I've been playing Shadowrun for just over a year now and I have yet to try out an official Missions games at cons and open gaming days. I'm not going to ask what is "best", but I am curious as to what is commonly played or is there a good variety?

Everything I've read so far points towards a well rounded character being the best choice, just because you never know who's going to be at the table. But in Dumpshock's opinion, is there ussualy enough at the table to support playing whatever you want? I'm typically a Jack-of-All Trades type guy anyway, but I'm curious to hear more about it all.

-Belvidere

My advice is as always: Play what you will enjoy.

Thinking back on the games i've ran or played I really can't think of anything that's ever lacked. I've heard there sometimes isn't enough matrix support but i play a hacker so i've never seen that. A few times we've felt a little less "combative" so we've had to lean heavily on the non-confrontational option. In the end I can only say play what you'll enjoy.

That's what I was most likely going to do and I'm almost partly glad to hear that matrix support is occasionally lagging. Techies tend to be my favorite characters to play, but now I have to make the difficult choice of mundane... or technomancer. Decisions, decisions...

It is a hard decision, a technomage can certainly do some very neat things their more mundane counterpart lack especiavlly after they get some Karma under their built. A Hacker can however get ware (or even magic if that is your persuasion) that will allow them to contribute and excel outside of purely matrix areas.

Yeah, I've played both before and I loved both of my characters. From what I've been able to play them as, Technomancers tend to be far better as straight up matrix support, especially later on. But unless you've got alot of karma sitting around you aren't doing much more than matrix support.

Whereas I've played a 400bp mundane hacker who can rival the infiltrator in stealth and the sammy or weapon specs in combat at the start of a campaign, just because of his 'ware.

Yea i know what you mean, I've played some technos and enjoyed them immensely but I really like that my hacker can reach the tactical decision that killing everyone in the room who he's not fond of is a viable option.

Though my mundane hacker was definitely much much better at killing people if need be, I have to admit, my technomancer did it with more finesse.

We were making a run on an Ares drone/car depot so the night before I register up a handful of machine sprites. And low and behold when the drek hit the fan and bullets start flying, their spider kicks on all of the drones loaded with some below par agents. With a bit of cybercombat and crashing I managed to drop my sprites into the drones and take over their security. There isn't much better than watching a much of corp security who were pinning down your team with suppressive fire get mowed down by their own drones.

The handful of games I've played in, the only thing I've ever lacked was a Face during one game. No one at the table had a Charisma above three, and I think our highest Negotiation was 2, so we were only throwing like 5 dice.

Bull

Hmm.. I wonder... A technomancer/face. Doesn't sound to impossible, charisma's actually pretty useful for a techno who registers. So now I think I've got my concept down.

The technomancer/face also has the luxury of being able to effectively convince people that he's not a technomancer. Really, combining anything with solid social skills is going to be a win in the long run.

First Aid and Mechanics both use Logic. To repair anything in your hand (not in the Matrix), suddenly you're no longer using a program but your attribute. Whatever you want to focus on, I guess. Maxed Cha + Neg not only lets you bargain for the most the Mr. Johnson will pay, but it lets you get that black IC and other little goodies at a wholesale price.

If you go with a stream that uses Charisma as your fading attribute Face/Techno get very viable. Granted technomancers really cant have any mental dump stats but it will help at least.

The missions are designed to allow any mix of character archetypes a path to success and fun. Make sure to play what you enjoy.

I've finished the design for the character and I'm quite happy with it. Not the matrix juggernaut I'd have hoped for at the start of game, but one only has so much butter for one big piece of bread as they say. It won't be much karma before he's at exactly where I'd like him to be, but he's a good face and good matrix support. Just not amazing at either at either, I'd say a good balance, once I find a good ways to write it all online I'll post him up in the mission characters topic.

Thanks to all who posted, any other advice on Missions would be greatly appreciated!

-Belvidere

Having played a TM in Missions for a long time I can say there is a certainly a demand for buffing other people. As your first few echoes consider the echo that grants an additional sprite type so you can buff yourself or a teammate with a Paladin Sprite, Machine Sprite, or the oh-so-broken Code Sprite. You CAN have all three it just takes Karma.

TM's themselves seems to be two trick ponies, one trick being sprites and the other being themselves. Threading BlackIC Psychotropic Program Options is hella-fun! [Phobia-Cybercombat, awwww... BlackIC keeps you from jacking out and now you're skeered...]

I keep seeing this one pop up Wasabi so i'm not singling you out by any means Wasabi but just so were clear. Paladin sprites cannot pull their Yojimbo trick for anyone else.



Unless I missed a errata that says otherwise the paladin portion of the equation only works on Technomancer arguably their own technomancer although that could be argued.

When it comes to buffing teammates though your spot on about the Machine sprites.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to playing him at GenCon and Origins. This will be my first time playing Shadowrun at a con. I'm still trying to see if I can find any missions groups in the Metro Detroit area, but I'm having little luck, so he may have to wait till the cons start rolling in.

For right now, he's only sitting on a 5 resonance, but that's because I'm trying to spread the butter around with face skills too. Though I was thinking about clearing up the BP to make him an elf, for the extra charisma. Still unsure on that though.

Since a Registered Sprite can have its tasks delegated and any power may be requested of the person issuing the Task I'm not sure your statement is true. Since I'm also not certain your statement is false I've asked Bull in a seperate thread to weigh in. If I'm wrong, meh, my apologies.

For a 10pt positive quality you can get SURGE II and "Metagenetic Improvement (Charisma)" from Runners Companion. It not only raises your max Charisma by 1 it includes a free Charisma point since it raises your minimum Charisma by 1. You'll need a 10pt negative Metagenetic quality as part of SURGE II but hey, then you qualify for getting other qualities and can get other stuff thats Metagenetic.

I suggest for Missions focusing on Fading dicepool. When you Compile or Register a Sprite it can seriously screw you up and just about every Missions game has a timetable that doesn't accommodate a TM in a coma returning in a timely manner.