I am looking to see if anyone can help me build a good smuggler...I would like her to be human (and an elf poser). I want her to be able to deal a little damage but be a bas a** smuggler My b/f has posted on here and you guys have really helped him build a really good covert ops guy so I'm hoping all of your SR expertise can help me, too!!

Thanks in advance!!

Welcome!

First, let's clarify: What exactly do you mean by "smuggler"? Do you mean a person that drives or pilots a vehicle filled with undeclared goods? Or as someone who works behind the scenes to get that done by other people?

There are many ways to go, a magical smuggler is quite doable with various cool spells (Alter Memory, Vehicle Mask, Trid Phantasm and the cops won't remember what they think they saw but really didn't).

Well I'd like a smuggler who is a "grease monkey" of sorts when it comes to fixing/stealing cars and has the ability to smuggle things that need to get from one point to another without anyone noticing. I also would like her to have the ability to be able to handle herself (if the need be...to kick a little behind)...

Ahh I see. Okay let's start with Qualities.

Gearhead and Juryrigger seem to fit your character quite well, they're in Runner's Companion. I'd take the 10 point Gearhead, this lets you increase the Accel of a vehicle by 20% or increase its handling by +1, and you get a +2 dice pool bonus when doing maneuvers or stunts. The 5-point version applies to only a specific vehicle, so the 10 pointer is worth it.

Juryrigger lets you do all sorts of MacGyver-ish stuff. Getting extra performance out of a vehicle is one of them, but it's up to the GM to decide. May not be necessary.

Sense of Direction will also come in handy. Get the Survival Skill, in fact get the whole Outdoors Skill Group. This way you always know where you're heading, so even if your AR displays get hacked or you enter a place that doesn't have Matrix access or you don't have maps to, you know where to go. Bonus: you can always come back to some place you've been within a few metres.


Skills-wise you're going to want the skill groups Stealth and Mechanics. Stealth for when you have to hide something, with Palming, or when you're Disguised as someone else. Influence too would be a good buy. However, you can make do with just Infiltration from Stealth, and Negotiation and Con from Influence.

I would suggest Automatics as your primary hurter and Heavy Weapons and Gunnery as secondary skills, so you can use say grenade launchers or operate any vehicle-mounted weapons. I'm assuming you're going to need to hack as well, to grab some vehicles, so its up to you if you want the Cracking skill group or just the Hacking Skill. Electronic Warfare will come in handy, however.

Individual skills: Armorer and Hardware (unless you get the Electronics skill group). And of course, any Pilot skills you may want, specializing in some of them.

Wow, mar just wants you to spend a billion points on skills

Give me a minute to work up a super rough character sheet.

I would like to put in a vote for cybering up. Smuggling compartments, among other things, are your friend. And Datalocks are nice for smuggling info too.

Human
Bod:3 20
Agi:4 30
Rea:5 40
Str:2 10
Cha:4 30
Int:4 30
Log:3 20
Wil:3 20
Ess:6
Edge:4 20
Init:

Qualities:
Gearhead (vehicle of choice) 10
Elf Poser -5

Skills:
Pilot groundcraft (Vehicle of choice) 6 (8 ) 26
Automatics 3 12
Dodge (Ranged) 2(4) 10
Stealth group 3 30
Escape Artist 2 8
Influence group 2 20
Automotive Mechanic (wheeled) 2(4) 10
Forgery 2 8

Presuming you even out your qualities, this leaves you with 56 points to buy your smuggling vehicle, contacts, some 'ware (Cyberlimb with smuggling compartment, tooth compartment, datajack with datalock all come to mind)

Numbers don't need to be exact, just some things I kinda came up with real quick.

Edit: Oh, and if your GM allows it, breaking up your influence group to get con (Fast talking) would be handy too.

Edit2: And you may want to use pistols instead of automatics, easier to smuggle

Oh skills are where it's at! lol, nah I was just rattling off skill groups she may be interested in.

I also thought she wanted to do perhaps some generic rigging stuff, hence the other skills. The hardware and such I leave to others.

I am curious though, are you more interested in getting something small and quick that won't be able to smuggle much, but has a smaller chance of getting caught, or a bigger vehicle that can move a ton of stuff but is in real trouble if you get found out?

One thing you might consider is Move-By -Wire if you are not going to rig vehicles but drive the straightout. MBW gives you extra IP's in meatspace, bonus to reaction and dodge, and skillwires for slotting skills that you may not have learned.

I probably would like to go with something that is small-medium sized so I can smuggle without detection...Also I'd like my charisma to be higher as well b/c I'd like to be able to use my looks to my advantage...(every little bit helps, right )

Here's what I got (hehe I didn't forget):

Body: 3
Agility: 4
Reaction: 5
Strength: 2
Charisma: 5
Intuition: 3
Logic: 4
Willpower: 3
Edge: 2

Initiative: 8
IP: 1

Qualities
Gearhead
Elf Poser
SINner (Don't know if you want this or not)
(Have room for 25 points more Negative Qualities if you want)


Skills
Influence Group 3
Stealth Group 4
Hacking 3
Electronic Warfare 3
Pistols 2 (Also could be Unarmed and not have to smuggle guns on yourself)
Dodge 2
Perception 2
Gunnery 1
Navigation 3 (can be dropped to 2 and specialized if you want, based on Intuition)
Pilot Ground Craft 6 (+2) (Wheeled)
Automotive Mechanic 2 (+2) (Wheeled)

Contacts
Mechanic 2/2
Fixer 2/3

11 Points free for Gear and other things. 2 BPs for a Control Rig alone, so I suggest taking more Negative qualities that make sense for your character.

How do I ad that to my character?? Sounds interesting...

Also what I am thinking is since she is a smuggler maker her a /rigger as well...So as far as what I'm wanting for smuggling I think a medium sized car that I can drive around normally with hidden compartments or something...

It is a 'ware that was (re)introduced in augmentation (I'm sure it was in previous editions). If you don't have the book I don't mind giving you the stats for it. It is fairly similar to wired reflexes except that it gives a huge boost to your dodge skill and acts as skillwires.

My boyfriend has the book but we're playing tomorrow so please go ahead and gimme the stats and I'll throw them in there

Thanks!

Thanks to EVERYONE for your help! I really appreciate it!

The only "bad" thing about MBW is that to get level 2 or above you need the restricted gear positive quality... also MBW is of questionable legality. Not exactly very subtle.

Now if you need reflex augmentation and want to be a little more "under the radar" then Synaptic Booster is just what the Witch Doctor ordered

Ooo, should have told us you were on such a tight deadline
Here is the move by wire:


So, a bit more pricey than simple wired reflexes, but a bit nicer as well. Taking the restricted gear quality (RC, lets you get one item up to avalability 20) to get rating 2 or even getting it at all is totally up to you.

I'm guessing you may not have arsenal either, so I'll build up a nifty car for you and see what you think.

Hyundai Shin-Hyung:
Handling +2
Accel 20/45
Speed 160
Pilot 1
Body 10
Armor 5
Sensor 1
Avail -
Cost 17,000

Since you wanted a somewhat smaller faster vehicle, I figured this Sedan (Which looks like you might find it on a race track by the way) was a good pick. Good body and armor for when you get shot at, and not overy expensive. Also the body will let you mod it quite a bit (Funds allowing) and the handling will help you keep it on the road.

Some mods that may be particularly handy for you:
(Note, you have 10 slots, and I'm listing the prices based on a body of 10, some have variable prices based on body, but I figure I won't post the entire book on the forums)

Anti-Theft system, 2 slots, 2000 <- Zaps people trying to steal your ride for 10S electric damage.
Chameleon Coating, 2 slots, 10000 <- A chameleon suit for your car.
Engine Customization(speed), 2 slots, 9000 <- Increases speed by 20% (Making it faster than anything else stock)
Engine Customization(Acceleration), 2 slots, 5000 <- Increases accel by 20% (It is already one of the highest accel vehicles, but this really makes it tear away)
Enhanced Image Screens, 1 slot, 1000 <- Can make your car look full when it is empty and empty when it is full. (When looking from outside the car of course.)
Fuzzy Logic, 1 slot, 2500 <- Pilot can spend a complex action to add +2 to a test of its choice (Needs minimum 3 pilot, good if you want it to drive itself sometimes)
Lock-On countermeasures, 1 slot, 5000 <- Chaff and all kinds of other stuff to help against being targeted for the big stuff.
Nitrous Injection, 1 slot, 2500 <- +20% accel in 1 combat turn bursts for up to 6(Then needs refuling). Continuous use is dangerous for your car, but can be great for when you really need to peel away.
Oil Slick Sprayer, 1 slot, 500 <- You -know- you want one. Six charges at a time, +2 threshold to crash tests for people who run through it.
Off-Road Suspension, 1 slot, 4250 <- +1 handling offroad, -1 handling on road (Off-road tires do the same thing for 400 per tire as well as running flat.) This might be handy if you'll be off-roading alot.
Rigger Adaptation, 1 slot, 2500 <- You'll need this if you want to rig your car.
Road Strip Ejector, 1 slot, 800 + price of strips <- I'm sure you can guess what these do.
Smoke Projector, 1 slot, 700 <- Once again fairly self explanatory.
Smuggling Compartment, 1 slot, 1500 <- Basically the whole point of the car, this lets you get the small but high value stuff through without much worry. Can get various shieldings for it (Airtight, lead lined, etc) for 3000ish each.
Turbocharger, 1 slot, 9000 <- Can be taken up to 4 times, each time gives you +5/+10 accel.
Weapon mounts <- Highly varriable and alot of rules for them. You'll want internal or concealed mounts, which will cost you alot of your slots.

So, here is a list of some mods that I thought would be useful for you and the basic rules for using them. You can pick and choose based on what you think will be most useful and based on how much you want to spend on the car.

Good luck in your game.

My GM is asking what the hacking is for and is telling me it's not needed for my character can you explain it for me here???

Thanks
Jennifer

I would guess the hacking was intended so that when you stole someone's car, you could hack into the car's node and tell it to not call the police on you. So you could hack into its files and change the ownership and license and all that stuff to one of your fake IDs.

To steal stuff, basically. You want to be a part-time Rigger as well, correct? Sometimes you'll need to take over other things and control them. Sometimes, you can erase the data trail yourself, hack drones to not look your way, etc, while you're smuggling something.

Can't always rely on a hacker. Unless of course you have a hacker on hand who'll always be with you.

You can specialize into hacking Surveillance equipment. Or specializing into a program, say Spoof, freeing up some points if you want. Spoof Command, p232 in SR4A, will be quite useful. It uses your Hacking Skill + Spoof program rating vs Device Rating x 2 or Pilot/System + Firewall. Lets you issue a command with an appropriate access ID. Need a Matrix Perception Test on the authorized source or trace user.

A Rigger in this edition is a specialized Hacker, really.