better to better achieve the goals have stated previously in being a melee monster covert-ops specialist or someone that would be willing to rebuild this character all-together with those concepts in mind. I am enlisting your expertise and would appreciate any feedback to help me out. Thanks in advance!

Metatype: Human

Bod: 3 Agi: 5 Rea: 5 (7) Str: 3 Cha: 2 Int: 4 Log: 3 Will: 3
Initiative: 9

Edge: 4 Essence: 3 (-3 due to Wired Reflexes 2)
Magic: 0 Resonance: 0

Skills
-Close Combat skill group (Blades (+2 spec), Clubs, Unarmed (+2 spec)): 4
-Dodge: 3
-Stealth skill group (Palming, Infiltration (+2 spec), Shadowing, Disguise): 4
-Perception: 2
-Etiquette: 1
-Athletics skill group (Climbing, Gymnastics, Running, Swimming): 2

Qualities
-SINner
-Weak Immune System
-Allergy (uncommon/mild)=platinum
-Martial Arts (Ninjutsu): 2 advantages [+1 die to Infiltration checks, +1 die to Dodge]
-Martial Arts (Tae Kwon Do): 1 advantage [+1 die to Unarmed Combat when attacking multiple targets]
-Martial Arts Maneuvers: Disarm, Finishing Move, Iaijutsu, Full Offense, Multi-Strike, Two Weapon Style, Off-Hand Training, Throw
-Wanted
-Lost Loved One (sister)
-Sensei (Ninjutsu)
-Toughness (+1 dice poll to Body when making damage resistance tests)
-Will to Live (+2 boxes to damage overflow)

Knowledge Skills
-History (American): 3
-Security Procedures (Saeder Krupp): 4
-Security Design (Corporate): 5
-Seattle Street Gangs: 3
-Literature (American): 4
-Biology: 2

Gear
-Wired Reflexes 2 - core book
-2 Vibro Blades: Swords - core book
-SA Puzzler light pistol - Arsenal pg 21
-HK Urban Combat SMG - Arsenal book
-300 rounds of Frangible bullets - Arsenal pg 35
-Chameleon Suit - 4e core book pg 316
-Commlink (Sony Emperor) - 4e core book pg 319
-Biometric Reader - 4e core book pg 319
-Grapple Gun - 4e core book pg 328
-Goggles (Ultra Sound, Vision Magnification, Image Link, Low Light)- 4e core book pg 324
-1 EMP Grenade - Arsenal pg 57
-Autopicker - 4e core book pg 327
-Cellular Glove Molder - 4e core book pg 327
-Chisel - 4e core book pg 327
-Keycard Copier - 4e core book pg 327
-Lockpick Set - 4e core book pg 327
-Miniwelder - 4e core book pg 327
-Monofilament Chainsaw - 4e core book pg 327
-Shock Gloves - 4e core book pg 305-306
-3 Smoke Grenades - 4e core book pg 314
-Smart Pack - Arsenal pg 62

Contacts
1) Saeder Krupp middle executive: Connection 4/Loyalty 4
2) Seattle Street Ganger: Connection 2/Loyalty 2

Condition Tracks
Stun: 6
Physical: 6

Cash: 1,300
Lifestyle: Middle (5,000/month) - 4e core book pg 261

Some general advice off the top of my head:

You don't want to waste the points on the close combat group - this guy's main function is stealth. You are better off getting one high skill, such as unarmed at 6. You want your fights to be over quickly. And with the points you saved, get a ranged skill. At the very least, pistols at 4 specializing in semi-automatics. You have close combat skills to block with, and gymnastics for ranged full defense - you don't really need dodge. You do need the hardware skill if you're going to be a break-in guy, though.

Get muscle toner - it boosts both your stealth and your combat skills. Also consider synthcardium, which boosts athletics skills.

Re-check your qualities - you can only have 35 points (not net points, points period) of positive qualities. Consider trading in toughness and/or will to live for more resources - some cyberware or bioware (plastic bone lacing, orthoskin, etc.) would make him tougher, cheaper.

Unlike so many others on here I am not a SR4 guru, so the mechanics end of things I will leave to others better suited.

However, when creating a character for SR3, once I have settled on what the character does I like to figure out why. Putting together a backstory can help you get a clearer picture before you start allocating points or rolling dice. I will jot down some basic notes and here are some periphery questions that I like to answer.

What is in their medicine cabinet?

If they were to turn out their pockets what would I find?

What is the first thing that I see when I walk into their place?

What is in their car's glove box?

Yes, these seem like completely stupid questions. For me, they help me get into the character's mindset and figure out who they are. Once you know who they are creating the character becomes less about the numbers than filling in the blanks.

For what you want your guy able to do, you're really better off going down the adept route:

Keeping things mostly similar:


Infiltration dp: (7 agility + 4 infiltration + 2 Adept power + 1 Reflex Recorder + 1 Ninjitsu): 15, soon to be 17.
Unarmed dp: (7 agility + 6 unarmed): 13, soon to be 15. You hit with 6p, ap -3. Your hands are better than a heavy pistol. You can attack 3 times a combat turn (two complex action and use Finishing Move for a third). You always go first in the first initiative pass.
Dodge dp: (6 reaction + 2 combat sense (+2 gymnastics)(+6 unarmed in melee): It's pretty good. Your Watchful Guard maneuver lets you ignore the first -1 penalty from being attacked previously.

BTW you condition monitor calculations are wrong. It's 8 + (body/2) or (willpower/2). You should have 10 Physical and 10 stun.

Edit: Changed the BP lists, reduced critical strike to 4, added 1 more rank of combat sense. Actually freed up 3 bp due to bad math regarding the qualities.

Just quick note, you cant have Critical Strike with Magic of 4. Maybe get 2 in Combat sense instead.

Maglock Passkey is another piece of equipment you might consider.

That looks like a solid build. The only problems I'm seeing are the Magic/Critical Strike issue mentioned just above this post, the HUGE cost in cyberware (which I am not sure I will have enough BPs to afford and still have enough leftover for the equipment I will need to be a B&E specialist), and this leaves me with no Blades skill at all. This gives me the unarmed I need but I was going to carry 2 vibro swords as well, using them in dual wielding. This is one reason I took Two Weapon Style and Off-Hand Training from the Martial Maneuvers listed in the Arsenal book. Do you think I should ignore the Blades stuff? From what I see you have $106,000 spent alone in cyberware. You only receive $5,000 per BP spent for cash. I would have to spend 21.2 BPs just to be able to afford that much cyberware at all, not to mention the huge amount of equipment I would need to buy also in order to be able to be a sufficient covert-ops B&E kind of guy. How can I rectify all this?

HK Urban Combat have Availibility 16F, Restricted Gear Quality is needed if Availibility is over 12..(Runner's Companion p. 101)
Also no Smartlink , no +2 die, Climbing Gear is essential to Covert Ops. spec.(BBB p. 328)

I would recomend ignoring the blades, as with those powers you do 6P -3AP damage, thats more than vibro sword does.
You could ditch the killing hands power and just get hardliner gloves, that gets you damage to 7P -3AP, but doesn't penetrate ItNW.

If I see this correct, you are missing an operating system to your Commlink. And I would suggest a fake SIN, you really dont want your real ID pop up everywhere you do your shadowy business.

What about the astronomical cost of the cyberware in the suggested build here for me? How could I possibly afford all that + the huge amount of equipment I would need for covert-ops?

How much does the stuff you need for covert-ops really cost you, thats only 106k in ware, that not a insurmable amount of money.
Hell my Sasha(Combat face) has 212K in ware and ~50k in combat gear, i have to admit that she's made with karmagen but i didn't add much ware after porting her from BP-gen.
In Dept is a nice flaw if you need some extra cash.

My biggest problem with Octopii's build is the Symnaptic booster. I dig it usually but at level 1 it kind of caps your growth. I'd personally drop adrenaline surge, its a 15 point quality. Its awesome but its still 15points. If I was adding bioware instead of going full phys add I'd take the 5 point restricted gear edge and make the muscle toner level 4. Then I'd bump that reflex recorder up to the stealth skill group. After dropping critical strike to level 4 I'd remove killing hands and improved infiltration.(with a 9 agility+4(5) skill you roll 14 dice, under his build you roll 7+4(7) or 14 dice, mine is for all of stealth his just infiltration. Then you have enough PP to buy level 1 improved reflexes and when you improve your magic by 1 you can boost it to level 2.

You lose out on killing hands which I'd recommend you pick up in the long run but you probably don't need it in the start. A mage can handle spirits better with stunbolt anyways. Also the nuyen is 65,000 total with the restricted gear quality 18 points in cost. His is 21 points in ware in cost and 15 for adrenal surge(yes its awesome) for 36 points. So you have another 18 points to spend, at least 10 of which can be on positive qualities like additional martial arts.

Now personally I hate ninjitsu, I'd take boxing and take 2 level sin increasing my DV, then I'd specialize in my skill with Boxing so I'd roll when punching 5(9)+6+ 17 dice to hit for a base 8DV and -3AP. Savate of kickboxing give the same results but I like the idea of a simple bare knuckle boxer whooping a bunch of kung fu, ninjas asses.

I actually just built a 500BP B&E guy for a high powered game, so what I would say about your original build is drop the close combat group and choose one skill to max (I picked blades and specced knives) plus I would drop dodge you don't need it and worse case you can gymnastics dodge plus you're also definitely gonna want the hardware skill. The qualities section looks strikingly similar to mine save a few things 1. I'm fairly sure you're over the limit for qualities and 2. someone correct me if im wrong but you can only take 2 maneuvers per 5bp in a martial arts and each maneuver costs 2bp right? Most of your gear looks pretty good except I can't really see a good reason for the guns when you don't have any ranged skill plus if you're all about stealth a silenced pistol would be about the limit for ranged weaponry in my opinion unless you wanted to take alchemy and use a dart gun. Also i don't really see a need for contacts if your the B&E guy let the face handle contacts that's his/her job anyways. That extra 12 points could easily go into money (i think i didn't crunch his current spending) which lets you get muscle toner (better B&E Yay) and maybe another nifty piece of ware. Anyway that's just my take on it.

I added the cost of the bioware in to the build, I just wasn't explicit. If you look at the bottom, you have 9bp left over for contacts/b+e. B+e gear is cheap, it shouldn't take more than 10k. The only expensive item you have is the chameleon suit.

You can get by without Killing Hands, but eventually you will likely come face to face with a spirit, and you will need killing hands at the point.

You guys realize he will need to spend at least 40BP in Magic for Adept to make any sense, right? Essence drain reduces the current Magic attribute -- not only the maximum.

Are you saying this isn't already accounted for in Octopii's suggested build?

Will I need to alter the build you made for me at all? The guy under your build post mentioned something about not being able to have Critical Strike with a Magic rating of 4. Also, I thought I had seen a mistake in the calculation you had in the build for the cost of the primary and secondary attributes. You had it calculated at 230BPs but I think I had counted it at 240BPs. If I can adjust it out some I would really love to take this build and use it for my character. Also, will I need to purchase the Hardware skill?

Ah, he changed many things.

I used a character generator, so everything should be ok - I may have typed the number wrong. I am sure there is 9bp left over. There may be errata capping Adept power levels to (magic), in which case Critical Strike goes down to 4, and you have .5 pp left over. There's a few ways you can make your guy good with unarmed combat - I personally like Elemental Strike a lot, but it doesn't really mesh with stealth, so I chose Piercing Strike. If you drop Killing Hands you can pick up Improved Unarmed Combat 2 for 1 pp, or 2 points of Mystic Armor (don't really recommend) or 2 more points of Combat Sense (I do). Your GM will eventually drop a spirit on you, however, so I think Killing Hands is worth it. If you're inside a facility by yourself, you can't depend on the mage stunbolting it into submission for you. Hardware may come in handy, but it's tied to your Logic skill, so it will never be very good. You can pick up maglock passkeys, sequencers, and the like for your b+e needs.



That's an option, but it removes killing hands, plus it's not really any cheaper BP-wise and doesn't get you that much extra. At this point, it's tomay-to v. tomah-to. Adrenaline Surge is easily removable if the OP feels he wants more bp for contacts and nuyen. One thing to remember to pick up are spy-drones. You pick up command 5 and then you can use them to spy with (Command + Perception) 9 dice, and sneak with (command + infiltration) 11 dice instead of the drone's. Plus, they're cheap and replaceable.

? I never had him infected, so I'm not sure why essence drain would have came into play.

Yes its mostly a wash. Its giving up killing hands in order to make it easier to improve to 3 passes down the line. The one slight edge is the 9 agility helps basically everything he'd be doing by 2 dice. So while the stealth skill is the same he'd be a bit better at shooting and punching. The loss of killing hands is an issue though so it may not be worth it.

I think he was referring to essence loss not drain from the bioware, which effects the magic rating.

If I were to do it your way (though I'm not sure a stealth expert needs 3 ip) I would drop Improved Infiltration and Combat Sense instead. The extra reaction point will come 30 karma down the line when you pick up Improved Reflexes 2.

So what I am asking is if there are errors in Ocotpii's build in regard to Essence and Magic Rating/Critical Strike? I need to know so I can adjust accordingly to try to adapt this build for my game. Any other errors I would need to know as well. I am just trying to come to grips with everything.

Also, can anyone please link me to the best/most user-friendly character generators for SR 4 as long as they are pretty much free of buggy errors/mistakes?

The only thing that needs to be changed is drop critical strike down to 4. I re-did the character, check him again. I also freed up 3 more bp due to better adding skills when it's not late at night .

I use this: http://www.shadowrun.us/sr4/calc.php. I hate downloading programs.

Thanks man! You are awesome!

Infiltration dp: (7 agility + 4 infiltration + 2 Adept power + 1 Reflex Recorder + 1 Ninjitsu): 15, soon to be 17.
Unarmed dp: (7 agility + 6 unarmed): 13, soon to be 15. You hit with 6p, ap -3. Your hands are better than a heavy pistol. You can attack 3 times a combat turn (two complex action and use Finishing Move for a third). You always go first in the first initiative pass.
Dodge dp: (6 reaction + 2 combat sense (+2 gymnastics)(+6 unarmed in melee): It's pretty good. Your Watchful Guard maneuver lets you ignore the first -1 penalty from being attacked previously.

Did these dice pools change any in your final build, Octopii? I haven't been through it all to check yet. I copied it all down and pasted it into a word file so I can translate it all into my fillable pdf sheet so I haven't gotten to check the total dice pools yet.

Thanks again!

I changed them with everything else. You have two less DV in unarmed for example. My adivce: Get 30 karma, go to Magic 6, and pick up Critical Strike 1, Improved Unarmed Combat 1 and you have .25 for something else.

Would you like to take a try Octopii at making this character even more of a melee machine that can hang even with a troll? Feel free to change his race or anything else and I would just have to have the minimum of what I would need to be able to be effective at B&E. Maybe a Street Samurai that has good B&E skills and some infiltration or something.

Make him an Orc by taking 10 points from strength and 10 points from body.

It's a straight up power upgrade. Troll may be even better again but meh.

Change pistols for long arms or automatics. Pistols main advantages are good for close in work and highly concealable - but in that situation you can just punch some sucker. However when people break out heavy machine guns you need something to do and long arms is better for that (get a sniper rifle).

If you still want a concealable gun automatics is better because you can buy a machine pistol for when you want to conceal it and an assault rifle for when you don't.

Going to the next level with that, cashing in some strength and getting Synaptic Boosters II is a long term power upgrade. Knocking your magic down with cyberware now makes it easier to advance later.

You want to try adapting your changes to Octopii's build and we can see what you come up with?

Not really, takes ages to punch it into a character sheet to do fine tweaking. You could do it - the changes are pretty obvious except what to jettison when you lose another point of magic.

I would love to get my dice pool for unarmed up to around 18-20 or so or maybe that much in guns.

Ill get in to this soon see if I spot any thing.

go with level 4 muscle toner as i suggested earlier then



9+6+2+1=18 Agility, skill, specialization, reflex recorder

Well, you're not getting 20 die in unarmed and guns both .

Shinobi's build is good (except he forgot to take the restricted gear quality), but i'd change some things:



So, you now have 7 body, killing hands, 4 edge, a better full dodge pool, a slightly better infiltration pool.

I just made him an ork, and dropped the athletics group and pistols skill, gave him dodge 4 (Ranged), and dropped Combat Sense 2 for for Killing Hands, Improved Infiltration, and one more rank of Penetrating Strike. Then I gave him more body and edge. In 30 karma you buy your magic up to 6 and learn Improved Reflexes 2 for one more power point.

You need to know more about your game. ditching athletics etc is focusing more and more on making him a finely honed killing machine.

What do you mean exactly cthuludreams?

Well, whats the set up. If you go for 20 dice in unarmed, you'll lose capability in other areas. So we need to know is a diversity of skills or super focus more important. Basically here is a generic list of things that happen in SR:



What are you doing from that list?

I will be the covert-ops B&E guy but I also want to kick ass as much as possible in combat.

Oh god, the list again. Tell me again why I need athletics? Because to be honest, it's a pretty useless skill group. You can default all of the skills, and the areas they influence don't require more than a trivial amount of dice, unless you feel like climbing a building with no equipment.

The reason he wants it is because if you've got unarmed skills, running, jumping and climbing are fairly essential to any B&E Guy (particularly climbing, even with gecko gloves our DP is 2 for climbing a wall), and it's cheaper to boost gymnastics than dodge with cyberware and adept powers, making it a better choice if you want a big dice pool- usually. I'm not saying you need it though, for a mage dodging is generally better.

Call out specific tasks.

Octipii's last build is pretty good - but Currently your guy has a DP of 2 for climbing, meaning that even with equipment he will be unable to climb brick walls and will be limited to the effects of just his equipment alone, and he has no disguise skills or ability to beat voice and palm print locks.

So really, what do you want to do? Is that important to you? I don't know. You need to less us.

The main areas of Athletics that would interest me are just being able to dodge well and to climb, for the most part. If I can do those things just as well without the Athletics skill group then I'm cool with it. The way I see this character is as follows: I do not have to put TONS into my character to make him a badass covert-ops guy. B&E stuff with some Infiltration should not require huge amounts of dice for the most part. So I see this guy as basically a Street Samurai who is also good at covert-ops style stuff. I will be relied on by my group to be the covert-ops buy for B&E missions but I don't want to have to specialize so much that I suck or are mediocre in combat. This is my dilemma. This makes me want to just roll a mage.

Actually, he gets +2 for assisted climbing when using gecko tape gloves (DP 4). As for gymnastics - he's maxed out on cyberware as is, and even if he did take the relevant bioware he would only have 1 more dp to his dodge pool. It's a waste of an adept power (and 30 karma) to get points in Improved Gymnastics, which also has nothing to do with climbing. He has a disguise skill of 4. For voice and palm print locks, those are generally a hacker's purview. (or for an agent loaded with an exploit program). In a pinch, there's always the trusty monofilament chainsaw.

If you really want climbing, drop etiquette and take climbing instead. Now you have a dp of 6, which is fine for most purposes.

Edit: Of course, you can also drop some points else where. This guy could lose a few die from infiltration and unarmed and be fine - he's a monster in those two areas as is.

Climbing a brick wall imposes a -2 DP penalty, making the net DP 2.

Anyway, this is my point. You can totally slice and dice this concept any number of ways, so we need functional details - is he the guy who's going to beat the voice print, or will it be the hacker?

I just want you all to know I really totally appreciate your help and feedback. I am absorbing it all.

Here is another experiement: Anyone want to tack a stab at making this guy into a vampire or maybe into a changeling? I know vampire is really expensive and is listed in the Runner's Companion book on pg 81 but how cool would it be to be a vampire? I just wonder if the advantages of being one make it worthwhile overall.

I assume it would probably be better for me to because a vampire later on in-game than to spend 100 pts at character creation on it, right?

I ended up dropping Etiquette 1 for Climbing 1. I also had 8 BPs left at the end so I bought Automatics 2. So, with this new Ork version of my character I get 2 initiative passes, right? Also, as far as I can tell now with this Ork character my new pools are as follows:

Automatics: (9 Agility + 2 Automatics+ 2 Smartlink system): 13
Infiltration dp: (9 agility + 4 infiltration + 1 Reflex Recorder + 1 Ninjitsu, +1 Improved Infiltration Adept spell): 16
Palming dp (9 Agility + 4 Palming): 13
Disguise and Shadowing (4 Intuition + 4 Stealth Skill Group Rating): 8

Unarmed dp: (9 agility + 6 unarmed + 2 Ninjutsu specialty + 1 Reflex Recorder): 18.
Your hands are better than a heavy pistol. You can attack 3 times a combat turn (two complex action and use Finishing Move for a third). Also, +4 DV to Unarmed damage and -3 AP Unarmed damage due to Bioware. Can choose to do Stun or lethal Physical damage with Killing hands, even to creatures normally immune to normal weapons and can be used for Astral Combat as well.

Dodge dp: (6 reaction +4 Dodge: 10 vs MELEE OR 6 Reaction + 6 Dodge w/RANGED specialty): 12. Your Watchful Guard maneuver lets you ignore the first -1 penalty from being attacked previously.
Climbing dp: (3 Str + 1 Climbing): Counts as assisted climbing when using my Gecko Tape Gloves

I will assume from the lack of responses that I am correct. lol