Hey guys,

I'm new to Shadowrun 4e. I recently built a character that seems a bit off; he is basically physically invulnerable. Am I missing a rule somewhere that makes him invalid?

This is the build process: I use the quality Restricted Goods (3x) to buy the following gear: Pain Editor (standard bioware), Power Focus [4], Sustaining Focus [5].

I am a Mystic Adept with magic 6, reduced to 5 because of essence loss. For the mage part I allocate 1 die, and pick up the spell Armor (Physical). For the adept part I allocate 4 dice, and and pick up Mystic Armor, Improved Reflexes 2.

This is my understanding of the character:
* Pain Editor allows me to ignore stun effects.
* Power Focus [4] + Magic [1] allows me to cast spells regularly at Force 5; drain at this point is stun damage.
* I therefore don't need to bother trying to resist drain.

* Sustaining Focus [5] allows me to maintain a force 5 spell with no upkeep. So I can put Armor (Physical) on it at strength 5.
* With Body 6, I can wear equipment that gives me 12/10 armor at 12 encumbrance. With Mystic Armor 1, and then the persistent Armor (Physical), my armor is effectively 18/16.
* Any damage less than that is stun damage.
* Due to Pain Editor, any damage less than 18/16 has no effect on me.

* I have Dodge at 6, specialized against Ranged Combat.
* I have Improved Reflexes 2, which gives me three total initiative passes.
* I can therefore use Full Dodge at the cost of 1 initiative pass and benefit from it every round, and still get two initiative passes per turn.
* This means I can avoid with 7 [Reaction] + 8 [Dodge] = 15 Dice against every single gun attack on me, or at 13 against every single melee attack against me at all times.

Is the above all correct? My only vulnerability would be Willpower-based magic then, wouldn't it? [I do have ranks in Counterspell.]

One thing you can do is get rid of the Pain Editor and take Mysterious Implant: Permanent Infusion (saves you one Restricted Gear positive quality, the BP for the implant, and gives you +10 BP all in one fell swoop). Use it to get Sideways and see about using Psyche or Red Mescaline as the addicted drug; they make sense since they heighten your perceptions which is something you'd be craving after losing all sensation to pain. Then use Loco speedballs to avoid having the addiction get any worse whenever the addiction kicks in.

I believe the Essence loss is the same (0.40), but you get way more bang for your buck at the cost of the hassles of an addiction. If nothing else it adds some interesting flavor to the character, and flavor is always good.

Pain editor only ignores damage modifiers when you hit your damage limit you’re still dead or unconscious.
As for the rest I'll let someone with a better grip on pushing the rule set fill you in.

Mr. Coomes is correct - you'll still be taking a lot of stun boxes, and eventually they overflow into physical. You basically got yourself around 10 boxes of 'free' damage before you start taking real punishment - not invincible, but a real good start.

A Power Focus does not allow you to cast spells at a higher force than your Magic allows, they only add dice to the casting. So with the Magic 1 for casting spells, you will only be able to cast Force 1 spells, Force 2 if you overcast.

Already covered: pain editor only lets you ignore stun modifiers, not the actual damage; and a power focus does not actually raise your Magic Attribute.

I will add: full defense only lasts until your next Action Phase. It is still good against people with only one initiative pass, since they will all go before your next action pass. But for people with more initiative passes, you will need to spend extra actions if you still want the full defense bonuses. Also, keep in mind that the armor spell glows, which will make your character more conspicuous and draw enemy fire.

So overall, the character is far from invulnerable, and you will definitely need to re-work the sustaining/power focus part of it due to your actual spell Force limits.

You might consider the advantages of a Troll...the additional Body points will allow you to wear more armor, as well as adding dice to the damage resist roll. It raises your Body by 4, and thus your max armor by 8 (assuming you can find 20 points of armor in Troll size). If your GM supports buying successes on a soak roll, that's effectively an additional -3 DV to all normal incoming attacks.

If your goal is to really become a tank, a Troll Wiccan is the way to go. Nothing beats waltzing around channeling a high Force spirit. Immunity to Normal Weapons for the win. Make it a Great Form Plant Spirit and you get Immunity to Normal Weapons and Regeneration. Pick up Invoking and Channeling after your first initiation and you actually get to roleplay yourself rather than the spirit. Couple with that a permanent Sideways infusion and a ton of regular armor, and you're pretty damn scary.

Of course you can go even more cheesy and grab Arcane Arrester as a changeling, too, and spend another 30 Karma (or initiate) to pick up Shielding and Absorption... and you can even laugh at most magical attacks.

Go Fomori.
Build a custom Possession based shamanic tradition.
Get Trauma Dampener + Platelet Factory to allow overcasting cheesiness.
Then summon, bind, Invoke/Channel a Force 10+ Great Form Plant Spirit and get it to possess you.
Then laugh yourself silly as you bitch slap everything in the game into submission.

- J.

couple things not covered: Focus addiction (not all GMs play with it, if yours doesn't then don't worry about this) but your build basically uses focuses 100% of the time. in the rules this is like smoking a dozen packs a day - eventually (fairly quickly) you won't be able to function right without them.

and as a magic user addiction will eventually cause magic loss which will trash your build pretty fast.

Possession is often suggested in DS as the road to power, but stop and think for a moment. The above suggestion to bind a Force 10 Great Form spirit will require resiting an average Drain of 21P, if the spirit rolls only an average roll, and it doesn't decide to squash this insolent insect trying to dominate it, and use Edge.

Force 10 = 20 dice to resist, about 7 hits, use Edge = 13 more dice, about 4 hits, total 11 hits to resist the Binding. Will your character get more than 11 hits to succeed in Binding the spirit? Double those 11 hits for Drain = 22P. Add 50% for Invoking = 33P Drain.

Good luck.

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summary, burn edge? :silly:

You would have to burn Edge twice, to get success (unless you have some amazing dice pool) and to survive. And if you open up the "burn Edge" can of worms, then you should be sure the GM won't have the spirit do the same.

There are entire threads arguing whether it is fair for a GM to have NPCs burn Edge. We don't need to rehash that here. I'm just saying, know your GM first.

oh of course; although I'm still a little unclear on how you would adjudicate the winner in the situation where both burned edge.

i'd go with higher edge wins, personally (which would make it the spirit, in the above situation with the force 10 spirit)

Burning Edge for successes won't get you much. Everyone runs that one differently when its an opposed roll.

Burning Edge for successes won't get you much. Everyone runs that one differently when its an opposed roll.

Burning Edge for a critical success just gives you 4 succcesses / hits more than your opponent had.

Now if both burn for critical success, the expenditures negate each other. Talks about that in SR4a in the Edge section. Opposing expenditures of Edge cancel out and the roll is resolved normally.

What I meant was, the last time the forum talked about this there was a faction that was devoted to the idea that you only got one net success. Another was devoted to the idea that you got four (five?) more successes than you rolled.