I’m making my first Shadow Run character ever for a very high powered Shadow Run III game (180 build points, 90 of which can be in skills). My character will be the group gun bunny. The GM has told me that I can raise one or two of my gun skills as high as I want. I currently have rifles and pistols at 8s but have gotten the impression from her that she thinks they might be too low.

I’ve checked the book, and it appears that Shadow Run doesn’t have an actual maximum on skills. Which leads to my primary question, what is the effective maximum on a skill? Is a skill of 10 higher than I’d ever need, 12, 15? I don’t want to end up overpowering the group and forcing the GM to throw opposition at me that me that everyone else can’t handle. Most of the group has about 60 points in skills, with one or two that fit their roles at 8. But each of them has something special, such as being an otaku or an initiated physical adept, etc.

Additionally, I would be grateful for a little bit of feedback on how I should spend the nine active skill points I have left. The premise of the game is that each of us is a member of an elite corporate trained squad of pre-teens. The other team members include a physical adept that specializes in stealth and melee combat, an otaku decker, a rigger, and a mage. The GM has strongly requested that each of us be highly specialized in our area of expertise and due to my characters age (11), I don’t feel that vehicle skills would be logical. The GM has made a house rule that raising skills above the associated attribute only costs 1.5 per level.

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Active Skills (90)--9 points left to spend

Rifles 8 (1.5 cost for each level above 6)
Rifle B/R 5
Pistols 8 (1.5 cost for each level above 6)
Pistol B/R 5
Submachine Guns 6
Assault Rifles 6
Shotguns 6
Demolitions 4
Unarmed Combat 4
Heavy Weapons 3
Launch Weapons 3
Gunnery 2
Athletics 4
Stealth 4
Etiquette 4
Biotech 2/4 First Aid
Negotiation 2
Computers 2

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I would appreciate any help and suggestions. Though I would ask that I not be flamed for being a “munchkin.” Remember, its not munchkin to play a powerful character if all of your teammates and opposition are equally powerful.

Thanks,
Michelle

Small Unit Tactics. improves the init and/or combat pool of your entire team.

Your GM thinks a skill of 8 might be to low? Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Is there any particular impediment to you getting together with the other players and deciding on a general power level for the group?

Smart people use Small Unit Tactics. A lot of Small Unit Tactics. As high as possible. And a Tac Comp.

I'd also say maybe you should cut a small weapons skill (shotgun, probably) or two (smg, assault rifles?) and up your heavy/launch/gunnery skills. When it comes time to kill something really big (car, helicopter, etc) it will be your job (and if you really have to use a shotgun for some reason you will be able to default pretty well).

Might want to ask if you can just merge all the light firarms b/r into one, and heavy into another, and launch into a third.

or, since B/R skills don't generally have phenomenally high TNs, pick one or two and default from there.

I'd like to echo the endorsement of Small Unit Tactics.

If you've still got extra points after that, I suggest a Clubs skill so you can hit people with the butt of your shotgun or rifle or whatever when someone gets close.

Or throwing, so you don't have to default when chucking grenades.

Just for the record, dropping a live grenade tends to upset your buddies.

-Siege

Id say only one of each group of combat skills that default to eachother.

gunnery and launch weapons default to eachother. and underbarrel gernade launchers can use the skill of the gun they are attached to.

The only real limit on high skills tend to be the cost of increasing them, relative to your attributes.

I notice you dont have vehicle skills. Will you be taking the bus or a cab?
what if the rigger gets shot? (or gets dumpshocked, or ECM)

raise your stealth some. not being seen is the greatest advantage.

Um...can you cite a reference for the underbarrel grenade launcher bit?

I'm pretty sure you still need launch weapons to properly use a launcher strapped to your assault rifle.

-Siege

Per the Launch Weapons description on SR3 p.86, you can default underbarrel grenade launchers to the skill of the weapon they're attached to. It gives the normal +2 TN, 1/2 Combat Pool penalties for defaulting, but it does allow the default where it wouldn't otherwise be allowed.

Here's another possibility for your above-average 11-year old. This proposal seriously increases your ability in the things that are important to you, while dropping low-leveled skills that duplicate things others on the team will be great at.

If you don't have enough attribute points, consider dropping the Charisma-linked or Strength-linked skills and taking things that are Quickness or Intelligence-linked instead.

Presumably your Decker will take Electronics B/R and Computer, so Electronics might be a good choice for you.

Quickness-linked
Assault Rifles 14 (cost 18)
Pistols 14 (cost 18)
Stealth 6

Strength-linked
Clubs 6
Heavy Weapons 6 or Launch Weapons 6 (int linked). For anti-vehicle work.

Charisma-linked
Negotiation 4
Etiquette 4

Intelligence-linked
Assault Rifle B/R 5
Pistol B/R 5
Demolitions 6. 4 just invites yourself to be killed
Biotech 6
Computers 6 or Electronics 6. Default across when you need to.


DROPPED Rifles 8. Use your Assault Rifle (AR) for sniper work.
DROPPED Submachine Guns 6. Carry concealed pistol, use AR otherwise
DROPPED Shotguns 6. Don't carry one by choice. Default to AR if you grab one.
DROPPED Unarmed Combat 4. Improvise a club instead.
DROPPED Gunnery 2. Too low to be useful. Never fire a vehicle-mounted weapon.
DROPPED Athletics 4. Was only body-linked skill.

He'll need it when he wants to play "doctor"

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. You’ve given me quite a bit to think about. I definitely will look into getting the small group tactics and increasing at least some of my heavy weapons/launch weapons/gunnery skills. I’d had keep those lower since I’d assumed that her trainers would probably focus on the more readily carried items first and then just recently started moving into training her with the more exotic and heavier weapons. Considering that strength is one of her lower stats (something I don’t really want to change since per the rules of the game, she is staying 11) and that those types of weapons both are bulky and loud, they didn’t seem useful for the average mission. So, I’d thought it might not hurt to increase them later with karma. But apparently I need to rethink that choice.

And yes, I know, an 11 year old with combat skills isn’t exactly logical in general but fits within the premise of the game as the GM has laid it out. None of our characters is to be over 14 (she’s making an exception for the rigger) and we’ve all been highly trained in our roles by some of the best trainers this company has to offer. We are this company’s “special project.” As for the vehicle skills, I think I’ll probably be riding a regular bike or skates (athletics skill?), there is no way I could convince anyone I’m old enough for a drivers license. Though just for the fun of it, I’m going to try to convince my “big brother” trainer/handler to teach me to drive or to at least let me try driving once.

As I’d read the etiquette skill, it seems to imply that it is what you use to look like you fit in an area. This seems like it could come in very handy to me at times. Since it is frankly to my advantage to try to convince cops or other people in the area that I’m just a normal little girl and not the person who just did whatever. Ah and also, since there will be a fair amount of corporate politics in this game, I do think it will be a useful skill to have.

As for discussing power levels with my group, we sort of have. The problem is that none of us is exactly experienced with this system. Most of us topped out with one or two core skills at 8.

Sorry, I had planned to write a bit more and to respond to a few more questions, but I’ve got to run. Work calls.

Thanks,
Michelle

Small Units Tactics... is that an Active or Knowledge skill? I don't have CC handy at work here ...

It's an active skill if you want to use it for combat pool and the like, but a knowledge skill if you just want an excuse to have your team reasonably well co-ordinated.

Has anyone else added the "Infantry tactics" specialization to small unit tactics, or is it just me?
Really, there's matrix tactics, vehicle and battle-tac, but no plain "the team that makes contact immediately seeks cover and puts fire on the enemy, and the other fire-team will flank their position"? Not in my world there's not

I'd definitely go with what OurTeam suggested, except perhaps a bit more drastic. After all, BP don't penalize you for getting stats to tremendously high levels, while karma expenditures do. Any skill you have above 6, you will almost certainly never boost again ever, whereas any skill of 4 or below will be a breeze to put up another level or two.

That said, I'd put an obscene number in something like pistols. Something like 30. The problem with pistols is they have less stopping power than most other weapons, however when you have that many dice on any sort of weapon skill, the power of the weapon sort of ceases to matter. With AV ammo, you can blow up tanks with 30 skill in pistols, plus they're concealable blah blah blah. Since most combat is at 10m or less, range doesn't matter a whole lot. Get something like 10 or 15 in either gunnery, rifles or assault rifles (something with range so you can snipe).

Personally, I wouldn't care a whole lot about anything else. Get enough that you can survive the first run so you can get the 5 karma you need to get 2 in the less essential skills (etiquette, negotiation, etc.) This means it'll be a lot tougher to get started, but in the long run you'll be better. It's just that tough initial investment.

I've never had skill maximums be an issue, really, once players realize that for the same cost of raising such-and-such one point, they could get a whole other skill at rating 6 and be much more effective overall.
If it did come up, I would say 10 as a maximum for a general skill, 12 max for a specialization, and +1 to both of these numbers for every 100 total karma that character had earned.

Just out of curiousity, what ELSE are you going to spend Build Points on since at that age none of you can have cyberware, because your bodies are still growing quite a bit and cyberware does not. It will cause catastrophic problems for a whole lot of ware.

Heh I like that.

I like it even better if an evil possiblity like the following is true:

The corp has pumped you guys full of drugs so that you have stopped growing permenantly. They expect you will be dead or obsolete before the side effects cripple you (in a few years).

The corp doesn't care that you will become horribly deformed and ill within a year or so as you grow because they expect you to be dead or obsolete.

You are just like female olympic gymnasts.

I think your characters are just minor AI programs that write their own script for the next episode of Saturday morning Anime. Their AI programming makes them think they're kids, makes them think they work for a corp, etc.

The Trid network runs the AIs through 15 or 20 plots on Monday, records what the 11-14 year olds do, on Tuesday they pick which outcome to render into Trid, on Wednesday and Thursday after school they show ads for the Saturday episode, and on Friday they add product placements into the episode.

mmmmmmm, that's just sick and wrong, I like it (both ideas)...

I think it's dumb. Like Power Rangers or something. Only worse.

Maybe you should try running a game.

ohh yeah i see all sorts of problems developing from this........

just a ridiculous little fact you can get a assault rifle with a conceal of 9 with the CC.



thats better than some holdout pistols.

As the player of the physical adept in this same game I felt the need to add my 2 cents worth.

Yes...the game IS a lot like an anime. Gunsmith Girls in fact. And seeing as our gaming group is 4 girls - one of them being the GM, me, S7Michelle, and one other - and 2 guys--the rigger and the otaku decker...the game is going to be VERY much like that particular anime. In fact...it's based on that.

Our GM is very much the expert on anime and thus this way her game is flavored. It doesn't bother us a bit. Yes, 11-14 year old runners IS a bit out there, but the way I see it is this: its an anime game using the shadowrun system and a bit of the world its set in.

After all, is it not the GM's perrogitive to add to or subtract from whatever world/system/book/rule/whatever that they want to?

And personally, all of us players feel we'll have fun with the game, its setting and the rules our GM has laid out. Even my adept and the mage....while the required cyberware kills our magic/powers....its still part of the game, and if I was unhappy about the rules....I would just play a sam, or something else.

And, ultimately, if your players are having fun......frag what the rulebook says.

i was going to post a whole flame on how even for a heroic-level game this was the most ridiculous concept id heard, i mean playing IEs is one thing but at least it makes sense for IEs to be far more skilled than red samurai (for instance) yet no way could these kids come out with skills taht are prolly higher than some of the great dragons (im not sure if they are but they seem like it, i should prolly check) and definately much higher than red samurai etc.

but then gold dragon posted and everything she said was right, and if you all understand that it is grounded in anime instead of shadowrun/reality/action movie/whatever then i guess only fun can ensue

Hopefully these 'kids' skills will never have to be compared with those kind of groups, I'd rather avoid them if at all possible and work from the ground instead of to heavily relying on the preconceptualized groups

Heh, yes, this is the GM that allowed them to make such sickeningly overpowered creations so young

As one of my players has already stated (Gold Dragon), this game is heavily based off the anime Gunslinger Girls, also taking a few NPCs from Great Teacher Onizuka. I'm an obsessed anime lover and tend to incorporate it into near any game I create, using the system as just a framework for whatever current anime driven idea I have come up with

While it seems a lot of challenges have been thrown at the amount of power I'm giving the players, let me make this straight. If the players mess up in this game, they're not walking away from it. I'm letting them be so powerful because this is a game being tailored to zero tolerance of mistakes on the players part. I'm not an overly cruel GM and don't plan to throw them into mindless puzzle after puzzle and perform perfectly, no, but I'm expecting from them in this game a level of apptitude that their very high skills are supposed to represent.

If they mess up, they become worthless to their agency and will probably be disposed of. It seems a lot more practical when I'm putting them in situations where they are pretty much not allowed to make mistakes to give them a powerful setup to offset this handicap. If they weren't stronger than near everything they'll be put up against, then they'de be expected to make mistakes and it'd be accepted and smoothed over.

This game isn't like that; They're incredibly strong, and I plan to make scenarios which are sheer hell for them, but which all have the capability of being fluidly and perfectly solved if they rely on the skills which I am giving them so many points to buff up.

Prehaps it's a bit over-powered still, but wouldn't you really rather be over-powered if you knew any mistake would probably be the end of your character you put so much work into?

If that's your thing, go and have fun, but I think the excitement that is having death hanging over your head if you fail is somewhat lost if you're unstoppable, or at the very least, extremely powerful.

My games are somewhat more strongly rooted in reality, and I've made drastic changes to support this. My players don't need an overwhelmingly powerful organization ready to "dispose" of them, all it takes is one [un]lucky shot to some vital piece and well, game over man.

Of all the games I've played in, the ones where I'm consistently challenged not only by the opposition but my own limitations are the ones I've enjoyed the most. Games with massive skill ratings tend to degrade into nothing more than dice rolling and brinksmanship between the PC and NPC forces, and if you're after that, there's plenty of fun games out there that don't require anywhere near as much work.

However you play your game, good luck, and perhaps someday you'll come over to the light side.

Thhhpth, haha, my games tend to have a roll or two every other session, no need to worry about that really, just need high skills to make sure those rolls will hopefully pass when they are needed

The game is more meant to challenge the players on an intellectual and strategic level than it is to test their characters. The characters they are creating are important of course, but in the long run are just there to provide tools in which the players intelligence can course through.

That the 'tools' are capable of using high grade skills is just a perk that they have. Pretty sure all my players realise that in my games if they go in guns blazing just because they have huge skills, they're going to get crushed by something they overlooked in their bloodlusty urge

well no challenge= no fun.

I think we have learned that if nothing else from table top RPGs.
I keep that in mind at all times but from the sounds of it, I run things alot different with the games I GM/DM.

There's nothing I hate more than when I ask a player to "Roll xxxx skill" and they are like "pffft" cuz it's so rediculously high.

That pisses me off and also tells me that the player is either a. not having fun b. not taking the game even semiseriously c. bored.

Very true, I'v just never liked dice period though. If it were possible to have an actually good diceless system I would happily use it all the time, but unfortunatly it just doesn't work that way. Players like to have numbers to feel safe by

As I can't completely negate dice, I just prefer to make challenges to the players intellect which is one of the few things that, no matter how well or poorly they roll, is something they can't pretend to be great at

Plus I think it feels better to outsmart the GM's well thought sadistic plan than to just blow your way through it anyways