We are making a new team for our Shadowrun 4th game. We have a Troll Bounty Hunter, Human 'face'/anti-mage, Human std Mage already and I wanted to build a Intrusion/wheelman type however our GM is not a fan of the new Hacking rules - insofar as he has ruled Hacking 'NPC only'- by this he means 'Matrix' hacking but in the new edition this also effects Rigging.

Therefore I ask- is there a way to build a wheelman type without the Hacking stuff? Esp if I want to add some 'thief' type skills?

I was playing with the idea of a former Urban Brawler who wants to get back the buzz he lost when injured or the son of a now retired Shadowrunner who wants to continue the family legacy.

Any help appreciated!

Of course you can be a wheelman without matrix/comlink/rigging.

But first of all: Slap your GM *g*. Of all the bad things with the SR4... Matrix is not one of them. And the world is full of hightech, do you always have to have your soulless, never speaking NPC hacker in your pocket? Someone at least has to have a tiny bit hacking power in my opinion. (Exception: maybe lowest of low street).

Well, back on topic: There are some Ki-Adepts which are REALLY good at driving. Enhanced reaction, enhanced ability pilot... high initative. He could even be a good infiltrator still. Same thing can of course be achieved with cyberware.. well at least a bit. And of course many hybrid character can take driving/building stuff, electronics and stealth and be pretty good with all of it.

The only thing your GM wants you to never see is the +4 dice for hotsim/rigger control -1 threshold 5 IP's in a modified Armor-12-Steel-Lynx *g*, it seems. But even as a not-rigger and with standard equipment (not too complex for your GM) you could use a good comlink and have a lot of drones and command them to do stuff on their own. Without many rolls and matrix stuff.

I dig Wheelmen, but not Riggers, personally (never been a big drone fan, but love a good driver). You can make a pretty effective Adept driver, for sure, and pretty easily. Even taking an essence hit for the cheapie control rig (and maybe spending the other .8 or so on various other cyber/bio goodies), you should have plenty of Power Points left over for SR4A reaction enhancements, bonus dice for driving, and any other handy stuff you might want (direction sense, extra perception modifiers, bonus navigation dice if you want, whatever).

With a solidly boosted Reaction attribute and a few Adept bonus dice, you'll be driving circles around most folks.

For a non-hacking, pure wheelman, you only need pilot ground vehicle/wheeled, automotive mechanic, and gunnery. For cyberware, be sure to get a control rig, even for an adept, and probably a datajack. You will have plenty of build points/Essense/Magic left to make this guy tough in combat.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...2&hl=driver

Might be able to farm some info from my old thread.

I understand not liking the hacking rules, as they're truly horrible, but just canning everything matrix isn't the right solution. It's 2070, computers and electronics should play a big part of the game.
Apart from that, as noted, you can be an effective wheelman without any computer skills. You can't be a rigger, though (as in using drones to any efficiency), which kills quite some advantages such a character normally brings to the group.
Merging your concept with a B&E-specialist would make sense in that regard, alas lots of good intrusion tricks require using the matrix as well. Without any of those toys yourself, you'd basically be at the mercy of the NPC-hacker, which can get quite annoying after a while.

All in all, I'd advise your GM to rethink restricting the matrix to NPCs. Axe Unwired. Houserule the rest to make sense or download some houserules that make sense. Like those.

Don't forget the Control Rig Nanites! An extra 3 dice for drone/vehicle controlling.